Is teaching religion in the schools like teaching a foreign language?

Posted on January 26, 2004 by Kevin

One difference is that the US Constitution doesn’t prohibit establishment of a language, but it does religion.

I think you and I would agree that it is possible to teach an objective class on world religions and include discussions of atheism and agnosticism that didn’t run afoul of the establishment clause. And I also think that we might agree that such a class would be useful.

But I think that the implementation is fraught with problems.

First you have religious persons with exclusionist views who would object to anything but their own version of the truth being taught. Then there would be atheists who would want equal time to cover anti religion (contradictions in holy books, inquisitions, religious wars–arguing that religion is a blight on human history). Finally, just as there are any number of teachers who try to inject religious indoctrination in their classes (contrary to school policy), there will be those who won’t teach the objective class objectively.

I wouldn’t want to be in the situation where every class was videotaped and reviewed by all the partisan groups who had in interest in one religious viewpoint, to insure that no group was treated more equally than another. This why “world religions” is typically taught in colleges where parents aren’t so vocal. And frankly, world religions may be a topic better suited to the maturity level of college students, rather than high schoolers.

Many Americans came here fleeing religious persecution, not the persecution of godless atheists or the ACLU, but the persecution of minority religion by majority religion. The fact that there is an establishment clause, and a free exercise clause in the Constitution indicates that the founders felt that Americans have the right to be religious or not, without government coercion.

Some may be comfortable teaching Genesis alongside “turtles all the way down”, but I suspect they’re in the minority. Would Christians tolerate a world religions program that explained from a psychological point of view why a culture might develop myths about gods for reasons having nothing to do with the objective existence of gods? Exposure to this kind of reasoning has been devastating to the faith of some college students–just think what it would do to high schoolers.

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The Atonement

Posted on July 5, 2003 by Kevin

“For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.” Matthew 7:14

Think of this article as suffering. You have to suffer through it, but in the end it builds character 😉

The Christian doctrine of the Penal Theory of Atonement gives us a deeply-moving view of the self-sacrificial love which Christ had for mankind, but on the other hand it has deeply-negative implications about the nature of God. This article argues that we can understand the mission of Jesus and the nature of God in better ways.

[All scriptures from the New Revised Standard Version, used by permission]

Organizational Plan

I. What is the Christian doctrine of Atonement?

In the history of the Church, there have been many formulations of the Atonement. Continue reading →

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The Saint Lays Dying

Posted on June 11, 2003 by Kevin

The winds of change are blowing raw
And the Saint lays dying.
Fear and uncertainty twists our bowels
And the Saint lays dying.

“Have no anxiety about tomorrow,” coached our Master.
But the wind is raw,
Bad change is coming,
And the Saint lays dying.

Shall we celebrate the life of the Saint–
He who has run the race and kept the faith?
How can we celebrate while his widow grieves,
And we ourselves grieve?

And what of the Saint
Now that all of his humanity is nearly stripped away?
There is no dignity in death
The way we do it now.

Where is the assurance?
Where is the courage?
Where is the faith
When a machine beats his heart?

We huddle together and pray
For the Deus ex machina.
“Lord, deliver us from our dilemma,
From having to face the pain.”

Our gentle Master reminds us
That we all die a little every day:
The plant closes,
Our child moves away.

The earthquake and the flood and the fire
Sweep away the things we love.
Things can never again
Be made to be the way they were.

“At least we have our family!”
And that is gone.
“At least we have our health!”
And that to is gone too.

How can we celebrate
Our own little deaths?
How can we celebrate
The race with end not in sight?

Our gentle Master reminds us
That unless a grain of wheat die
It cannot bring forth fruit.
“ABSTRACTION!” we sob.

So the mighty God of the Universe
Makes a penciled notation in the “Book of Life”.
The Saint rises from his bed
And Walks.

A little more time we are granted
To grow and to prepare.
But not too long–
Not too long.

Abba says: “Call any time day or night.
I’ll make coffee and we can talk.
We really need to talk.
Don’t put if off.”

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How I became a Christian

Posted on June 11, 2003 by Kevin

Conversion

I became a Christian at age 9. It was a fairly easy choice. I saw what Christians were and I wanted to be one of them. It was a good start. I joined the Southern Baptist Church that my family attended. I participated and was active.

