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“I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.” Socrates
__________
I viewed this discussion with frustration at the willingness of these men to insult and denigrate the intelligent and theologically minded Christians throughout time who have not found a home in Calvinism.
I respect those who are Calvinists and/or Reformed.I disagree with them because I am theologically minded. I remember one summer, sitting in a beach chair on Topsail Island and reading through Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem. Yes,the big one!! I did so because I am theologically minded and I wanted to learn and understand.
However, there are other places to go and other ways to understand and I found those. Many others have as well.Those who are intelligent would know that.
Last!
ION: At the age of 50, I’ve just had my first go at Mario Kart on the new Nintendo Switch. (King Boo, in case you were wondering. A ghost shaped like a little whale – what’s not to love?)
#”Cool”Parents
I will not watch the video, because I really don’t want to spoil my appetite for dinner. These people are the most arrogant sons of… these people are really very arrogant. Arrogant heretics, IMO.
“There Can be No Salvation Outside of CALVIN.”
Just like there can be none outside of Calvary Chapel.
“There Can be No Salvation Outside of CALVIN.”
CALVIN with his Perfectly-Parsed, Utterly Airtight THEOLOGY.
CALVIN Who Has God All Figured Out — how dare He act any other way than how CALVIN hath predicted?
“Where else are they going to go? If you’re a theological minded, deeply convictional young evangelical, if you’re committed to the gospel and want to see the nations rejoice in the name of Christ, if you want to see gospel built and structured committed churches, your theology is just going end up basically being Reformed, basically something like this New Calvinism, or you’re going to have to invent some label for what is basically going to be the same thing, there just are not options out there, and that’s something that frustrates some people, but when I’m asked about the New Calvinism – where else are they going to go, who else is going to answer the questions, where else are they going to find the resources they going to need and where else are they going to connect. This is a generation that understands, they want to say the same thing that Paul said, they want to stand with the apostles, they want to stand with old dead people, and they know that they are going to have to, if they are going to preach and teach the truth.” (Al Mohler)
Arrogant Al seemed to have forgotten that the vast majority of Southern Baptists are non-Calvinists! They have been for the past 150 years. Are they not committed to the Gospel? Do they not want to see the nations rejoice in the name of Christ? They don’t preach and teach truth?! This is an affront to the millions of SBCers who simply don’t agree with the tenets of reformed theology, along with 90+% of Christendom worldwide. I continue to be amazed that Mohler kept his job after making that statement … but he and his movement appear to be clearly in control of the Southern Baptist Convention at this point. Where else are they going to go?! I can think of a lot of places.
As a high school student in a Christian school, my curriculum told me I was Protestant. Even as a boy this sounded like a note from the Gong Show. It didn’t sound right, and my text books made no effort to convince, only pronounce as fact.
But how could this be, when I am not protesting anything? Even to a boy, Calvinism / Protestism represented a reaction against Society. At it’s core it represents a political struggle. My life is not about a social struggle. Protstism can not exist outside of social struggle. It’s reinvented Neo-Evangelical form of 1948 specificaly called for social influence of Protestant traditions.
I am a believer because God is my Father. That is not the same as the understanding in Neo-Calvinism in how one relates to God.
There is a division in the Kingdom of God. This division will not cease at death.
Reform Theology is too clever by half. There is no contingency for when incompatible Christians wake up side by side in the afterlife. They will still be the same persons, with the same disputes. Only in the next life, we are not weak powerless individuals.
I never met Socrates, for several obvious reasons. By contrast, I have met Dee. Both (as cited above) share my view that if someone says their philosophy is the only viable one in any given context, it makes me look askance at them and their philosophy.
Where does one go? I love this question.
When a Court hands down a decision that is in error, you appeal. Now it just so happens that the Father is seated in a Court.
The objective is to have the Five Heads struck down.
roebuck,
I was going to talk about their arrogance. But you covered it. I watched the video. You were spot on!
So our Christian roots don’t begin with Jesus?
So their goal is to once again institutionalize Jesus. Well, the PCA would say Christ and the Sovereign Grace would say the Savior. But anyway . . .
Yes, Calvin came much later.
That is the first descriptor that comes to mind when these folks open their mouths – it just feels so slimy. Indeed, arrogance is the mantle of the New Calvinist movement. No one would accuse the New Calvinist icons of humility, IMHO … even though Mahaney wrote a book on humility … yep, the same Mahaney!
… head for the hills! Every cult leader said the same thing.
Nathan Priddis,
Who are the 5 heads?
Patti has pretty much already said it, but I would say that if one is theologically minded, there is no place to go but Jesus.
*Full disclosure: I didn’t watch the video because I left that cult.
This is a timely post because of the 400 year anniversary of the Remonstrance. RC Sproul’s ministry is publishing articles on it right now, such as this one: https://tabletalkmagazine.com/article/2019/01/the-reason-for-dort/
It is interesting that they would make the claim that Calvinism is THE Apostolic faith. When I read the writings of early Christians I find nothing that looks like Calvinism. These folks should read more history. When they don’t read history they end up with interviews like the one that is the subject of this post.
Never mind that I Corinthians 6 states that murderers will not enter Heaven, and Calvin had no problem having his opponents executed by the state.
He was little more than an unhappy Catholic who found a way to make himself Pope of his own religion. Most of his teachings are a regurgitation of Augustine’s original sin viewpoints (Presbyterians practice infant baptism, though Reformed Baptists do not).
Also let’s not forget that the American Godfather of Calvinism, John MacArthur, in his book Strange Fire, for all intents and purposes stated that EVERYONE in the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements is a Hell-bound heretic.
So it’s not surprising that his acolytes (even if differing with him on some things) come up with something like this (of course, this is what their version of the doctrine of election ultimately produces).
Q. Facebook apparently recognizes some seventy-two sexual identities; Calvinists, like Mohler, however recognize only the two that are listed in the first few chapters of Genesis. It looks like he’s is simply agreeing with God, since the Bible is His book, right?
Let’s keep all of this clear: the issue behind all of this is power and influence. And how can a pastor have more influence than to be neo-Calvinistic? I met the Rev. Dr. Mohler at a conference in Atlanta when he was still the editor of the Georgia Baptist paper at which time I asked him about the rumors he was headed to Southern Seminary to become the new president and lead the seminary in a Calvinistic and much more conservative direction. His response to me was that he was happy in Georgia and had no interest in leaving his post.
Two weeks later he was in Louisville . . .
John Calvin is not the only spokesperson for reformed theology.
Reformed Theology is a expansive religious system. Not all adhere to all that is presented in that body of beliefs.
Dishonesties, it would seem, exist with new Calvinists. By stealth they apparently wish to circumvent conventional church order of traditional Baptists without respecting proper notification.
I like Yoshi, but I do King Boo from time to time as well. Love the way his tongue sticks out. My Mom prefers Wario, because of his laugh and how he cries, “Everybody cheating!” when she loses. 😀
My Mom is cool to play Mario Kart with me, in her 60s. Got her into MMOs, too!
I won’t defend these guys. I agree that the arrogance is over the top. No I won’t watch the video. I have never been impressed with actual teaching from Dr. Mohler. I never understood why he became such a voice for the Reformed movement.
My own travel to Calvinism came about because so much of the Christian church I experienced after I became a Protestant seem shallow. At least that was my experience. It seemed all of the big movements in my town were charismatic figures who got a following by their topical teaching. When I read the Bible for myself I found concepts like sovereignty, election, predestination, etc. However the popular churches in my town wouldn’t touch these teachings. Only taught what appeared to me to be a very limited diet of what the Bible actually seemed to me to teach over and over. I never have understood why the broader Protestant Christian church seemed to stay away from what was actually in the Bible. It just seems to me that if you don’t agree with Calvinist interpretation of these words and concepts you should at least come up with interpretations that explain the text. It appeared to me and in fact still seems to be true that most who are on the other side just pretend these things aren’t taught in the Bible. I at least can respect preachers more who teach expositionally through entire books of the Bible dealing with all that comes along. Who beside the preacher with a Calvinist conviction does that? Am I just unaware of them?
There is definitely a lot wrong with these three guys. However I still see a lot that is needed in Protestantism from expositional preachers. They won’t all agree about all points. But they won’t leave out or skip over verses they don’t want to be there.
I don’t mean at all to be insulting to anyone. Just wanted to give another perspective.
I believe that Calvinists are not trying to be difficult when they say they can only see the Bible through a Calvinistic lens. But I suspect it’s like an optical illusion where once you can see it another way you can no longer only see it one way. I don’t know how much you have looked for viable alternative interpretations, but good options are available. Here is just one example: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/orthodoxbridge/plucking-the-tulip-1-an-orthodox-critique-of-the-reformed-doctrine-of-predestination/. I have found it very useful to look for an Eastern Orthodox perspective because they often view things from a very different perspective. They have some very solid answers. But there are also Protestant perspectives that are very good. They are not hard to find.
Classic
Check out the tack editor Mohler took on the fundamentalist-moderate SBC conflict in the early 1990s, before he took the presidency of Southern Seminary:
“That non-aligned center of the denomination is increasingly traumatized by divisiveness caused by either party,” said Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr., editor of the Christian Index, the Georgia Baptist newspaper.”
http://nl.newsbank.com/nl-search/we/Archives?p_product=AT&p_theme=at&p_action=search&p_maxdocs=200&p_text_search-0=mohler&p_field_label-0=Author&p_field_label-1=title&p_bool_label-1=AND&s_dispstring=mohler%20AND%20date(11/17/1990%20to%2011/17/1990)&p_field_date-0=YMD_date&p_params_date-0=date:B,E&p_text_date-0=11/17/1990%20to%2011/17/1990)
Max, we should remind Al of what Paul really said: “Is Christ divided? Was Calvin crucified for you? Were you baptized in the name of Calvin?” (1 Corinthians 1:13, with very little editing…)
I gotcher’ theology right here…
— Joe Pesci —
Our minds seem to be designed to perceive pattern and system, and once one thinks one discerns a system, that can control the interpretation of other data.
I think the Reformed system is admirable as an attempt at a internally coherent account of God and His relation to the world. But admirable is not the same as “true.” Newton’s theory of gravitation is an admirable account of the phenomena of the Solar System; his system works extraordinarily well as a description of planetary motions, and it took hundreds of years for astronomy to advance to the point that discrepancies with Newton’s system could be detected. But in spite of the admirable descriptive accuracy, Newton happens to be profoundly mistaken at the core of his vision of the material world (infinite propagation speed of physical influences, absolute time, his notion of simultaneity, etc).
I’m not confident that any of the current major theological systems on offer has an adequate account of the biblical data. Pick the system that appeals most to you, but don’t cling to it too tightly. Some day we will see more clearly, and we will probably all be significant embarrassed in various ways.
———
Here’s an oddity in the Reformed system that played a large part in my move away from it. The theology of “justification” is derived primarily from Romans. But the theology of “what we are justified/saved from” does not come from Romans; it comes from Jesus’ “gehenna” sayings in the synoptic Gospels and from the fiery lake scene in Revelation 20. (Much of Protestantism resembles Reformed theology in this respect of which texts are relied on to support which doctrines, though the doctrines differ in detail).
If you try to derive a theology of wrath from Romans, you get something that is basically entirely “under the sun”, much like the theology of wrath of the Old Testament. If you try to derive a theology of justification from the synoptic Gospels, you get something that looks like “works righteousness.” I don’t see the justification (no pun intended) for privileging the synoptic Gospels over Romans for the formulation of a theology of wrath, and then reversing the emphasis for one’s theology of justification. The Reformed system, it seems to me, imposes itself on the Scriptures more than it emerges from them, at least in these areas.
That’s not to disrespect it as an effort of human intellect; it’s simply to doubt whether it is actually true.
James.
When a figure such as Calvin or Augustine are finished writing, only complete losers, or those with to much time on their hands actually read it. The writings are gigantic, and then they die.
It falls to descending followers to decipher and codify the teachings.
The 5 heads of Calvin-ism are not an “ism” at all. They are the Canons (verdict) of the Synod (court) of Dort. Handed down May 9th, 1619. Excepting the Lutheran Churches, which declined to attend, they are the declarations of unified international Protestism.
In pdf form they run about 10 pages in English. They are online. 5 Heads, in 3 groupings.
To help one remember them, a later non-Calvinist created the 5 Points of Calvinism. A sort of cheat-sheet if you will. I keep them on my phone instead, because I can never keep them strait.
They will be appealed.
Nathan Priddis,
Correction: French Protestants did not attend, as they where forbidden by the French Court. However, the French action shows the importance of the Synod. Also one delegation failed to show after a significant member’s death, if I recall. They also would have attended.
You are not missing much! I listened for 4 minutes and got incredibly bored and realised that it was 4 minutes of my life wasted and which I will never get back! I have never had the displeasure of hearing Kevin DeYoung preach but he sounds and looks as dull as dishwater.
Wise words Samuel. These systems can be helpful but as they were framed by men, they are fallible and open to question.
Thank you, KenF! You took the words right out of my keyboard!
Nathan Priddis,
Yikes. Augustine is one of the giants of Western Christendom. He casts his shadow over many centuries. Have you never read his *Confessions*? It is standard reading for countless college students. It is certainly assigned far more frequently than Calvin’s *Institutes*!
And Augustine’s *City of God* is considered hugely important, a milestone in the Western tradition. My husband just finished re-reading it, and I assure you he isn’t a “loser.”
I’m no fan of Calvin — far from it — but I think even he is read by more than just “losers.” *The Institutes,* I’m told, helped shape the modern French language. That’s pretty significant from a linguistic and historical perspective.
Your perspective is welcome Ken and it is not taken as insulting. I have read quite widely over the years from many different schools of theology – Calvinism, Arminianism, dispensationalism, Pentecostalism, Methodism and many others. They all have value and none of them have got it 100%. All groups had men that love God and some had great theological minds. However their systems are fallible as they were framed by men. I have also heard many of them either contradict themselves or (unconvincingly) explain away passages that do not support their system. This is true of men in all these groups.
