By Roy Ciampa, PhD
Associate Professor of New Testament
I have been thinking a lot about Abraham lately. In fact, I just finished up an essay on “Abraham and Empire in Galatians” for a forthcoming book (which won’t be out for more than a year). I found myself noticing how often Abraham is mentioned in relationship with powerful kings and cities (Babel, Haran, Ur, Pharaoh, Abimelech, Melchizedek, Chedorlaomer and his allies, etc.) and how he is described in ways that make him look like both an “imperial” figure and an “anti-imperial” figure. By “imperial” I mean those texts that speak of God’s promises to give him a great name and international influence. By “anti-imperial” I mean those texts that suggest a lack of interest in gaining and/or using power to his personal advantage and at the expense of others. Generally speaking he is as far from an oppressive figure as can be found.
Those constructing the tower of Babel were hoping to build one culturally homogenous city-state by which they could “make a name for ourselves” (Gen. 11:4). Abraham shows no sign of any such ambition but God promises him “I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great” (Gen. 12:2). When there is conflict with Lot and his men, Abraham takes an open-handed approach and allows Lot to choose the land he prefers (Gen.13:8-12). Abraham rescues Lot and defeats Chedorlaomer and his allied kings in battle but shows no interest in keeping the spoils of war or establishing rule or dominion over the lands of the defeated kings (Gen. 14).
He is also tied to the promises of land and posterity which come to be associated with the hope of redemption and liberation from oppressive powers. A look at the references to Abraham in the psalms and prophets will show how often he is mentioned in conjunction with expressions of hope for redemption (often hope for redemption from oppressive foreign nations): Psa. 47:9; 105:6-9, 42; Isa. 29:22; 41:8; 51:2; 63:16; Jer. 33:26; Ezek. 33:24; Micah 7:20.
It is remarkable to note how often Abraham is associated with rescue and liberation from oppressive powers in the New Testament as well. In the opening of the Gospel of Matthew Abraham is mentioned as one of the four key turning points in the history of Israel, along with David, the Babylonian exile and the Messiah (suggesting the fulfillment of the promises to Abraham and David and the coming of the Messiah will bring Israel’s experience of exile to an end). In the opening chapter of the Gospel of Luke references to Abraham are very explicitly tied to hope for rescue from enemies and from oppressive circumstances (read Luke 1:55 and 1:73 in their near contexts). In Luke 13:11-17 Jesus brings deliverance to “a woman with a spirit that had crippled her for eighteen years” (v. 11). He describes the woman as “a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years” and what he had done as setting her “free from this bondage” (v. 16).
I encourage you to take some time to read passages that mention Abraham and consider whether or not it might be related to the theme of liberation/freedom from oppression of one kind or another and, if so, how that should inform the behavior and thinking of anyone who recognizes it.
Unfortunately, as David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons demonstrate in their book, Unchristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks About Christianity-- and Why It Matters (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker, 2007), Christians are perceived by others as (among other things) people who are all too eager to impose their views and convictions on the rest of the world. In my view that reputation has been earned. We have spent much of the last thirty years watching our influence on the surrounding culture wane as we have sought to win our battles in the legal and political realms. As we have applied our pressure on the power structures of our society we have lost the hearts and minds of those who actually decide what takes place within those structures – our neighbors, co-workers and other (voting) fellow citizens. This is not to argue that we should remove ourselves from political and legal arenas, but to suggest we need to focus much more attention on winning hearts and minds at the grass-roots level and that might start by adopting a more Abrahamic approach, one in which our commitment to bring the freedom and liberation from oppression with which the promises to Abraham are associated in Scripture comes to be recognized as a key to what it means to seek to bring blessing to “all the families of the earth” (Gen. 12:3). Jesus Christ (“the son of Abraham”; Matt. 1:1) demonstrated just that kind of commitment to the power of self-sacrificing love spent for good of others. It was a self-sacrificing love that was a threat to the powers of the day, but was usually perceived as a generous, non-threatening love by the grass roots, and through it the early church (and the church through most of its history) proved to be more effective at winning those hearts and minds which American Christians have been losing as of late.
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Meditations from Florence
By Maria Boccia, PhD
Professor of Pastoral Counseling and Psychology and
Director of Graduate Programs in Counseling at the Charlotte campus
I am writing this in Florence Italy, where I am attending the annual meetings of the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health (ISSWSH).This represents several challenges: I am writing on a Mac, which is totally alien to me, with software called NèoOffice, which I've never heard of, and it is an Italian keyboard, so it has an unusual configuration in order to accommodate things like à, ù and ò (I keep typing à when I mean '). The greatest challenge, however, may be the internal struggle between attending ISSWSH and being in Florence. To be in such a magnificant city with its wealth of Italian Renaissance art and attend meetings from 8 AM until 6 or 7 PM is a considerable challenge to my self'-discipline. But I would like to share some impressions.
