For academically-minded readers desiring to reflect in a more thorough and detailed manner on oppression and injustice, I recommend two books that I’ve been perusing this week: The Civil War as a Theological Crisis by Notre Dame’s Mark Noll and For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and The End of Slavery by Baylor’s Rodney Stark. Both these books have given color and shape to my formerly simplistic thinking about slavery.
Noll is a historian, and his book makes the case that the Civil War was at its roots a theological crisis. Both abolitionists and slaveholders appealed to the Bible to justify their points of view, creating a crisis of faith for the average layperson - after all, when opposing sides both claim biblical authority, how can the common Christian discern who is right? Stark’s specialty is sociology, and his tome is a tightly nuanced and well-reasoned exposition of monotheism (and especially Christianity) as a determinative influence in both the development of science and the abolition of slavery. I offered this quote from Stark this morning: “Of all the world’s religions, including the three great monotheisms, only in Christianity did the idea develop that slavery was sinful and must be abolished.”
The breadth of Stark’s work sheds light on some aspects of slavery that have been under-appreciated by historians. For instance, because of the influence of Catholicism, slavery in the Spanish and French colonies was much more humane than slavery in the British colonies. In the French colonies, “slaves were exempted from work on Sundays and holy days, with masters being subject to fines or even to the confiscation of their slaves for violating this provision.” Spanish colonists followed a similar code, with the result that slaves had 87 days off every year (more than some of you take as free men and women!). The British colonies “had no tradition of slave codes to restrain master-slave relations… since the colonies were fully under the control of a slave-owning ‘ruling class’… the laws enacted were a planter’s dream and a slave’s nightmare.”
As I observed this morning, Christians in the American South did use the Bible to justify slavery. But Stark’s work takes much of the punch out of the oft-repeated objection that Christianity (and/or Western colonization) is to blame for all the evils of slavery. In Stark’s own words: “The excesses of political correctness have all but erased the awareness that slavery was once nearly universal to all societies able to afford it, and that only in the West did significant moral opposition ever arise and lead to abolition. Unfortunately, the typical discussion of slavery, especially in textbooks, gives the impression that it was a peculiarly European and especially American vice, and no notice is taken of the extent of slavery in times past, or of the substantial amount of slavery that continues in many parts of the non-Christian world.”
Perhaps the most challenging and humbling effect all this reading has had on me is to challenge my cultural arrogance. It is easy to wax eloquent in 2008 about the evils of slavery. But had I lived 200 years ago, at a time when slavery was an accepted institution all over the world, in a culture marked by theological confusion over the biblical teaching about slavery, in an economy largely driven by slavery, I wonder: would I have been on the right side of things? I am not so sure. Sin makes it difficult to see past our cultural blinders… and these books demonstrate how strong the cultural blinders were for our forefathers on the issue of slavery. We dare not condemn them too harshly, for they are much like us.
Um, the Luke Pettipoole House Show is tomorrow night at 7pm. Luke is a very talented, major label artist (read: good music). On top of that, the venue is worth the ticket price … a beautiful, serene setting with a view.
Don’t have tickets yet? No worries, you can get one at the door. So consider a bit of wise counsel: DO NOT MISS THIS SHOW!
If you have a lawn chair or blanket, bring it and come on out to the Whealy’s house, our own little outdoor amphitheater.
Need that link again to hear some of his music? Go here. Or maybe you are more like Christian Gray and need someone to personally burn you a cd so that you will listen and get excited. Well, I can’t burn you a cd, but here is the next best thing.
Perhaps our culture has prided itself more than any previous culture on its willingness and ability to subject every dogma to fearless criticism in the light of reason and experience… Must we not all accept that truth is larger, richer, and more complex than can be contained in any one religious or cultural tradition? Is it not more fitting that we adopt the attitude of a humble seeker after truth, keeping an open mind, ready to listen to all that comes from the varied religious experience of the human race? Is it not more honest as well as more humble to stop preaching and engage rather in dialogue? Only an open mind can hope to reach the truth, and dogma is the enemy of the open mind.
