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Review: This is My Body

According to the author, Bishop Robert Barron, this book is intended to help bring Catholics back to the fold in regards to the Catholic teaching that despite all appearances to the contrary, the cracker and wine of Mass become the body and blood of Jesus.

How does he do this? Does he deal with the simple fact that one reason a lot of people don’t believe this literal-bronze-age nonsense is because we’ve learned a bit about the nature of reality in the past two thousand years, and we understand that the classic explanation of substance and accident (a la Aristotle) is really just an ancient attempt at explaining the world which has now evolved into current scientific understanding? No. Does he deal with the Church’s own admission that nothing physically changes? Even more no. So how does he deal with it? The only way he can — the best way Catholics deal with anything in their faith that inherently makes no sense. He piles on the metaphors.

But why then the prohibition [in the Garden of Eden]? Why is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil forbidden to them? The fundamental determination of good and evil remains, necessarily, the prerogative of God alone, since God is, himself, the ultimate good. To seize this knowledge, therefore, is to claim divinity for oneself-and this is the one thing that a creature can never do and thus should never try. To do so is to place oneself in a metaphysical contradiction, interrupting thereby the loop of grace and ruining the sacrum convivium (sacred banquet). Indeed, if we turn ourselves into God, then the link that ought to connect us, through God, to the rest of creation is lost, and we find ourselves alone. This is, in the biblical reading, precisely what happens. Beguiled by the serpent’s suggestion that God is secretly jealous of his human creatures, Eve and Adam ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. They seized at godliness that they might not be dominated by God, and they found themselves, as a consequence, expelled from the place of joy. Moreover, as the conversation between God and his sinful creatures makes plain, this “original.”

What is this saying? Does this amount to anything other than just a rehashing of the story with some new metaphors thrown it? I don’t see anything more than that.

This complex symbolic narrative is meant to explain the nature of sin as it plays itself out across the ages and even now. God wants us to eat and drink in communion with him and our fellow creatures, but our own fear and pride break up the party. God wants us gathered around him in gratitude and love, but our resistance results in scattering, isolation, violence, and recrimination. God wants the sacred meal; we want to eat alone and on our terms.

Again, this is just metaphor. It doesn’t mean anything because it refers only to some story in a book that is itself of dubious historical accuracy (read: nonsense). Even Barron would suggest that the story of the Garden of Eden is really more metaphor than anything else, so this is all metaphor about another metaphor.

[T]he salvation wrought through Israel and Jesus and made present in the Mass has to do with the healing of the world. We see this dimension especially in the gifts of bread and wine presented at the offertory. To speak of bread is to speak, implicitly, of soil, seed, grain, and sunshine that crossed ninety million miles of space; to speak of wine is to speak, indirectly, of vine, earth, nutrients, storm clouds, and rainwater. To mention earth and sun is to allude to the solar system of which they are a part, and to invoke the solar system is to assume the galaxy of which it is a portion, and to refer to the galaxy is to hint at the unfathomable realities that condition the structure of the measurable universe. Therefore, when these gifts are brought forward, it is as though the whole of creation is placed on the altar before the Lord. In the older Tridentine liturgy, the priest would make this presentation facing the east, the direction of the rising sun, signaling that the Church’s prayer was on behalf not simply of the people gathered in that place but of the cosmos itself.

We can’t be surprised at the degree to which Barron relies on metaphor to describe the rituals of the Catholic Mass since he can’t even describe his god in straight terms:

God is, in his ownmost reality, not a monolith but a communion of persons. From all eternity, the Father speaks himself, and this Word that he utters is the Son. A perfect image of his Father, the Son shares fully the actuality of the Father: unity, omniscience, omnipresence, spiritual power. This means that, as the Father gazes at the Son, the Son gazes back at the Father. Since each is utterly beautiful, the Father falls in love with the Son and the Son with the Father-and they sigh forth their mutual love. This holy breath (Spiritus Sanctus) is the Holy Spirit. These three “persons” are distinct, yet they do not constitute three Gods.

The father “speaks himself”? What could that possibly mean? He insists that “as the Father gazes at the Son, the Son gazes back at the Father.” How can spiritual beings gaze at each other? It makes no sense. And then they “sigh forth their mutual love.” What, do the Father and the Son breath? What are they sighing? They don’t even have bodies — how can this make any sense? That “holy breath” is the third part of this weird god? And yet it’s one god? In an attempt to use metaphor to explain the inherently self-contradictory notion that three is one and one is three, Barron just ends up uttering inane deepities.

