Among many churches it is a strongly held belief that people must always be given a chance to respond to the preaching of the word. The churches I grew up in were of this persuasion. This meant that just about every service would conclude with a time to respond to the message by coming forward and praying and/or being prayed for. Quite often the message that elicited the response was a general call to "get right with God" because (and this was always tagged on even if it was not part of the message) "Jesus is coming soon." It could be any time, and if he came when I was not right I would miss the rapture and be left to face the wrath of God and the Antichrist in the horrible seven years of the Great Tribulation.

When faced with various decisions of life people sometimes ask, "What's the worst that could happen?" For me missing the rapture was the worst thing that could happen. I know of few who grew up with this teaching that have not experienced the horror of coming home fully expecting family to be there, only to find no one . . .yet signs indicating they should be (food cooking, doors unlocked, etc.). The primal fear that comes over the "rapture children" (as I call them) has few comparisons. I remember loosing our firstborn in the mall for a short time and after finding him realizing that I had not felt such panic and fear since my childhood "left behind" experiences.

Eschatology was a basic staple of the altar call, but especially the altar call of prophecy teachers. I grew up with them. When I was a kid Jack Van Impe came to my hometown of Salem, OR (youtube search the name!). He preached a full week about end-time events that were quickly rushing to their fulfillment. At the end of the Friday night sermon I vividly recall the statement that he could see no way that Jesus would not return before the end of 1972. It was 1969. People didn't walk to the altar; they ran. I was in the 7th grade and those services had a profound impact on me. I link the eschatological subject of my PhD dissertation to events like that. On that regard I'd like to say it did some good.

But it also did a lot of bad. Who of this generation has not been manipulated by the phrase, "Jesus could return before we leave this room tonight"? And who wouldn't respond to the altar after an hour and a half of hearing about how the then Soviet Union was poised to invade Israel; the Antichrist was ready to appear somewhere in Europe, even naming the names of prominent up-and-coming figures; the plans for the third temple in Jerusalem were in the finishing stages and stood ready for implementation. The only event in God's eschatological timeline between heaven and me was the rapture. The world crisis du jour was easily fit into the preacher's scenario of the end while the audience, mostly in awe, sat devouring the message as if it were from Jesus himself. Eschatology and the return of Jesus were used as a club to beat people to the altar; the Holy Spirit was not needed, fear worked much better. You may as well have put a gun to the audience's head and told them to convert or die.

From hindsight, other than the reestablishment of Israel, I cannot think of one prediction of the prophecy teachers that actually came to pass. Their record is so dismal that if it were not so serious, I would have to laugh. It is serious because I believe it has had a very detrimental effect on the preaching of the gospel over the last generation. The boy cried wolf just too many times, and people quit listening to everything he had to say.

I have been saying the above for some time, but I ran into a book the other day that was written by someone who said it long before me. The book was written by Dwight Wilson (great first name!) an Assemblies of God minister and former professor of history at Bethany University in Santa Cruz, CA. The book is entitled Armageddon Now! The Premillennial Response to Russia and Israel Since 1917 (Baker 1979, reprinted in 1991, but available free online here). When I first saw the title I thought, "Oh, just another crazy screaming that the end is near." I like to collect books of this genre because unlike many, I don't want to forget what these preachers have said in the past. But this book was entirely not what I expected. The book is about how the Bolshevik Revolution, leading to the rise of modern Russia, and the Balfour Declaration, which led to the return of Jews to Israel, had been exploited by prophecy teachers as a tool of evangelism to the detriment of the gospel message. Wilson was more of a prophet than any of those he wrote about. In the final chapter of the book he gives one of the most eloquent synopses of the failure of prophecy teachers that I have ever read:

"The premillenarians' credibility is at a low ebb because they succumbed to the temptation to explain every conceivably possible prophetic fulfillment for the sake of the prime objective: evangelism. The doomsday cry of "Armageddon Now!" was an effective evangelistic tool of terror to scare people into making a decision for Christ and to stimulate believers to "witness for Christ" to add stars to their heavenly crowns before it was everlastingly too late. Voices of moderation were less likely to find mass appeal. Times of crisis tend to produce feelings of insecurity in the general populace as a matter of course. The evangelical message was found to be most effective when couched in terms of confident, dogmatic overstatements, rather than a carefully reasoned moderate theology that offered indefinite conclusions. The success of such evangelistic approaches was to the premillenarians well worth the risk of false identifications in the interpretation of prophecy. It would be unfair to accuse any one preacher or writer of such insincerity; they were True Believers (sometimes caught up in the snare of their overtly zealous rhetoric), but, nevertheless, the result as a whole has been gross opportunism" (p. 218).

In other words, when it came to getting people saved the ends always justified the means.

2 Peter 3:3-4 warns, "that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and indulging their own lusts and saying, 'Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since our ancestors died, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation!'" Scoffers exist today, but I would suggest that many of the scoffers in our own day were created by the dogmatism of the prophecy teachers in the last generation.

With this I end. I grew up being taught that I should live every day as though Jesus would return tomorrow. I just cannot live that way. I tell my students to live as though you are going to die of old age. Look to the path that God has set you on and work toward the long-term goals to which that path leads. If Jesus comes in the middle of that time (an event I still believe in), he will be pleased. Doing the work of God takes time and people who believe they only have until tomorrow will not do it. The kingdom parables of Mathew 25 all speak to this effect. As you walk the path take your oil, multiply your talent, and show God's kingdom to all you encounter.

Posted by Dwight at 8:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

One of the biggest struggles Sue and I have had raising kids is trying to discern what is right and wrong. The fact is, not everything is wrong (quite a statement for someone raised in a conservative Pentecostal tradition). Some things are perfectly okay but can become a problem if taken too far or if discernment and discipline are not exercised. We struggle with to what extent video games, TV & movies, the Internet, and the like are appropriate. One thing we don't want to do is make whole categories of activity wrong without discerning that some elements of it may be just fine. I got to thinking about this a lot over the last couple of days, especially as it pertained the things I was taught in church.