[This] is very obviously a view which we apply only to certain kinds of truth… A teacher who asks her class whether Paris is the capital of France or Belgium will not appreciate the child who tells him that he has an open mind on the matter. The principle of pluralism is not universally accepted in our culture. It is one of the key features of our culture… that we make a sharp distinction between a world of what we call values and a world of what we call facts. In the former world we are pluralists; values are a matter of personal choice. In the latter we are not; facts are facts, whether you like them or not. …The Church is not generally perceived as concerned with facts, with the realities which finally govern the world and which we shall in the end have to acknowledge whether we like them or not… As long as the Church is content to offer its beliefs modestly as simply one of the many brands available in the ideological supermarket, no offense is taken. But the affirmation that the truth revealed in the gospel ought to govern public life is offensive.
- from Lesslie Newbigin’s “The Gospel in a Pluralist Society”
On September 19-20, Coram Deo is excited to host a conference on marriage and parenting called Redeeming Family. We are unashamedly asking everyone - especially married couples - to come to this conference.
Why? Because being married and raising kids is really hard work. And it’s work that, statistically speaking, most of us give up on. Over half of marriages end in divorce. One third of kids grow up in single-parent households. And 25% of kids under 3 are being raised by daycare providers.
We want to help you not give up.
Nobody “just knows” how to be a good spouse or a good parent. We learn by example. And the fact is: many of us just don’t have good examples to learn from. Our families of origin are all screwed up. We have no clue what we’re doing. And we’re not sure who to ask.
We want to provide a forum where you can ask. We’re not going to pretend that we have all the answers. But we do have some of them. God has given our pastoral staff some unique insight into marriage and parenting through the lens of the gospel. Will and Debbie will share how a covenantal commitment has anchored their marriage through some really rough times. Bob and Leigh will pass along the biblical wisdom on parenting that they learned from a community of older, wiser mentors. And in addition, we’ll introduce you to some of our friends outside the Coram Deo community who have done marriage and parenting well.
This seminar will be anchored in the biblical storyline of Creation-Fall-Redemption and saturated with biblical wisdom. You won’t walk out with a magic bullet that will solve all your problems. But you will walk out with some helpful tools in your toolbox and a biblical grid to assist you in using them well.
We’ve crafted this seminar primarily with the young families of Coram Deo in mind. But we want to issue an open invitation to anyone and everyone who might benefit. If you’re not part of the Coram Deo community – who cares? Join us! Even if you’re not yet a follower of Jesus, don’t let the fact that this is a “church thing” keep you away. We’re not selling used cars; we’re helping people build strong families. The stuff we talk about will just be downright useful, no matter where you are in your spiritual journey.
It will be an honor to have you join us. For schedule and registration details, follow this link.
The Batting Stance Guy was at Coram Deo this week. He is a friend of a friend. He started out as a YouTube phenomenon and has gone viral… Walker predicts that you will see this guy all over network TV within 12 months.
If you are not a baseball fan, you won’t get the humor. If you ARE a baseball fan… trust me, you can waste hours watching this guy. He is uncanny.
On Sunday 8/24/08 we talked about repentance. There are some Christians, I hate to say, who think that repentance is not necessary for conversion or for sanctification (spiritual growth). They consider repentance to be a vestige of Roman Catholic legalism - an addition to biblical faith. They insist that what Jesus required was simply faith in Him, and that any notion of turning away from sin introduces some measure of “works” into the equation. They call this point of view “Free Grace.” I prefer to call it “Bad Scholarship.”
Behind the New Testament idea of repentance (Gk. metanoia) are the Hebrew words naham (change one’s mind) and shuv (turn back, return). The Old Testament prophets are continually calling God’s people to turn away from their sin and return to him (shuv). It is clear from the whole tenor of the OT that God expects nothing less than a turning away from sin and toward God. The New Bible Dictionary rightly connects this OT background to the NT concept of repentance: “Repentance [is not just] feeling sorry, or changing one’s mind, but… a turning around, a complete alteration of the basic motivation and direction of one’s life. This is why the best translation for metanoia is often ‘convert,’ that is, ‘to turn round.’”