I heard a paper addressing the question of how likely doctors are to take a sexual history from their (female) patients as a function of how much training they had in sexual medicine. The unhappy result was that regardless of their training, only 4-8% would do so. When the presenting problem was sexual in nature, this increased to only 10%. There was a minor increase in the likelihood of asking if it was a gynecologist than general practice doctor. The explanation offered was that doctors don't ask about thngs they cannot treat. I was pretty outraged by both of these findings, as well as by the interpretation. It seems to me that particularly when a sexual problem is presented, the doctor ought to take a sexual history. Even more disturbing was the explanation: there are perfectly fine interventions for dealing with many sexual dysfunctions. These are generally psychotherapeutic interventions, however, and not 'cures' medical doctors administer. The arrogance of being unwilling to enquire about issues that would require a referral strikes me as wrong.
At the start of each paper session, the Italians present a little ditty on art object(s) related to sexuality. I found myself reflecting on the changes in art with the Renaissance. Prior to the Renaissance, art was used to teach about the Faith in the Church. There was not much attention to perspective or anatomical correctness. Renaissance art, however, shifted the focus to the beauty of the human body. Perspective became important, and artists studied anatomy in order to accurately reflect the human body when executing their works of art. The first of these was Donatello's David. There is also Michelangelo's David, the Pieta, etc. Each of these used a biblical character but the goal was to glorify the human body, and by interference, Man.
So where am I going with this? Not too far . . . I'm in Florence! Both of these 'errors' seem obvious to me because they violate some principle to which I hold. Primarily, those principles are about truth: we should always seek it, and we should not violate it ourselves. But what happens when it's not so obvious? What happens when it's my own pet blindspot? I would like to believe that I would pursue truth, speak truth, value truth. But I know I also am a fallen human being and that I don't always live up to my high ideals.
God deserves our worshp, our allegience, ourselves. How often have we done exactly what the Italian Renaissance artists did? Too often we have our own agenda and dress it up on God-talk or Church-talk. Too often as a result, God or the church is maligned as a result, and individuals are hurt or alienated and turn away from the only One who can save them. I pray, with Paul, that I can stay out of the way sufficiently so that the only stumbling block another person will encounter is the cross of Christ. And that means, among other things, being a person who values and pursues truth.
Professor of Pastoral Counseling and Psychology and
Director of Graduate Programs in Counseling at the Charlotte campus
I am writing this in Florence Italy, where I am attending the annual meetings of the International Society for the Study of Women's Sexual Health (ISSWSH).This represents several challenges: I am writing on a Mac, which is totally alien to me, with software called NèoOffice, which I've never heard of, and it is an Italian keyboard, so it has an unusual configuration in order to accommodate things like à, ù and ò (I keep typing à when I mean '). The greatest challenge, however, may be the internal struggle between attending ISSWSH and being in Florence. To be in such a magnificant city with its wealth of Italian Renaissance art and attend meetings from 8 AM until 6 or 7 PM is a considerable challenge to my self'-discipline. But I would like to share some impressions.
I heard a paper addressing the question of how likely doctors are to take a sexual history from their (female) patients as a function of how much training they had in sexual medicine. The unhappy result was that regardless of their training, only 4-8% would do so. When the presenting problem was sexual in nature, this increased to only 10%. There was a minor increase in the likelihood of asking if it was a gynecologist than general practice doctor. The explanation offered was that doctors don't ask about thngs they cannot treat. I was pretty outraged by both of these findings, as well as by the interpretation. It seems to me that particularly when a sexual problem is presented, the doctor ought to take a sexual history. Even more disturbing was the explanation: there are perfectly fine interventions for dealing with many sexual dysfunctions. These are generally psychotherapeutic interventions, however, and not 'cures' medical doctors administer. The arrogance of being unwilling to enquire about issues that would require a referral strikes me as wrong.
At the start of each paper session, the Italians present a little ditty on art object(s) related to sexuality. I found myself reflecting on the changes in art with the Renaissance. Prior to the Renaissance, art was used to teach about the Faith in the Church. There was not much attention to perspective or anatomical correctness. Renaissance art, however, shifted the focus to the beauty of the human body. Perspective became important, and artists studied anatomy in order to accurately reflect the human body when executing their works of art. The first of these was Donatello's David. There is also Michelangelo's David, the Pieta, etc. Each of these used a biblical character but the goal was to glorify the human body, and by interference, Man.
