Different “types” of Christians

Brad Wright has started what looks to be an interesting series on different types of Christians. He begins . . .

Several recent studies of Christians have taken the approach of using data to create “types” of Christians, and this seems like a good issue to go into depth with, so I’ll post a several part series on it. Basically: Is it worthwhile for empirical studies of Christians to differentiate between different types of Christians.

Today I would like to review several studies that have done so.

1) The Reveal Study identifies six segments of growing in Christ, and these segments are discussed as types of people.

Exploring Christianity - “I believe in God but I’m not sure about Christ”
Growing in Christ - “I am working on getting to know Jesus”
Close to Christ - “I feel really close to Christ and depend on him daily”
Christ-Centered - “Everything that I do is a reflect of Christ”
Stalled - “I believe in Christ but I haven’t grown much lately”
Dissatisfied - “My faith is central to me, but my church is letting me down”

2) Christianity Today, via Leadership Journal, produced a study creating a five-part typology Christians. . . .

Click here to read the rest of his opening post.

Groove, Mbeki, the lost Ark, Turkey ban, meetings, & Hebrew handouts (links & quotes)

Groove award winners have been announced (the most popular of the Kenyan Christian Music scene.)

Thabo Mbeki’s Bible: The Role of the Religion in the South African Public Realm after Liberation (Gerald West, SBL Forum May 1 2008).

the Bible no longer occupies the same kind of place in the public realm in South Africa. Indeed, religion in general has receded to the private sphere.

But Mbeki: “Through our National Effort they [the people of South Africa] can see the relevance to our situation of God’s blessings communicated in the Book of the Prophet Isaiah.”[19]

Finders of the Lost Ark

Archaeology in search of a headline, or even archaeology that’s too eager to “prove the Bible,” is prone to sensationalism and error. It’s too much like the treasure hunting that characterized 19th-century explorers who lacked the tools of modern science and relied on observation and supposition.

. . . Better tools have led to more accurate archaeology, but also to the realization that the earlier discoveries didn’t as easily fit into the biblical framework as some had anticipated. Responding to these developments, some secular scholars have claimed that archaeology actually disproves the Bible. Thankfully, it does not.

Tim Brookins’s bibliography of The Doctrine of Inspiration - “by camp . . . full inerrancy, some sort of limited inerrancy or infallibility, paleo- or neo-orthodoxy, I’m not sure (Pelikan & NT Wright)” and his comments on Roger Olsons Postconservativism

There are a lot of positive qualities to the book. For one, he drives home the point that Scripture is about transforming lives as we encounter God in it. Probably not many evangelicals would disagree with that; his contention is that evangelicals have often viewed Scripture solely as something that conveys information, and that conversion comes through cognitive apprehension of propositions, without necessarily regarding experience as a necessary component. Yet in subordinating propositional content to experience, has he not gone too far in the other direction? In my opinion, he inadequately deals with why such a switch is permissible, . . . [Other critiques – mischaracterization of paleo-orthodox camp. ]

Ferrell Jenkins’s blog banned-in-turkey follow it fjtours.blogspot.com – great pictures.

Leading a Meeting – something they usually don’t say much about in Seminary (Thanks: Drew who adds 3 C’s: be clear, be consistent, and be creative.) My pastoral mentor always told me. In seminary they teach you a lot about the bible and theology; in the pastorate you mostly deal with (manage) people.

Handouts for Teaching Biblical Hebrew (or studying) by Naama Zahavi-Ely, College of William and Mary

• Hebrew Verb Missing Letter Guide for the Bible and other texts with vowel markings (nikud)
• Hebrew Verb Summary Tables
• Hebrew Verb Overview
• Using Cantillation Marks to Break Verses into Segments
• Who am I and what is my background as a teacher of Hebrew

I’ll add a couple in separate posts that deserve individual attention.

Interpreting the Bible (Ken Bailey via Kruse)

Michael Kruse has started a twelve-part series on Ken Bailey’s two lecture DVD Interpreting the Bible. Following are quotes from each post:

How the Bible was inspired

Bailey starts by reminding us that we each have our assumptions, examined or not, about what the Bible is and where it came from. . . Bailey suggests that our understanding of biblical inspiration can be loosely grouped in five categories:

1. Mechanical inspiration views the author as a “human tape recorder.”
2. Verbal inspiration allows that the human personality of the author is involved but God inspired the precise words.
3. Another view is that the ideas were inspired but not necessarily the precise words.
4. Some would argue for an inspiration in much the same sense a poet is inspired but at a higher level.
5. Others would so they Bible is inspired but no more so then Shakespeare or other great writers.