Repentance, then, is the mark of a true Christian. A willingness to turn from sin is evidence of a soft heart toward God. Unwillingness to repent of sin is the biblical sign of a hard heart that reaps God’s judgment.
Sometimes in my sermon research I come across stuff that has nothing to do with my sermon, but does have implications for what it means to follow Jesus and to help others follow Jesus. This is one of those things.
Read: Titus 1:6-9. “An elder must be blameless, the husband of but one wife, a man whose children believe and are not open to the charge of being wild and disobedient. Since an overseer is entrusted with God’s work, he must be blameless—not overbearing, not quick-tempered, not given to drunkenness, not violent, not pursuing dishonest gain. Rather he must be hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined. He must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it.”
Compare: Joel Osteen on Fox News Sunday, 23 December 2007:
[CHRIS WALLACE]: …Is a Mormon a true Christian?
[OSTEEN:] Well, in my mind they are. Mitt Romney has said that he believes in Christ as his savior, and that’s what I believe, so, you know, I’m not the one to judge the little details of it. So I believe they are.
[WALLACE:] So, for instance, when people start talking about Joseph Smith, the founder of the church, and the golden tablets in upstate New York, and God assumes the shape of a man, do you not get hung up in those theological issues?
[OSTEEN:] I probably don’t get hung up in them because I haven’t really studied them or thought about them. And you know, I just try to let God be the judge of that. I mean, I don’t know.
I certainly can’t say that I agree with everything that I’ve heard about it… [but when a Mormon] says that Christ is his savior, to me that’s a common bond.
Starting September 7, we will spend 6 weeks preaching on some of the major objections to Christianity. Based on your votes, the topics will be:
Tolerance: Christianity discriminates against certain people by claiming that their behavior is sinful; therefore it is intolerant and wrong.
Free Will:The Christian ideas of free will and an all-knowing and sovereign God are incompatible.
Exclusivity:There are many roads to God; therefore it is arrogant for one religion to claim exclusive truth.
Relativism:Absolute truth either does not exist or is unknowable; therefore any religion that claims to be true must be rejected.
Literalism:The Bible is a valuable book in some respects, but no one should take the Bible literally, as an absolute authority.
Injustice:Christianity has been a vehicle of oppression and injustice in the world; therefore it should be rejected.
In addition to our Sunday morning gathering, we have slated at least 2 Sunday evenings (and may add more) where I’ll be hosting an open-forum type of discussion at the Brazen Head Pub to allow for more interaction over these topics. The idea will be to offer a cogent answer to each objection on Sunday mornings and then invite dialogue and questions on Sunday evenings.
Feel free to invite anyone and everyone who would benefit as we seek to “give an answer to anyone who asks us for a reason for the hope that is in us” (1 Peter 3:15).
(Also: If the objection you were voting for didn’t make the final cut, let me know and I’ll happily suggest some books and resources where you might find thoughtful answers.)
I am really excited about this announcement — go ahead and mark your calendars for a Luke Pettipoole house show on Sat, Sep. 6 starting at 7pm at the Whealy’s house. The show will be outside in the backyard, so there should be plenty of room for everyone and your friends.
Some of you might have met Luke around the CD community sometime, but what you might not know is that he is a profoundly gifted and entertaining musician. If you haven’t heard Luke’s music, he is the frontman for the Iowa-based indie group The Envy Corps, and you can give a listen at their Myspace. They are signed with the major label Vertigo and their debut album Dwell will undoubtedly be tops on my list for 2008. The show will be an acoustic/storyteller show of Luke and I promise…
Um, the Luke Pettipoole House Show is tomorrow night at 7pm. Luke is a very talented, major label artist (read: good music). On top of that, the venue is worth the ticket price … a beautiful, serene setting with a view.
On September 19-20, Coram Deo is excited to host a conference on marriage and parenting called Redeeming Family. We are unashamedly asking everyone - especially married couples - to come to this conference.