I am personally more towards a free grace position (as taught by men like Charles Ryrie and Dwight Pentecost) but I have a lot of respect for many traditional Calvinists. They have a very God-centred approach, they have deep love for God and reverence for the Lord and they have a very high view of Scripture. Obviously I disagree with Calvinists over their views on the atonement, election and related issues but they are my brothers in Christ. Disagreements can and should be discussed in brotherly and friendly ways.
My observation: Here at T.W.W., there appears to be a “knee-jerk” reaction to Al Mohler.
_____________
If Mohler likes it, I’m against it; regardless of what it is.
It’s the Mohler “resistance.”
Samuel Conner,
I don’t see what you are saying. It appears to me that the “justified” of Romans 3 is from The wrath that is what God is against the sins of Romans 1&2. Paul makes his argument, what appears to me to be pretty thorough, that all mankind is condemned in sin without hope in themselves. Paul’s argument seems to flow right from the letter. I know I probably won’t convince anyone. But it seems so clear to me. I love the book of Romans and have studied it for years. I do not have any seminary training. But the arguments look clear to me.
I very much agree with all of what you wrote in your comment and was not sure which part of it to quote. In addition to pattern perception, there are other psychological aspects such as group think and loss aversion that can make it difficult to jump to a different pattern even if one can see the different pattern. When I opened my aperture by looking at other Christian traditions and historical Christianity it put me in a bind. I’m not quite now where to put myself in the Church or whether it really matters much. My wife and I recently started attending a large and vibrant UMC congregation. But I don’t know what will happen to it after the big conference next month.
This is the challenge for all of us – getting stuck into a way of not being able to see something any other way. A few years ago I started a list of some of the better internet links I found offering reasons for why Calvinism might not the best interpretation. I posted that list on TWW in 2017: http://thewartburgwatch.com/interesting/books-movies-tv-etc/#comment-330068. I have not recently checked to see if all of the links are still active, but most of them should be. Reading alternative views is like the choice between taking the blue and red pills – once you start seeing other viable alternatives it becomes difficult to not see them.
If one is a true Christian and theologically-minded, there is no place to go but the BIBLE, not Calvinism or some other man-made construct.
Maybe someday I’ll be known as *drsj*
Funny that they choose not to say…”There cannot be salvation outside of Jesus.”
I have always wanted to ask one of these guys what type of Calvinist Jesus was. Was he only a 4 pointer? Or did he make it to 5?!? Lol.
Ken F (aka Tweed),
I think there is a danger in our interpretation of scripture that each of us is susceptible to, including me and everyone of us. We get the idea that the Bible is a collection of verses that can be taken out and stand on there own. I don’t believe this is a healthy way to do Bible interpretation for any of us. I am susceptible as anyone else. The book of Roman is laid out with arguments that build on each other. Paul is laying out, what I think is very logical arguments for his understanding and by implication because he was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write what he wrote in the NT, God’s revelation of the Gospel. As I said, I think it flows very logically. I think that was his intent. I don’t think it has much to do with whether you are a Calvinist or not. “Context is king”.
I fear next month conference for UMC will be the Methodist version of the red wedding on game of thrones, but let me ask you a seemingly simple question, you most likely have done as much searching for higher meaning and truth in your quest for a place to call home ( belief system wise). But as far as Protestantism goes do you feel the essentials for orthodoxy are basic throughout the broader protestant movement? I personally struggle with RCC so I will leave them out of my orthodox box.
Ken A,
In Romans, “wrath” is thoroughly “under the sun”/pre-mortem — read it closely and note the contexts when “wrath” is mentioned. The Romans 1 wrath dynamic is “under the sun”, and ends in bodily death. The civil magistrate bears the sword and is an agent of wrath to punish wrong-doers — this is again “under the sun”. Believers are not to seek vengeance, but rather leave room for the wrath of God. Believer vengeance is “under the sun” (we don’t imagine that Paul is counseling his readers to not seek vengeance in the afterlife); it could not conceivably “crowd out” post-mortem punishments, so the wrath that is being left room for in this verse is also pre-mortem.
If this is what faith justifies from, Paul had a very different vision than the Reformers.
But as to the argument of Romans itself, I invite readers who can get hold of it to examine NT Wright’s commentary on Romans. To my mind, it makes better sense of the structure of the argument of Romans, and especially the puzzling Israel-focussed interlude in chapters 9-11 (and also some puzzling aspects of chapter 15), than the conventional readings. That’s not to say that it is flawless. It too is a human production.
I read once that the human mind trying to figure out God was akin to a dog scratching in the dirt trying to solve a calculus problem. I love theology. I love delving into the mysteries of the faith. But, I have discovered when I think I have found definitive answers, they vanish like the mist. For me there are three operative words as my “faith seeks understanding”. First word is paradox, the Bible is full of them. So, when I am asked whether it is election or free will, my response is “yes”. The second word is mystery. The mind of God is infinite. Anytime a finite mind says “I have it figured out.” that mind is probably partially or totally wrong. For me the Bible is not an answer book as much as it is a travel companion on the mysterious journey of faith. The last word is humility. Long ago, as I ranted about the “rightness” of my position in an argument, someone asked me, “Did you ever think you may be wrong?” That question pierced me like a pin popping a balloon. It took all the air out of my self-assured certainty. Since then these words from Paul have been my companion “Let the mind of Christ be in you… he humbled himself. To quote Paul again, “And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love (love is not envious or boastful or arrogant), I am nothing.”
Dan,
Well said!
The “goal” (at least the “under the sun” goal) also wants to be kept in view:
Gal 5:6 (context: a theological dispute of the 1st century)
“The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”
or 1 Tim 1:5
“The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith”
THe whole section from v3 to v11 is useful in reference to the history of theological dispute in the churches.
Calvinists do that, too. When anyone approaches Scripture with a predetermined theology in mind, they will distort passages to support their belief and practice. The reformed spin on Ephesians and Romans are good examples. I dare say that all “theologies” torture Scripture in various degrees.
Scripture speaks much about the sovereignty of God. Scripture speaks much about the free will of man. It all works together in a way that is beyond human comprehension. To put the mind of God into a neat theological box is to stand in arrogance before the Creator. This is best typified by the attached video; in their promotion of New Calvinism, Mohler, DeYoung and Duncan say there are no options out there, but 90+% of Christendom worldwide have rejected the tenets of reformed theology for the last 500 years.
Millions/billions of non-Calvinists love God, have accepted Christ as Savior, read their Bibles, pray, and minister in Jesus’ name to fulfill the Great Commission the best way they know how. Have they not been elected? I was young and now am old … in my Christian experience, I have seen a great multitude of souls “elected” into the Kingdom by repenting of their sins, receiving Christ, and living lives honoring Him … it’s a shame that Calvinists view God’s love for ALL men so differently.
We would all do well – regardless of theological flavor – to search the Scriptures daily to see if what any preacher/teacher/theologian is saying is true … a seminary degree is highly overrated. We need to approach God in the Spirit, rather than the intellect. We need to tune out the teachings and traditions of mere men and pray for the Holy Spirit to teach us truth. There are options out there, Dr. Mohler … in God’s presence is fullness of joy; as we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us. I hope I live long enough to see religion’s funeral preached … it’s about relationship.
Dan,
Comment of the year, thus far!
Max,
I agree…. nothing more really needs to be said
I agree, though “distortion” is perhaps “too strong” language. I suspect that the actual dynamic is more subtle, which is why people rarely perceive it at work in themselves. The problem is that our prior system preconditions our biblical interpretive process.
On many topics within Systematic Theology, one will find biblical texts that appear to speak at cross-purposes. How is this apparent tension/contradiction to be resolved?
An old interpretive principle is “the analogy of Scripture”, that texts that are of more clear/plain meaning should be given higher priority than texts that are more difficult to interpret.
The principle seems clear enough, but how does one decide which text has the plainer meaning? Unfortunately, one may not be able to do this by relying on the Bible itself. And this is where the interpreter brings his theological system pre-conceptions to bear. One’s prior system can have the effect of informing one which texts are “plain” and which texts are “obscure”. Thus, for the Reformed, that system tells you that the texts in Romans that reference justification are “plain” and have interpretive priority over texts in the Gospels that on their own seem to imply “works righteousness.” Similarly, the texts in the Gospels that mention “gehenna” are taken to have interpretive priority over the “wrath theology” of Romans (even though, to my mind, Romans has the plainer, clearer theology on this subject).
This dynamic (that “your system tells you how to apply the principle of ‘analogy of Scripture’ and therefore controls your interpretation of Scripture whenever the ‘analogy’ is in view) is inescapable unless you are prepared to attempt drop all system and try to “start from scratch” in your interpretation of Scripture.
There are people in our day who are trying to do that. They generally use “history”/”historical method” as an alternative to “the analogy of Scripture”. NT Wright is an example of someone whose work along these lines, though controversial, is still substantially orthodox. (If you have the patience, you might find his 2018 “Gifford lectures” — about 8 hours — to be useful. Bring some coffee, as it gets ponderous at times. His “Run through Romans 8” is more stimulating and also shorter). Andrew Perriman’s approach is more radical. Both are IMO worthy of attention (and doubtless there are others).
Ken A,
Ken. There is an easier to describe the situation. Here goes:
Christianity is…
…afraid of the Scriptures.
…views some truth through the lens of tradition.
…accepting some traditions as underlying truth.
…is not precise in its termanology or interpretation.
Well, yes, it does flow very logically. But different people come to very different conclusions based on their starting point. If you start from a Calvinist assumption that predestination is about who gets saved, then you will find that the logic proves your starting assumption. But that starting assumption could be wrong. If one were to compare salvation to a banquet, another way of looking at it is predestination is about what is on the menu, not who gets invited. The invitation is truly extended to all, but not everyone will want to eat what is on the predestined menu. If you start from this assumption you get a very different conclusion. Another way of looking at it is predestination is about the people group chosen to bring the Messiah (the line of Jacob, not the line of Esau).
I encourage your to read the first link from the list I provided above. Baxter Kruger started out as a Calvinist who read and studied everything Calvin ever wrote. He ended up rejecting Calvinism, not because he did not understand it, but because he understood it too well.
I wish I could answer that. On my search for historical orthodoxy and practice I found it to look a lot more Eastern Orthodox or Roman Catholic than I had hoped. I heard someone make the analogy that if early Christian beliefs and practices were like items in a museum, the Eastern Orthodox would view themselves as guards who don’t allow anything to change, whereas the Roman Catholics would view themselves as curators who don’t get rid of the old items but move some things to the basement and add new exhibits as the need arises. If we are to add protestants, I think it might be more like a pawn shop where ancient artifacts are only there if they have utility. In practice, Eastern Orthodoxy did change a bit during the early years (such as addition of the Trisagion to the liturgy, adopting the liturgy of St Chrysostom), which makes me wonder why they seem to be so resistant to change now.
The limited research I did leaves me thinking that EO is probably closer to the early church than anything else out there, that RCC retained all the ancient beliefs and practices but added a lot along the way, and that protestants reject too much history and rely heavily on relatively new innovations. But it’s difficult to really capture this because different protestants have very different views on the value of things like ancient creeds and practices, ecumenical councils, the value or early Christian writings, etc.
I suppose that answer is about as clear as mud. I wish I could do better.
“Confirmation Bias” makes it very difficult for any of us to start from scratch.
The condescension aside…I do not disagree that the Reformed faith is a neat and tidy theological system. However, my experience in human relationships is those relationships do not always adhere to “neat and tidy” rules. Why would we foolishly believe God–three persons in one–abide by our developed “neat and tidy” rules?! Any system that has defined the mystery out of knowing God is not a godly system as God is full of mystery beyond our understanding.
I suppose that’s what the “Done” movement is all about … done with organized religion, but not done with Jesus … perhaps the largest growing segment of the Christian population in America these days. The institutional church and its assorted buck-stops-here know-it-all leaders just ain’t feeding the sheep. So it’s come to this for many folks … search the Scriptures daily and call on the Holy Spirit to teach truth. Yep, “start from scratch” might just be the best thing to do … too much theological noise drowns out God. The drums of New Calvinism are so noisy!
Max: I just recently became a “Done”.
The truth is out there…
(queue in x-files theme music)
Oops, bumped post before commenting.
The mystery thing, that is where I SMH in heated conversation over Calvinism. When they can no longer answer my questions about their logic, they say God’s a mystery and we cannot understand everything. So I am just supposed to accept that everything they do think they understand about God is the correct understanding.
mot,
When the blind man who Jesus healed was tossed out of church, Jesus went looking for him. (John 9)
I can explain in the same amount of detail that Calvinists, but against Calvinism. I had to. I was raised in Calvinism side by side with traditional Baptist, which is not quite Arminian. When I was a teenager, my parents were Assembly of God, which is very Arminian. Extended family was Catholic, Mormon, JW, New Age, etc. I said God cannot exist if all these can’t get together on the facts. But that was before I actually knew God through Jesus Christ for myself. My crisis came when I asked God the question about where my two babies are who died before they were born. So much doctrine there. So I studied predestination for myself. I have understanding and can argue quite scripturally soundly why I believe the predestination verses which I am sure you were alluding to do not mean the same kind of predestination that Calvin and his mentors before him believed them to mean.
Ken A,
“When I read the Bible for myself I found concepts like sovereignty, election, predestination, etc. However the popular churches in my town wouldn’t touch these teachings.
However the popular churches in my town wouldn’t touch these teachings. Only taught what appeared to me to be a very limited diet of what the Bible actually seemed to me to teach over and over.
I never have understood why the broader Protestant Christian church seemed to stay away from what was actually in the Bible.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
it seems to me that every faction of christendom focuses on some things and stays away from other things, even calvinism / neo calvinism.
it is not possible to have a belief system and live by it that embraces all that is in the bible.
i mean, one can try, but they end up like this:
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/443745369504532541/
These guys should read the Acts of Perpetua and Felicitas, which dates from about 203 CE. The document claims to contain within it a diary of Perpetua, a young married woman. It’s probably the first identified Christian writing by a woman. What they would discover is that Perpetua’s view of Jesus and Christianity is not exactly the same as theirs. She received visions, for example, and was asked by others to pray for visions. She didn’t respect her father, who told her to make the sacrifice (which I presume meant burn incense before the emperor’s statue) and she told him no. In the Calvinista world, women don’t have that ability or authority. I’d note that Perpetua was martyred at Carthage but I half suspect the Calvinistas might not think she was a good Christian or even a follower of Jesus because she didn’t believe in TULIP.