So where am I going with this? Not too far . . . I'm in Florence! Both of these 'errors' seem obvious to me because they violate some principle to which I hold. Primarily, those principles are about truth: we should always seek it, and we should not violate it ourselves. But what happens when it's not so obvious? What happens when it's my own pet blindspot? I would like to believe that I would pursue truth, speak truth, value truth. But I know I also am a fallen human being and that I don't always live up to my high ideals.
God deserves our worshp, our allegience, ourselves. How often have we done exactly what the Italian Renaissance artists did? Too often we have our own agenda and dress it up on God-talk or Church-talk. Too often as a result, God or the church is maligned as a result, and individuals are hurt or alienated and turn away from the only One who can save them. I pray, with Paul, that I can stay out of the way sufficiently so that the only stumbling block another person will encounter is the cross of Christ. And that means, among other things, being a person who values and pursues truth.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
“Missionary Elenctics”
By Dr. Jeff Arthurs, PhD
I read a great paper recently at an academic conference written by David Ridder. The title is “The Application of Missionary Elenctics to Preaching to Postmoderns.” “Elenctics” was new to me. It comes from the Greek, elencho, “to expose, bring to light, convict.” When missionaries study a culture, they note how the people’s own conscience convicts them. Missiologists often point to Romans 2:14-15 to describe elenctics:
“. . . even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them. . . . ”
Finding postmodernism’s definition of sin is tough, but maybe not as tough as we might suppose. Ridder demonstrates that American postmoderns do have a sense of right and wrong, and that sense is congruent with parts of biblical revelation. Based on “field research” (conversations with co-workers at a coffee shop) and analysis of pop culture media, Ridder identifies four elenctic themes. I’ll give you two, and you can guess the other two:
Power is attractive, but it has a dark side which ensnares us. Think of the current fad of superhero movies: Spiderman 3, Dark Knight, Ironman, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. These movies still have silly comic book qualities, but the genre sure has grown up. The good guys, fascinated with power, realize that a thin line separates them from the bad guys. Watch Oprah and notice how often the theme of power emerges. We want it, but we must use it responsibly, and often we don’t.
Something is wrong with this world, and maybe its me! In the book Wicked, Gregory Maquire, a prominent voice of postmodernism, has one of his characters give voice to the first part of this theme: “We don’t embrace violence but we don’t deny its existence—how can we deny it when its effects are all around us? That kind of denial is sin, if anything is.” A movie like Blood Diamond explores both parts of the theme. The evils associated with the diamond mining industry hit home with pomos because they feel genuine angst for partnering with such industries. In other words, when some pomos buy diamonds, they feel like are making the world a worse place, not better. The OT prophets would agree with that sense of guilt.
Let’s think like missionaries as we minister in our own country. Remember your elenctics.
I read a great paper recently at an academic conference written by David Ridder. The title is “The Application of Missionary Elenctics to Preaching to Postmoderns.” “Elenctics” was new to me. It comes from the Greek, elencho, “to expose, bring to light, convict.” When missionaries study a culture, they note how the people’s own conscience convicts them. Missiologists often point to Romans 2:14-15 to describe elenctics:
“. . . even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them. . . . ”
Finding postmodernism’s definition of sin is tough, but maybe not as tough as we might suppose. Ridder demonstrates that American postmoderns do have a sense of right and wrong, and that sense is congruent with parts of biblical revelation. Based on “field research” (conversations with co-workers at a coffee shop) and analysis of pop culture media, Ridder identifies four elenctic themes. I’ll give you two, and you can guess the other two:
Power is attractive, but it has a dark side which ensnares us. Think of the current fad of superhero movies: Spiderman 3, Dark Knight, Ironman, and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. These movies still have silly comic book qualities, but the genre sure has grown up. The good guys, fascinated with power, realize that a thin line separates them from the bad guys. Watch Oprah and notice how often the theme of power emerges. We want it, but we must use it responsibly, and often we don’t.
Something is wrong with this world, and maybe its me! In the book Wicked, Gregory Maquire, a prominent voice of postmodernism, has one of his characters give voice to the first part of this theme: “We don’t embrace violence but we don’t deny its existence—how can we deny it when its effects are all around us? That kind of denial is sin, if anything is.” A movie like Blood Diamond explores both parts of the theme. The evils associated with the diamond mining industry hit home with pomos because they feel genuine angst for partnering with such industries. In other words, when some pomos buy diamonds, they feel like are making the world a worse place, not better. The OT prophets would agree with that sense of guilt.