We are visiting Pennsylvania this week. We came to attend the wedding of our friends Ben and Molly and to visit friends. For our boys Pennsylvania is home; we were all very excited to make the trip. The wedding was great. My good friend Dr. Joe Modica (the father of the groom and chaplain at Eastern University) did the homily. He was short, gave sound advice, was funny, and very sentimental (= perfect). The reception was a lot of fun. It was relaxed and unlike the weddings I attended as a kid growing up, included lots of dancing. Everyone had a great time. I could have had more fun, though. Let me explain. When I was growing up, in the churches that we attended, dancing was wrong. It may as well have been a creation of Satan himself, and to participate in the activity certainly required a trip to the altar on Wednesday night youth meeting. We were told about the evils of dancing, the feelings that it stirred up, and the activity it would lead to. I remember hearing that Jesus would leave me at the door of the dance; he would not go. If I went there I went alone. Somewhere along the line I came to realize much of that idea was bogus, and yet by that time I just never had the time, opportunity, or even desire to dance. That is the background for the wedding last Saturday night. As I sat watching everyone having so much fun, I began to be a bit annoyed with myself. I wanted to dance, but I was clueless as to how to do it. It seemed like everyone on the floor knew all the moves and the right time to do and say everything. I had no idea what to do, and I guess I'm just too prideful to make a fool out of myself. So my wife and I sat there like boors wishing we had the guts to hit the floor. I was a little miffed that early on I had been fed so much hooey about the evils of dancing. Every form of it was painted with the same evil brush. No discernment whatsoever was exercised as to how some forms might be wholly appropriate and other types not so much. It was all bad, real Christians wouldn't do it.

I love tradition, but not when it simply means one generation passing on its scruples to the next without taking into account the serious questions about why something is right or wrong, important or less so. Every generation has the responsibility to ask these questions. There is nothing more frustrating for a young person than to be told that thus and so is wrong only to find later that whether purposely or not they were misled by those who did not want to do the tough work of discernment. Sue and I have surely been wrong about some things with our kids, but no one can say that we didn't go through the process of asking the serious questions with them as we made our decisions. The good thing is that together we actually found out among other things that Pokèmon cards didn't have demons, Harry Potter was just a story, and that reading The Da Vinci Code wouldn't cause our faith to crumble. Small stuff really, makes you wonder why so much was made of them. Dancing with the Stars is not in my future, but maybe I'll at least give dancing a try at the next wedding I attend.

Posted by Dwight at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I am teaching a class in New Testament Theology this fall. Although it is getting a bit dated, I am going to use George Eldon Ladd’s A Theology of the New Testament as the main text. So much could be said about Ladd's impact on Evangelical theology, not only during his lifetime, but also the legacy he left for those who came after him. Ladd’s Theology and his work The Presence of the Future had a profound impact on my understanding of the entire Bible. It was Ladd who once and for all rid my theology of any vestiges of Dispensationalism. Although Ladd was not a Pentecostal by any stretch, his work on the kingdom of God, especially in The Presence of the Future, provided Pentecostals with a badly needed approach, structure and system to their own theology. For a long time Pentecostals tried to mix their Pentecostalism with Dispensationalism, resulting in a hodge-podge of contradiction. Ladd’s emphasis on the presence of the Kingdom provided a theological foundation for a Pentecostal understanding of spiritual gifts. His did this all the while interacting with critical historical methods, showing how they can serve to benefit the Evangelical rather than work against them. Ladd did not dismiss the “liberal” theologian but rather did his theology in conversation with them, taking what was good because there was good to take. He was a theologian a generation ahead of the rest of Evangelicals, and for that he was criticized from both the right and left. He was the embodiment of much of what Fuller Theological Seminary has been during its history. I only regret that I am too young to have ever sat in his classroom. In a PhD seminar at Fuller Robert Guelich spoke so highly of Ladd that we all saw devouring his Theology as sort of a rite of passage. The little part that I had with a few other PhD students updating the bibliographies while my mentor Donald Hagner edited the revised edition of Ladd’s Theology made me feel like I had a small (tiny) connection to his legacy.

A biography has recently been published on the life of George Ladd by John A. D'Elia entitled A Place at the Table: George Eldon Ladd and the Rehabilitation of Evangelical Scholarship in America (Oxford, 2008). I have the book on order and will comment more on it after I read it. For now I will only refer to Michael Bird’s Blog where he has reviewed the book (http://euangelizomai.blogspot.com/2008/06/book-review-place-at-table-by-john.html). I had heard of some of Ladd’s struggles, but this book apparently reveals a side of Ladd that was not the subject of public conversation, at least not when I was at Fuller. I have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the book and yet, even if all of Ladd’s shortcomings are true, it only confirms to me something I see all the time. I never cease to be amazed at how able God is to use those who some would wish to deem “disqualified”. I am thinking about reading excerpts from the biography to my class this fall in hope of clarifying this point to my students.

Posted by Dwight at 2:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With gasoline at or near $4.00 per gallon, this is something that just about everyone has said before, but I just have to say it myself. If you were driving in the early 70’s (1973) you surely remember having to get up at 4:00AM to get in line at the gas station and wait hours for your turn to fill up. The cause was purely political; the U.S. (and others) aided Israel in the Yom Kippur War and for that OPEC decided to punish those nations that helped, an event called the Arab Oil Embargo. Rumors at the time pointed to an even greater problem--the world was running out of oil. People began to think about conservation. They bought smaller cars and solar panels, drove 55 mph (but not by choice!), turned down their thermostats, etc. We needed to be energy conscious because there was only so much oil left; we needed to conserve. Deep down in the minds of the average person there was this belief that “top people” were working on a fix. Oil was going to run out but surely our finest minds would come up with a new source of energy that would solve the problem and bring us into a new energy era. Cars that ran on water, solar power, nuclear power, and the like were thought to be on the horizon because “top people” were working on it. Every president, every senator, every congressman, you name it; everyone gave the impression that energy independence was a high priority.