Coping

An article by Karl Vaters entitled “13 Reasons Not to Worry About the Future of the Church” offers insight into how Christians are dealing with the nosedive in attendance and affiliation they are experiencing in America. Vaters acknowledges this immediately:

The church is in trouble.

It must be. My blog feed keeps telling me it is.

For several years now, barely a day goes by without someone writing about the imminent demise of the body of Christ.

Everyone seems to have a different reason why they think the church is dying:

  • The “nones” are growing faster than the church
  • The “dones” are leaving faster than we’re replacing them
  • People aren’t singing together any more
  • Offerings are way down
  • Regulars attend less often than they used to

The post-pandemic turndown seems to be permanent in many places
But despite all the gloom and doom, I have not lost one moment of sleep over the demise of the church.

That Vaters feels no stress reveals the basic disconnect between believers and non-believers on this matter, and that gap is, I’m afraid, permanent and unbridgeable.

It’s evident from the first of thirteen points he makes:

Point 1: The Church Belongs to Jesus, Not Us.

The explanation for this point is one sentence: “And Jesus knows what he’s doing.” God is in control, believers insist, and so even if it looks bleak, his steadfastness is cause for calm. But this, of course, assumes that Jesus/God exists and operates the way Christians believe he does. They are not open to the possibility that the reason people are leaving religion is because they’ve realized the truth: gods don’t exist. Instead, these people are somehow deceived or never were Christians to begin with. This seems a little obvious, perhaps even axiomatic, but the shortsightedness inherent in such a position (“We could be wrong!”) means they will be in constant denial about the reality of the problem, and as it worsens, some of Vaters’s more moderate positions might radicalize.

Point 2: The Picture Is Not As Bleak as We Think

His second point is an attempt to make things global:

While the European and North American church is dealing with significant issues, the church in many parts of the world is experiencing strong, steady growth. As reported at Lifeway.com, “There are fewer atheists around the world today (147 million) than in 1970 (165 million), and the Gordon-Conwell report expects the number to continue to decline into 2050.” Plus, “Not only is religion growing overall, but Christianity specifically is growing,” especially in the global south.

We could summarize this point as follows: Sure, in the West, where scientific literacy is steadily rising, religion is on the decline. But in the developing world, where scientific literacy lags, it’s growing.

If the growth of your religion is most pronounced where scientific literacy is most lacking, it doesn’t say much about the foundations of your religion.

Point 3: The Church Always Thrives Under Persecution

Christians have a persecution complex: they see it as inevitable because it’s throughout the New Testament. True Christians suffer for their faith. This is so engrained in the Christian psyche that I’m not surprised it appears this early and only surprised that it wasn’t the second point.

If persecution is coming to the American church (which is where almost all of this hand-wringing is coming from) it may reduce church attendance numbers and perceived cultural influence, but it won’t kill the church.

Prosperity is far more dangerous to the church than persecution has ever been. As the Puritan writer Cotton Mather put it in the early 1700s, “Religion brought forth prosperity, and the daughter destroyed the mother.”

This point seems more like pop psychology than measured reasoning. It also ignores the reality driving this decline. People aren’t leaving the church because they have cushy lives — not exclusively, anyway. They’re realizing they don’t need this in their lives anymore, and they have tools at their disposal (read: the internet) that puts dissenting views and reasoning well within their grasp. They can begin by feeling church is just not for them anymore and fill that in later (as they so choose) with good critical analysis of Christian theology that makes them add, “Well, not only do I not need it but it also just doesn’t really make a lot of sense when I think about it.”

Point 4: Loss of Privilege Is Not the Same As Persecution

This point is actually refreshing.

The removal of the Ten Commandments monument from a courthouse is not persecution.

I’m not saying it’s good, but it’s not persecution.

There are Christians in places like Syria and Iran who know what real persecution feels like. When we claim persecution for what is a loss of privilege, we minimize the real persecution our brothers and sisters face all over the world today.

It does feel a little like Vaters can’t make up his mind, though: are Christians facing persecution or not? As church attendance continues to dwindle, he might shift his opinion on this a bit.

Point 5: The Church Is at Its Best When We Are Counter-Cultural

I get the feeling that this is an attempt to be a little edgy, but it is in fact quite ridiculous:

The church doesn’t hold the reins of power well. We’re better in a burr-in-the-saddle role than being the conquering hero on the stallion. Let’s leave that role to Jesus himself.