Let’s think like missionaries as we minister in our own country. Remember your elenctics.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
A New Course on the Holy Spirit
By Dr. John Jefferson Davis
“God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us”: Rom.5:5
I am excited about a new course that I will be offering for the first time this semester, “TH715: Seminar in Pneumatology: the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit.” Strange as it may seem, it appears that it has been decades since a course devoted exclusively to the person and work of the third person of the Holy Trinity has been offered at Gordon-Conwell. In recent years there has been a renaissance of theological interest in the Holy Spirit, due in significant part to the modern Pentecostal and charismatic revivals here and around the globe, and also to the re-emergence of the Orthodox churches on the world scene after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, bringing a fresh appreciation in the West of Orthodoxy’s theological understandings of the role of the Spirit in the church and in Christian spirituality. Contemporary theologians such as Moltmann and Pannenberg are now asking how the reality of the Holy Spirit can be more fully integrated across the full range of topics in systematic theology.
I have organized this new course historically, beginning with the Old and New Testament teachings on the Holy Spirit; moving then to the experience of the Holy Spirit in the early church; the Montanist movement; the development of Trinitarian theology and pneumatology in the fourth century by the Cappadocian fathers; developments in the Middle Ages, including the filioque controversy; the Reformation and modern periods; and in the latter part of the course, giving extensive attention to the modern Pentecostal revival, and issues of spiritual gifts, tongues, prophecy, “cessationist vs. non-cessationist” points of view, and criteria for the “discernment of spirits.” My hope is to provide to the students who are taking the course fresh insights from biblical, historical, and theological sources, with a view to practical applications for church ministry and personal spiritual growth.
If you would like to take a look at the syllabus and its extensive list of required and recommended readings, you can click on the provided link and download the full document. May we all find fresh energy, power, and joy through a deeper experience of the person and presence of the Holy Spirit!
“God’s love has been poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us”: Rom.5:5
I am excited about a new course that I will be offering for the first time this semester, “TH715: Seminar in Pneumatology: the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit.” Strange as it may seem, it appears that it has been decades since a course devoted exclusively to the person and work of the third person of the Holy Trinity has been offered at Gordon-Conwell. In recent years there has been a renaissance of theological interest in the Holy Spirit, due in significant part to the modern Pentecostal and charismatic revivals here and around the globe, and also to the re-emergence of the Orthodox churches on the world scene after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, bringing a fresh appreciation in the West of Orthodoxy’s theological understandings of the role of the Spirit in the church and in Christian spirituality. Contemporary theologians such as Moltmann and Pannenberg are now asking how the reality of the Holy Spirit can be more fully integrated across the full range of topics in systematic theology.
I have organized this new course historically, beginning with the Old and New Testament teachings on the Holy Spirit; moving then to the experience of the Holy Spirit in the early church; the Montanist movement; the development of Trinitarian theology and pneumatology in the fourth century by the Cappadocian fathers; developments in the Middle Ages, including the filioque controversy; the Reformation and modern periods; and in the latter part of the course, giving extensive attention to the modern Pentecostal revival, and issues of spiritual gifts, tongues, prophecy, “cessationist vs. non-cessationist” points of view, and criteria for the “discernment of spirits.” My hope is to provide to the students who are taking the course fresh insights from biblical, historical, and theological sources, with a view to practical applications for church ministry and personal spiritual growth.
If you would like to take a look at the syllabus and its extensive list of required and recommended readings, you can click on the provided link and download the full document. May we all find fresh energy, power, and joy through a deeper experience of the person and presence of the Holy Spirit!
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Blazing Pencils
By Sean McDonough, PhD
Associate Professor of New Testament
Fads can grow at any time in our lives, but junior high seems to provide them with particularly rich soil. In the very groovy Seventies of my youth, kids collected Wacky Packs (spoof stickers of popular products, like Crust Toothpaste), sprayed Binaca Blast into their mouths, obsessively compared pen cartridge sizes (Cross and Parker were the prestige brands), and attempted to rip the Levi's tags off one another's jeans. This last was predicated on a rumor that You and You Levi's at the Hanover Mall would give a free pair of jeans to anyone producing 25 Levi's tags. I don't know that I ever saw a new pair of pants garnered in this way, but I did see plenty of pockets with their tags flying at half-mast from an abortive strike.