Actually, I’d recommend reading the Acts of Perpetua and Felicitas. There are a number of translations out there. I read a version called “Perpetua’s Journey” from Oxford University Press. The first part of the book is a graphic novel version of the Acts and the second part is the historical and social context. For example, the graphic artist describes Perpetua’s baptism, but doesn’t show whether it was by full immersion, sprinkling, pouring or whatever, because we don’t know.
I’ll be honest, I came away from this with some unease. When I was younger, I thought Perpetua was very brave for sticking to her guns. Now that I’m older and have lived a lot longer, I’m not so sure about that.
MacArthur is another guy who needs to read the Acts of Perpetua and Felicitas, obviously. I suspect Perpetua’s steadfastness in the face of death would scare MacArthur to death.
I have experienced this in debating some of them. Admittedly some theological issues are complex but that does not mean that we should not think about them. Pleading “paradox” or “mystery” sets a precedent. For example, Years ago I read one Christian apologist criticise the Koran for contradicting itself between divine sovereignty and human freedom. I thought that seemed quite hypocritical considering he defended Calvinism for doing exactly the same thing. If you want to plead paradox or mystery then you must allow others to do the same – you cannot claim a monopoly on it.
I’ve had several New Cals tell me that if I couldn’t understand, that proved I wasn’t elect. But they clearly couldn’t explain some of the seeming contradictions either (particularly on the verses that use the word “all”).
I’m pretty sure some of them had just convinced themselves they understood it even though they didn’t, to reinforce their belief in their own election. But there still are problems with Calvinist theology just as there are problems with other theological viewpoints.
The only other thing I’d like to add to the entire discussion is that there isn’t just two options, which is a common fallacy of Calvinism vs. non-Calvinism. Even classical Calvinists I’ve known make the mistake in thinking that Armininianism is the only other theological option. There are a number of other theological systems and views on predestination and election.
I think this is a good example of an alternative interpretation of the atonement from what Calvinists teach: https://www.ptm.org/q-r-how-is-christ-a-sacrificial-lamb-brad-jersak. Brad is Eastern Orthodox. Before I started investigating Eastern Orthodoxy I had assumed they had a low view of the Bible. But I was greatly mistaken. Everything I have read from them relies heavily on their interpretation of the Bible. When I compare their interpretations with Calvonist interpretations I find the EO logic more compelling and more internally consistent than Calvinism. I was not expecting that.
My take? New Calvinism is actually very illogical. Since so many preacher boys have been brainwashed in it at so high a cost in student loans they have a vested interest in promoting it. Who wants to admit they paid all that money, blood, sweat and tears for codswallop? And if they admit THEY don’t understand it either they are out of the club, so what they do not understand they pass off as “intellectually challenging” and “deep.” Which it is neither.
They should learn there are highly intellectual theories of the atonement beyond penal substitution, theories of election such as corporate and Arminian that are rigorous intellectually, and far more coherently logical systems of theology than Calvinism.
But then what to do with that pricey degree?
I probably agree with most of what these guys are saying. That being said, I still cannot watch the video due to many of the reasons already mentioned in the comments.
The only doctrinally-honest Calvinist I have read of is A.W. Pink who famously declared that “God does not love everyone”. He accepted the logical conclusion of Calvinism, but he had to wear his “Systematic Theology” glasses (i.e filter everything through the hermaneutics of Calvin) when reading John 3:16, 2Pt 3:9 (etc). People err by attempting to resolve the tension between love and justice by redefining God in terms of disingenuous love that either ignores sin, or loves legalism–neither of which God does. God really is who he claims to be–fully loving and fully just. God does not surrender his sovereignty by loving everyone or granting them free choice –but only God can manage all that.
This idea is very common, and indeed commenters here at Wartburg have occasionally gone further and made very strong and sweeping claims about how God is fundamentally unknowable to the human mind. The problem with this is twofold. Firstly, it is itself a claim about God, resting on humanly conceived assumptions about what “god” must be like. Secondly, and more importantly, the bible describes at great length the lengths to which God has gone to reveal himself to humanity.
That’s not to say I disagree with what you wrote. Far from it – I think you put it really well in describing the bible as a travel companion. I love the way it raises questions as well as answers (if the bible said that God didn’t care or was all about survival of the fittest, then The Problem Of Evil would disappear!).
Hah! I don’t need a Cal of any age to tell me I’m not elect.
mot,
“I just recently became a “Done”.”
++++++++++++++++++
Hello, mot. Good to hear from you. your news…. i imagine a lot has happened leading up to it.
Oh, the arrogance … to tell someone they have been damned before the foundation of the world, before they ever drew breath, lost and undone, with no hope. And, of course, they are they elect and can prove it because they accepted reformed indoctrination. The arrogant cusses were predestined, but you were not?! Doesn’t make sense that Heaven would be populated by such characters.
Amen, Ken! These Calvinists sound nothing like the Cappadocian Fathers, or St. Athanasius, Justin Martyr, Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus and many more. These Calvinists are an innovation and have little resemblance to the Apostolic faith.
I have found that New Calvinists have a mistrust in personal Christian experience. I’ve seen them squirm when I refer to having a personal relationship with the living Christ and that the Holy Spirit leads me. They are much more comfortable discussing doctrines about grace, rather than hearing that someone has had a direct experience of Grace. They just don’t seem to get that. I suppose that’s why they don’t talk much about Jesus. That leaves me wondering just what they have been elected to … to a theology, rather than the Body of Christ?
Ken F (aka Tweed),
Frivolity aside, what you describe really is a dizzying array of ideas and counter proposals. The sheer volume of both is daunting.
So much so that it can a be a weariness of the flesh, as the writer of The Book of Ecclesiastes observed.
Well, Mahaney does claim to be an apostle…
Two years ago I stood on the soil where Perpetua and Felicitas were martyred. I have never been the same.
Muslin, fka Dee Holmes,
ishy,
GOOD NEWS!
Rahaf Mohammed Alqunun has been welcomed into Canada as a human rights refugee and will not be deported back to Saudi Arabia.
Ken F (aka Tweed),
“…and that protestants reject too much history and rely heavily on relatively new innovations”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
maybe that’s why protestant church seems so cute.
far too cute to believe it is actually an ancient religion.
quite honestly, i’ve finally come to terms with the fact that i simply haven’t bought into most of it for years. at least 20 years of attending church.
it’s all just too cute and wrapped up in a tidy modern bow.
credibility-challenged.
““I know that I am intelligent, because I know that I know nothing.” Socrates”
–That’s us, dude!
My theologically mindedness actually took me to Orthodoxy and far, far away from Calvinism…..
It wasn’t until after I came back from Japan last October that I was hit with the realization that Christians had walked–and died as martyrs–at places where I’d walked. I mean, I knew, but I really didn’t KNOW the whole situation. The trip wasn’t supposed to be a pilgrimage, but it turned into one for me after the fact. I want to go back to Nagasaki, Shimabara and Unzen. And, to be clear, I’m pretty sure the Calvinistas wouldn’t think the people who were crucified in Nagasaki or drowned in the Unzen hot springs were Christians. That’s not how I feel about it.
I was telling my brother about this today. I said one good thing had come out of the horrible death of Jamal Khashoggi, and that was how people now understood the Saudis mean business. The pleas of a young woman weren’t ignored this time. It’s still terrible he died the way he did, but we now know Mohammed bin Salman can’t be trusted.
elastigirl,
maybe my appraisal is too harsh.
it’s weird, kind of like being in an antigravity chamber, beliefs-wise.
A.W. Pink was honest and he makes easier and better reading than John Piper. Piper is not honest enough to admit that he believes just the same thing. He spends page after page talking like a politician attempting to explain and rationalise it . A truly hopeless task!
John Piper may IMO be more honest than he gets credit for from his critics, but you have to read closely.
Piper’s god loves his own glory above all else and subordinates everything to that. And, in Piper’s vision of what “god’s goodness” means, that is the only way that god could be truly righteous.
Correct me if I am mistaken, but I think this is a succinct summary of Piper’s distillation of Edwards’ vision of the meaning of true virtue.
IOW, JP’s god is the ultimate narcissist. In humans, this kind of self-absorption would be wicked and ugly, but in god it is beautiful and glorious (by the self-referential standard that JP proposes).
It has been suggested that there seems to be increasing incidence of narcissistic traits in public pulpits. Perhaps this is an outworking of the biblical principle that people become like what they worship.
Exactly. My faith walk was much simpler before I discovered this. Ignorance is bliss.
Thanks for the reference. My biggest problem with ancient Christian writings is not knowing where to start because there are so many available and I don’t have much free time. The reformers did not give much attention to these ancient writings, and not many protestant groups do much digging. It’s a shame because there is so much rich history and tradition.
But where did all the Orthodox affectations come from? Don’t tell me a group of fishermen from Judea wandered around in tall hats, golden robes, chanting in greek or latin.
Of course they didn’t have a stage show wearing the latest hipster gear either.
Will the real Christianity please stand up?
Ken, you are exactly the right walk. Too many Christians and other faiths don’t ask questions. We have never lived in a simple world. If God is about truth, then everything is up for debate. Stay thirsty, my friend.
Historians will know better, but one might reckon that the liturgical traditions see justification for special (and even costly/ornate) vestments for public officiators in the OT regulations about priestly garments.
Personally, I’m a bit uneasy about this because it’s another way of professionalizing ministry and creating special classes of believers within the churches. My sense is that Paul’s numerous “one another” instructions are intended to diffuse ministry widely among the people, so that there is not a strong laity/clergy distinction. On that reading, “elder” and “deacon” are not “the two offices”, but rather two specific kinds of functions within the churches, which are assigned to people who are well-equipped to fulfill them. But there are many other “one another” functions, just as there are many “Spirit giftings”.
I’m so glad!
Aaugh! Aaugh! I feel so triggered! Save me! Build me a safe space! Where’s my anatomical hat?
Friend,
There are all manner of puns in there for the bored chemist (not to mention dentist). Partial mohler quantities; mohler mass; mohler volume…
Any particular part of Eastern Orthodoxy? There are still some Palestinian Christians in the Holy Land, although their ancestors might not have converted on the day of Pentecost. Cities named in Scripture still have churches. You mentioned limited research; did you look into these questions?
Eastern Orthodox worship in the old country/ies is an overwhelming and mystical experience, so very different from Protestantism in the US. There’s so much beauty in the variety of worship.
Dispiriting chapter. One miracle, twenty arguments.
___
“Some thoughts, perhaps.”
hmmm…
TWW, thank you, for this prestigious and faithful platform, year after year…
I am very grateful.
Calvinism is a religious reformed theological system. Many theologians have promoted some form of it for over five hundred years. I have many of their books in my modest library. Much of what they have taught is profound and profitable. However they in essence sometimes present a God I have never known.
Let me explain.
When I was young and on my own, I asked God to show me He was real; I really needed His help with my life. The world was such a big place, and I needed help to determine my place in it. Well, to my surprise God showed me over the next few years how real and how wonderful He could be.
I will spare you the details, somehow I don’t think you would believe me any way.
Yet it has been pretty remarkable, fantastic actually. (an understatement)
He is kind, generous, and thoughtful. He has alway knowns what I need before I do, He is not pushy or a bully.
My faith in Him and His Sòn has become strong because of His enviable love for me. I asked God years ago to show me He was real. All I can say to you today, is that He has taken my breath away…
hum, hum, hum, I can see His love for miles and miles…
I really don’t need a Calvinist theologian to show me God is real and wonderful. God has done that all by Himself for as long as I can remember.
Some folks, I know, have a hard time having faith in God. I can understand that. But for me, I have the opposite problem, as it were, —I have a hard time NOT having faith in Him.
*
Mind you, not that my life has been always easy, but He has been with me, offering friendship as only He can, for so long, I would miss Him desperately if He wasn’t there.
‘My God, My God, Why have. You forsaken me?’ Well, the answer is He never has.
*
It wasn’t that I understand my bible better than say, my pastor, it’s just that God has taken a personal interest in me, taught me to follow His word (I’m still learning), and that gracious, divine effort is evidenced to some extant or degree, by all who know me.
Perfect?, I am far from it, but He loves me, and has never given up on me, all the same…
For that I am very gr8ful! Thanx Lòrd!
*
IMHO The best is yet to come!
“Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said: ‘Streams of living water will flow from within him.’” -Jesus
To all of you wonderful folks who are reading this, —all the best in 2019! 🙂
Sòpy
—
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UFrDpx7zLtA
;~)
– –
It’s been a combination. I’ve listened to quite a few hours of podcasts from Ancient Faith Radio, which is Antiochian but has contributors from others. I’ve read quite a few articles from other sites such as OCA, GOC, and ROCOR. I read a handful of books such as “Orthodox Dogmatic Theology” and “The Orthodox Way.” And I’ve attended divine liturgy about a dozen times at a parish near where I live that does the liturgy in English. I’ve learned that there is no way to plumb the depths of Orthodoxy because its history and traditions are so complicated. I suppose I have done a lot more enquiry than most protestants but I still don’t feel like I can answer questions about it with much confidence.
Carl,
Excellent points, Carl! Pink is the exception, a Calvinist who does not hide, deny or ignore the more deplorable, but undeniable, assertions of his theology. I disagree with nearly every aspect of his beliefs, but at least he’s honest.
Jack,
“But where did all the Orthodox affectations come from? Don’t tell me a group of fishermen from Judea wandered around in tall hats, golden robes, chanting in greek or latin.
Of course they didn’t have a stage show wearing the latest hipster gear either.