[Note: There are serious questions about the Jamnia theory which Bailey presents regarding the recognition of the OT canon..]

New Testament Origins

But what does it mean to say that these books have authority? Bailey writes that early in the process the Church asked, “What are the books the apostles have passed down to us?” Notice this is not the same as asking “Which books did the apostles write?” The question was one of apostolic endorsement and determining which ones have broad acceptance across the Church community. Furthermore, the driving agenda was not “What can we include?” but “What can we throw out?” Bailey suggests these were the driving questions for at least the first 250 years after Christ.

. . . The books of the New Testament have authority because they spoke to the hearts of early Christians across a broad range of communities (just as they do today.) There was no rush to create an authoritative list. Over time, the authenticity of the books made themselves known to the Christian community. Rather than imposing a list of official books in the fourth century, the fourth century can be seen as the culmination of a slow brew process.

Luke’s Origin:

Bailey’s central point of emphasis is that the Bible was not dictated by angels as illustrated on the front of ancient manuscripts. Rather, God moved through a community to create the written word that became scripture. By looking at Luke we can get an imperfect glimpse of some of the process involved.

These three posts give us some sense of the nature of the book we are dealing with when we come to the Bible. It should inform our understanding as we read scripture. But as we interpret the Bible there are any number of errors we can make. Bailey has identified seven sins of biblical interpretation. We will turn to those next.

New Calvinists and Emergents light up the wires

Jesus Creed Post - and the nearly 250 comments about Calvinists .

McCall - Two Cheers for Resurgence of Calvinism (and some cautions) - 148 Comments (many of which prove McCall’s cautions) and 34 links (make that 35 now.)

Emergent’s New Christians and the Young and Restless Reformed Christianity Today

Colin Hansen:

Emergents embrace paradox, especially those that are core components of the Christian story.” The Bible affirms both divine sovereignty and human responsibility. But who knows how these twin truths always correspond? I love what J. I. Packer writes in Evangelism and the Sovereignty of God: “The desire to oversimplify the Bible by cutting out the mysteries is natural to our perverse minds, and it is not surprising that even good men should fall victim to it.”

Day 2

Hansen: Can you help me understand how Emergent Christians tend to view the atoning work of Jesus? . . . How do you evade foundationalism and still affirm the inspiration and authority of Scripture?

Jones: There have been five or six major theological theories to explain the atoning work of Jesus on the cross over the last two millennia. Each of them, you might say, shines a spotlight on the cross from a different angle. Emergents want all those spotlights, figuring that the more light we can shed on the cross, the better we can understand it. One spotlight is fine. Six is better.

Day 3

Hansen:

When you have two groups that care so much about theology, you’ll always have something to talk about. E-mail conversations like this are helpful; sharing a meal together is even better. There is a tendency for all of us to write things for the Web that we would not say across a table. Nothing can substitute for the immediate give-and-take of face-to-face dialogue. I hope these interactions will continue and forestall the rush toward entrenchment in polemical blogs and books. . .

Jones:

. . . . I get the sense from the young, Reformed guys I know that they share some of the epistemic humility that we have in Emergent. They don’t speak with quite the certain tones of the older Reformed crowd. I think this humility about knowledge actually jibes perfectly with the Reformed doctrine of Total Depravity (i.e., if our intellects are depraved, how can we be so sure that we’re right about, say, depravity?). Has this humility rubbed off on the older Reformed generation at all?

[Stay tuned for the response. IMHO ;-), tone can be as critical as content; tone says something about you and what you think of people. Note, this does not mean giving up convictions.]

Not so different; Kenya and the US

In a post today, Tribalism is Not the Issue, Pastor M from Nairobi makes a point I have made several times to my Kenyan and American friends:

In the US for a couple of weeks… very interesting to hear the campaign rhetoric here and compare it with our own from a few months ago. And am struck by an amazing fact… Americans are just as tribalistic as we are! . . . sounds so familiar! I was struck by how much alike we all are … day-to-day decent, ordinary people, yet deep down driven by suspicion & ethnocentricity to self-protective stereotyping; ‘us verses them’.