As a father of two junior high students, I am happy to report that such fads appear to be alive and well. One of the latest is “blazing” pencils. This is at one level nothing more than a new label for the old skill of twirling pencils around on the back of one's thumb. But it has also given rise to the peculiar phenomenon of actual “blazing pencils”, with the accent now on the first syllable. These are specialized, unsharpened instruments with erasers on both ends, created by taking an ordinary pencil, leaving it unsharpened, and sticking an extra eraser on the business end. I presume this configuration gives them better balance, and thus better blaze, with the ancillary benefit of removing the possibility of poking should the blazing go awry.
Regular readers of this column, like regular auditors of parental lectures, will no doubt have the creeping feeling that there must be a lesson in here waiting to be dragged out. And indeed there is. As I thought about the fad of blazing pencils, it struck me what a vivid image these pencils are of a distorted but all too common view of God's grace. We sin, and God in his mercy forgives us. We sin again, and God in his mercy forgives us. We sin yet again, and God in his mercy forgives us. Rinse, lather, repeat, until the day you die. He keeps erasing our bad deeds, and he even has an extra eraser at the ready if we are particularly bad.
Now there is some truth to this, of course. We do sin repeatedly, and we do stand continually in need of his redeeming mercy. We are all of us still in the process of sloughing off our old man or our old woman, and so we need to regularly bathe in God's forgiveness. But in the New Testament, God's grace is far more than a mere eraser that wipes away our bad deeds. It is a transforming grace that inscribes his character within us. Among many verses, we might cite Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do, in order that we might walk in them.”
It's easy to see why we prefer the “soft” work of God in forgiving us to the hard work of God in changing us. (Soft for us, at least; it cost God his Son.) I suppose that if I were a piece of paper, I might rather like the feeling of someone rubbing a piece of vinyl or synthetic rubber compound mixed with pumice on me.1 It would be preferable, in any case, to having someone scratch into me with a combination of graphite and clay.2
In the same way, it would be nice to imagine that I can just keep all my old dirty habits intact and have God clean up after me. But pencils are primarily intended to produce something new, not simply to get rid of something old. And God's work in redemption is equally intended to produce something new: people transformed into his likeness who can carry on his work in the world. Getting rid of the old is just the first step in the process.
So you can blaze your pencils, blast your Binaca, and stick Wacky Packs on your locker to your heart's content (I can't recommend going after Levi's tags, since now it will only result in a sexual harassment suit, not a new pair of jeans; sic transit gloria Seventies). But don't give into the fad of blunted grace. Let God's love keep its sharp edge, so that he can continue to write his character into your life day by day.
________________________________________
1A shout out to pencils.com for the info on what erasers are really made of nowadays!
2Ibid!
Associate Professor of New Testament
Fads can grow at any time in our lives, but junior high seems to provide them with particularly rich soil. In the very groovy Seventies of my youth, kids collected Wacky Packs (spoof stickers of popular products, like Crust Toothpaste), sprayed Binaca Blast into their mouths, obsessively compared pen cartridge sizes (Cross and Parker were the prestige brands), and attempted to rip the Levi's tags off one another's jeans. This last was predicated on a rumor that You and You Levi's at the Hanover Mall would give a free pair of jeans to anyone producing 25 Levi's tags. I don't know that I ever saw a new pair of pants garnered in this way, but I did see plenty of pockets with their tags flying at half-mast from an abortive strike.
As a father of two junior high students, I am happy to report that such fads appear to be alive and well. One of the latest is “blazing” pencils. This is at one level nothing more than a new label for the old skill of twirling pencils around on the back of one's thumb. But it has also given rise to the peculiar phenomenon of actual “blazing pencils”, with the accent now on the first syllable. These are specialized, unsharpened instruments with erasers on both ends, created by taking an ordinary pencil, leaving it unsharpened, and sticking an extra eraser on the business end. I presume this configuration gives them better balance, and thus better blaze, with the ancillary benefit of removing the possibility of poking should the blazing go awry.
Regular readers of this column, like regular auditors of parental lectures, will no doubt have the creeping feeling that there must be a lesson in here waiting to be dragged out. And indeed there is. As I thought about the fad of blazing pencils, it struck me what a vivid image these pencils are of a distorted but all too common view of God's grace. We sin, and God in his mercy forgives us. We sin again, and God in his mercy forgives us. We sin yet again, and God in his mercy forgives us. Rinse, lather, repeat, until the day you die. He keeps erasing our bad deeds, and he even has an extra eraser at the ready if we are particularly bad.