Will the real Christianity please stand up?”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
yeah, it’s all a costume party, dressing and playing the part.
for me, the only christianity i can buy into at the moment (& for the last 20 years, even though i couldn’t articulate it, even to myself) is:
matter-of-fact kindness and philadelphia, wherever i happen to be. no costume, face, or personna to put on.
and the concept of prayer.
(but this old news)
Max, I think you are very thoughtful. Yes, I think you and I agree about all of us having a predisposition to only promote our own theological construct or the way we see it. We all are susceptible. My solution offered, though not foolproof I must admit, is to teach verse by verse through entire books of the Bible. That way we must deal with what is there. We won’t all agree, but we will have to deal with the text whether it is own view or not.
Samuel Conner,
You are obviously a very thoughtful person. Are you saying that Romans doesn’t deal with eternal judgement? If so, don’t we need to keep in mind the larger context of the entire Bible? Mankind needs a “gospel ” because they “died” in their relationship to God in Eden. Paul gives the evidence of man’s sinfulness or his rebellion against God, his absence of relationship to God as it works itself out in the life of each man in Romans 1,2 and 3. Giving proof of mans eternal just judgement. “Though they knew God, they neither glorified him as God, nor were they thankful”.
This looks like an eternal consequence to me. Salvation can not be divided up between the “under the sun” as you say and the eternal, can it? At least, I would not say that is a good way to look at it.
As you say, there’s something both sad and familiar about this chapter. Still today, there are whole swathes of christendom who intensely dislike tales of non-medical healing, and who will try and dismiss any such on technicalities of law or principle.
For many years, Lesley had suffered from the debilitating side-effects of asthma medication that were only slightly less acute, and much worse chronically, than the asthma itself. Well, to cut a long story short, about 18 years ago Lesley got free from it. She still is; now we go fell-running together and she is fitter now than she’s ever been. But the hostility from the local para-church congregation was so great over this story that we eventually left.
Many professing christians don’t believe in God. I don’t know what proportion “many” means in this context, but if my experience is anything to go by, it’s not insignificant. That’s why they’re so keen to speak for God, and/or to set out the (undisprovable) theorems on what he will, will not, can, and cannot, do.
Ken F (aka Tweed),
Thank you.
Just like most things in Christianity the answer to this is both complicated and inconclusive. The Eastern Orthodox will tell you that the very first Christians continued Jewish worship style, including liturgy, chanting and vestments. I question this, but history does not give good counterexamples. To disprove this one would simply need to find historical evidence for when these traditions started. But apparently you cannot. It appears that these traditions may indeed have started right from the beginning. If there was a different set of traditions they seem to have been lost in history. This is not what I was hoping or expecting to find.
My best advice to those who are happy with their current style of worship is to not ask any questions. My search for the early church falls into the category of “if you can’t stand the answer dont ask the question.”
And even with all of the authority Jesus ceded to those holding the seat of Moses (Matthew 23), He didn’t leave the fate of the blind man up to them and their rejection.
Also, look at the preceding verse to Jesus’ finding the blind man again: “They replied, “You were born in utter sin, and you are instructing us?” And they threw him out.” (John 9:34) Here’s the case of someone cast as unworthy to challenge the assertions and the instruction of the assembly leadership.
Agreed, and I understand your current pain.
Still… I was taught as a child that church pageantry was a show of wealth, upheld by squeezing donations out of the poor. (There is some truth in this, but in our circle, it was anti-Catholic bias.) Later I learned that grand cathedrals, vestments, chant, and incense were intended to give glimpses of the glory of heaven. There’s some basis in Hebrew scripture for offering the finest materials and artistry for items used in worship. Services in ancient Orthodox churches are mystical and absolutely breathtaking.
Friend,
“Services in ancient Orthodox churches are mystical and absolutely breathtaking”
+++++++++++++
i was in Notre Dame cathedral in Paris for mass one evening. it was so powerful and moving — the atmosphere and the amazing structure made it so (helped along by location, beautiful language, and countless candlelit flames).
so, i can see the value of pageantry.
pageantry in my church experiences amounted to dishtowels as turbans, cardboard props, and a band of novices in low styrofoam-ceilinged office space.
my thought at the moment is to what extent human lives are exploited to create pageantry that is amazing, mystical, and breathtaking?
Sound so easy and safe. Exactly what my former Calvie pastor claimed to do. Then it became obvious how quickly he skipped over what he preferred to ignore, and gave emphasis to sometimes the least important or imported concepts. I certainly believe in studying all of scripture, then holding up what I am currently reading and comparing it to everything else scripture says; particularly the narratives. I is so easy to twist words to mean whatever you wish; far more difficult to deny the events of a narrative. Not that many won’t try.
I rather suspect they are the ones on the ‘wrong end’ of the guns, blades and fires.
That is a wonderful story, and I thank you for sharing it with us. You and Lesley must be grateful every day.
How awful that your local para-church folk were hostile. I don’t understand the connection between curing and healing, but I absolutely believe in it.
Well, that and the unholy alliance between religion and state.
But I think God can speak to us through all senses and in all settings; we invoke God. I’ve done some artistic work for a church, and felt that it was sacred in part because I brought together fine materials (donated) and my utmost effort (donated). When these items are used in worship, devotion and love make them ever more precious and holy, as part of something both intimate and infinite.
Oh, I agree Ken. I have been in lay ministry as a Bible teacher/lay preacher for 40+ years. I prefer expository teaching verse by verse, rather jumping around the Bible on topical studies. The problem inherent with any form of teaching is when the teacher pauses to give his interpretation of the text in line with a pet theology. In preparation for a class, I prefer to sit alone with my Bible, reflect on text within its context, and pray for the Holy Spirit to teach me rather than consulting commentaries or following outlines provided by the authors of church literature (e.g., LifeWay materials). I then impart what I believe I heard by the Spirit to others who sit under my teaching. As I read the Word, I’m reminded “But you must understand this at the outset, that no prophecy of Scripture arose from an individual’s interpretation of the truth” (2 Peter 1:20). Truth is more important than an interpretation of truth and that only comes by the Holy Spirit who leads us into all Truth … the teachings and traditions of men can lead us astray.
And one testimony … all the blind man knew was what Jesus had done for him and stuck with his story.
🙂
Ken A,
My argument is against projection of post-mortem punishments onto texts that probably are concerned with pre-mortem wrath and its ultimate “under the sun” expression, mortality itself. It’s a kind of eisegesis and does not promote understanding.
I think we have a lot less biblical data on the details of post-mortem consequences than we are accustomed to believing (and that I once believed). Perhaps the wicked are simply left in the grave and not granted resurrection and the life of the Age to Come. That is certainly an “eternal” judgment, but of a very different kind than the present-day prevailing view. This view, which sometimes goes by the name “conditional immortality”, is at present quite unpopular, perhaps in part because it is held by groups that are heterodox (such as Seventh-day Adventists) or heretical (such as Jehovah’s Witnesses). But I think it is more strongly defendable from Scripture than the conventional view.
If you have time, you might find “Jesus and the Victory of God”, by NT Wright, to be helpful as an attempt at an historical reading of Jesus’ public ministry, which is the context of the “gehenna” sayings that form most of the textual support for doctrines of post-mortem punishments. (Caution: NTW recommends that the preliminary volume on historical method, “The New Testament and the People of God,” be digested first.) I also found the chapter on OT precedents for Jesus’ “gehenna” sayings in Brad Jersak’s “Her Gates Will Never Be Shut” to be quite helpful.
If you would care to hear a philosophical/theological defense of universalism, a view which may be even less popular than conditional immortality, you may find David B Hart’s “The Moral Meaning of Creatio ex Nihilo”
http://journal.radicalorthodoxy.org/index.php/ROTPP/article/view/135/86
to be challenging, and perhaps even edifying.
I write as an ex “Calvinist with baptist leanings” — basically a ex neo-calvinist. I was in that mentality for decades, and ultimately found it to be wanting.
I study the Bible every day, but I believe the people who live the most like Jesus.
A lot of people who claim to be Christians I know don’t act anything like Jesus. They are greedy, or selfish, or crude, or mean. I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, but some people never seem to grow or change at all, and always put themselves first.
Some of the people I know who claim to study the Bible more than anyone else look the least like Jesus. Maybe they do really study the Bible that much, but does it have any effect on who they are?
i.e. They are discarded, just like the trash piles in Gehenna, the Jerusalem city dump in Hinnom Valley.
Or bogs down in hyper-detail, spending MONTHS on a single verse and losing the narrative context.
HEAD Apostle.
Of the People of Destiny(TM).
Ego Much?
Headless Unicorn Guy,
My present view is that Jesus’ “gehenna” sayings are foretellings of gruesome calamity in the AD70 siege of Jerusalem. During that siege, many thousands of dead inhabitants of Jerusalem were tipped over the walls — insufficient room in the City for burial, and insufficient manpower to do the burying — into the valleys below, including the Hinnom Valley. So I don’t think that post-mortem “soul-punishment” is in view at all. It’s what was going to happen to the bodies of the dead. And, given contemporary Jewish scruples about how the dead were to be cared for and properly buried, this would have been a deeply horrifying fate.
Sunk Cost Fallacy, the con man’s friend.
Get the marks/suckers to invest so much money, time, and emotional energy in the con that they CAN’T back out, even when they know they are being taken to the cleaners. Because they would have to admit they got conned. Some will even fanatically defend the con man and the con game and/or prosletyze others to jump in rather than have to admit they fell for it.
Samuel Conner,
“I think we have a lot less biblical data on the details of post-mortem consequences than we are accustomed to believing”
+++++++++++++++
religious art hasn’t helped (thinking of renaissance paintings of hell, like michelangelo and signorelli — one look and you’ll never forget). amazing how images deemed important shape and inform our ideas of what is true.
i agree — i think the information in the bible is pretty scant and sketchy.
reluctantly, i’ll share that things experienced by people i know concerning loved ones who have passed on (experiences which were in no way solicited), don’t seem to fit the ‘doctrines’ of hell and heaven.
elastigirl,
I don’t know what to make of apparitions of the kind you mention, but I’m also reluctant to reject such reports as delusion or to infer that there is something evil underneath them. In Jesus’ first post-resurrection appearance to the gathered apostles, he had to assure them that He was not an insubstantial spirit — which implies that was a concept they were familiar with. It’s been speculated that “Peter’s angel” in Acts 12:15 might be something similar, on the theory that the people may have assumed that Peter had been executed in prison.
While I think there is not a lot biblical data on post-mortem punishments, I want to affirm that there is a robust theology of hope of resurrection. Practically an entire chapter of 1 Corinthians, the 15th, is devoted to this.
The first shall be last and the last shall be first.
It’s OK with me if a new reformer spends YEARS on Romans 9 and loses himself in the narrative.
Max,
I recommend verse 2
Excellent verse. Thanks for pointing this out. Also…
vs. 21 ” . . .for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”
For starters?
Here’s an example of the real McCoy (Christianity) in action.
Done by those who may or may not ‘identify’ as Christian, but who do the things contained in the Law anyway…
https://www.yahoo.com/news/mamma-dog-puppy-rescued-certain-135502877.html
Samuel Conner,
Some people so certain of their system that they will “beat” the sin out of you. Job is my antidote and refuge to these people who holds a water-tight-theology-created-by-fallen-creature-in-a-fallen-creation. To me any claims of a perfect theological system is a big fat lie and ultimately to be twisted for controlling people.
I would say the two works are more foundational to the Faith, then the Scriptures.
As I recall, significant persons such as Spurgeon have declared Calvin’s teachings to be the Gospel.
Further back, I believe Calvin interpreted Scripture through Augustine.
Further still Augustine laid down bedrock. Original sin, signs and the teacher/student pattern of learning.
Absolutely, you are correct.
No as for why a person might actually read these two pine on about life, I would offer my own experiance. I read then because I was at home after my life imploded. If it hadn’t, I would have been doing something else with my life, other then listening to a guy from circa 390’s divulge his discomfort with his sexuality. Or, inform us about his complicated maternal relationship.
Society would possibly call me a loser in life. I definitely had too much time on my hands.
My memory is failing with my health, but this is what I remember of Augustine’s conversion. I may even get some of the following statements right:
He describes something like an emotional breakdown in a garden. He emerges to hear a child’s voice saying “go and do likewise.” This followed some random bible verse coming to mind. And then, he runs home to tell his mother, it is done. The “done” was I think a referance to swearing off sexual intercourse. After which he leaves his common law wife, and becomes the Father of Protestism.
Your husband sounds far more educated then I. He either had some time on his hands, or he enjoys an occasional light read.
Ok. Jokes aside, I mostly was ready to just die. I mean when is guy done with his confession.
Nathan Priddis,
Interesting questions and comments from a student in a Christian high school. Beyond the “labels” that group the people in various theology camps, I would like to encourage you to think about the fact that “The Lamb was slain before the foundation of the world.” Jesus was already there in eternity past and His blood was already shed when our Father chose us (sinners)in Christ to be His children.
We seem to only think in linear timelines. But for God the beginning and the end are all in view at the same time. He can allow “interactions with humans” even in His eternal plan which is sure, but not stiff or rigid. Hyper-Calvinism is rigid thinking because the finite mind of humans can’t figure out the infinite God.
We are better off to be simple and believe that John 3:16 holds true anywhere anytime. This Christian hopes that you will come through with an authentic view of the reality of Jesus Christ, and a real love for the God Who loves you, and all souls. And the power of His incorruptible blood should not be discounted.
Here I humbly ask God to guide you. Please exercise discernment on these comments, too, since I know I am also a finite human being.
Simple questions.
“So am I going to hell if I choose not to believe in Calvinism?”
“Will the theological “l’eaders” of our day, condemn me to hell if I choose not to follow them of their ridiculous theological debates on Calvinism?”
“Did the fruits of John Calvin’s life reflect our Savior, Jesus Christ’s Ways?”
“If I believe in Jesus Christ, alone, for my literal salvation, according to His Word and His Ways, then why in the world would I even consider focusing my faith in a man who is a sinner just like me?”
“Why is the man, John Calvin, worshiped and idolized within the evangelical complex?”