As decades went by it became very clear that the “top people” theory was nothing but wishful thinking. In the three plus decades since the early 70’s little has been done and today we are in a situation that is far worse. Today the world’s economy is shaken by the enormous percentage of money that is being poured into the pockets of very few, and at lease some, very dangerous people. Developing countries have created a supply and demand situation that will only get worse. I place the fault for this on the U.S. government and private industry. Energy independence is not something that the individual can accomplish. We can only use what industry gives us, and at this time autos run on gasoline. We can conserve, but all the conservation in the world will not fix the problem, not at this stage in the game. The fix will require many people, a lot of money, and “top people” working toward the goal of finding another source of energy. It boggles the mind why private industry has not seen fit to work toward what could be a very lucrative invention. Whoever the next leader of this country is, if they wish to leave a legacy they will garner the collective will, wealth and wisdom of “top minds” and deal with this issue. It is a matter of ecology, economics and national defense. But I’m not holding my breath.

A couple of weeks ago President Bush said that there was “no quick fix” to the problem. I just wanted to scream. Okay, fine, if there’s “no quick fix” Mr. President then what is the “slow fix” and why has there been no progress on that front? “No quick fix” makes it sound like you just started thinking about the problem.

I should stick to theological issues.

Posted by Dwight at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am a blessed man. I have a wonderful and generous mother who has shown me faith in God and in myself. I also have a loving, patient, and encouraging wife who is an incredible mother to our three boys. Mother’s Day reminds me of these truths, though I see them in action every day. Thanks Mom and Sue for making me a blessed man, husband and father.

One more college year has come to an end. This year differs because it is the end of my first year teaching at Evangel University. People often ask newlyweds questions like “how’s married life?” In much the same I have had a lot of people ask, “How’s Springfield?” wanting to know how my first year at EU has gone. My answer? I don’t really know. It has been very different. I have been far less busy and almost invisible; which is drastically different than what I was used to. In some ways this has been good but in other ways not so good. In any case, neither will last forever. I have had a great deal of time to read and do research, and this was a primary reason for moving. The worst part is that we are still in boxes. For some reason we have not been able to find a home. That may sound odd considering the fact that it’s supposed to be a buyer’s market and we should be able to name our price in a gut of “for sale” homes. Not in Springfield. The housing market doesn’t greatly appreciate here, and the reverse is also true. It’s also the case that we do not want to have a school change for our boys, and thus we have had to limit our area of search. The weather here is also very different for us. I don’t mind the extremes that characterize Midwest weather, but I do not at all like tornadoes. Knowing that you are in tornado country is just part of life here. Many people I ask think little of it and some give no response to the sound of a tornado siren. This year has been very active, and although Springfield has for the most part dodged the bullet, there have been those tense afternoons and evenings when I stay glued to the radar. Saturday afternoon (5/10) was one of those times, today is supposed to be another. I don’t know if I will ever get used to it.

One last little situation: I don’t diet well, but I've found that if I run for an hour a day I generally keep my weight reasonable. I run in the evenings, usually after dark. Over the last few months I have had this situation with a few of the neighbor high school boys. Apparently they believe antagonizing runners is sort of a sport. Completely unprovoked they curve over to my side of the road and floor it as the go by, often yelling some comment or another. Their behavior has grown bolder lately and I am getting the impression that they may want to take things to another level. It is hard to know how to respond. Do you go to their parents, call the police, or just carry a canister of pepper spray? For the summer months I have decided to quit running after dark hoping their behavior will be different in broad daylight. Sometimes I think I am getting old; I just cannot remember a time in my life when I would have thought of such behavior as being funny.

Posted by Dwight at 11:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

My oldest son and I went to Missouri State University last week to hear Bart Ehrman speak on the subject of his new book entitled God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question--Why We Suffer. The book is Ehrman’s stab at the question of human suffering. Ehrman admits that it is the Bible’s lack of solution to this problem that significantly influenced him to leave the Christian faith and become an agnostic. While being introduced to the audience Ehrman was described as a “rockstar” in the world of all things Bible. I have to admit, the description is apropos, not that I am happy about it. Although I have found his text-critical research to be quite good, I believe he makes enormous unfounded leaps in his conclusions to the meaning of textual differences. When it comes to the subject of theodicy, I was not impressed; he seemed out of his game.

Ehrman began by listing a number of causes typical Christians cite for human suffering. These include free will and the actions of evil human or spiritual forces, God’s punishment for sin, God’s testing of humans, etc. (notably, he never mentioned the Fall). In any case Ehrman sees none of these as adequate, and even mutually contradictory. He went on to discuss the typical solutions given by writers on the subject; God does not exist, so the problem goes way; God is good but not all-powerful, and can’t stop evil; or God is not all good, and actually allows or even causes evil. Ehrman has come to opt for the first of these solutions, but nevertheless went on to consider what he believed to be the two major Biblical solutions for suffering.