Now there is some truth to this, of course. We do sin repeatedly, and we do stand continually in need of his redeeming mercy. We are all of us still in the process of sloughing off our old man or our old woman, and so we need to regularly bathe in God's forgiveness. But in the New Testament, God's grace is far more than a mere eraser that wipes away our bad deeds. It is a transforming grace that inscribes his character within us. Among many verses, we might cite Ephesians 2:10, “For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do, in order that we might walk in them.”
It's easy to see why we prefer the “soft” work of God in forgiving us to the hard work of God in changing us. (Soft for us, at least; it cost God his Son.) I suppose that if I were a piece of paper, I might rather like the feeling of someone rubbing a piece of vinyl or synthetic rubber compound mixed with pumice on me.1 It would be preferable, in any case, to having someone scratch into me with a combination of graphite and clay.2
In the same way, it would be nice to imagine that I can just keep all my old dirty habits intact and have God clean up after me. But pencils are primarily intended to produce something new, not simply to get rid of something old. And God's work in redemption is equally intended to produce something new: people transformed into his likeness who can carry on his work in the world. Getting rid of the old is just the first step in the process.
So you can blaze your pencils, blast your Binaca, and stick Wacky Packs on your locker to your heart's content (I can't recommend going after Levi's tags, since now it will only result in a sexual harassment suit, not a new pair of jeans; sic transit gloria Seventies). But don't give into the fad of blunted grace. Let God's love keep its sharp edge, so that he can continue to write his character into your life day by day.
________________________________________
1A shout out to pencils.com for the info on what erasers are really made of nowadays!
2Ibid!
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
Let Justice Roll Down
By Roy Ciampa, PhD
Associate Professor of New Testament
In case you haven't heard, the United States of America just inaugurated its first African-American president. In fact, Barack Hussein Obama II is our first minority president of any type (back in 1960 JFK was considered a diversity candidate since he was not a Protestant Christian). This is indeed a remarkable development in American history and culture, and the fact that it has come about says we have come a long way as a country.
I am actually writing this on the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. and, although I know everyone else is doing the same, I am happy to join in with others who take this moment to reflect on the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. and where we have come in the past forty years as a nation and on the work that remains to be done. In his famous “I have a dream” speech (based on both the Declaration of Independence and Isaiah 40), King spoke, among other things, of his dream that his four little children would “one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” He spoke of a faith that we would “be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”
He ended the speech in a crescendo: “And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!'”
It was almost three years later, on March 15, 1965, that Lyndon B. Johnson gave a speech to the full Congress about the need to provide African-Americans with the right to vote. Borrowing a line from those struggling for civil rights, Johnson argued, “Their cause must be our cause too. Because it's not just Negroes, but really it's all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.”
Three years after that, on April 3, 1968, the day before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King, Jr., gave the speech in which he said “I've Been to the Mountaintop.” In that speech he argued that “when people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.” In that same speech he drew attention to the important role that preachers were playing in the cause of justice:
And you know what's beautiful to me, is to see all of these ministers of the Gospel. It's a marvelous picture. Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the people more than the preacher? Somehow the preacher must be an Amos, and say [citing Amos 5:24], "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Somehow, the preacher must say with Jesus [paraphrasing Luke 4:18], "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because hhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhath anointed me to deal with the problems of the poor."
In a History Channel presentation on Martin Luther King, Jr. that I highly recommend, Bono asserts “inequality and injustice are more pervasive than they have ever been.” As if on cue, I received a reminder of some of the horrible injustice in this world in a Facebook invitation I just received to a “Human Trafficking Seminar” being put on by our near neighbor, Zion Bible College, on Saturday, January 24, 2009. The description points out that “Hundreds of millions of souls are victims to slave and sex trade called ‘human trafficking'. The FBI has estimated over 40,000 victims of human trafficking pass through JFK airport each year. This Seminar is designed to equip the local church to identify and intervene with the global problem of human trafficking in their local community.” (For some information on one of my local heroes, see this piece on Rev. Gloria White-Hammond and her fight against modern slavery.)
In fact, the poverty, hunger and injustice found in this country and arounhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifd the world stand as provocative taunts, impugning our commitment to justice and implying that our hunger and thirst for justice are barely felt and easily satisfied. They stand as an affront to every human being, and especially to every person who claims to be a follower of Jesus Christ, who called us to demonstrate our love for him in the way we treat the weak and powerless among us.
On the occasion of the inauguration of a new president it is good to remember that despite the great power in the hands of our nation's president, even greater power is unleashed when followers of Jesus Christ, led by courageous preachers prepared to suffer for speaking up and fighting against injustice, join together to work and fight on behalf of the weak and the powerless, in the name and the power of the crucified and risen Lord.