. . . Enron and Arthur Andersen as well as Watergate and Irangate before that helped me understand that American’s are not closer to the God-side of the corruption scale than us; with our Goldenburg, Anglo Leasing and Francis Thuo (stock brokerage firm that recently went under after underhand dealings with investor funds).

If Americans are just as tribalistic, dirty and corrupt as we are, then why aren’t they grabbing ‘machetes’ and killing their neighbors, drowning in dirt and being labeled as corrupt? I think the answer is simple. The law here works.

Pastor M then offers a few solutions for Kenya. Read the whole brief post - Tribalism is Not the Issue

On further review, Pastor M might discover that the law in the US works better for some than others (e.g. DWB - Driving While Black to name just one). America’s brief history has it’s fair share of “wild west” living, sickening oppression of people (slavery and Native Americans), and a civil war too.

The Good Samaritan - OT Background

We all know the story of the Good Samaritan (Luke 10:25-37). For a long time, I’ve suspected that it had special meaning in Luke’s “restoration” schema, but I haven’t had time to research it yet. Today, Michael Barber posts on that very topic.

2 Chronicles 28 relates a story about a battle between the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. The northern kingdom overpowers those from the south and take captive the people from Judah, including two hundred thousand women and children. However, after the prophet warns the northern tribes that they have sinned in taking captive those from Judea, certain chief men from the northern tribes take pity on the prisoneers (2 Chron. 28:8-11). They stand up to those coming back from the battle, condemning their actions. What happens sounds very familiar.

2 Chron. 28:15: And the men who have been mentioned by name rose and took the captives, and with the spoil they clothed all that were naked among them; they clothed them, gave them sandals, provided them with food and drink, and anointed them; and carrying all the feeble among them on asses, they brought them to their kinsfolk at Jericho, the city of palm trees. Then they returned to Samaria.

It seems likely that the story of the Good Samaritan is drawing on this episode. . . . they do what the Good Samaritan does in the story in Luke’s Gospel.

Once again, it would seem, Jesus’ teaching seems to flow from Israel’s story. In fact, the story would seem to fit into Jesus’ larger program in Luke’s Gospel–the restoration of the Davidic Kingdom and specifically, his concern for Judah and Israel.

This is a line of reasoning that I will enjoy following up on. Read Barber’s whole post.

Flipping cars . . .

This is what I was doing between books today. A young man was trying to teach his friend how to drive his mother’s car on campus today (without permission) and flipped this car all the way over on its top. Both “boys” were unhurt, but greatly embarrassed; it could have been much worse. This all happened about 30 yards/meters from my library desk and our apartment front door. We had to flip the car back over to get it out of the way. This is the half-way mark. (I couldn’t bring myself to leave the action to get my camera, so I’m happy Samy got these with his cell phone.)

Just your average day at the library. So what have you been up to?

All of April - biblical studies on the web - (Biblical Studies Carnival 29)

All of biblical studies on the web in April (Biblical Studies Carnival 29) has been brilliantly highlighted by the the very king of biblical blogdom (Jim West).

He begins:

The Biblical Studies Blogging World has expanded from a dozen or so blogs just a few years ago to literally hundreds and has become more a Universe than simply a small planet. ‘Carnival’ doesn’t really convey the extensive activity of biblio/biblica-bloggers during the month of April; and ‘circus’ just seems a bit too derogatory- so someone wiser and brighter than I will have to come up with an appropriate term which expands “Carnival” to something more accurate.

And ends: “[n.b.- from time to time in the preceding you may have sniffed just a whiff of sarcasm. If so, good nose! If not, well there's no help for you. A Carnival is supposed to be full of fun. So, humorless soul, begone with ya to read Oprah's website]“

It’s all way more than any of us has time for, but I’ll pick out a couple just for fun.

Stephen Cook talks a little bit about those bizarre chapter and verse divisions in the Bible. What was Stephanus thinking? That’s why, personally, I like the Zurich Bible of 1531. Just Chapters. No verses. And if I could get by with it, I’d abandon those chapter divisions too. If only there were some other way of getting around in the Bible without them…

There is t there is no solution to the synoptic problem (April DeConick.) Jim counters with the solution.

Chris Spinks asks a very good question when he asks, what should a New Testament Introduction course introduce the students to?