The first is seen in the prophets. The prophets saw suffering as the result of Israel’s disobedience to the covenant. God was the source of Israel’s suffering. The prophets believed that if Israel repented God would intervene and alleviate all of their suffering (noting especially Amos 4:7-12). Unfortunately, God’s intervention did not happen in Israel’s experience. This led them to reconsider their theology, which in-turn gave rise to the second explanation for suffering, the apocalyptic answer. God’s failure to intervene was explained by apocalyptic thinkers; this world is controlled by evil forces. Suffering comes to those who battle against those forces. Moreover, since humans cannot overthrow the evil forces they cannot alleviate all evil. Yet, vindication will come. God and those on his side will win when he comes in judgment to eternally punish all evil and raise to glory his followers. Thus, in apocalyptic thinking evil forces are the cause of evil but God will make right all that is wrong. Ehrman liked the fact that apocalyptic took seriously the problem of evil, but felt that looking to God alone to ultimately solve the problem would lead to moral complacency. He also felt that apocalyptic perpetuated “the false belief in the end of the age.”

The solution to the problem for Ehrman is found in the book of Ecclesiastes. Ehrman likes the fact that the preacher encourages his readers to enjoy life. All is vanity, there is no justice, and your fate is no better than the animals anyway. Why not just try to make the most of what you have now by enjoying your family, friends, and the good things of life? Yet Ehrman pines that we cannot really do this if we know that others are suffering. Therefore, life must be held in a balance of enjoyment on the one hand, and working to alleviate suffering on the other.

There is much I would like to say about Ehrman’s presentation, but I will only say a few things. The first is that although Ehrman dismissed the causes that Christians propose for human suffering, he admittedly had no answer for it himself. He just didn’t know. He did backhand George Bush as a possible cause, and got a nice round of applause for it; I guess I expected something a little more profound. I think part of the problem is that he seems to be looking for one explanation for suffering, and one solution to the problem. He was unnerved by the idea that there might be a number of explanations and solutions within the Bible. Instead of considering that the multiple explanations might be due to the complexity of the issue, Ehrman treated the variety of explanations as competing and contradictory. Do the most difficult problems of life only have one cause?

Ehrman is an expert on apocalyptic, but his pitting of the prophets and apocalyptists against one another was simplistic. It was a typical atomizing of one group’s thought against another without seeing the development and continuity between them.

I was very dissatisfied with his use of Ecclesiastes. I liked the fact he emphasized the text’s encouragement to the reader to enjoy life. I tire of those who see these statements as the musings of an old and bitter Solomon who had lost his way in life (I actually hear this a lot). There is a wonderful truth here; it is not the least bit “hedonistic.” However, Ehrman conclusion that we cannot enjoy life if we know that others are suffering is plainly wrong. There are many who do so regularly. Even the Preacher recognized this (Ecc. 4:1). It also seems to make guilt the motivation for my response to the suffering of others. My guilt for living good is the motivation to help those who don’t have it so good. This sounds like an old-time fundamentalist altar call. I don't want to misrepresent Ehrman, but this is what it sounded like to me. Should I help those who suffer simply because I carry a sense of guilt about having a better life?

I have not yet read the book and I should probably wait on my critique until I do. I just thought I would give a few of my reactions to his presentation.

Posted by Dwight at 8:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I was a kid living in Seattle we used to take car trips to Salem, OR, every so often to visit our grandparents. I have fond memories in bits and pieces of those visits in my head to this day. One part of those visits that is not so fond was the drive. It was only about four hours, but from a kid’s perspective it seems like an eternity. Typically, all four brothers would be in the back seat. When we got tired we would stretch out and sleep wherever we could find room. We didn’t have seatbelts in those days, and so sleeping on the floor, or even behind the seat in the space next to the back window was fair game. Obviously, that wouldn’t fly today. If you got caught letting your kids do that today you’d probably be arrested. If the news media got hold of it they’d portray the parents as horrible, having no concern for their children, and may even suggest they be locked up and their children removed from the home. Just recently I saw a news report about parents who don’t strap their kids into their car seat “correctly”. With all the “if you really cared for your child” talk by the news commentator you’d have thought that the violating parents were ignorant barbarians whose most intelligent sound was grunt.

It’s amazing how we change. Even more amazing is how past generations are often demonized because they did not do something that probably never entered their minds. Moderns love to impose their own scruples on past generations as though they alone have figured out truth. I see this happen in so many areas, from social issues to biblical interpretation. Sometimes I think that people who lived in days past need a break. They were them; we are us (not a great sentence, but you know what I mean).

On another note pointing toward the future, I begin teaching a class in church this Sunday on the book of Revelation. I always get a little nervous about teaching the book. It’s not because I don’t think I have a handle on the various interpretations, it’s my own interpretation that makes me nervous. I think John was describing events in his own day that he believed would lead to the coming of Christ. That didn’t happen, and as such his particular expectations were, well . . . wrong (watch for the lightening, it’s going to hit me soon!). I am fully aware that I am not supposed to say that about anything in the Bible. But it seems to me that every New Testament writer probably believed that they lived in the final days before Christ’s return. On that regard, they were all wrong. Rationalizations that try to protect John from his numerous statements regarding the nearness of the Lord’s return are just silly, IMHO (such as Mounce’s comment that “in the prophetic outlook the end is always imminent” [NICNT, p. 41]). Many godly preachers in recent generations have believed that Jesus would return in their lifetime, they too were wrong. Is that really an issue? Did that diminish their ministry? I still think there is a lot in Revelation that helps us to understand the nature of eschatology.

All of this can make some very uncomfortable, especially when you are part of a denomination that is still clinging to elements of dispensational theology. I have been assured that the class is full of well informed, free-thinking, and very nice people.

Posted by Dwight at 11:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Education is one of those wonderful experiences of life. I have been on the college campus now for almost 20 years, not nearly as many years as a number of my colleagues, but enough to teach me a few things. One of the comments I hear regularly from graduates is that college was a defining moment in their lives. It was not the easiest time, but it was the period of time in their life when they matured the most. I feel such a sense of satisfaction to be a part of that time.