Associate Professor of New Testament
In case you haven't heard, the United States of America just inaugurated its first African-American president. In fact, Barack Hussein Obama II is our first minority president of any type (back in 1960 JFK was considered a diversity candidate since he was not a Protestant Christian). This is indeed a remarkable development in American history and culture, and the fact that it has come about says we have come a long way as a country.
I am actually writing this on the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. and, although I know everyone else is doing the same, I am happy to join in with others who take this moment to reflect on the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. and where we have come in the past forty years as a nation and on the work that remains to be done. In his famous “I have a dream” speech (based on both the Declaration of Independence and Isaiah 40), King spoke, among other things, of his dream that his four little children would “one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” He spoke of a faith that we would “be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.”
He ended the speech in a crescendo: “And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!'”
It was almost three years later, on March 15, 1965, that Lyndon B. Johnson gave a speech to the full Congress about the need to provide African-Americans with the right to vote. Borrowing a line from those struggling for civil rights, Johnson argued, “Their cause must be our cause too. Because it's not just Negroes, but really it's all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.”
Three years after that, on April 3, 1968, the day before he was assassinated, Martin Luther King, Jr., gave the speech in which he said “I've Been to the Mountaintop.” In that speech he argued that “when people get caught up with that which is right and they are willing to sacrifice for it, there is no stopping point short of victory.” In that same speech he drew attention to the important role that preachers were playing in the cause of justice:
And you know what's beautiful to me, is to see all of these ministers of the Gospel. It's a marvelous picture. Who is it that is supposed to articulate the longings and aspirations of the people more than the preacher? Somehow the preacher must be an Amos, and say [citing Amos 5:24], "Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream." Somehow, the preacher must say with Jesus [paraphrasing Luke 4:18], "The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because hhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gife http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifhath anointed me to deal with the problems of the poor."
In a History Channel presentation on Martin Luther King, Jr. that I highly recommend, Bono asserts “inequality and injustice are more pervasive than they have ever been.” As if on cue, I received a reminder of some of the horrible injustice in this world in a Facebook invitation I just received to a “Human Trafficking Seminar” being put on by our near neighbor, Zion Bible College, on Saturday, January 24, 2009. The description points out that “Hundreds of millions of souls are victims to slave and sex trade called ‘human trafficking'. The FBI has estimated over 40,000 victims of human trafficking pass through JFK airport each year. This Seminar is designed to equip the local church to identify and intervene with the global problem of human trafficking in their local community.” (For some information on one of my local heroes, see this piece on Rev. Gloria White-Hammond and her fight against modern slavery.)
In fact, the poverty, hunger and injustice found in this country and arounhttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifd the world stand as provocative taunts, impugning our commitment to justice and implying that our hunger and thirst for justice are barely felt and easily satisfied. They stand as an affront to every human being, and especially to every person who claims to be a follower of Jesus Christ, who called us to demonstrate our love for him in the way we treat the weak and powerless among us.
On the occasion of the inauguration of a new president it is good to remember that despite the great power in the hands of our nation's president, even greater power is unleashed when followers of Jesus Christ, led by courageous preachers prepared to suffer for speaking up and fighting against injustice, join together to work and fight on behalf of the weak and the powerless, in the name and the power of the crucified and risen Lord.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Human Worth
By Maria Boccia, PhD
Professor of Pastoral Counseling and Psychology and
Director of Graduate Programs in Counseling at the Charlotte campus
Recently, there was a very short (one 2-inch wide column) article in the newspaper reporting that the animal rights group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) had asked Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Company to stop using cows' milk to make ice cream. They suggested using human milk instead, as this would be more humane for the cows. The Great Ape Project is an organization whose goal is to achieve formal recognition of human rights for the great apes (gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans). They have made significant progress toward this goal in some European countries. Another animal rights group has been responsible for bombing laboratories and homes of scientists to protest the use of animals in research and to try (sometimes successfully) to scare the researchers out of their careers (I once heard the definition of a terrorist as someone who is willing to sacrifice your life for their cause). Many people who find themselves sympathetic to the cause (if not the methods) of animal rights advocates also support women's right to choose. How did we get to a place where the same person can so value animal life and simultaneously so devalue human life?
I think that one factor that has contributed to this is the rise of belief in evolution as the cause of life, and of human life in particular. If one believes that chance + time created all life, and that human beings are merely the product of random mutations, evolving from a common ape ancestor, and are very similar genetically, behaviorally, socially, emotionally and cognitively to our nearest relatives, the chimpanzees, then human beings are not unique. In fact, if this is the case, then it is very difficult to conclude that human life has any ultimate significance. What makes us different from chimpanzees is less than 2% of our genes. The natural result of this seems to be that we either elevate animals to the level of human value (as in PETA) or devalue human life as nothing more than a bit of primate tissue (as in abortion).