When ministering the Gospel of Jesus Christ to those who are in need of a Good Word, the name of John Calvin or any denominational church never comes out of my mouth, only Jesus, as our LORD and Redeemer, Savior.
By this do you mean that people can come to Jesus, or Jesus can reach out to them, after their mortal bodies have died? I ask in all seriousness. As a teen in a youth group that emphasized this verse and John 14:6 (“…no man cometh to the father but by me”), I constantly proselytized those who did not declare themselves saved. The pressure was all on me to spread the message, which was actually poisonous, because anyone who heard it from me had been duly warned. All of the Chinese communists were also going to hell unless I could get over there and convince/warn them.
I would like to think that Jesus is not constrained by space and time; or that the verses are more merciful than our youth ministers taught; or that popular beliefs about who goes to hell are not well founded on Scripture.
Please note: I’m not trying to anger anyone, but to move past clobber-verse teachings that were crystal clear. I am still stuck.
Amen! May we have only men of God under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit delivering a word from God in our pulpits. Too many are preaching theologies of mere men, parroting the words of their icons. There are too many preacher-boys in the American church, and not enough men of God.
I don’t think Jesus was/is constrained by anything, including space and time, and because of that he was/is free to set up the means of redemption in any way they saw fit, so it is very possible and most likely probable that your youth pastors may have been on to something….
Because He Alone Has God All Figured Out.
“So what if I rack him ’til he die? For I shall have Saved His Soul.”
— “The Inquisitor”, Mark Twain’s Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
So is “the information in the bible” regarding angels and demons, but that didn’t stop medieval theologians/angelologists/demonologists from creating elaborate multi-generational edifices of hyper-detailed speculation, with each previous gen’s speculation the foundation of FACT for the next generation’s.
What the original Internet Monk called “Wretched Urgency”:
https://internetmonk.com/archive/imonk-classic-wretched-urgency—the-grace-of-god-or-hamsters-on-a-wheel
Did you also get the one about how the only thing God would ask you on J-Day was “How Many Did YOU Lead to Christ?” And how your status in Heaven (your “Crown of Glory”) would totally depend on how many notches YOU had in YOUR Bible? And how Christ Was Coming Soon to Rapture you all away (tomorrow at the latest) so Work For The Night Is Coming? (Armageddon clock is ticking clock is ticking tick tick tick tick tick tick tick tick…)?
Strange, isn’t it? I suppose it has something to do with challenging the intellect, rather than the spirit. Don’t worry too much about it though. The man and his message are adored by less than 10% of Christendom worldwide. We only talk about it here because an army of whippersnapper New Calvinists and their arrogant leaders are wreaking havoc in the church with their “we alone have truth” mumbo-jumbo. This too will pass and the Church of the living God will pick up the pieces, heal the wounds, and move on.
Friend,
Something that held my attention from pretty early in my reading of the New Testament is that Paul didn’t seem to have the frantic concern to “reach every soul” that was inculcated in my youth when I was instructed in the ways of “infernalism.” Of course, this can be interpreted in multiple ways; maybe Paul was a 1st century Calvinist and was confident that God would bring the elect within earshot of Paul’s message, or of the churches Paul founded.
But when one reads through Paul’s letters, one finds very little that is clearly about post-mortem punishments (but, I want to emphasize, considerably more about the believer’s hope of resurrection into the likeness of the glorified Christ).
And post-mortem punishments is almost entirely absent from the Old Testament (save, IIRC, for a single verse in Daniel that speaks of a partial resurrection of the dead, some to glory and some to shame).
It seems that on this subject, Paul thought much more like an ancient Jew than a 20th century itinerant tent evangelist.
But there’s something else that at times shows up in Paul’s writings, and that has to be interpreted away if one is committed to limited atonement or double predestination. At times Paul uses sweeping language to describe the arc of sin and redemption. Here are a couple of examples in Romans:
5:18-19 which uses a parallel construction to compare the consequences of Adam’s disobedience with the consequences of Christ’s obedience
11:32 (NIV) “For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.”
These texts and others that are similar don’t by themselves determine the question; infernalists, conditionalists and universalists interpret them differently.
But, to my mind, combined with Paul’s discernible lack of interest in post-mortem punishments (no “gehenna” language, for example; that really does seem to have been an Israel-specific feature of Jesus’ prophetic ministry — why this might have been so is IMO an important question, since it may shed light on what the “gehenna” sayings meant to their hearers), it suggests that the received traditional view, that so terrified us when we were being indoctrinated into “the faith”, may not be the right story.
At the risk of annoying people with repetition, you may find DB Hart’s meditation on the implications of our affirmation that God created the world out of nothing to be helpful:
http://journal.radicalorthodoxy.org/index.php/ROTPP/article/view/135/86
Headless Unicorn Guy,
Don’t forget, “everything will burn, except the souls you save”, so, you really should not work “that hard” in college… the best thing you can do is “go on staff” and save souls….
Ironically, 30 years later, “staff” from that same organization want some of the money I earn which is partially a result of my “working hard” in school..
And the clash of their cymbals hurts my ears big time…
Jeffrey Chalmers,
Boy, that takes me back. It seems that recruiting believers to join the global campus ministry corporation was at least as important as recruiting people to faith in Jesus.
I turned away from them in dismay in the late ’80s or early ’90s when they began adopting business-style metrics of “ministry effectiveness”. Another great cause that began as a movement and later turned into a business. I hesitate to assume that they have already degenerated into a racket; perhaps that remains for the future.
Evidence would suggest that Paul was also a very Hellenized Jew.
Influenced by Greek ideals of perfection and mechanistic reduction.
Samuel Conner,
Headless Unicorn Guy,
Jeffrey Chalmers,
Thanks for the perspective and the study suggestions. Very helpful.
We were continually dared to do more. “It’s controversial, but would you hand out tracts on a street corner?” The tracts were lurid, so this was a three-layer question, starting with the need to land on the correct side of supposed controversy. Way beyond the ken of teens who just wanted to study the Bible and shoot some hoops.
Jeffrey Chalmers,
Dang. I tried to thank several people, but the adorable USDA beagle trotted over to sniff my suitcase. It will probably be released from customs later on, but meanwhile, thanks to you, HUG, Samuel Conner, and Muff as well. 😉
I’ve occasionally wondered how far the marketing needs of itinerant selling have shaped fundagelical theology over the years. When [generic] you are trying to close a sale in which no tangible goods change hands, then it helps to have a strongly emotive carrot-and-stick approach to get the buying started.
I’ve also noticed that a lot of hymns from that culture/era follow a certain pattern. They tell the same story in the following three acts (though not necessarily three verses):
Act I – The writer’s past as a wretched sinner
Act II – The writer’s spectacular, Damascene conversion experience
Act III – At some point in the future, the writer will therefore be part of the ultimate in-crowd
Nothing happens between Acts II and III; probably because the hymn was written to accompany a salesman who couldn’t really demonstrate any product.
Years ago, I read in the biography of a well-known salesman/evangelist that his “passion was for souls”. But I’m sceptical; at least of what it was he was really generating. In his mind it may have been souls, but in reality they may have been little more than statistics. Stats, not souls, IOW.
Nick Bulbeck,
I’ve had similar thoughts, though mine have tended to focus on “risk aversion” in the sense of “Pascal’s Wager.” If you don’t have a crystal-clear idea of the risks you face, it can appear prudent to “assume the worst and prepare for that.”
I suspect that the PW still holds a strong grip on Christian imagination, at least in the West. I also think that the strong language in Galatians 1 tends to discourage people from questioning the received “infernalist” tradition, which might also (and I think it does) call into question the details of the received traditional understanding of the meaning of “the gospel” (full disclosure: I think Paul’s gospel was very simple: a) Jesus is Lord, as evidenced by b) God raised Jesus from the dead, which reversed the verdict of the rulers that Jesus was a false messiah. In Paul’s view — Romans 10 — embracing this was what would grant one “assurance of salvation”, which I think for Paul meant “assurance of resurrection and a share in the life of the Age to Come”).
We’ve come a long way (from Jerusalem and Athens), baby.
Samuel Conner,
Thanks. I really appreciate this response. At least I understand where you are coming from.
Samuel Conner,
They were a business to me in the early 80’s…. I remember their “strategy” ( business model) was to target the leaders in the Greek system since they were the “leaders”. I also remember one of their “retreat speakers” called himself a “Berkeley radical”. At the time I was a graduate student, and had recently recieved my undergrad degree from UC Berkeley…. in fact my dorm was a couple of blocks from where Patty Hurst was kidnapped….
Anyway, the speaker was full of BS…. he had only gone to summer school one summer at Berkeley….. you might fault me for being arrogant, but I was proud to have a undergrad engineerind degree from Berkeley…. this clown was degrading my degree! And, the speaker was hypper competative in a pick-up football were had…. really weird..
Friend,
When I typed that line, I did not refer to the post-mortal setting. Hebrews 9:27 says “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment”. So my understanding is that we share the good news with people who are alive on earth while we are here.
Another factor to consider: When God planned to redeem us from an eternal future separated from Him and heaven, He did not want us to live forever in our sinful state, rather, He allowed our body to die so we could have a new body to enter heaven in the righteousness God gave us by our faith. Our soul is born again by His Holy Spirit. And we go through life on earth being transformed into the likeliness of Jesus Christ our Saviour.
I do not see or know of any option of salvation after death based on what I know from the Bible. If only people all know Jesus and His love!
I can relate to the difficulty of accepting Jesus as the only Way, Truth, and Life in the context of thinking so many will perish, or so many have perished….We can only rely on God’s justice and mercy to be higher and fairer than our imagination.
Let us stay close to Jesus so we can hear the true voice of the Shepherd. Let’s base our mindset on what God has said and ask the Holy Spirit to show us what we need to understand, and how we can follow Jesus better. That would be blessings to us all.
birdoftheair,
“I do not see or know of any option of salvation after death based on what I know from the Bible.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++
could this by an argument from silence?
i haven’t combed through the Bible/NT to inform myself, but perhaps the bible is silent on the subject.
i know believers in some theological systems will say, “What a silly proposition.”
but i’m not particularly interested in things tied up in a neat & tidy bow where God is concerned.
i think there is a whole heck of a lot is inconclusive, or not addressed at all in the bible.
elastigirl,
There are examples that show that once someone is in hell, he can not cross the big chasm to get to the other side, like the rich man who saw the beggar from afar, but could not be helped. So the time to seek salvation is now.
elastigirl,
A story in the Bible: There is a chasm between where the beggar (saved) is and where the rich man (not saved) is. When one is in hell, he cannot cross that chasm to get help from the other. So today is the day of salvation.
Thanks for your further insights. Is that parable solely about confessing the name of Jesus to save oneself from Hell? Maybe it has something to do with the rich man’s regret for a lifelong lack of conscience, his failure to do justice and show mercy.
The rich man in Hades pleads with Abraham to send Lazarus to warn his five brothers to repent, not confess a belief. Abraham says, “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead” (Luke 16:31).
Perhaps we emphasize the plight of the rich man in eternal torment, rather than the suffering of the poor, and and the five brothers’ failure in their duty to help them.
It’s worth remembering that this is not a factual story, but a parable. Abraham’s words suggest that both the Old Covenant and the New Covenant are valid for those who heed; this challenges the idea that confessing Jesus’ name during mortal life is mandatory to avoid Hell.
I’m an amateur at this. Hope I have not distorted your ideas. Maybe others will weigh in.
A parable is a story used to make give a lesson. Parables are supposed to be easily understood. I don’t see how the parable in question can avoid the rich man’s torment and his separation from God.
As for Abraham’s words challenging the idea of confessing Jesus’ name, the New Covenant certainly supersedes the Old Covenant’s requirement for salvation. The Jews had to follow all kinds of rules that we do not follow anymore.
Everyone here probably knows and believes John 3:16, but how about what the next 2 verses say:
16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. (NIV)
“Condemned already”. To what? Condemned is a pretty strong term. The answer seems to me to be eternal separation from God.
I also don’t know of any evidence in the Bible of people being able to confess Christ after death. If that is the case, everyone with a brain would accept him, and I don’t see that taught in scripture. God is merciful, but His justice is perfect. If the unrepentant got mercy, where is the justice?
And when that gets weaponized, you get Wretched Urgency and High-Pressure Fire Insurance Sales Pitches.
Have any of you heard the one that the parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus is a dig on the High Priest Caiphas (of the House of Annas, who had a lock on the High Priesthood)? There are too many parallels:
First, Lazarus is the only character in a parable who is named. Shortly after the RL Raising of Lazarus, where it’s recorded that the Sanhedrin (under the House of Annas) put out a hit contract on Laz.
The Rich Man speaks of “his five brothers”, i.e. the five sons of Annas (Caiphas was married to their sister, similar to how Polishing-the-Shaft-Schaap married into House Hyles). Not too much of a stretch to think of Annas as a Patriarch in the mold of GoT’s Tywin Lannister.
And the punch line at the end — “They will not believe, even if someone should be raised form the dead.”
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Thanks. Jews still live under the Old Covenant. The New Covenant expands beyond the Old, or stands alongside it, but does not supersede it–although you might well be writing from a “grafted” viewpoint.
Christians in the US are trained to identify with the rich man and worry about avoiding hell. Jesus alleviated the suffering of the poor, ailing, and hungry—not what we tend to hear in this parable.
Combining these two thoughts, I have great doubts concerning much that has been prepackaged and force-fed me as essential orthodox truths of christianity.
Ok, so I’m a heretic. Whatever. I believe that God is all about love, about redeeming and restoring that which is tarnished into that which is good. So, a lot of self-important men have asserted what we ‘must’ believe – what makes them any smarter than you or I? Any more sure of being right?
What if all of the things that have remained confusing, or unconvincing, were simply wrong? What if the whole darn ‘sinners in the hands of an angry God’ is as far from who God is as many today believe? What if those who dare see – wait for it, here’s some real heresy comin’ at ya – universalism in scripure are right? What if the meaning of death being the final enemy to be destroyed, means that someday, somehow all will be redeemed from death?