In choosing to take on the mantel of education you receive a great blessing, but in a very real way you also take on a curse. The blessing of education is that you are exposed to many different ways of thinking that broaden your perspective on life. Your former ways of thinking are discarded, modified, or strengthened; in each case you change for the better. Then there is the curse. In the process of your education you also begin to see that you had solved some of life's problems far to easily. You find that the simplest answers don’t always explain everything and sometimes the most complicated solutions are best. The world is not black and white anymore; it is multicolored, which makes it more beautiful but at the same time more complicated. You realize that truth can be found in places where many will not look and some don't think you should. You see that you can’t give too much of your mind to God and that worship is something that happens in the library as well as in church. You also find out how much you didn’t know and realize that college is not going to prepare you for everything; it only pushes you in the right direction. There is so much more to do!

For me personally I found that college confused as well as clarified issues in my life. Being interested in theology I think I was more certain of what I believed when I entered college than when I left. I found it distressing when filling out an application for ministerial credentialing that I was given a yes and no box to indicate my beliefs on doctrinal issues that theologians had debated for centuries. It just wasn’t adequate! In college I realized that some of the people I used to think were totally wrong really had a lot of good things to say. The curse was that when I would suggest those areas where they might be right, some would lump me in whole with them and occasionally reject my views entirely. One of my favorite things about Fuller Seminary was that it was a place where things like that didn’t happen.

I love the academic world, I cannot think of ever being anywhere else. Even with its curse, it is truly a great blessing.

Posted by Dwight at 7:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I have had the flu for the last two weeks. The strain going around this year is a whopper: terrible muscle ache, headache, cough, fever, weakness.... I just started getting better when it hit me again for another week. I am feeling a little better now, but it did not let hold of me easily. It sort hung on a long as it could making me miserable. If you ever needed a reason to believe in evil, the flu is it. It is the embodiment of evil. What purpose could it possibly have other than making people miserable? The flu delights in the pain of others, it does not know of things like family, friends and happiness. It only lives to do wrong; I hate it. I know there are those who would say that the flu is only doing what the flu does; there are no malicious intentions whatsoever. If you say that, then you are also evil;) That's all I have to say about that.

It's Spring Break this week and I am trying to get caught up on all the stuff I have let go. One major hurdle . . . taxes. This year is a mess. I typically do them myself on the computer, but this year with the sale of our house I am wondering if I am in over my head. Doing your own taxes is a yearly exercise that challenges one's integrity in the area that can hurt the most, your pocketbook. There are so many ways to cheat! Add a little here; take off a little there, and in the end you save yourself hundreds. Those computer programs are great for this because the benefit of those little tweaks can be seen immediately on your screen. There is nothing more painful than inserting the correct numbers and taking it on the chin. The benefit is that it allows you to go bed at night with a clear conscience; that's worth a lot more than a few hundred bucks.

While I'm on the wonderful subject of cheating, I have never gone a semester of teaching without having to deal with it in the classroom. In earlier years I used to let people save face. Somewhere along the line it hit me that I was not doing anyone a favor by not having them face their problem. People face their own breaches of integrity in different ways. I have presented irrefutable evidence of cheating to students only to have them lash out at me with intense anger. On one occasion, with finger pointed in my face, a student blurted "how dare you embarrass me like this!" At other times I see brokenness and humility, and the desire to make things right. I have come to the conclusion that situations like this are really God's way of showing his grace. I often tell people who have "been caught" that what they are seeing is God's marvelous grace in their lives. If God didn't care, he would have let the situation go on forever. Instead he let's people get caught so that they can deal with the character issue now. Any pain someone in their twenties has to face in dealing with ethical and moral issues does not hold a candle to the pain that will be faced in dealing with the same character issues twenty year later. Sure, there is embarrassment but you probably won't loose your family or career in your early twenties, you may well later. Sometimes God lets people get caught just because he loves them so much.

Posted by Dwight at 8:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

People who teach at small Christian colleges are not known for their wealth; I am no exception. The people I know who have done well have done so through publishing, speaking engagements, and the like. Having blogged a few weeks back about how much I despise the health a wealth gospel, I may sound like a hypocrite in what I am going to say, but I don't think so. I am not against making money; I am against making the gospel about making money. Making money? I'm all fine with that! Which leads me to my topic.

When I speak with college students about "my journey" I usually bring up a few things that I think I would have done differently. One of those things is that I would have taken more chances with my money. I have always thought that I should have gotten more familiar with the stock market and tried some investing. The problem is that when I was young, I didn't, and when we started having kids the little money we had (emphasis on little) I couldn't afford to loose. This year, along with loosing weight and having more fun, I made a New Year's resolution to give investing a try. I am doing okay on the first, I'm not sure about the second, and last week I plunged into the third. I set up and account and bought my first stock.

I don't know what I was thinking.

I have been watching this particular stock for a long time (several years) and it seemed like it was time to buy since it was down. It had always made money before, so I thought I could only stand to gain. To make a long story short, I didn't. I lost a little money, but in the process I found an even worse problem. From the moment I clicked "buy" I could not take my eyes off of it. I almost continuously had to be looking at how it was doing. When it went up a bit I was happy, but when it went down (as it more often did) I sat there and worried about loosing money; not much, but enough to make me upset. I am a cheapskate and I hate loosing money. On top of it all, I have work to do! I don't have time to look at a computer screen all day watching numbers. Finally, this morning I sold.

I'm now questioning whether I'm up to this. I'm not saying I'm out, but I wonder if I have the heart or money for it. Maybe if I had a little more faith . . .