If, on the other hand, we believe that human beings are uniquely created in the image of God by God and have been given dominion over the earth under God's sovereignty, then a very different picture emerges. No animal's life will ever be as valuable as a human life. Human beings are created in the image of God, and no other creature in all of creation is made in his image. On the other hand, all of creation reflects the glory and majesty of God, all of creation shows forth his invisible attributes. Therefore, every creature, every animal has value as being made by God and reflecting something of his character.
In Genesis we read that God gave dominion to the human beings he created. We have been given the animals of this world to both use to our benefit and care for as God's vice regents. Therefore, we may eat animals, use them for research, etc. They will never have the moral standing of a human being; the phrase “animal rights” is a non-sequitur. On the other hand, we are responsible for the care and cultivation of creation. God has given us charge of it, and one day we will stand before the great white throne and account for our stewardship. So, whatever we do with animals, we bear a responsibility from and to God to care for them humanely, minimize suffering and ensure that their lives are valued.
From the vantage point of Creation, we are made uniquely in the image of God, stewards of his creation. No animal will ever have the same moral value or status that we have. From the vantage point of Evolution, there is nothing special about human beings. We are just one variation on the primate theme, evolved through chance + time through blind random processes. From this perspective, both animal rights and women's right to choose make perfect sense. Human worth is very much connected to our understanding of human origins. It really does matter in very practical, urgent ways what we believe about this.
Professor of Pastoral Counseling and Psychology and
Director of Graduate Programs in Counseling at the Charlotte campus
Recently, there was a very short (one 2-inch wide column) article in the newspaper reporting that the animal rights group PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) had asked Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream Company to stop using cows' milk to make ice cream. They suggested using human milk instead, as this would be more humane for the cows. The Great Ape Project is an organization whose goal is to achieve formal recognition of human rights for the great apes (gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans). They have made significant progress toward this goal in some European countries. Another animal rights group has been responsible for bombing laboratories and homes of scientists to protest the use of animals in research and to try (sometimes successfully) to scare the researchers out of their careers (I once heard the definition of a terrorist as someone who is willing to sacrifice your life for their cause). Many people who find themselves sympathetic to the cause (if not the methods) of animal rights advocates also support women's right to choose. How did we get to a place where the same person can so value animal life and simultaneously so devalue human life?
I think that one factor that has contributed to this is the rise of belief in evolution as the cause of life, and of human life in particular. If one believes that chance + time created all life, and that human beings are merely the product of random mutations, evolving from a common ape ancestor, and are very similar genetically, behaviorally, socially, emotionally and cognitively to our nearest relatives, the chimpanzees, then human beings are not unique. In fact, if this is the case, then it is very difficult to conclude that human life has any ultimate significance. What makes us different from chimpanzees is less than 2% of our genes. The natural result of this seems to be that we either elevate animals to the level of human value (as in PETA) or devalue human life as nothing more than a bit of primate tissue (as in abortion).
If, on the other hand, we believe that human beings are uniquely created in the image of God by God and have been given dominion over the earth under God's sovereignty, then a very different picture emerges. No animal's life will ever be as valuable as a human life. Human beings are created in the image of God, and no other creature in all of creation is made in his image. On the other hand, all of creation reflects the glory and majesty of God, all of creation shows forth his invisible attributes. Therefore, every creature, every animal has value as being made by God and reflecting something of his character.
In Genesis we read that God gave dominion to the human beings he created. We have been given the animals of this world to both use to our benefit and care for as God's vice regents. Therefore, we may eat animals, use them for research, etc. They will never have the moral standing of a human being; the phrase “animal rights” is a non-sequitur. On the other hand, we are responsible for the care and cultivation of creation. God has given us charge of it, and one day we will stand before the great white throne and account for our stewardship. So, whatever we do with animals, we bear a responsibility from and to God to care for them humanely, minimize suffering and ensure that their lives are valued.
From the vantage point of Creation, we are made uniquely in the image of God, stewards of his creation. No animal will ever have the same moral value or status that we have. From the vantage point of Evolution, there is nothing special about human beings. We are just one variation on the primate theme, evolved through chance + time through blind random processes. From this perspective, both animal rights and women's right to choose make perfect sense. Human worth is very much connected to our understanding of human origins. It really does matter in very practical, urgent ways what we believe about this.
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