Guilt

The Baptist Church is often characterized by emotion-charged religious experience, tearful episodes of repentance and the like. I didn’t have those and here self-doubt set in. It seemed that following Jesus just wasn’t enough. You could be “saved” but you also had to “know that you were saved” and you hadn’t arrived unless “Jesus sat on the throne of your heart” (pamphlet and diagram supplied). And if you managed that, you still had to have the “Baptism of the Holy Spirit”. It seemed that there was this endless stream of obligations, experiences, commitments and achievements that were required in order to follow Jesus. The Christian seemed in a state of perpetual shortcoming (the word is “sin”, by the way.)

I kept things under uneasy control for years, but I found myself struggling against what my church was doing. I cringed with fear every time I took the Lord’s supper and heard the story of people who had died for taking it unworthily (1 Cor. 11:29-31). I was emotionally at war with the church, the Bible and God — even though I was working to support them all. Continue reading →

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The All-Male Priesthood

Posted on June 11, 2003 by Kevin

I wanted to make some comments about the requirement made by some Christian denominations (notably the Catholic and Orthodox) that their priests (ministers, pastors) be exclusively male.

I suppose that we begin with the historical fact that Jesus, his disciples called “The Twelve”, the other named New Testament writers, bishops and the “church Fathers” were all male.

The question then is whether this fact is the result of selective reporting, cultural bias, or something significant from God. There is certainly ample support for the cultural bias theory, and it would seem to be the most likely candidate. However, can we find any scriptural support for the idea that “maleness” is related to the characteristics needed by a Priest?

The first argument that I would like to discuss goes like this…

“The Priest is an icon for Jesus Christ. Jesus was male. Therefore a Priest must also be male.”

I find this argument unconvincing because it (seemingly arbitrarily) picks one particular detail about Jesus from among many and makes this a criterion for a “good icon”. Jesus was born of a Virgin– should all priests have this characteristic also? He spoke Aramaic, he was born in Palestine, he walked on water, he loved children… Why is his maleness selected as a requirement and not the others? Continue reading →

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Left Behind?

Posted on June 11, 2003 by Kevin

Left Behind™: A Novel of the Earth’s Last Days by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins

The volume appeared in our church library, so I checked it out.

Some Christians read the Book of Revelation (from the Bible) as a road map for the end of time (instead of a highly symbolic message to 1st century Christians suffering under the persecution of Rome). The literal reading of Revelation as prophecy results in a framework where the Left Behind™ novel is set. I read the book to get an insight into the mind of those Christians who believe in these things, but what I didn’t expect was to get sucked into the story and actually care about the characters.

The story starts with a transatlantic airline flight where passengers suddenly disappear, leaving their clothes, most of the other passengers, and the flight crew behind. We later learn that all of the world’s children plus all (real) Christians have also suddenly disappeared. The novel’s characters are then those who are LEFT BEHIND™.

If people who believe in the Left Behind™ theory were sincere, I would think their first step would to try to get an FAA rule passed that one member of every flight crew must not be a Christian. When both airline pilots are Christian and both get snatched away, the plane crashes (and presumably everybody left behind on board goes straight to hell) and that’s exactly what happens in the novel. Continue reading →

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I Prefer Roses to Tulips

Posted on June 11, 2003 by Kevin

I’m no expert on Reformed theology, but I do know a couple of things: John Calvin was a smart fellow, and Reformed folks have this T.U.L.I.P thing:

Total Depravity
Total depravity means that human persons are entirely unable to do good works, to respond to God apart from his grace, or to please God.
Unconditional Election
Unconditional election means that God chooses to save whomever he wishes, irrespective of individual merit
Limited Atonement
Limited Atonement means that Jesus satisfied the punishment for all the sins of some people, and for none of the sins of the remainder.
Irresistible Grace
Irresistible grace means that if God elects you, you’re certainly going to respond and convert.
Perseverance of the Saints
Perseverance of the saints means that if God has in fact elected you, you will never fall away from the faith.

As I said, John Calvin was a smart fellow and he can read scripture as well or better than anybody, and Calvin determined that the reason some came to God and others didn’t was because God wanted it that way. A key point for Reformed theology is that God is sovereign. I won’t go through the exercise of deriving TULIP from scripture because it has been done already by those more knowledgeable than I. However, after TULIP has been proved by scripture, there remains a problem because it can also be disproved by scripture! Continue reading →

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Animal Sacrifices

Posted on June 11, 2003 by Kevin

The Old Testament speaks over and over again in opposition to the infidelity of the Hebrews when it came to the worship of “foreign gods”. For this reason we know historically that there were influences from the surrounding peoples exerting pressure on the Hebrews. [For a thorough treatment, see The Gospel and its Tributaries by E. F. Scott, for example.] There are small but significant references to polytheism [Deuteronomy 32:7-9] and even to human sacrifice [Jeremiah 19:5]. [An aside: The Valley of Hinnom mentioned in Jeremiah 19:6 was called Gehenna in Jesus’ time and is one of the words translated “hell” in some versions of the Bible.]