Posted by Dwight at 12:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

James Dunn has written a little book entitled A New Perspective on Jesus, What the Quest of the Historical Jesus Missed (Acadia Studies in Bible and Theology, Baker Academic, 2005). The book is a much smaller version of his larger work Jesus Remembered (Christianity in the Making, vol. 1). In the book Dunn points out the flaws in the Quest for the Historical Jesus. This is nothing new, many have written on the subject. But Dunn not only points out the problems, he also provides a "new perspective" for the study of gospel texts that is sane and makes sense, two things often missing in this area.

Those who are familiar with gospel research know that the main question that scholars have asked about the gospels for the last two centuries is the question of whether the Jesus that we read about in the gospels is the same Jesus who actually lived and walked on the earth 2000 years ago. "Does the Jesus of history equal the Christ of faith?" is a question that has received so much attention that one is utterly bewildered by the amount of material on the subject. The answer to this question by much of "Quest" scholarship has been a resounding "no".

Dunn presents three major criticisms of "Quest" scholars. The first is that they assumed that the faith of Jesus' followers was a hindrance that obscured an accurate picture of him. This criticism could not be truer. The real Jesus, it is said, is buried under layers of faith-tradition, a faith that made him a savior when in reality he said or did nothing to imply this as his mission. The "savior-Jesus" was created post-Easter by the faith of his earliest followers. The real historical Jesus is hidden to us and can only be found by stripping away those elements in the text that betray the faith of his followers. When this is done the Jesus of the gospel accounts typically gets well-deserved "demotion" (note #6 of Robert Funk's "Twenty-One Thesis", in The Fourth R, Vol. 11,4 July/August 1998). Dunn counters that Jesus made a faith impact on his followers from the very beginning, not just after the Resurrection; attempting to strip that away in order to find the real Jesus is not only futile, but removes the very historical foundation of the gospel tradition.

The second criticism is that, although acknowledging that the traditions about Jesus were transmitted orally, the "Quest" scholars did not take into consideration just how much the oral character of the tradition shaped and at the same time preserved it. Many scholars have seen the oral transmission of the Jesus tradition as a detriment that guaranteed its corruption. Dunn seems to say that the stories of Jesus were passed in community and preserved in much the same way as a modern worship choruses. There are those who preserve the integrity of the song but there is also fluidity to each performance.

Finally, Dunn is very critical of the way in which scholars have accepted as authentic only those parts of the tradition where Jesus is unique or distinctive from his own world. The historical Jesus is the non-Jewish and non-Christian Jesus; the rest is embellishment. I liken this to using a nuclear weapon to get rid of the ants in your house. It will certainly work but little of the house is left! It's with the little bit left over that many have reconstructed an "historical" Jesus who, although a really great guy, most often looks very much like the ideology of the scholar who created him. Dunn turns the so-called criterion of dissimilarity on its head. It's not in the "distinctive Jesus" that we find the authentic tradition so much as the "characteristic Jesus." The gospels preserve those elements of Jesus' characteristic acts and words. These made a lasting impression on his followers and were preserved in their memory of him.

The book is worth reading for anyone who is interested in Gospel research. It would also be helpful to those in a situation where they find the reliability of the gospels being questioned. Although different, I liken it to reading Birger Gerhardsson's, The Reliability of the Gospel Tradition (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2001).

Posted by Dwight at 7:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am reading the book Unchristian, What the New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity . . . and Why It Matters. The book was written by David Kinnaman of The Barna Group, and Gabe Lyons, a friend of Kinnaman who thought up the idea for the book. I am only three chapters into it and I am already asking a lot of questions. The book, as the title implies, is about what "outsiders" (those the authors suggest might be atheists, agnostics, people of other faiths and unchurched people) think of Christians. The authors have concentrated their efforts on the views of the "Mosaics" and "Busters", a group encompassing people ages 19 to 41 that live in the U.S. So what do Mosaics and Busters think of Christians? They think that Christians are hypocritical, antihomosexual, sheltered, too political, judgmental and only communicate with non-believers to convert them (each accusation gets one chapter). The authors contend that true or not, these impressions have become reality. Thus, in the minds of many Mosaics and Busters Christians are "unchristian."

In the chapter entitled "hypocritical" the authors state that self-professing "born-again" believers in their research "fail to display much attitudinal or behavioral differences evidence of transformed lives…most of the lifestyle activities of born-again Christian were statistically equivalent to those of non-born-agains." (p. 47, happily, born-again Christians owned more Bibles, used less profanity in public, and bought less lottery tickets) Mosaic and Buster "outsiders" agree. When those who knew a Christian personally were asked, only 15% said that the lifestyle of their Christian friend was any different than anyone else. Interestingly, the respondents also indicated that Christian hypocrisy was not all that disturbing to them. Two reasons are given. First, this group expects to be disappointed by other people. Equally disturbing is the second reason. This group believes that having a good image is the highest goal of life and getting that image requires moral and ethical breaches. In the same way, Christians give the image of having it all together, and yet exhibit the same incongruence as everyone else between their words and actions. Mosaics and Busters "perceive us as employing the same tactics as everyone else to preserve our appearance of strength." (p. 45) In other words, why should anyone become a Christian if its adherents are no different than those of other faiths or non-belief?

The authors suggest that much of the problem is the way in which we have portrayed what it means to be "Christian." Being a Christian has been characterized as "not sinning." I remember as a kid thinking that being a Christian was more about not doing bad than doing good. If the essence of being a Christian is "not sinning" then we have set ourselves up for ridicule because we are bound to fail.

Personally, I am more confounded by the research that concludes that Christians live no differently that anyone else when it comes to their moral and ethical lives. Is this really true? I have no way of knowing for sure, but if it is true then I think we have a lot of soul searching to do. Does the indwelling Spirit bring about transformation as we walk in Christ that affects the way we live, or is that whole idea a bunch of garbage? I am not trying to give a moralistic sermon; I have no altar call to give. I just wonder if the author's research has correctly surmised the status of Christian behavior in America. If so, what does it mean that people who have the Spirit fail at living moral and ethical lives to the same degree as those who do not have the Spirit?

