Tagged: faith

Theological Observations After Midnight In November

Christianity’s greatest asset and greatest hurdle is humanity’s desire for God. For a long time, nearly a decade, I thought I was really something special. I thought I was the result of a long line of human achievement. I was the result of thousands of years of contemplation and experience which resulted in the superior conclusion that God did not exist. For various reasons and with various degrees of arrogance Christians have pointed to Psalm 14:1’s “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God,'” as evidence that it is foolish to be an atheist. Condemn me now, but I don’t need bible verses to admit that God exists. How many churches exist? How many temples? How many religious sites? How many places are there on this planet in which people gather to worship or discuss or contemplate God? Denying God’s existence would be like denying McDonalds. And yet many of you are going to tell me that God is a fiction and a human weakness, a figment of our imagination, a fairy tale created by Iraqis and former Egyptians bent on collecting ten percent of your hard-earned income so they don’t have to work. Yeah. Okay. You’re right.

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“The problem of evil” finds itself among the great controversies of Christian theology. If God is good, how is it possible that evil exists, the question goes. I know I’m only a first semester B-averaging seminary student, but for me the problem of evil is one of the main reasons I find Christianity appealing. God purposefully creates man with free will. Man uses the freedom to disobey. Dunsky. Next, man murders. The rest is history.

Whatdya got as another option? Man just decides to one day kill for pleasure? And did it give him pleasure? Do you actually derive pleasure from hurting people? From lying? From stealing? Is anyone reporting that they are happier because they acted unethically or immorally? Give me a break. Daily I behave in ways which I know aren’t right and I am not happier for it. I am confounded by it. I shared my insistence on not being bullied on the road the other day, and like most of you pointed out, I knew at the time that it was not the right thing to do (hopefully you don’t think I was bragging about my actions.) I know the better option was to not aggravate the asshole. But why was he being an asshole in the first place? Seriously, what am I missing? How do you account for evil or asshole-ery?

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Here’s a new one. Want to know why you aren’t satisfied with your job? Because as part of God’s redemptive plan after the Fall, He cursed work. He modified existence in a way which directed humans back to Him. All He wants is a relationship with you. Or so the argument goes. What do you think? I say we’re all meant to produce and consume. Name brands. And apps. And pills. And tablets. That’s it. That’s life. Oh. And try to be nice along the way. I almost forgot. We’re here to talk about food ingredients. Yes. If you can explain to me what you’re eating within the time it takes to share a meal with you, then you’ve figured out life. Hooray!

All I’m asking for is a softening. My heart is hard. Feels like it always has been.

I blame my mom. Whoops. Classic Freudian slip–when you say one thing and mean your mother.

But as I’m grown now, it feels like way too much energy is expended to keep it hard. Maybe you know what I’m talking about. Or not. I’ll say this. I am not yet convinced that urgency does Christianity any good. But I am convinced that Christianity is worth exploring at your own pace.

Big Bird On Mormonism

I need to write a paper for class, but motivation wanes. Instead, I’d like to share one rather intriguing factoid about Deuteronomy and how it helps us understand what we all know: The Book of Mormon is not God’s word.

In brief, the Hittites were a culture whom archaeologists and historians claim wrote treaties according to a specific format. As the name ‘treaty’ implies, these were usually documents (we might expand the term to literature) which were developed after a fight of some sort. In any case, what we now call Deuteronomy is written in the form of one of these Hittite Vassal treaties. Besides helping us date the book of Deuteronomy, this similarity also speaks to the way Christians believe God reveals himself. Don’t miss this point. Folks long ago were milling around and if they were going to write things down (create literature) one of their options was a Hittite Vassal treaty. They didn’t have blogs, or tweets, or fb posts; novels weren’t around, nor were comic books. So when Moses (likely) wrote Deuteronomy he wrote it in the style he would have known–a treaty.

Later, when the Gospels and Paul’s letters were being written, they too were written in the forms their authors would have known. Keeping in mind that none of the Bible’s authors knew that what they were writing was going to be compiled as part of “The Bible”, in a roundabout way, this strengthens the argument that the Bible deserves some time and attention before discarding it.

Then there’s the Book of Mormon. Sesame Street has the familiar, “One of these things” segment and the lesson applies here. Unlike Mr. Joseph Smith, none of the Bible’s author’s claimed to find the Bible. Sure, we can debate whether or not Moses made up the Noah’s Ark story, but it’s Moses’ story. If God wanted an American to add to the Bible’s 66 books in the 1800s, then the writings would been similar in form to, say, the U.S. Constitution, or a dime novel, or more letters, or anything else that Joseph Smith’s contemporary’s would have recognized as “normal”.

Did I just imply that I posses the power to discern how God talks? Yes. Don’t be alarmed. You do too. Who’s up for a little game?