Christianity has dominated the Western world for most of the last 1,700 years. It’s had a near-total monopoly on the culture. Its myths fill our collective consciousness. For hundreds of years it had the power to compel compliance through various means (including torture). To suggest that at any time in modern history it’s only been a “burr-in-the-saddle” of society is absolutely ridiculous.

This is why Christians are panicking. They are losing that monopoly. They are losing their political and cultural power. And they are going crazy about it.

Point 6: The Church Is Bigger than Our Buildings and Our Denominations

Churches are being turned into residential units, bars, and even skateparks. What are we to make of that?

We are likely to lose many church buildings in the coming decades. This will be especially challenging for churches with full-time pastors and a mortgage. I also foresee massive stress points coming for most, if not all, denominations.

I sympathize with those who love their church’s historic building and their denomination, only to lose one or both. But I’m grateful that buildings and denominations are not needed for the church to survive and thrive.

In fact, we may need to lean on our buildings and denominations less in order to lean on Jesus more.

This point is just to serve as a balm to those handwringing traditionalists who are upset about the material decline in the church, nothing else.

Point 7: The Church Is People Who Love Jesus, God’s Word, and Each Other

If churches aren’t buildings, what are they?

This is one of the main reasons the church thrives under persecution. It forces us to turn to what really matters and can never be taken away – loving Jesus, following the Bible, and caring for each other.

Churches (particularly Protestant churches, especially those that align with the Evangelical movement) maintain their hold on people through the social cohesion they provide. Non-theistic churches are forming that attempt to fill this void, so this point is a non-starter from the beginning.

Point 8: The Church Has Faced Bigger Problems Than This (Whatever Your “This” May Be)

Besides, Vaters says, it’s not all that bad:

Whatever your real or perceived church crisis may be, it is not “the greatest calamity the church has ever faced.”

We tend to magnify the severity of small pains that are close to us, while diminishing the reality of much larger pains that are further removed from us.

The church has faced far bigger problems than what most of us are currently experiencing, but those problems are so far away from us that they feel insignificant. The church survived them all.

But it is that bad. Christians fail, intentionally or unconsciously, to realize exactly what the problem is.

The internet is killing the church. It is exposing young people to more and more arguments against theism in general and Christianity in particular. These ideas weren’t widely diseminated in times past. A thousand years ago, uttering such criticism would risk death. Now, it’s everywhere. And content creators are getting better and better at presenting the dark and illlogical sides of Christanity, and Christianity just keeps throwing the same apologetics mud at them. And here, the internet applies something new: reactions to those apologetics. Discections of those apologetics. Critical analysis of those apologetics. So not only does the internet provide the initial explanation of why Christianity makes no sense, it provides answers to Christians’ attempts to explain away those faultlines and fractures, and it shows apologetics to be hollow, shallow, and repetative.

Point 9: My Corner of the Church Is Not the Church

I’m not sure why Vaters put this one in here:

My segment of the body of Christ may be tied to a particular worship style, theological stance, historical background, denominational identity, or any of a wide variety of other distinctives. But the way I worship is not the church. It’s just my little corner of it. If the way I like to worship becomes less popular, that has nothing to do with the strength of the church as a whole.

In fact – brace yourselves – even if the church in America collapses, as tragic as that would be, it would not mean the end of the church.

Jesus has sheep that are not of this fold.

It’s really a tweak of point 6.

Point 10: Maybe the Parts that Can’t Survive Shouldn’t

This point seems like it’s going in a direction of critical self-examination.

I know that sounds harsh, and it may even be triggering for many small-church pastors who have heard something similar because of their lack of numerical gowth. But the small church is not the issue.

This is not a point about size, but of type.

Anything Jesus does will not just survive, but thrive. Eternally. So I have to wonder, if my favorite form of church is dying, maybe it’s because Jesus isn’t building it?

Everything but the church itself (as defined in point #7, above) has an expiration date. No denomination, worship style, or tradition is forever. Sometimes a congregation, tradition, or denomination dies because it has finished serving its purpose.

This point is not meant to trivialize the very real pain of a local church going through serious hardships. I stand with you. Like John said to the suffering saints in Philadelphia (Rev 3:7-13), “I know that you have little strength, yet you have kept my word and have not denied my name.” You have my heart, my prayers, and any help I can offer.

Instead, though, Vaters is simply using an old apologetics technique applied to those those who leave the faith to explain why some churches are failing: they weren’t really Christian.

Point 11: The Church Is the Most Relentlessly Growing Organism In History

This, too, is a short point — two sentences.

For almost 2,000 years of great triumphs and horrifying persecution, the church keeps going.