It has been my experience that NT surveys spend an inordinate amount of time discussing authorship, dates, and the like. . . . I’m more inclined to emphasize the books’ narrative/argumentative arcs, the important themes and topics, and the inter-relationship of these things among the various NT voices.

Tyler Watson responds: give Revelation enough time. This book needs to be taken back from the Left Behind interpretations. Show how this book when properly understood affects how we live now. I know many pastors who don’t want to step into the minefield created by strange interpretations of Revelation — I have this temptation myself — so as a student I found it extremely helpful and inspiring to walk through it in a way that respected its historical context.

Finally, Michael Pahl let’s all the PhD holders in on a little secret, and Mike Bird has a little advice to PhD students of his own (something about Greco-Roman something or other). Meanwhile, Tim Brookins too has something to say to PhD wannabes.

- - -

Here’s a couple more I was interested in this week.

New NT Manuscripts researched in Albania (CT)

Jesus through Middle Eastern Eyes (A review of Bailey by Kruse)

Bailey’s thesis is that Arabic culture, at least in rural villages, has not changed radically over the past 2,000 years. Furthermore, Arabic is a sister language to the Aramaic spoken by Jesus and his contemporaries. Therefore, by examining how Arabic Christians have interpreted scripture over the millennia, both in terms of language and in terms of assumptions about cultural norms, we might find a lens through which to view the scriptures that more closely approximates the culture of Jesus day than our Western lenses. Bailey maintains that the witness of Arabic Christianity (separating from the Western church in the fifth century) has been all but ignored in Western Christianity.

Jesus was a metaphorical theologian. That is, his primary method of creating meaning was trough metaphor, simile, parable and dramatic action rather than through logic and reasoning. He created meaning like a dramatis and a poet rather than like a philosopher. (279)

20 enjoyable books from Chris Tilling.

From last month, but still interesting:

How Jesus Died: A Physician’s Point of View (Wichita March 15)

Larry Hurtado - That Curious Idea of Resurrection on Slate.com (March 20)

The Strength of Fundamentalism

In a tribute to Philip Yancey (The Healing Pen - CT), Tim Stafford writes:

The strength of fundamentalism is its forcefulness and purity. Fundamentalists know what they think, and they are fierce in promoting it. They can usually tell you what you think, too; they are often better at defining and critiquing others’ positions than they are at listening to how others understand themselves.

What seems to stick with ex-fundamentalists is a sense of principle, a willingness to fight for the truth, yet also a strong reaction to the rigid all-knowingness of the fundamentalist mindset. At least that is what I see in Philip: a powerful sense of honesty and idealism, and a great wariness about making judgments. At Wheaton, Philip worked to reconstruct his world, trying to strip it clean of fundamentalist accretions while preserving (and discovering) genuine, honest faith.

I can relate.

Mid-week roundup (Africa & the world)

A teacher sacrifices his life for a student in a terrible New Zealand tragedy – see also here. (Thanks: BJ.)

“In the most traumatic moment of his life, in fact the last moment of his life, he’s still doing and saying exactly what he was doing and saying the previous Saturday and the previous week.”

Our prayers are with the grieving families.

The African Origins of our faith: Review by Scot McKnight - Part 1, Part 2 (see comments too)

Why Africa’s poverty is only artificial: Africa’s creative economy (Business Daily).

Techpreneurs in Kenya, A PDF document by Business Daily that discusses some of the brilliant young entrepreneurs and their ideas in Kenya. Here’s the PDF for download (Thanks: White African)

“Why Africa May Never Produce a Microsoft, Google, Yahoo or Facebook” [Not-for-a while might be better than "never". ] An interesting article that discusses the challenge that young college-level entrepreneurs face in Africa. (Thanks again: White African)

Wisdom of Joe on US Tax Rebates.

Situation A: To stimulate the economy, the U.S Government asks everyone to take $1,200 out of their pocket and spend it on consumer goods.

Situation B: To stimulate the economy, the U.S Government takes $1,200 out of everyone’s pockets, gives it back to them, and then asks them to spend it on consumer goods.

Me: I filed, but we didn’t owe any any taxes this year (naturally). Still, today a letter from the Department of Treasury showed up in my mailbox here in Nairobi, “Economic Stimulus Payment Notice.” My neighbors and I will be eating someone else’s pocket money.