In fact, if you read the accounts of primitive religions (for example the classic, The Golden Bough) you will see a pattern– a pattern of ritual practice (either by the people, a priest or a tribal leader) in an attempt to influence the gods for the purpose of gaining favor in the form of good weather, safety, fertility, etc. These attempts frequently involved sacrifices.

The fact that the Hebrews would go to the extreme of burning their children in an attempt to please God (something that God denies he decreed according to Jeremiah) is proof of just how powerful these primitive ideas are. And the fact that attempts to please the gods are pervasive in human culture, and the fact that the Hebrews were influenced by the cultures around them, shows that no “revelation from God” is necessary in order that the Hebrews might have such ideas in their own religion. [I think the important thing in understanding Hebrew religion is to seek out those points which are NOT LIKE the surrounding cultures.] Continue reading →

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Law and Sanctification

Posted on June 11, 2003 by Kevin

This is an article about the relationship between Law and Sanctification.

Because I write frequently on the topic of Grace (that oft-misunderstood subject) I get quite a lot of e-mail from folks stressing the importance of law, obedience, good works etc.–accompanied by lists of familiar scripture. I reply back with some explanation and other lists of scripture. What I want to do here is build a framework to explain my understanding the role of law and how it relates to sanctification.

Sanctification is the process through which the believer becomes more holy, or more Godlike in his or her character. Sanctification is understood as a life-long process.

For this discussion, it is essential to note that sanctification is a process during which the self matters less and less, and God matters more and more. It should also be noted that the stages of sanctification I describe are not rigid classes and individuals operate at more than one stage depending on the situation.

In this discussion, I use “Law” to denote both a written set of rules (which for the Christian are found in the Bible) and also a mandate to “do good” where possible.

At the very beginning of sanctification, perhaps at the transition between non-Christian and Christian, the self is most important and God is least important. In this stage of primitive religious sense God is seen as administering immediate rewards and punishments based on behavior. Examples of this mind set include superstitions. A person may believe that a disaster happened as a result of something bad the person did. That person believes that they are, for want of a better word, “magical” in that their own behavior “makes things happen” around them. God is seen as the agent of these events, but the concern is completely selfish. Such primitive religious attitudes can be found in the Bible in stories where a person is struck dead for touching the Ark of the Covenant. TV fundraisers use such motivations all the time: send me $50 and God will work a miracle in your finances. In this stage of sanctification, law works through immediate reward and punishment. The actions of God are seen as automatic. Continue reading →

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Jesus Seminar

Posted on June 11, 2003 by Kevin

Someone wrote to me:

For their presuppositions to be valid, the Jesus Seminar must prove them and support them with scholarly sources. They have nothing to support their presuppositions. A true scholar does not base his or her work on speculation. A true scholar bases his or her work on source material. That is why I cannot consider the work of the Jesus Seminar serious historical scholarship. Actually, the more I read of New Testament criticism the more I wonder how anyone can take it seriously. Much of their arguments is based on the theory that a document they call Q existed. Yet, they have found not a single ancient manuscript of the Q (for Quella= German for source) document.

Very disappointing.

First, you persist in calling the criteria used by the Jesus Seminar “presuppositions”, as if they were prejudices pulled out of the hat. While it is true, that The Five Gospels does not go into a great deal of justification for the criteria they used, I am sure that you know of any number of scholarly works which to make the arguments for them. If I were to write a book on Calculus, I wouldn’t go back and provide the proofs for all the Algebra theorems that underlie that subject.

In a previous article, you claimed that none of the members of the Jesus Seminar were historians. I don’t know whether this is actually true or not. However, there are historians who make similar judgements on the authenticity of scripture (including E. P. Sanders who considers a number of sayings of Jesus to be actually those of the Christian community).

Finally, we know from the testimony of Luke himself that he did research and gathered material for his book. He witnessed nothing himself. It is plain to see that Luke borrowed much from Mark. What was the source of his other material? Some of the additional material is shared with Matthew. If Matthew was written when the text critics say it was (late), then Matthew had sources too. It seems reasonable that material common to Matthew and Luke come from a common source which was given the name “Q”. (Luke has additional material as well, beyond Mark and what is in Matthew.) Continue reading →

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