Humility

We’re studying source and form criticism of the Pentateuch. Orthodox Christianity has it that Moses is the author, and it was written around 1300 BC. Super smart Germans in the late 1800s AD developed a hypothesis that super smart westerners continue to support that these first five books of the Bible are comprised of material from several sources and authors and with nefarious, political agendas anywhere from 1100 BC to 500 BC.

First question: Does it really matter? Yes. One illustration of why it matters–Jesus of Nazareth is recorded as saying “As Moses wrote…” Things start crumbling if Jesus Christ lied.

Second question: Is humility a virtue (and therefore worth aspiring toward)? Much of the doctrine of this school revolves around orienting the student’s focus during our lifetimes. Are we to be centered on the human or God? Boldly claiming that despite the fact that there is no empirical evidence confirming the “documentary hypothesis” and millenia of tradition rejecting it that you are confident that Moses did not write the Pentateuch is a “human” or a “self-centered” perspective. On the other hand, concluding that while it’s important to account for the Pentateuch’s claims against the archaeological record, a spirit of humility in the concession that thousands of years of tradition probably counts as passing the test of time is “God” centered.

There seems to be a undertone that only academically incapable minds would reasonably conclude humility is the best course. But I’ve been going to school with you, living with you, and listening to you for a total of thirty-four years now. And I’ve out-performed all but the brightest of you–when I’ve cared to–according to the ways we sinners have developed to measure such things. And yet I hear most of you questioning my academic prowess in my confession of humility and vote for “God” centered-ness.

Just a passing thought that intrigued me during class today. On to the opening pages of A New Catholic Catechism and not enough sleep. Wish me luck.

Thank You

Great comments. Thank you for taking the time to share.

Koine Greek is apparently a language where word order doesn’t matter as much as it does in English. A bad illustration of this is in Greek you could say, “Is green the house” or “the house is green” or “Green is the house” and other features of the language render each of those orders equivalent to “the house is green”. I mention this because I attempted to use a tactic of Greek to open yesterday’s post. Since word order is variable within a sentence, writer’s are in a sense more free to make their points via word order. Scholars, then, have concluded that the first word of a Koine Greek sentence contains the emphasis of the thought. And that’s why I began by saying “allegedly”. I wanted to succinctly indicate that I wasn’t beating a drum or jumping to conclusions etc.

Given the all-to-familiar reports of the Columbine murderers’ asking “Are you a Christian?”, and given Evangelical Christianity’s (the brand I’m participating in) tendency to believe the “end times” are near and therefore view any attack on Christians as proof, I too was skeptical of this claim when it was presented. We all have our opinions about the integrity and motives of newspapers, but when the New York Times and Wall Street Journal both include the claim, I would like to believe we can all agree that there is at least a strength to it. Maybe not. In any case, only time will tell if the claim is verifiable and true.

So what was the seminary’s response? Prayer.

Your Turn

Allegedly, the shooter singled out Christians.

Because my ego knows no bounds, after first hearing about this shooting this morning whilst in Greek class at seminary, I immediately thought of you and how surely you’re curious to know how a school bent on training Christian leaders would respond/feel/think/report this shooting. And I’ll tell you–after you tell me what you guess the scene was like. Because I’m desperate to hear reactions from the people on the streets. One rule. Be honest. What was your first reaction to first hearing that Christians were singled out? And what was your first reaction to my question, “I wonder how Pete’s seminary presented/responded to the reports that Christians were singled out?”

Thanks.

A Path

So hey. I don’t have much time to write for pleasure during the semester, but I love the discussion last post encouraged. Rather than reply to the comments via a comment, I’ll post a reply when I have time to write a post.

That’s my decision and I’m sticking to it!

And please remember that when discussing Christian theology, while I may share some conclusions that I do believe and am willing to defend, I am not judging you for coming to different ones. I’m curious to know how you arrive at yours, but we’re adults here. You have to look at the data just like I do. For example, just because the only way I can make sense of God actively participating in violence in the Old Testament and yet commanding “love your enemy” and “turn the other cheek” in the New Testament is by concluding that God wants his people to leave the vengeance to him (and a step further, God doesn’t want his people coercing others), and therefore, I see pacifism as the best doctrine regarding war, just because I believe all of that, that doesn’t mean that if you disagree, you’re wrong. First, most of you don’t seem to self-identify as Christian anyhow so no need to be pacifists–fight away, I say. Second, I’m the only Christian pacifist I know, so I am very aware that my conclusions aren’t popular. But they are mine. And a few posts back, I wrote that a reason to go to a seminary was to find out what I believe. Well, now I can check the “what do I really think about war, given my experience with combat and everything?” box.

Regardless of your belief in “just cause” or “pacifism” or something in between, what I would recommend, if I were to be so bold, is to view (or you can test your might by attempting to karaoke) the following prayer and get all teary with me at least.