A rootless MK checks out his vanishing roots.

Nominees for the 2008 Groove Awards [Kenya] have been announced. I recognize 25 of the names. (I started to say two until I read the names more closely.) Tthere are 22 categories of six names each. Six of the names I recognized were nominees for the “Peace Award” alone. But hey, I’m improving; I do know who DJ Moz and Njugush are. ;-). If you played me a clip some of the music along with these names I’d recognize a more. The Kenyan Christian Music scene is where it’s at – “the bomb” as my younger sister used to say.

Every Meal is a Sacrifice (Washington Post 28 April 2008.)

Even before he took a butcher knife to the she-goat’s throat, Likbir Ould Mohamed Mahmoud knew it would only make things worse. The goat was a living bounty in this parched city on the Sahara’s edge, providing the sweet milk that filled his family’s stomachs at breakfast time. But as soaring food prices worldwide have hit the poorest nations of Africa the hardest, he has been forced to join many of his neighbors in slaughtering or selling off one of their only sources of wealth — their livestock.

PS - I’m too sick about Zimbabwe to even think about it.

Avoiding 5 most common disfunctions of ministry teams

From the most recent issue of Leadership, Ministry Team Diagnostics: How to avoid the 5 most common dysfunctions of a ministry team (by Nancy Ortberg). [I've seen these almost everywhere I've been, and thought this is a healthy reminder for all of us.]

1. Distrust

Trust forms the foundation for everything else that happens on a team. Interestingly, though, I think ministry teams assume trust rather than work on building trust. Stop for a minute and think: can you name five things you have intentionally done in the last month to build trust on your team? . . .

2. Fear of Conflict

Of all the organizations we work with, churches tend to be the worst at engaging in conflict in an open and honest way.  Somehow we’ve gotten the idea that Jesus was a Mr. Rogers character who just walked around with beautifully permed hair, blessing everyone. One look at the Gospels will tell you that Jesus was a walking defining moment. His call for transformation was often imbedded in rather terse and direct language. . .

. . . Avoiding conflict almost guarantees that we will fail to build relationally deep teams, and that we will be unable to make the best decisions for the organization. When teams don’t engage in healthy, passionate, unfiltered debate around the most important issues, they inject more politics into the organization and make mediocre decisions that will deliver mediocre results. . .

. . .conflict is basically energy, and when it is not dealt with directly, it goes somewhere else. Unaired conflict goes into the parking lot or behind closed doors. It becomes “malicious compliance” and results in artificial harmony, not deep community. Conflict isn’t pleasant, but it’s your necessary friend. Do not avoid it; insist on it.

[The key here is healthy conflict built on trust.]

3. Inability to Make a Commitment

Ever left a meeting wondering what, if anything, was actually decided? Ever lead one of those meetings? Healthy teams know when it is time to make a commitment, and they do it. There are no perfect decisions, but there are good and great ones. At the end of an appropriate amount of debate, there comes a time to decide and to plant the flag. . .

4. Avoidance of Accountability

5. Inattention to results

As leaders in the church, we understand that results are not completely in our hands. We are not ultimately responsible for everything. However that is very different from saying that it is okay to rationalize the fact that the ministry is not moving forward because of our poor or misguided efforts.

Great leaders perform autopsies on poor results. They are constant learners and listen to God, as best they can, and relentlessly pursue doing things better and more effectively. They are passionate about results, because results affect people. Sometimes results are people.

. . . What could we have done differently? What did we learn from this, for future decisions? Has this ministry been allowed to go past its prime, and is there, perhaps, a new and better way? These are the questions of a team that build great ministries that deeply impact people for Christ.

Read the whole article here.

The Millennials & Mr. Rogers

The “Millennials” (actually from last Nov – CBS – but I just saw it [Thanks: Michael Kruse]

80 million of them, born between 1980 and 1995 . . . raised by doting parents who told them they are special, played in little leagues with no winners or losers, or all winners. They are laden with trophies just for participating and they think your business-as-usual ethic is for the birds.

. . . how to deal with this generation that only takes “yes” for an answer.

It’s Mr. Rogers fault – Many more funny excerpts below:

Take a nap

In Todays Washington Post - naptime:

Some new studies make dramatic claims for it. Taken in the workplace, naps can increase productivity and reduce “general crabbiness,” according to a just-concluded 25-year survey of the practice in industrial countries. A study conducted by researchers at the University of Haifa in Israel showed daytime nappers doing better at retaining a newly mastered skill — bringing a thumb and forefinger together in a certain sequence — than a control group whose members slept only at night.