When Jesus builds something it tends to stand. And stand strong.

The fact that it’s been dominate in the political and cultural machinary of Europe and America for centuries has nothing to do with its longevity. It’s all Jesus’s work.

Remember when we used to worshop Zeus? Neither do I. Worshiping Jesus will eventually seem as antiquated.

Point 12: Worry Doesn’t Work

Another one-sentence explanation: “In fact, worry makes it worse.” This smacks of desparation, but I could be reading more into it than is really there.

Point 13: Jesus Told Us Not to Worry About Anything

The bottom line:

You can toss the previous 12 points. This is all I need to know.

To wildly (but hopefully not inappropriately) paraphrase Jesus’ words in the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew 5:25-33:

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your church building, where you will worship or fellowship; or about your denomination, what decisions it will make. Is not the church more important than buildings, and the faith more important than denominational creeds? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his church’s life or a dollar to its offering basket? But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Whatever is of worry is not of faith.

And we need all the faith we can get.

Vaters is doing his best to cope with the coming reality, but he’s still in denial, so he will never accept it when it comes.

karlvaters.com/future-of-the-church/

Rebranding

There’s a local mega-church that rebranded a few years ago to “Relentless Church.” I thought that was an odd name. I always assumed it was suggesting that the Christian god is relentless in trying to reach the so-called unchurched, but there was something needlessly aggressive about that name. To be relentless seems antithetical to one of Christianity’s claimed attributes (claimed only, I would argue): that it’s built on mercy. To relent is, to some degree, to show mercy. Still, I thought they could have chosen a sillier name.

The pastor, a large man named John Gray, caused some controversy a few years ago when he bought his wife a $200,000 Lamborghini SUV. It made the Today Show:

His defense was that he used money from the couple’s reality show and his book sales to purchase the vehicle. It still seems pretty tone deaf to be a supposed servant of God and spend that kind of money on a vehicle.

But apparently tone deafness is one of Gray’s predominant qualities, for he’s decided to rebrand his church once again. This time: Love Story Church.

Considering the stream of sexual abuse scandals in countless denominations over the last few years, I couldn’t possibly imagine a worse name for the church

On the Corner

I could hear him long before I could see him. K and I were walking up Main Street last night, returning to our car after a night out, and I could hear an amplified male voice in the distance.

“Most likely a street preacher,” I thought, although sometimes the Black Hebrew Israelites make an appearance on the downtown sidewalks. As we approached, though, it was clear it was an evangelical street preacher.

“You need Jesus! If you don’t know the name of Jesus, you need to invite him into your life…”

It always astounds me how these guys say nonsense like that: we live in America, in the damn Bible Belt. There is no one in this area who has never heard of Jesus. It is utterly impossible, regardless of your religious views, not to have heard of Jesus while living in South Carolina.

“There is no one walking on Main Street,” I said to K, “who might be thinking, ‘Now this Jesus fellow — never heard of him. Who is he?'”

As we neared, we had to stop at the corner to wait for the light. Our street preacher started going on about the perils of living a self-centered life, completely oblivious to the irony.

“Here these people are, taking advantage of the lovely weather to enjoy their favorite restaurant’s outdoor seating option, and they have to listen to this jackass as he gets his saving-the-world fix,” I said to no one in particular and everyone in earshot. One guy laughed a little, most everyone else ignored my stupid comment.

I wanted to say that to the preacher himself, and came close to doing just that, but in the end, I decided not to add to the guy’s persecution complex.

Villain

Who is the villain in the story of Adam and Eve? Christianity and Judaism will have you believe it’s the serpent, but I think a close reading without the blinders of preconception proves God is the villain.

To begin with, notice when in the narrative God forbids the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil:

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the Lord God commanded the man, “You are free to eat from any tree in the garden; but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”

The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”

Genesis 2.15-18

That second paragraph is crucial because it shows that God gave the command to Adam before Eve even existed. He told Adam, “Don’t eat of the tree.” He said nothing to Eve. In fact, if you read the text closely, he never talks to Eve at all.