Here me well – I’m not claiming to believe any particular theory. I’m asserting the right to withhold judgment; to study and think and ask really hard and unthinkable questions. Most of all, I am asserting my right to believe, really believe, that the love of God for all men is so strong, so powerful and so redemptive that Satan himself will someday be redeemed? Do I know or even think this is true? Not really, but I’m darn tootin’ ready to entertain the possibility!
All that to say, I’m done being told what I ‘must’ believe. Must believe or what? Get kicked out of your fine church? Too late, I’ve already gone. Be barred from the kingdom of heaven? I’ll call your bluff, Mister Pastor – show me your keys.
I’m beginning to think that at the end of all of this loss, pain and confusion, I might just be discovering true hope and joy that cannot be dimmed. Whodda thunk?
In other news, the ERLC is apparently doing a “study” of sexual abuse in the church. I’m sure that’s going to be a hard-hitting expose of anyone not their friends….
Ishy,
Wonder if they’ll only examine churches that are not run by New Cals….
WOOHOO!
#HiFive
Ken P.,
“I don’t see how the parable in question can avoid the rich man’s torment and his separation from God”
+++++++++++++++++++
is it talking explicitly about the hereafter? could be referring to separation in general, including one’s mortal life on earth.
i have long thought that eternal life refers to ‘life connected with God’ wherever/whenever. on earth, in the hereafter. i don’t time is linear.
—————
““Condemned already”. To what? Condemned is a pretty strong term. The answer seems to me to be eternal separation from God.”
+++++++++++++++++++++
seems to me this doesn’t preclude ‘condemned until such a time when one makes some adjustments’.
——————-
“I also don’t know of any evidence in the Bible of people being able to confess Christ after death. If that is the case, everyone with a brain would accept him, and I don’t see that taught in scripture. God is merciful, but His justice is perfect. If the unrepentant got mercy, where is the justice?”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
no evidence = an argument from silence?
i don’t see how we can presume anything on how God metes out justice.
i can fathom opportunity in the hereafter for souls to choose God. i can also fathom souls in the hereafter not choosing God.
all in all, too big and other for my brain.
One great thing about Heaven is we get to find out just how UN systematic true theology really is. This is like expecting ants to pass Calculus. (Not a Calvinist here. And this is AFTER two semesters of systematic theology at the college level taught with a Calvinist perspective. There are holes in that theology. Just as there are holes in Arminianism. I personally think our approach to the study of theology has issues. You cannot dissect Scripture like it was a dead frog.)
No, no evidence = no evidence.
TS00,
Incidentally, I occasionally lose track of my various Wartburg alter-egos, so remind me – you’re not actually me, are you?
That’s what you get when you cross-breed the Prosperity Gospel with the Gospel of Personal Salvation and ONLY Personal Salvation.
Just add Ye Ende is Nigh and It’s All Gonna Burn (any minute now…) and you have an even worse combination.
This is more or less the direction in which my own reflections have been tending. I’m reluctant to assert that this hopeful view must be so; the Scriptures (or our best attempts at interpretation of them) are sufficiently equivocal that it may be best to simply note the range of possibilities and leave it at that — but this does leave room for hope.
One of the paradoxes of this posture is that it is (or can be) much more open to those who disagree than they are able to be to it. One can be dismayed by, for example, John Piper’s vision of God while still hoping and praying for the conformation to Christ’s likeness of those who hold to that vision.
Not according to Calvary Chapel (and other fundagelical sects).
They believe it to be unabashed and absolute literal truth, with the Lazarus-Abraham story as proof text.
Muff Potter,
OK, so I’m a heretic. 😉
“Where else are they going to go?”
—————————————————-
They could go to Jesus, I suppose. How about that? They could go to Him rather than to the doctrines of men. Those arrogant, smug, blinded men all talking in this video, they could humble themselves and go to Jesus also. But that would require bowing down, sacrificing the earthly kingdoms they’ve built with themselves at the head, giving up on their comfortable lifestyles and the strokes they so crave from their adoring followers, laying their earthly power on the altar, dying to their self-congratulating notions of great knowledge, and repenting in public in the proverbial sackcloth and ashes. Of course, that would require loving Jesus more than their own lives. It would come at a great cost.
I’m reminded of the young rich man who came to Jesus full of enthusiasm–and rejected Him because he loved his earthly possessions more.
Biggest thing I see Calvinists trip over is when you tell them that when the Bible says Jesus died for the sins of the world, the Greek word translated as “world” is “cosmos”, not “Elektos”. It just flat out says what it says, the whole world, or universe, is pretty much the only way you interpret “cosmos”. It is at this point that the average young neocalvinist will start hemming and hawing and say things to the effect of “Ah, but, er…” and then they get REALLY angry and, of course, start demonstrating the spirit of the one whom they truly follow.
So they believe that rather than following the lamb, we’ll be sat with Abraham; and that we’ll be able to talk to people in hell? Well, that second point would really appeal to the fundamentalist; it means they’ll be able to give the ultimate “We told you so”.
Erratum: I should’ve said, we’ll be able to talk to people in heaven.
That’s one of the most poignant stories in the whole Bible, to my mind. A fair few quotes of that passage read as far as “sell your possessions and give to the poor”, and drop the “so that you may have treasure in heaven; then come, follow Me”.
The gospel accounts give at least circumstantial evidence that Jesus didn’t lightly say, to an individual, “Follow Me”.
I’d follow Him, if I could find any Footprints.
And the story doesn’t say that Jesus ran after him to try to change his mind. He willfully rejected the Savior after Jesus asked him to follow him; Jesus let him go.
He’s there, He just doesn’t usually leave the physical kinds of footprints. I’m sure not looking for Him anymore in those things they call “churches”, though. Maybe someday, Lord willing, I’ll go back. For now, nope, nada, nyet.
Hence, the reason for the doctrine. Also, the sadistic impulses of the average IFB, KJV-only, or neocal types would also be served by watching someone suffer. Just ask John Calvin.
But we don’t know what happened after that. Did the Rich Young Ruler come back to Jesus after the Resurrection? Or perhaps on his deathbed? I have no idea, but I hope so.
Unlike several folks here, I believe Hell is real, eternal, and also populated. But, at the same time, I believe it is self-chosen. As Saint Faustina says, “God condemns no one.” It is we humans who choose “Non Serviam” over humble surrender to Jesus.
And, as CS Lewis says, those who do so choose probably wouldn’t be happy in Heaven anyway! Everyone gets what he or she truly wants.
I have some potentially bad news for the commenters here who think they could be heretics if they question eternal conscious torment. It turns out that none of the ecumenical councils dealt with the nature and duration of hell. This technically means no one can have a heretical belief about hell from an historical Christian perspective.
For fun reading, try searching on terms like apocatastasis, ultimate reconciliation, and Christian universalism. It appears that St Gregory of Nyssa taught it, and he is a recognized saint in most of the branches of Christianity that recognize saints. While this has been a minority view among Christians throughout history it has not been widely condemned as heretical. It appears to be a valid expression of orthodox Christianity.
What did Lazarus do to be saved?
I suspect you assume too much about what people will choose after death. Could it be possible that we still have a choice after death, but that we are much less likely to change our minds after death than before?
Have you ever read about the Orthodox view on hell? Here is a short example: https://blogs.ancientfaith.com/morningoffering/2019/01/the-river-of-fire/
Another good read is Ray Anderson’s book “The Gospel According to Judas: Is There a Limit to God’s Forgiveness?” He offers a very limited perspective based on the verse that not even death can separate us from the love of Christ. And also the verses about lost sheep and coins.
Do you believe that God’s justice and mercy pull in opposite directions?
I meant to type “very interesting perspective” but my phone outsmarted me…
Just as we don’t know what happened to 9 of the 10 lepers that Jesus healed. Only one returned to thank Jesus and worship him. So many stories we hope had better endings, but we rest in what we do know. Jesus loves ME, this I know.
Nick Bulbeck,
Too funny. I almost commented the other day with your Roger Bombast line, so who knows?
Samuel Conner,
It is rather freeing and hopeful to not be afraid to consider such things, isn’t it? I always knew God would far surpass my expectations, but always thought (been taught) that I dare not dream for a truly happy ending. But what if . . .
I bet we could have some interesting conversations. I seem to recall you spent time in the OPC, as did I.
You might be following him more than you suspect. Love others, seek justice, hate evil . . . no special lingo required.
You’re in good company.
Even though I adhere to the tenets of The Apostle’s Creed as non-negotiable axioms, in some religions, I’m still doomed because I don’t sign onto PSA (penal substitutionary atonement).
And they’ve got all the clobber verses to ‘prove it’ too.
Jesus referred to it as “Abraham’s bosom” and he taught that many from the east and west would sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in heaven. This does not mean that we will not be following the lamb. I don’t see the sense in making them mutually exclusive, especially if there is all eternity. Also the possibility of a fundamentalist telling someone “I told you so” does not make this true or untrue – it is not in itself a reason to reject it.
I am not convinced it is a parable. Jesus nowhere says it is a parable although there is a parable immediately before it. Also, the fact he names Lazarus specifically makes me question that. And I agree that the Lord is speaking against the love of money in Luke 16 but why does he bring eternal, conscious torment into the narrative? Why are those details in there if he did not mean anything by them?
When I read Scripture without prejudice I have to conclude that there is an eternal, conscious torment for the lost. I don’t like it but I cannot come to any other conclusion. Whether a doctrine gets “weaponised” (HUG) does not make it true or false – it is either true or false in itself. There are many Scriptures on this.
In Matthew 25:41 the Lord told those on his left hand “Depart from me into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels” meaning it was never intended for human beings. I am not a Calvinist and I don’t believe anyone is chosen to go there. The Lord concludes “And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” If eternal is taken to mean “never ending” then it must mean the same thing in both cases. If the life is everlasting then the punishment must be also be everlasting. The same is true in Daniel 12:2 where it says that those that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake – some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
I am open to being proved incorrect on this. I believe very strongly in the value of historical context. After all the “plain meaning” of 1 Timothy 2 would lead one to believe that women should not be allowed to preach. 1 Corinthians 11 would say that women should wear head coverings. But because I understand the historical context I don’t buy those teachings. Where the texts on eternal punishment understood differently to those who heard them than what we understand today?
ZechZav, and more contributors here,
Thank all who have given feedback – one way or another- to what I shared in these discussions. Glad that ZechZav clarified a few things about the story of the beggar and the rich man.
Just to add a note here: No one can be saved by following the Law. – Only Jesus fulfilled the Law. In the Old Testament, people were saved by having faith in the “coming Messiah” and His sacrifice; in the New Testament, people are saved by trusting in the Christ Who has already come. Both are by faith, not by works. It’s like the OT people use a credit card, and the NT people pay cash. The price is paid by Jesus on the cross. That’s our “cash”.
The new life in us enables us to follow the laws, do good works. It does not earn salvation. But it reflects a born-again life in Christ to one degree or another.
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So, here’s the thing.
No-one reads Scripture (or anything else, for that matter) without prejudice. The best I can claim is that I’m aware of that fact. Nevertheless, I still read the bible through the lens of my own experiences, other reading, church background, educational background, beliefs, desires, intentions, and more. So does everybody; there’s simply no escaping it. (The notion of “the perspicuity of Scripture” is perhaps the most bizarre and desperate straw ever clutched at by any theologian.)
It’s tempting to go in several directions from here. One of them is that at least
myprejudices are well-intentioned.Other people'sprejudices are wilfully sinful, and/or helplessly deceived by the stannic power of Stan, and they are deliberately pretending the bible says whatever they want it to say. Another tempting direction is thatNick is obviously saying the bible is useless, we should reject its authority, and make up whatever religion suits us. That may have been exactly what Paul meant when he spoke about knowing and prophesying only in part, and seeing as though dimly in a mirror – bearing in mind that a mirror in those days was not an optically flat reflective surface, but a sheet of metal (often coloured, such as bronze) polished as best one could. It probably wasn’t what he meant, though.That is true, we all do it and I for one admit that. None of us are completely objective. Some of my own suppositions are consistency – that if a word like “everlasting” is used twice in the same sentence it has the same meaning. I also believe that language is designed to communicate and not confuse. There is also the historical context and languages issue – what did the word mean in the original language, how were the words and phrases used and what did it mean to the readers and writers. So yes my tradition, my own experience other human factors influence my interpretation. This does not mean that the conclusion is wrong.
Some presuppositions – like those you list above – are unconscious and people can arrive at different conclusions as a result. However there is also a more conscious form of prejudice – when one has already arrived at their conclusion and they then choose a method of interpretation to suit. We can all do this if we have a theological framework. I’ve seen Calvinists, Arminians and many others groups do this a lot.
Maybe the phrase “without prejudice” was maybe not the best phrase but it is my honest reading of the Bible. In fact, I don’t like the doctrine so I could say to myself “I don’t like this so let’s find another method of interpretation to escape what it appears to be saying”. That would be even more prejudiced than reading with own unconscious assumptions.
Of course: let us stipulate that Jesus is reporting facts that he witnessed. What did Lazarus do to be saved?
I suspect that current-day Jewish belief differs. Do you believe that the Old Covenant remains valid?
This is an example of where historical knowledge is required. Obviously Lazarus was known to Jesus and those he was speaking to. But no details are given to us reading the Scripture 2000 years later as to how he got saved. We know that he was because of what Jesus said.
Please can you answer my question as to why Jesus added the detail about the tormenting fire if he did not mean anything by It?
Perhaps the most missed point in all of Institutional Religion (all of them).
I would heartily disagree. You have simply ignored what you claimed to accept, and gone on as if sincerity made it all better.
The ‘honest’ mistake might be more forgivable in the eyes of a God who can read people’s minds and hearts. For the rest of us, error is error. Whether it arises from unexamined tradition, unrealized presupposition or the deliberate intent to deceive self or others, that same error needs to be exposed and rejected.
Ah, ‘the perspecuity of scripture’; how my former pastor loved that phrase, claiming that it gave him the ability and right to declare – and he did – ‘When I speak from the pulpit, I speak for God!’