Posted by Dwight at 12:39 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's been a while since I have submitted anything. December is a wonderful month, but it is also extremely busy. I thought about a number of things and even wrote out a lengthy blog that I intended to post. After sleeping on it, I decided not to (too much personal info). I have, however, come to think about Christmas a bit differently this year because my recent musings. In short, I concentrated more on receiving this Christmas. I know that sounds terrible because Christmas is supposed to be about giving. But for me the "giving" theme quickly becomes not about what God gave us but about what we give others. Don't get me wrong, I love giving gifts at Christmas; but at least for me the emphasis on giving was the very thing that deflected my mind away from what I had received in the coming of Christ.

"Joy to the world,
The Lord has come,
Let earth receive her king".

Now, on a completely different note. . . .

They say in the Mid-West that if you don't like the weather, just wait a while. Yesterday in Springfield it was 71 degrees, today they say we may have snow. The change in weather brought very severe storms all last night. Tornado warning sirens were going off all until 3:30 AM. We do not have a basement in our house, so when the siren sounds the whole family goes into a little interior closet to sit until the storm passes. We did that several times last night. For a few minutes we had golf ball size hail. It was louder than I thought it would be. My Honda Civic has about 20 nice divots in the hood and top. I can't complain; Strafford, MO, just a couple miles away from us, was hit very hard with at least one fatality. I grew up in Oregon. We didn't have tornadoes!

I have to admit; I get a bit scared when we have weather like this. It reminds me of the feelings I got after earthquakes in Southern California. I struggle with knowing how much fear of events like this is healthy. I try not to overreact; I try to keep my head, but inside I don't like it at all. Occasionally after earthquakes I would run into someone who said that they weren't the least bit bothered by it. I have very little time for people who have no fear. Maybe it's because deep down I wish I could be as "brave." Some of those "brave" souls even implied that I didn’t trust God like they did. I think I trust God; it's the weather I don't trust! So with a little healthy fear I'm making it a New Years resolution to step up the effort to find a house with a basement and garage.

Posted by Dwight at 8:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just returned from the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting in San Diego. I think that I appreciate going to these meeting with each year that I attend. For me, SBL is a time to see, hear, and hopefully speak to the "movers & shakers" (sorry, I can't think of anything else), in the area of Biblical research. It is exactly what I need once or twice a year. I need to hear what people are up to in their research. I suppose I could just read, and I do, but when you can hear someone personally speak and respond to questions about their area of study, I find that I and get a better idea of what they are saying. It's sort of like the difference between recorded and live music. This year will not be the first time that I have come to SBL having read someone's work and believing that I understood them, only to leave with a very different impression. Even when I do not agree with the views I hear, a personal presentation helps me in the classroom to represent someone's views more sympathetically.

One of the most interesting sessions was on the Gospel of Judas. In case you've been living in a cave, this was the document that was supposed to forever change the way we viewed Judas, Jesus and possibly Christianity. It didn't, but via National Geographic's exploitation of the document it did change the way a few selected scholars viewed their bank accounts. James Robinson was especially critical of those who hyped the content of the "gospel" for what seemed to him so be solely material gain. In the last couple of years The Di Vinci Code, the Jesus Tomb, and the Gospel of Judas hit the scene in sort of a one, two three punch. Each in its own way was seen by some (many?) Christians to be a challenge to their faith. The general ignorance of most Christians of the first centuries of early Christianity creates fear and reactionary responses whenever these issues come up. It's too bad because the panic is unnecessary and the reaction makes us look silly.

A final note on SBL: As a Fuller grad who worked under the PhD mentorship of Dr. Donald Hagner, I have to add a kudos to him for his defense of Mark Nanos' scathing criticism of his chapter on Paul in the recently released book Jewish Believers in Jesus: The Early Centuries. Dr. Hagner was allowed a whole 4 minutes to defend his view that Paul's ministry shows continuity but also striking discontinuity with his Jewish past. He did an incredible job; I would have cheered but I don't think they do that.

Posted by Dwight at 8:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The apostle Paul regularly told his readers to imitate his life and beliefs. He gives the impression that if someone followed his example they would surely know the way of Christ. There are numerous examples of the "imitate me" admonition. In 1 Corinthians 4:14-17, while dealing with a disciplinary issue he says, “be an imitator of me.�? In 1 Corinthians 10:31-11:1, while addressing Christian liberty he says, “be an imitator of me as I am of Christ.�? In Philippians 3:17, while refuting heresies he says that they should join in following his example and any others in the church who live like he does. Again in Philippians 4:9 while exhorting them he says that they should follow things that they have learned and received and heard and seen him do. In 1 Thessalonians 1:6 and 2 Thessalonians 3:7-9, Paul commends the church for imitating his example. He does the same to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:10-14, where he commends Timothy for following his teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, perseverance, persecutions, and sufferings. Paul saw himself as an example of the believer's life, and he invited people to imitate it.

I was in college during the mid 80s, the time of the infamous "TV evangelists scandals". The whole nation got to watch as several prominent ministers and their large ministries crashed and burned on national television. During and after that time, virtually every speaker in chapel my senior year would counsel all of us younger ministers with a very similar line (it was as if they had compared notes!). Toward the end of their sermon they would pause and get very serious. Then they would say, "Young people, don't put your eyes on men, men will fail you. Keep your eyes on Jesus, Jesus will never fail you." The "amens" that followed were deafening. Hey . . . you can't argue with that one. Jesus, he's the one we want to follow. We want to do what Jesus would do. Right? People fail, but Jesus never does. Thus, don't imitate people; imitate Jesus.