Experiments conducted by Matthew A. Tucker of Harvard Medical School suggest that a 45-minute nap can enhance the ability to perform tasks relying upon memory. And Dimitrios Trichopoulos, also at Harvard, has found that among a sample of 23,000 adult Greeks, habitual nappers were 30 percent less likely to die of heart disease.

There is even anecdotal evidence that napping can enhance creativity, including a charming confession made by Salvador Dali. To prime the pump for his surrealist paintings (the melting watch, the human leg with a built-in chest of drawers, etc.), the Catalan-born artist used to take — and abort — a nap after lunch. He would sit down with his arms extending beyond the chair’s arms. In one hand he would grasp a key between thumb and forefinger. After he fell asleep, his fingers would relax, the key would fall to the floor, the clatter would wake him up, and he would harvest the wild associations common to the first few minutes of sleep.

I’m a believer. A ten minute power nap can put me into a refreshing “time warp.”

Addressing Ethnocentrism 2: Questions to ask yourself and your organization?

In a post last week, I highlighted some practical ways to begin addressing ethnocentrism that we have worked on together here. Here are some personal and organizational questions to help us get started. (I/we)

[Maybe some of these work for denominational and theological fights too.]

Self-Analysis

• Am I being honest about how I feel and my own biases? Have I admitted and confessed them?
• Am I willing to truly repent and make concrete changes in behavior and thinking?
• Am I pretending to be neutral or that I don’t have any problems? (We all have them)
• What are my own prejudices?
• Who are my friends? Who do I usually talk to?
• How do I talk about other groups?
• Do I use stereotypes or code words?
• How do I respond when my friends talk about other groups?
• What do my children learn from me?
• Does my lifestyle promote justice?
• Am I proactively breaking down barriers?

Organizational Analysis

• Is there diversity in leadership? In hiring?
• Do our structures encourage diversity?
• Are other ethnic identities encouraged and affirmed?
• How are funds and resources distributed?
• Is ethnic and economic justice taught?
• Are we modeling the family of God?

In relationship to churches, Mark DeYmaz gives Seven Core Commitments of a Multi-ethnic Church: (Mosaix Global Network)

1. Embrace dependence: determine to trust God to provide financially and spiritually.
2. Take intentional steps: make changes to attract people outside the majority demographic.
3. Empower diverse leadership: multi-ethnic churches require multi-ethnic staff.
4. Develop cross-cultural relationships: work through awkwardness to develop true friendships.
5. Pursue cross-cultural competence: learn to be sensitive to cultural differences.
6. Promote a spirit of inclusion: commit to being comfortable being uncomfortable.
7. Mobilize for impact: take steps to minister to the greater community and make disciples.

Thanks: Brandon O’Brien Leadership Off the Agenda – [Accessed 22 April 2008]

Lillback’s attack on Enns (WTS) - a brief outline ;-/.

As I related in my previous post (postures and orientations of the WTS debate), I’ve had trouble getting away from the recently released Westminster documents.

For those of you who are having trouble following the essay in which Peter Lillback’s attacks Peter Enns, Hermeneutical Crisis and the Westminster Standards, I thought I could provide a brief outline that follows the headings in the articles and the essay’s “line of argument.”

[N.B. Reference to “God Bless America” and “apple pie” under point V and the "stake" in the conclusion are fictitious.]

OUTLINE (sort of)

I. (pages 2-9/104-111) Harvie Conn would have supported Enns. Wait . . . the entire faculty of Westminster wrote a whole book on Inerrancy in 1988 and only cited the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) eight times – only the first chapter and never I.9 (p. 6n29 [108]); Bultmann gets eight citations too.

II. Enns might be okay as far as WCF is concerned, but if we consider the catechisms and the Westminster/OPC/PCA statements of subscription, then we’ve got him (p. 10 [112]).

II.B Given criticisms of primacy afforded to Westminster Standards (including by Conn n.45), the real question is what do the Standards say (p. 11 [113])

III. A string of enough quotes from [the new divines? "magisterium"]

Postures and trajectories of the Westminster Seminary debate

As much as I tried, I could not get away from reading and thinking about the documents that Westminster Theological Seminary (WTS) posted on it’s website at the end of last week.