Isn’t it reassuring to know that your pastor has an inside line and receives wisdom and instruction straight from the mind of God? Think of all the poor rubes who follow mere, fallible men who teach their own presuppositions and faulty personal interpretations!
Can you offer an alternative exegesis of the verses I quoted instead of just making personal attacks at my motives?
Now on that part I can see where you are coming from. I don’t believe in paid pastors. I don’t believe pastoral “authority”. I believe the doctrine of tithing is false! I certainly don’t speak for God. But I don’t tar all pastors with the same brush due to a bad experience with a few. When a humble, sincere pastors gets things wrong it is my duty to love him as a Christian brother and be gracious to him. We must remember that we all make mistakes.
I love to evangelize and do it whenever possible.
But I parted company with one preacher we had who would tell us someday we would stand at the edge of heaven, look over and watch our unsaved friends and loved ones burning eternally, and wish we had told them about Jesus.
Made me want to vomit. First off, that would be hell, not heaven, watching such a scene. Secondly, who said we did not tell them? This good Wesleyan church espoused free will, so those friends and family members would have some choice by that theology.
But then I believe careful study opens the possibility (not fact, possibility) that there really is an intermediate state (not soul sleep) where those who were prepared enjoy paradise and those not prepared…..don’t. But there are tantalizing hints in the Bible that someday they will be prepared. I was shocked to learn that there are actually Calvinists who hold to a purgatory, and that it offers hope if a loved one dies unsaved. And shocked to learn many Catholics, Calvinists, and evangelical universalists believe in a literal hellish intermediate state without a guess at how long it lasts with paradise and/or heaven following.
My PBU ancestors believed hell happened on earth in this life.
My point in all this is to raise this question: what ever happened to that middle of the road faith where we knew enough to avoid hell and get to heaven and left the rest to mystery? Why do we seem to have only polar opposites now? Either flaming liberal about as far down that path as you go or else young earth fundamentalist Lordship Salvation creationist?
Where have all the folks gone who do no speak in tongues, are not charismatics, are neither fundies nor liberals. Where is church for the rest of us? Whatever happened to conservative but not fundy, or to being neither of those but not liberal either?
THOSE are the hard to find churches.
Meanwhile we attend two churches, both pretty good but neither that “simply saved” more CS Lewis Mere Christianity church we seek.
Me neither. I can’t even find anyplace in the New Testament that defines “pastor” with specificity, much less defining it as the single church leader who speaks on behalf of God.
The only place the word even shows up in the singular in the entire NT is 4th in that list of 5 gifts in Eph 4. That’s it. Closest thing you can get to one who speaks on behalf of God is a prophet, but of course, they are subject to other prophets, that whole give-and-take, and people are admonished to completely ignore them once they make false claims (as various and sundry TV “prophets” and the itinerant “prophets” who live off of the honoraria and love offerings of churches around the country often do, apparently without any meaningful checks and balances at all).
ZechZav: I believe the doctrine of tithing is false! Of course it is, at least as commonly presented. The tithe was to support the Levites, who were given no allotment of land in Israel. All the other tribes got their share of income-generating property–but not them. So they were supported by the 1/10 distributions of the others. THAT’S a tithe. That’s the only thing that can be rightly called a “tithe”. If one wants to give to the support of a ministry, or give to the widows and orphans, or give wherever they want, that’s great and godly and something they should do cheerfully.
However, if someone wants to give their resources to someone who thinks they have the right to occupy a made-up position (pastor as primary church leader and vision-caster) that simply does NOT exist in the New Testament and thinks they have the authority to demand that you give them your resources, demands that you donate 1/10 of your wages to them, and insists you are in sin if you do not, then I’d say that such a person falling into line with such a system should consider that their resources are not being donated to the Lord’s work, but more likely the work of the superapostles whom Paul excoriated and the Pharisees whom Jesus called “sons of hell” and “whitewashed tombs”.
And I have no clue why anyone would expect the Lord to approve of their obedience to such a thing.
I found NT Wright’s interaction with this text to be helpful.
The story of Lazarus and Dives has parallels in other cultures. NTW asserts (I assume with evidence) that this story was already known to Jesus’ hearers, but that Jesus modified the story to make a specific point.
Typically, tellings of this and related stories had a happy ending, in that the deceased brother returns to warn his still-living brothers, and they heed the warning and all is well with them in the end.
Jesus reworked the story with an unhappy ending; the deceased brother is not allowed to return to warn the still-living brothers, and it is foretold that the brothers will not repent, since they have not already repented on the basis of what they know of existing Scripture — the Law of Moses.
Wright thinks that this story belongs with other stories in Jesus’ “toolkit” which function as warnings to His hearers that they risk being excluded from the dawning Kingdom. THere are many stories like this. This particular one has shock value because the ending does not match the familiar tellings.
Personally, I’m reluctant to build a theology of post-mortem punishments from a text like this.
Samuel
Thanks for the information it will be very informative to hear alternative explanations. Even if I don’t end up agreeing with him, it is good to understand that position.
Due to historical context there is more to the text than meets the eye in many cases.
Yes; this reality has put a “brake” on my exegetical enthusiasm and made me open to diverting into the large literature on the historical and cultural background of the biblical documents. A lot can be discerned from within the texts themselves, but there’s always a risk that one may be missing something significant that was known to the original writers and hearers/readers that is not known to us.
———–
At the risk of annoying people with repetition, here is a spectacular example of that related to a text that is the subject of interpretive disputes in our day — Paul’s famous admonition to the Corinthians that their women should wear head coverings:
http://www.nakedbiblepodcast.com/naked-bible-86-the-head-covering-of-1-corinthians-1113-15/
Thanks again Samuel. I come from a fundagelical background (as you can probably guess) but when I looked into the historical context of Romans 9, 1 Timothy 2, 1 Corinthians 11 and many other passages, I faced these challenges. They were words spoken 2000 years ago in a different culture and therefore we cannot apply them without thought of this to our present day. There are also translation errors (for example, Hebrews 13:7 and 17 was translated by clergy with a vested interest in power and control). However I also believe that language is there to communicate not confuse. If my understanding in other areas needs to be challenged then I open to this. Hearing another viewpoint causes no harm – it makes you think harder and it either causes you to change your view or strengthens your existing view.
There was a time when I wouldn’t have dared question the doctrine of hell.
That time has passed.
Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil.
So why create and maintain a monument (hell) to the hatred and cruelty of the devil?
Aside from a very human thirst and desire for vengeance, it makes no sense.
I was trying to confine my comment to the words in the story, without supplying historical knowledge. Adding ideas has caused eyebrows to go up in this very discussion.
In the story, all Lazarus does is to suffer. He does not pray. The rich man prays (albeit posthumously), and the answer is No. Torment, yes, but “eternal” is a problem; Jesus is speaking before his own crucifixion, and the prayer is to Abraham. Even “saved” is a problem, as the text says Lazarus is comforted.
I’m not alone in thinking this might be about a hell of one’s own making at the end of a callous life. Apparently Martin Luther viewed it as a parable of conscience and neglect of the poor. As HUG mentioned, there are other interpretations as well.
It’s not certain that this is Lazarus of Bethany, whom Jesus raised from the dead. Either way, this is a different story, Jesus’ depiction of heaven and hell. It is not about an event that took place on earth during Jesus’ ministry.
TS00,
The most liberating thing for me was that it made it more possible to heed sayings of Jesus like the famous “sufficient unto each day is the evil thereof”, and to look beyond a narrow concern about “what is going to happen to me in the future?” toward “what good is in my power to do today?”
An old friend (a Calvinist, too; there are plenty of good-hearted ones out there) taught me that if one wants people to believe that “God is good”, it may be necessary to “be the goodness of God” to them. Perhaps that’s part of what it means to be an “image-bearer.”
—
Yes, OPC for close to a decade; my final way-point into post-evangelical exile. I get the impression that there are quite a few refugees from Reformed- or neo-reformed-land at TWW; perhaps a kind of “subculture.” That little congregation is gone now; they kind of did what Paul warned of in one of the letters, biting and devouring one another.
I am reminded of one of the final words of “the 12th Doctor:”
“Always try to be nice, but never fail to be kind.”
But that’s what the Internet is FOR! 🙂
A God worth worshiping should have a better argument than “Or Else.”
Friend,
At the risk of stirring controversy (but perhaps the internet is for that, too), I’d like to make a few observations about the language of “eternity” in the Gospels.
The word that is typically translated “eternal” or “everlasting” is generally aionios , which appears lexically related to aion , which is roughly equivalent to the OT term
olam , and in English, “eon” or “age”.
The meaning of aionios is not crystal clear.
Aside: the famous “signs of your coming and of the end of the world” translation in Matthew’s Olivet Discourse is actually
probably better rendered “… conclusion of the age.” It’s a transition within history, not the end of history.
What English rendering of aionios would best convey the meaning is unfortunately not as clear as our translations would suggest. In the Western/Latin tradition, this has pretty consistently been rendered “eternal” or “everlasting”, in the sense of “unending duration”. Given the obvious lexical similarity to aion ,/i>, some have suggested that “pertaining to the age” or “of the age”/”of the age to come” might be better. Unfortunately, we don’t know.
For more on this, those who have time may find NT Wright’s discussion of “this age” and “the age to come” in various of his writings to be helpful.
There is a Greek term which does unequivocally convey “unending duration”: aidios . This term does not appear in the NT in texts that are conventionally understood to refer to post-mortem punishment of humans.
In the history of translation, we Western/Latin tradition readers can thank the Latin church, which early made a decision to render aionios as the Latin word aeternum which has an unequivocal “unending duration” denotation that is not with certainty present in the underlying Greek word.
This is getting long and perhaps boring. To sum up, it may be better to render zoe aionios as “life of the age to come” rather than the familiar “eternal life”.
Oh dear — does this imply that the NT does not promise temporally endless life to those who are saved? No it does not imply that, but the question is “where does one get that teaching?” Paul seems very clear in 1 Corinthians 15 that Jesus was raised to incorruptible life, and so shall His people be. This is a better textual source for the hope of “temporally unending post-mortem resurrected life” than the more familiar Gospel citations that are customarily the “go to” texts.
—
A more intriguing question, for me, is that if Matthew 24-25 concerns “the end of the Age”, rather than “the end of the world “, and if one can identify events in Mt 24, such as the overthrow of Jerusalem, with historical events — which is not that hard to do — then that appears to up-end our notions of eschatology.
I get it totally, where you’re coming from, and am not saying you’re wrong. But I have given up on trying to make the Bible “make sense” to my mind, because I’ve learned a little bit about how ignorant and stupid I am. Hi ways are not my ways, seeing through a glass dimly and all that. I’ve also had moments in my life where I was asking the Lord just what was meant about all this, especially after my dad died, and I truly believe He told me (not in an audible voice, but in a way I had a indelibly strong impression it was not just my mind playing tricks) that there were things I just could not understand, but one day would, and that I’d be better off just trusting Him.
I am with the opinion that when Jesus spoke through a parable that he used terms like there was a certain man, there was rich man, but when he used an actual name, i.e. Lazarus he was not giving a parable. But I could be mistaken.
Helpful and fascinating, thanks! I have just been staring at an interlinear translation and do not see words suggesting “eternal” torment. The relevant words seem to be odunomai/odunesai (pained/tormented), “topon tous tes basanou” (place of the ordeal) and some others.
http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/NTpdf/luk16.pdf
Regarding the cultural gap, I had assumed the rich man made an intercessory prayer to Abraham because he was more powerful than Lazarus. Somewhere I read that the rich man might have seen Lazarus as Abraham’s servant Eliezer of Damascus (not Lazarus of Bethany).
https://www.harvestbiblechapel.org/2019/01/16/january-2019-elder-update/
Friend,
I don’t think there’s much reason to think that Lazarus in the story of “Lazarus and Dives” is the same person as Lazarus the brother of Martha and Mary. Only so many first names available to give to newborns. It’s been speculated that Barabbas’ (“son of father”‘s) first name may also have been “Jesus”, which presents a huge irony in the scene in which Pilate attempts to set Jesus “ben-Joseph” at liberty.
===
Scripture4all is a wonderful resource; I resort to it a lot when I want to check on the underlying text. A small caution — the proprietor of that site is using an older public-domain Greek text, which may differ slightly at a few places from the best present critical editions of the NT, which are copyrighted. Usually, it won’t make a whit of difference, but if something significant is at stake, perhaps check with the latest critical texts, if you can get access to them (sadly, this tends to cost $$).
This response shows a complete lack of love towards a brother in Christ. My point was that I honestly believe the Scripture teaches that. Yes there is a chance that I may be wrong and there may be another interpretation I have come across that does more justice to the text, but so far I have not found. I have never said that anyone who disagrees with me is a heretic.
In any discussion I try to show grace to those taking a different view. I have defended complimentarians and Calvinists whilst I dispute their exegetical arguments. I believe that many of them love the Lord and honestly interpret Scripture that way. I would not impugn their motives and have defended them from my fellow egalitarians. Sadly I am not afforded the same courtesy and this response shows no grace. If “error is error” then we are all guilty as we are all human and nobody has a perfect understanding.
Ishy,
Interesting. My best guess (though of course it’s just an educated guess) is that James did not go willingly, even though there is allegedly that perfectly insane polity which states that the head pastor at Harvest cannot be removed except by vote of…the head pastor(!), which one would think would protect him. Of course, there are a lot of ways pressure can be brought on someone. I have to think for anyone who sat on that elder board through these years, who worked their way up through the hierarchy, seeing what they must’ve seen, it’s almost impossible to imagine they’re not hopelessly compromised themselves. I fully understand that decent people of good will and in love with Jesus could sit in the collapsible chairs, teach Sunday School, lead youth group, choir, etc., in such a place, but of the elders, how could they possibly avoid corruption once they’ve gone that high in such a place?
Law Prof,
Please don’t post the same comment over and over when you are moderated. It just slows us down.
And if you missed it please read the note at the top of every page just below the picture.