Not long afterwards it became popular to see the letters WWJD (What Would Jesus Do?) on wristbands and tee shirts, hats, etc. The purpose of this was to get people to think about what Jesus would do in any given situation. I think to some degree this was a noble thing. I have only one problem with WWJD. It is the fact that we really don't know what Jesus would have done in any given situation because he so often did things we wouldn't expect. In some cases he did the purely unacceptable. We think of the story about Jesus being anointed by the woman with the alabaster jar as a wonderful example of Jesus' care for the poor woman (and it is!). And, yet, that woman was not someone you would want to bring home to mother (note the response of the Pharisees in Lk. 7:39). If some well-known TV evangelist appeared in the same compromising situation we might get a little bit concerned. At the very least we would say that he was not refraining from "the appearance of evil". The fact is, we just don't know what Jesus would do. He did things we not only wouldn't do, but would criticize others for doing.

So how will we know WWJD? I am convinced that we need other people to help us.

Paul's answer to WWJD was that if people wanted to know what Jesus would do they could imitate him. I don't think he would have liked the saying "don’t follow men, just keep your eyes on Jesus." I think he would have rather put meat on the bones of that statement by saying, “and you can do that by looking at the way I live.�?

For a lot of people statements like that are a bit distressing. I must admit; I don’t want to say it. It’s too hard. It’s not only a difficult thing to say, it’s a difficult thing for us to hear. It sounds boastful. For some it’s just plain unacceptable. Few are willing to follow Paul in this. The main reason is because many of our "examples" haven't faired too well. And of course there's also the problem, "what if I fail?" Other people have not been such good examples and have done great damage. Maybe it’s best that we don’t stress the "imitate me" thing because some haven't done so well at it.

That logic is, however, just plain wrong. It's sort of like a mechanic who quits doing brake jobs because the guy down the street didn’t do them very well. Just because some people have done things wrong does not mean that we should not do them at all. The answer to the failure of others is not to quit, but rather to do it right! I am so thankful for the many people in my life who did it right.

There are, of course, people in your life to whom you must say, "imitate me", your kids for starters. Even if you're not willing to say it to other people, you cannot cop-out it when it comes to your kids. You've got to say it to them. They're going to follow our example anyway; we have no choice in the matter. As a college professor I am constantly aware that students watch me. It can be uncomfortable, not so much because I am afraid that I'm going to commit some awful sin in front of everyone, but because I know myself. I get irritated, I sometimes forget to hide my feelings and show how I feel all over my face. I get a little worried at times that I will say something in the midst of conversation or lecture that will be offensive.

I've come to the conclusion that modeling the Christian walk is not putting on an aura of perfection; I can't do that. I think it's about doing your best, and modeling the capacity to endure. It’s about getting up when you fall down and learning what made you fall in the first place so you can help others when they observe your manner of life. These are things I can do, and if this is what it means then I guess with Paul I can also say, "Follow me as I follow Christ."

Posted by Dwight at 8:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

It's Halloween. Ever since the mid 90's, every Halloween my mind wanders back to earlier years. I grew up looking forward to Halloween; it ranked right up there with Christmas. That may sound awful, but what could be more fun to a kid than dressing in a scary outfit and going to people's houses and getting candy? I loved it, and our family participated in it every year until us kids grew out of it. It was after I grew out of it that things changed. My teens and twenty's years were in the 70's and 80's. During that time there was a very popular Christian evangelist/comedian named Mike Warnke. Warnke was sort of the Christian Forest Gump. He had done everything in his short life, and hearing his humorous stories about his many escapades delighted church audiences everywhere he spoke. Warnke traveled all over giving his personal testimony about how God had delivered him from being a satanic high priest. He also warned us about Halloween; on this night witches and Satan worshippers would regularly murder children in satanic rituals. To participate in this high satanic holiday on any level was to participate in the demonic. Warnke became the expert on all things Satan; we all believed him and he influenced a whole generation of Christians. Because of his testimony many churches chose to either have no event on October 31, or they went out of their way to make sure the event had nothing to do with Halloween. How could we have fun knowing that all those children were being sacrificed?

Since that time Warnke's testimony has come under great scrutiny. The Cornerstone Magazine article (vol. 21, issue 98,1992) exposed Warnke's Satan testimony as at the very least full of embellishments, but more probably complete fabrications. Although Warnke has admitted to some embellishment, he still hangs on to much of his previous line. I happen to believe that Cornerstone did a very good job of exposing Warnke's testimony and lifestyle as something far less than credible. I hold nothing against Warnke. I of all people know that nobody's perfect. God certainly forgives, so I do to.

The problem of Halloween, however, came up again when Sue and I began to have kids. At that time, to a great degree still under the influence of Warnke's testimony, we questioned whether our children should participate in Halloween. Did we want to raise them with a lack of sensitivity to evil things? Were we exposing them to the demonic by allowing them to trick-or-treat? Would allowing them to dress up like Spiderman, Frodo, or Mickey Mouse, and collect candy from the neighbors damage them spiritually? At this point in my life I must admit that such questions sound rather ridiculous. But for those of the "Warnke Generation" they were very serious indeed. Our choice was to allow them to participate in just the same way as we had while growing up. As of yet, as far as I can tell, no serious damage has been inflicted. In fact, I've found that Halloween is one of few times of the year that people in some places get out of their houses, walk around the neighborhood and meet one another while their children have a little fun. Maybe there's a way to redeem Halloween by making it a time to meet people in your community and renew acquaintances in the neighborhood. Ask people how they're doing and if you can help them out. Every Christian holiday either by date or by symbolism has vestiges of a pagan holiday that has been redeemed. Why not Halloween?

Posted by Dwight at 8:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)