It Starts

When studying Theology, Christian theology in particular, the professors teach that there are a couple of prerequisite thoughts. First, God exists. Second, God has chosen to reveal himself to his creation. Third, humans (his creation) can apprehend this (his) revelation.

The professor mentioned that he uses “apprehend” because “comprehend” could be interpreted to mean fully understand the revelation, and that’s just not the case. We are incapable of fully understanding God, he says. He then mentioned he isn’t in love with “apprehend” and is open to suggestions.

My suggestion? “Conceive”. A necessary component of theology, then, is that humans are able to “conceive” of God’s self-revelation to them.

I like this word because it acknowledges that humans are the ones who create the concept of God. Some may fear admitting that humans “create” God, but I stick with St. Anselm whose irritating ontological proof of God goes something like this: “Things exist in one of two realities. Things are ideas or things exist. If God is the most powerful Being, then a God that exists is necessarily more powerful than a God that is just an idea. Therefore, God exists.”

So you heathens have before you two options. Given that you are aware of the concept of “God” or an “ultimate reality” of sorts, you have to choose between two options. One option is that God is an idea conceived by humans bent on deceptively obtaining power over other humans; the other option is that God is an idea conceived by humans because God, in fact, exists and seeks relationship with his creation–in other words, God wasn’t conceived by humans but revealed himself to his creation.

For me, the “created for deceptively obtaining power” conception of God is a little too “black helicopter/Illuminati”. I’ve been a part of some very well-funded, very intelligent organizations and the simple fact is we’re all just people making our way along the journey of life. Nobody is secretly controlling shit. Who has time for that?

Ergo, God–or an ultimate reality if you’re anti-the-word-God–exists.

The next question is, “What is his character?”

Vengeance is Mine – God; Christianity = Pacifism

So I just read that book that I was so excited to read for school–War in the Bible and Terrorism in the Twenty-First Century. Good stuff.

I partook in a “war”. I can’t say I was a Christian during it, but I grew up believing I was a Christian and today my beliefs necessitate that I label myself the same–Christian. So you’re curious to know my conclusion after reading a few essays on whether Christianity condones war? Obviously the matter is complicated, but my head is clear. If I had the time to order a personalized bumper sticker, this is what I’d make it say:

“Vengeance is mine” – God.

Christianity = Pacifism.

 

On Seminary

As I keep sharing with folks that I’m excited to be in a masters program that is based in “purpose”, I keep getting the same response I already mentioned.

“You’re going to school to become a preacher?”

It seems, then, that a further note of clarification is in order.

No.

I never have, nor ever will believe in educating myself in order to gain financially. I went to college after high school because I wanted to be (first an FBI or CIA agent and finally) an Air Force officer and pilot. I wanted to “be” those things because of what they meant in and of themselves. Whether I was paid or not was never part of the equation. Becoming them required college, therefore, college.

But somewhere along the way learning became an end in addition to a means. For a Three Amigos plethora of reasons, I am now taking courses at a local seminary because I am interested, not in someday getting paid for my future and resultant mastery of all things evangelical Christianity, but rather I am interested in what a right relationship with God looks like. And this in order to determine if I want to pursue that sort of thing.

Put another way, there is a quote from Tom Selleck’s Mr. Baseball where he is exasperatedly explaining to the exceedingly high work-ethic filled Japanese team to which he’s been demoted that: “Baseball is a game and games are supposed to be fun.” Like Selleck’s delivery of this line, I can’t do more than encourage you to discover learning as an end. I can’t reason you into understanding this anymore than he can force the Japanese team to have fun.

Make sense?

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One more observation: It’s nice to be around people who can read aloud with confidence. (Maybe everyone in a masters program can, but for some reason I have been surprised that nobody elects to “pass” when it’s their turn to read and also that they don’t struggle with English. And even writing this now makes me suspicious. Should it really take a college degree to be able to read aloud?)

…Tenth

Oh, and one more observation to round out my first week at seminary.

Tenth, it feels amazing to be back in a place that uses B.C. and A.D. to describe dates in history.

When I was taking a few undergraduate writing courses for pleasure a year or so ago, I kinda shrugged off the new-to-me B.C.E. (before common era) and C.E. (common era) dating convention as, “that’s redonkulous, but whatever.” (If you’re older than me and haven’t been in college recently, these days colleges (maybe all schools?) call B.C., B.C.E., ie 700 B.C. is 700 B.C.E. and call years formerly designated as A.D., C.E.–this year is 2015 C.E.–not 2015 A.D.) (Too many parentheses–sorry–but does anyone else crack up that they couldn’t get away from the letters B and C?) Despite only being 34 years old, I feel like others must view me as a crotchety, old, slave-owning white man when I confess that I am happy to be among honest historians again. Seriously, how in the world can someone honestly describe what makes BCE change to CE without mentioning a certain Jew? (That’s a serious question. Tell me.)