• Westminster Discussion Documents: downloadable PDF here (146 pages); see my previous overview and reflections by Joel Garver and Ben Myers. Conn-versation promises a healthy interaction as well.
  
• Brandon Withrow provides a one-stop-shop for almost all the links, reviews and documents related to the controversy around Inspiration & Incarnation - here.
  

Here is my attempt to organize some of the fundamental raisons d’être and orientations that lie behind those disagreements.

As I see it, the disagreements at Westminster Seminary reflect a fundamental difference in way of being – an overall life orientation. At the core, one side fundamentally focuses on, “How did God speak through the Bible in its original contexts?” The other’s first question is, “Does what you say agree with the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) as interpreted by a select group of reformed interpreters?” These two foundational differences play out in their stances to Scripture, tradition, and discussion.

General Orientation and Focus (time, attention, energy, etc.):

1. the Scripture in its original languages and cultural environment
2. the Westminster Confession of Faith and historical interpretations of it

- Both sides say they are committed to and respect both Scripture and the confession, but . . . the priorities and emphases (time, attention, energy, etc.) put them in radically different environements.

Orientation towards doctrines of the Bible

1. Our ways of thinking about the Bible should arise out of the phenomena of how God revealed himself in the Scriptures.
2. Our doctrines of the Bible should keep very closely to the wording of the Westminster Confession of Faith and select traditional interpretations of this.

Orientation towards Bible study:

1. Study of the Bible deepens,

Addressing ethnocentricity; practical steps

This is part of a presentation we did as a PhD cohort here:

Two key questions.

1. What practical changes can we make in our churches and organizations?
2. What practical changes can we make personally or as families?

Three Steps: Awareness, Action (personal and organizational), and Accountability (Assessment)

Awareness [Education]:

• Watch for ethnic injustice everywhere and educate yourself about it.
• Assume that you are part of the problem
• Learn everything you can about history and culture from a perspective other than your own.
• Learn the dynamics of social identity
• How systems preserve power and privilege
• How systems exclude or marginalize others
• Beware of “us-them” thinking and speech
• Put yourselves in the position of the other group
• Churches should teach about ethnicity and justice

Action (personal)

• Make ethnic peace, justice and reconciliation a priority
• Be intentional and proactive (reach out)
• Actively give up comfort, power & privilege
• Be incarnational/relational
• Seek out people from other groups and develop deep relationships with them
• Speak out on their behalf among your own
• LOVE

Action (organizational)

• Team up with others
• Focus on systems (Good individuals will fail in bad systems)
• Strategically organize
• Study and analyze institutions
• Make short range, mid-range & long-range goals
• Work towards making systems more equitable
• Celebrate and encourage diversity

Assessment & Accountability

• Be intentional about forming relationships with those who are not like you
  • Keeps us honest & helps us avoid blind-spots
  • Helps us effect real change rather than things that simply make us feel better about ourselves

• Focus first on listening and learning
• Requires self-sacrifice, humility, flexibility and sustained effort
• Create a safe environment where criticism and suggestions are warmly welcomed and appreciated
• Make your goals for change measurable and verifiable.

It’s all out in the raw; Westminster documents (quotes and observations)

Most of you probably know by now that Westminster has released documents related to the Peter Enns’s book Inspiration & Incarnation (I&I, only $12). The official parsing of the book is now 3/4 as long as the book itself. Add to that all the articles, blogs and comments that have been written about it . . . all 146 pages of the Westminster documents are available in PDF here (Thanks: Conn-versation; Between Two Worlds; Art Boulet, where comments are growing.) Evangelical Textual Criticism weighs in too, and Joel Garver and Ben Myers have the most pointed reflections I’ve seen yet.

• Statement from the Chairman of the Board
• Preface to the Historical and Theological Field Committee (HTFC)
• Historical and Theological Field Committee Report (HTFC)
• Preface to the Hermeneutics Field Committee’s (HFC) Reply
• Hermeneutics Field Committee’s Reply to the HTFC (HFC)
• Edgar-Kelly Motion
• Minority Report
• “‘The Infallible Rule of Interpretation of Scripture’: The Hermeneutical Crisis and the Westminster Standards” (Lillback article 26 Feb 2008 ; the last 43 pages of the PDF document.)