The temptation occurs in the next chapter:

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Genesis 3.1-5

A few questions arise here:

  1. Where was Adam? Since God communicated with him about the cursed tree, he should have been careful to prevent an unknowing Eve from approaching the tree.
  2. Where is God? Since God never communicated with Eve, I’m assuming he assumed Adam would take this role. Now that it’s obvious that Adam is doing nothing, why wouldn’t a loving God step in.
  3. Why the hell is the tree there in the first place? This is the fundamental question. It’s like putting a knife in a baby’s crib. What do you expect is going to happen?
  4. Why did God allow the serpent to enter the garden to being with? Again, it’s like putting a circular saw in the nursery.
  5. Why didn’t God do something to prevent this? He is all-knowing: he knew this is going to happen. He didn’t take a single step other than warning Adam. And of course this gets us back to the question of why the hell God made this tree to begin with.
  6. Why is the tree of knowledge that’s forbidden? What’s so dangerous about knowledge. Oh, never mind…
  7. How could God expect them to obey him (i.e., to realize it was a sin, i.e., to understand it was evil to disobey him) when they clearly didn’t know the difference between good and evil? Now we’ve got a knife and a circular saw in the crib of a blind toddler.

The narrative continues:

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Genesis 3.6, 7

First of all, we see that Adam was right there with her. What the hell was he doing? Why didn’t he stop her?

More significantly, we see that the serpent was telling the truth: “the eyes of both of them were opened.” But the didn’t die, despite God’s telling Adam that “in that day you shall surely die.” They didn’t die: God lied.

So let’s build the case for the serpent being the villain:

  1. He encouraged the couple to disobey God. However, God only bothered to tell Adam, and Adam did nothing to stop Eve. More troubling, they didn’t even know what good and evil as concepts were, so there’s no way we can hold them accountable for that.

That’s it. One point, a point that’s really not significant at all. What’s the case for the serpent being the hero?

  1. He was encouraging them to increase their knowledge.
  2. He told the truth: they did not die when they ate the fruit.
  3. He told the truth: they did receive knowledge when they ate the fruit.

There’s not much, but at least he has the truth on his side.

How about the case for God being the villain:

  1. He put a tree in the garden that he decided was forbidden and chose to punish Adam and Eve for eating of it.
  2. He only told Adam not to eat of it; he didn’t even bother to communicate with Eve.
  3. He lies to Adam about the consequence of eating of the tree.
  4. He expected obedience from
    • newly-formed creatures who
    • didn’t know what good and evil were.
  5. Once Eve and Adam eat of the tree, he punishes all future generations for the crime (which they couldn’t know was a crime because they didn’t know good and evil). And according to Christianity, the punishment is eternal torment. Eternal torment for a finite crime committed by other people!
  6. He turned Adam and Eve’s daily life to a relative hell of struggling for mere subsistence.
  7. After having told Adam and Eve to “be fruitful and multiply,” he makes the act of childbirth painful and potentially lethal.
  8. He creates Adam and Eve and the garden and everything else with complete foreknowledge of this catastrophe (for which he is responsible).

And the case for him being the hero? Well, I guess according to the text, we have him to thank for our existence since he made everything. But since that “everything” includes hell and a guaranteed ticket there for the vast majority of humanity, that one point in his favor is hardly significant and is in fact a point against him.

This all of course depends on the narrative being factually accurate, which of course it isn’t. But imagine trying to square all of this with a literal interpretation of this passage: anyone who worships this being is worshiping a monster.

No Rest in Hell

I recently dipped into a social media feed titled “HELL IS REAL” to see what kind of discussion goes on there. Not much discussion — mainly just a bunch of disturbing memes.

Meme 1: No Rest in Hell

The question that comes immediately to mind: why would an all-loving and omniscient god create a bunch of creatures he knew would end up in eternal torment that he himself created? It just makes no sense.

Meme 2: Hell is not a joke

Two things struck me about this: first, the imagery is so disturbing. Second, “affirm yes”? Did the creator of this meme think that at some point we would be standing in front of God, and he’d patiently point out that we didn’t affirm “Yes” (redundant much?) in our social media feed so it’s off to eternal torment for us…

Meme 3: Hear Hell

This one is so oddly specific. If we could hear the people screaming in hell, we might not fornicate. We might lie; we might do drugs; we might murder (see meme below), but we sure as hell wouldn’t fornicate.

Meme 4: Choices

Why is the devil eating this guy? And do hoodies lead you to hell?

Meme 5: Roads

If only this god who so wants to spend eternity with us had done a better job getting us to that point…


It’s disturbing that in 2023 people still have such simplistic, brutal, and illogical views. They pass this poison on to children and scar them for life. I just can’t understand how they can posit a) a loving god and b) an eternity of torment. It just makes no sense to me.

Crusades

The meme — I couldn’t pass it up. The Crusades — not something one would joke about. So I said so.