Although these documents are fascinating reading for Westminster alumni like myself, I recognize that most of this is insider stuff (comparing I&I to the Westminster Standards and parsing various reformed theologians) and may not be of interest to the general public.

Still, I can’t resist making a couple of comments. These documents give you a front-row seat on some important debates. It will come as no surprise that I am biased. ;-). I loved Groves, Green, Enns, and Kelly. I’m a biblical studies guy, and I believe in respecting Scripture enough to let it speak for itself in its original context (see page 29 in Westminster PDF document).

This is a classic study in some of the tensions between systematic (esp. confessional) theology and biblical theology.

[Note: All page # references in this post refer to the pages of the entire PDF document, not individual sections]

The five main concerns from Westminster’s historians and systematic theologians about Incarnation and Inspiration (I&I) in their order of importance (p. 4):

1) a doctrine of Scripture that diverges from the classic Reformation doctrine, in particular

What I missed last week while I was gone - lots (Links & Quotes)

Due to the overwhelming number of great posts and my off-line methodology, I lost track of all the referrals. So here’s preliminary a hat tip to all of you in my Google Reader.

New Resources:

Bible Maps and geography - Tyndale Tech. Lots of great links including Bible Mapper is a fully interactive, highly accurate Bible mapping system that helps you quickly and easily create customized maps of the Holy Lands or study a particular period and aspect of Bible history. FREE! Click here to download.

Everything you could ever want from the Septuagint-interlinear-Greek-bible (free downloads). Like Jim said, there’s a lot there.

UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology: Open Version, - peer reviewed. (See Alan Lenzi’s description). The Alan Lenzi who is “a graduate of WTS (MAR 1997) . . . no longer a Christian” and Satan’s press agent. (Hey, he got my attention.)

Blogdom:

**John Hobbins lists a “few”(? 36!!) good blogs that have caught his eye all over again, or for the first time. It’s a great list that includes one with “thoughts on the Bible, family, Africa, Kenya, social justice” (Feeling like I’m already on the bubble every month, and it’s only month four.)

Post of the week: “Better Be “Poor” in Malawi”. I find this true of Africa in more ways than one, even if Victor’s examples are hard-core rural. (Victor Kaonga)

But there can be a much darker side to rural life in Africa (Paradoxes-on-Friday)

Doing Short-Terms Missions without Doing Long-Term Harm Most STM trips violate basic principles of effective poverty-alleviation and have the potential to do considerable harm both to low-income people and to ourselves. (Thanks: Kruse Kronicle )

Rather than going as “doers,” some powerful dynamics can be unleashed if STM teams go as “learners” from the poor or as “co-learners” with the poor. Consistent with an asset-based model, going as a learner emphasizes the gifts which poor people have to share with others: the spiritual, intellectual, physical, and social resources that God has already placed in their community.

Dave Richard’s begins critiquing micro-finance. (April 20)

Ben Witherington3 – NT rhetoric handbook Ch. 2 – The History and Practice of Ancient Rhetoric.

MANY MORE LINKS BELOW

Revelation, the beast, 666, and Emperor Domitian

Over at One Coin at a Time, Brett Telford writes:

The cruelty and executions during his reign of terror were so odius that he [Domitian] earned the nickname “the Beast” amongst Romans, Greeks, Christians and Jews, according to Ethelbert Stauffer in Coniectanea Neotestamentica XI in honorem Antonii Fridrichsen sexagenarii. Ethelbert Stauffer was a German Protestant theologian who held that gematria, the numerology of the Hebrew language and alphabet, could be used to explain the Biblical number 666. Stauffer computed this “Number of the Beast” using the short form of Domitian’s names and titles: Imperator Caesar Domitianus Augustus Germanicus… which in Greek is: Autokrator Kaisar Dometianos Sebastos Germanikos. The latter abbreviates to A KAI ΔOMET ΣEB ΓE and the gematrical formula reads:

A. K A I. Δ O M E T. Σ E B. Γ E. 1+ 20+1+10+4+70+40+5+300+200+5+2+ 3+5 = 666

Telford notes that gematria formulas have also been used to link 666 to Nero.

[Thanks: Ferrel Jenkins. Jenkins's own publication "Did Domitian Persecute Christian? "is available free in PDF at BibleWorld.]