In the end, the original poster devolved to this:

I’m not sure what he was referring to when he complained I deleted a comment: I didn’t knowingly delete any comment. Still, the rest of the comment left me wondering how someone like that can function in society. If you’re an adult willing to call someone stupid, who is willing to behave in such a juvenile manner, how can you hold a job? If it takes so relatively little to get you to behave like a pouting child, how can you keep your mouth shut when it really matters?

In the end, I left the conversation with the following final words: “Thanks for the wonderful Christian example. I’ll leave you to have the last word. Make it a good one!”

Review: Is God a Vindictive Bully?

As with many apologetics books, the intended audience of this seems like it might be the skeptic community when in fact it is clearly written for Christians. In other words, this is not a book that will convince skeptics but is intended to ease the worries Christians have about the God of the Old Testament.

The first clue for this comes from the title: the average skeptic will not simply call the Old Testament god a bully. This being is a moral monster — which is actually the title of another book by Copan. The subtitle gives a clearer indication of the intended audience: “Reconciling Portrayals of God in the Old and New Testaments.” This book is written for people who love the god of the New Testament (i.e., Jesus) but finds the Old Testament god a bit off-putting. This is important because Christianity declares that, appearances to the contrary, these are the same being, albeit in different “persons,” which makes no logical sense, but that’s an argument for a different review. So this is an effort to reconcile kind Jesus with the evil god of the Old Testament by trying to remove the “appearances to the contrary” part of the argument altogether.

How do I as a skeptic read it, then? I tried to give it the benefit of the doubt, I tried to “treat another’s writing as you yourself would want your own writing to be treated” (6) as Copan suggested we do with the OT text, but in the end, I was just disappointed. There were no apologetic tactics in this book I had not encountered (and dismissed) before. The primary problem with this book from a skeptical point of view is that all the moves the author makes to square the two gods of the Bible simply belie the underlying Christian contention about Biblical authorship. In other words, he relies primarily on that old tired tactic “context.” Indeed, he has an entire chapter called “A Bit of Near Eastern Context.” For example, in justifying the harsh punishments proscribed in the Old Testament, Copan brings up the exaggerations of the Code of Hammurabi and then suggests that these are merely exaggerations as well and that “it is likely that the death penalty was rarely utilized” (85). This suggests that the authors of the Old Testament merely used the same tactics as the authors of Hammurabi’s Code. Yet how could that be? Didn’t the Christian god inspire the Bible? This apologetic tactic undercuts the claims of divine authorship, but Copan has a solution, explaining that the “Mosaic law didn’t start from scratch or reinvent the wheel” and suggests that it “appropriated sources apart from any direct divine revelation to Moses, who selected and adapted material resulting in a ‘special synthesis'” (37). Just Copan never explains just what this “special synthesis” might be and how we might discern Moses’s borrowing from surrounding cultures and divine intervention.

The other primary tactic Copan uses is qualification. This might be, or that could be, or this is a logical inference, or that is implied. This is probably an exaggeration and that is probably not carried out. In other words, it’s all conjecture.

This is a book that will not convince anyone who genuinely questions the text. This is a book for Christians looking to feel better about the god of the Old Testament.

Unfortunately Predictable

I’m reading Is God a Vindictive Bully? by Paul Copan, which purports to square the “genocide, racism, ethnic cleansing, and violence” in the Old Testament with the seemingly different deity presented in the New Testament in the form of Jesus. I’ve tried to go into this with an open mind; I’ve tried to avoid presumptions and judgments before I read. But by page six, he’s already making moves that put the argument exactly where I anticipated:

Consider a “golden rule” of interpretation: treat another’s writing as you yourself would want your own writing to be treated. This doesn’t mean being naive or uncritical; it does mean being charitable and fair as we honestly examine challenges in the text.

Is God a Vindictive Bully, 6.

Why would I treat the Bible the same as other documents? Christians claim it is the word of God: they claim that it’s not like other ancient documents, and if it’s written by a deity, it isn’t like other documents. Why treat a supposed god’s words with kid gloves? Why do I need to be “charitable and fair”? Wouldn’t a god do a better job writing a document?

This hints at a problem I know will appear in this book: how does the tension between “God composed this book” and “humans physically wrote it down” resolve? No Christian would deny that humans wrote the actual physical Bible: it didn’t just float down from heaven. However, they also claim that it is of divine origin. Humans, they insist, were just the instrument. The actual composition is God’s. However, when apologists start using historical context to explain something, they have immediately removed the composition from God’s purview and made the Bible a strictly-human document. It’s coming–I know it is.

Random Picture for Today

Image from 2017 trip to Warsaw