I went back and read the article about MacDonald taking an indefinite leave with his “apology”. Why is it that these people always write such things in such a weird way? Why can’t they ever write directly, just write something conversational that sounds like a real person, and not some computer program set on “high falutin faux holy” wrote it? Why can’t they just be human beings? Is it that they feel this compelling need to distance themselves from the thing so they write in that fakey manner? It’s just so creepy. So completely UNLIKE the things Jesus said, so completely UNLIKE anything you ever see in the Bible, so UNLIKE the Lord. Makes you wonder what and whom they follow, at the end of the day.
As a remote observer of HBC, I hesitate to hold a strong opinion, but I’d like to express hope that some good may come from at least some of the procedures that are mentioned in this “update.”
In particular, the idea of “exit interviews” with people who have left strikes me as a very good one — particularly if the intention is to sincerely listen to and try to understand the exiters’ concerns.
In a “flailing leadership” situation a while back in a church I was formerly member of, in which there was steady erosion of support as people left the group, a consultant brought in to help recommended such interviews. I have the impression that the feedback was taken seriously. Today, almost a decade later, I think that the group is doing better.
Mega-ministry pastors, as a rule, distance themselves from churchy things … particularly, from their congregations … they are just too big and important to mix with the pew.
ZechZav,
I may have been unclear. I was not intending a personal attack upon you or your motives. I was referring to the error of ‘error’ in general, not of any presumed particular error. I was just trying to make the point, made by C.S. Lewis , that those who are ‘sincerely’ convinced of their ‘rightness’ can do the most harm. My wording could have been more precise – I apologize if it came across as a personal attack.
linda,
“Whatever happened to conservative but not fundy, or to being neither of those but not liberal either?”
++++++++++++++++
this is what i think:
initially, christians with influence who are afraid of women and equal rights sorted middle-of-the-road folks into the polarized camps. They knew it was petty, and so had to come up with a religious, spiritualized sorting structure that would sell: liberal vs conservative.
the only way to preserve comfort level is to separate out “us” (those who belong in the bunker) from “them” (the others who are a personal threat).
as time goes by, add fear of minority sexuality to separate out “us” from “them”.
in addition, now it seems that too many christians with influence have too much lose. so anyone and anything that is a threat to career, power, significance, and revenue is conveniently sorted into these camps.
all these fears are silly, embarrassing, self-centered, and disqualifying. so they mask it all with liberal vs conservative.
If I can pile on, 2 Thes 1:9 is often translated along the lines of “eternal destruction away from the presence of the Lord.” It uses aionion, as you describe. But also interesting is the word “away” is not in the Greek text. It is literally “destruction from” which is in the same form as “grace and peace from” in verse one. This fits well with the Eastern Orthodox view of hell I described above (see the River of Fire link). And it also opens the possibility that this destruction may not literally be forever.
I would agree. Again, I think perhaps we had a miss in communicating. I’ve been busy all day, and just come back to the discussion. I’m not sure I can even ‘get back’ to what I was thinking earlier. It seemed that you were suggesting that as long as one was unaware of one’s presuppositions they were less damaging than those one was aware of. What I intended to suggest was that our unrealized, unexamined presuppositions can be even more of a barrier to understanding than our realized ones.
It wasn’t intended as an accusation, just an opinion that your, my and everyone’s subconscious baggage that we bring to scripture really does matter, and must be brought into the light before it’s we can throw off its weight.
This is as true of me as anyone, but I am embarrassed to admit that I did not always realize this. I was ‘sold’ the bill of goods that I had found the church (pastor?) that had the ‘true understanding’ of scripture. I had no real conception that much that I believed about everything had never been properly vetted by critical examination, but simply swallowed whole.
Now that I understand a little more how my beliefs are shaped by factors I may never know, I am less likely to think that I, or others, have all the answers. I now view everything I currently ‘believe’ as ‘best I can see it from where I stand now’. I must allow God to patiently take me, one tiny step at a time, out of my current fog and into a little more light. I suspect we agree more than disagree on such things.
Agree heartily.
Agreed. And I think most people’s instinctual aghast reaction to the orthodox theory of hell suggests that there just might be something amiss in the theory. I’m no saint, but I have no thirst for vengeance; I simply want evil to stop. What about all of the talk – at least in my former circles – about discipline not being about ‘punishment’ but opening people’s eyes to their error? Yet we are supposed to believe that God is just this out of control maverick threatening to destroy everyone who doesn’t get with the program soon enough.
Surely everyone would agree that, if possible, it would be far superior for all evildoers to see the magnitude of their evil and repent. If some choose to reject God, and he allows it, then I suspect that they will suffer the terrible fate of annihilation. I simply do not believe any longer in such a thing as Eternal Conscious Torment.
Also, there is such beautiful variety in beliefs, practices, and worship styles. It’s Pentecost every day around the world.
You mean, kinda like Abraham trusting that somehow or other God would do as he said, even if it involved the impossible, as far as he could see?
Please do!
If one were to leave aionios / aionion untranslated and instead transliterate them (or perhaps do a hybrid, such as “aionial”), the texts would read very differently, and would stimulate the reader to wonder what is intended, instead of (as at present) reflexively hearing the received Latin traditional understanding.
For example,
“The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is aionial life”
or
“I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have [are having — right now!] aionial life”
—————-
It is probably not an accident that the Eastern churches never adopted a dogmatic stance on post-mortem personal eschatology; their theologians and philosophers from the earliest years were more careful in their reading of this concept.
Infernalism has had a good long run, more than 1500 years. The churches (of the West, at least) don’t seem to be doing well. Perhaps the future will be brighter on both fronts.
Samuel Conner,
It is in the Greek texts as these two show. It’s in the other six I looked at as well.
ΠΡΟΣ ΘΕΣΣΑΛΟΝΙΚΕΙΣ Β΄ 1:9 Greek NT: RP Byzantine Majority Text 2005
οἵτινες δίκην τίσουσιν, ὄλεθρον αἰώνιον ἀπὸ προσώπου τοῦ κυρίου καὶ ἀπὸ τῆς δόξης τῆς ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ,
ΠΡΟΣ ΘΕΣΣΑΛΟΝΙΚΕΙΣ Β΄ 1:9 Greek NT: Greek Orthodox Church
οἵτινες δίκην τίσουσιν ὄλεθρον αἰώνιον ἀπὸ προσώπου τοῦ Κυρίου καὶ ἀπὸ τῆς δόξης τῆς ἰσχύος αὐτοῦ,
Hell makes great sense if you want to instill fear. People who are fearful are much easier to control and manipulate.
Toss in the “only your leaders have the key” concept and boom…the people will do anything. Both Catholic, orthodox, protestant have all used this to great effect. All religions do.
Oddly enough, I was thinking just this morning (while on the way to Linlithgow) about an author-inserted observation made by George Orwell in his dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty Four. It goes (as near as I can remember it) thus:
I had no idea the comment was being moderated. Thought my computer was goofing up—a reasonable assumption, as it does from time to time. Also, I didn’t see any message saying “this comment is being moderated”, otherwise, I wouldn’t have reposted.
That pretty much nails it.
Law Prof,
I think that’s what God terms ‘faith’. And accounts as righteousness. It’s really all he asks of us.
TS00,
Others, having nothing but this simple faith, were once threatened with pain of excruciating death, and still refused to surrender this pearl of great price to the authoritarian demands of Orthodox Religion. We are in good company.
Lowlandseer,
I’m not sure that this touches the question of the denotation of aionion in that text.
In the Thessalonian correspondence, Paul reacts to his readers’ interpretation of a prior communication regarding the nearness of Jesus’ return in wrath to judge His enemies.
My present hypothesis is that the Matthew 25 judgment scene concerns Israel — Jesus’ own self-conception was that He was sent to the lost sheep of Israel, not to the Gentiles. This may help to account for the significant differences one finds in the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ prophetic words and the Acts accounts of Paul’s message to the Gentiles.
That’s definitely an unorthodox interpretation, but it helps to make sense of an odd feature of the story of “the sheep and the goats” — the “judgement of works” concerns how the people treated Jesus’ followers, which is an odd criterion if this scene is taken to be to a judgment of “all who have ever lived” occurring at “the end of the world”. We know from Acts that the early Jewish church was persecuted in Israel by Jews who rejected Jesus’ Messianic claims.
On that interpretation, the “conclusion of the Age” spoken of in Matthew 24 took place during the great “Jewish War” of AD 66-73, and the “aionial destruction” of God’s enemies took place in the agonies of Jerusalem under siege, which fulfilled Jesus’ “gehenna” warnings.
IOW, these things really did take place “in this generation”, as Jesus had foretold.
Samuel Conner,
I think your ponderings offer much more consistency to the text, and answer many lingering questions.
The more we throw off the insistence that we ‘must’ submit unquestioningly to the historical, official, orthodox . . . or whatever else you want to call them . . . interpretations of scripture, the more we are enabled to pursue greater understanding. This greater understanding can seek the enlightenment and assistance that was promised to us by Jesus, even the very Spirit of God. I’ll take that over ‘received traditions’ of men any day.
TS00,
Kind words, and I thank you for them.
This isn’t original with me; I’m listening to others who have thought harder about this than I have.
A wise old Reformed brother years ago pointed me to James S Russell’s “The Parousia”, which is a helpful corrective to aspects of the “dispensational” vision of New Testament prophecy. JSR’s reading of New Testament “near term” eschatological expectation is IMO persuasive and I have not encountered a thorough rebuttal of it in the years since I first read it.
Readers who have encountered good exegetical rebuttals are welcome to point those out.
My “better read than me” friend did not embrace all of JSR’s conclusions, and I also find JSR’s (non-)interaction with Rev 20-22 unsatisfying.
—
And my present view is still “hypothesis”, subject to revision as more persuasive readings of the evidence come to my attention.
I very much like NT Wright’s approach to historical reconstruction — he calls it “getting as much as possible of the evidence in” to one’s hypotheses. It appears to me that the prevailing visions of theological system (that I am familiar with; these all happen to be Western/Latin; Orthodoxy is a mystery to me at this point) all have difficulty with different parts of the biblical evidence. That doesn’t overthrow them, but IMO it should stimulate curiosity about whether more comprehensive hypotheses might be possible.
I’m very curious to read the (I hope) forthcoming volume(s) in Wright’s magisterial “Christian Origins and the Question of God” series. The next volume(s), “V”, will IIRC focus on the Gospels.
Nick Bulbeck,
“But it is also necessary that he be an ignorant and credulous fanatic whose prevailing moods are adulation, fear, hatred, and orgiastic triumph. In other words, it is necessary that he have a mentality appropriate to a state of war.”
++++++++++++++++
describes some christians i know or have observed.
i think many christians are just on the cusp of such things. at least, that’s the only explanation i can come up with for “statements” like The Nashville Statement, The Statement on Social Justice, etc.
If you were to recommend a Sys Theo or Biblical Theo work/works to an open minded Calvinist what would those works be. Great Article!
There is so much good in Eastern Orthodox theology and anthropology that I am very tempted to convert. But there is baggage that I don’t know what to do with such as aerial toll houses, celibate bishops, very complicated fasting schedules, achurch politics at the upper levels, and more that keep me from making the jump. I feel like an immovable object that encountered an unresistable force.
What if the problem is the attempt to systematize theology? If so, I suspect the solution will not be found in a different form of systematic theology. Rather, the solution is more likely to be found through a combination of reading various writings from early Christians, critiques of Calvinism, and writings (old or new) that address specific points of Calvinism from different perspectives. A good starting point could be “On the Incarnation” by Athanasius. What I found by doing this is Christianity is too messy to systematize.
But if one’s faith depends on a system, then Calvinism has a lot to offer.
Agreed. If one’s faith depends on a person (the person of Christ), then the Bible has a lot to offer! Christianity at its core is about a relationship, not a religion. The systematic theology of Calvinism is focused on doctrines ‘about’ grace, rather than a direct experience ‘of’ Grace – an encounter with the living Christ. To someone struggling with which theology is best, I would recommend shutting out the noise, getting alone with your Bible, read the words in red, and pray for the Holy Spirit to teach you Truth.
I believe this is very good advice for those who have already colored outside the lines by seriously considering alternate interpretations. But for those who have stayed inside a theological bubble it could be very difficult to avoid confirmation bias without first examining the alternatives. It was reading the alternatives that shook me out of my bubble. It was jarring at first, but I am now breathing easier.
Read the red and pray for power! Because they don’t, most church-goers don’t have enough power to blow the dust off a peanut. But when they do, theological bubbles are no match.
I’m so glad I left this tribe in 2010. The authoritarian structures built into their systematic theology requires you to kiss the rear ends of “God’s anointed man” for any congregation, and puts him on a power trip. Well, their rear ends smell and I’m breathing much easier now.
Max,
I now have relatives worried about me because I like this: https://www.ptm.org/q-r-how-is-christ-a-sacrificial-lamb-brad-jersak. Coloring outside the lines has been good for me.
Ken F (aka Tweed),
Same here. Great alarm in my neck of the woods because I am reading, and loving, Jersak’s ‘A More Christlike God’. I may send a copy to each of my kids. Think about it, who would have an issue with a more Christlike God? As in, we all know that sometimes God gets a bad rap as the one who took the lives of innocent women and children, whereas Jesus actually gave his life for others. And yet, their own theology insists that this is the same God? Wouldn’t anyone delight in discovering that maybe we have misunderstood the whole ‘angry God’ dangling us over the fire thing?
TS00,
“Think about it, who would have an issue with a more Christlike God?”
+++++++++++++++
i get the distinct impression a good many male pastors love the limelight of their leader status so much they feel threatened by Jesus.
We, too, read A more Christlike God a year ago and are in the process of re-reading it.
I think the idea of a Christ-like God, fullstop*, would be a good place to start for many people who need setting free from the modern-day circumcision party.
* Or “period”
It’s a great book that expresses a very old theology. People who are discovering this ancient path, such as Brad Jersak, Baxter Kruger, Paul Young, John MacMurray, Steve Mcvey, are being called out as heretics by certain groups. Odd.
Jersak is a treasure, IMO.
Perhaps one of the reasons that many find “coloring outside the lines” to be helpful is that “the lines” of the conventional historic systems are basically “cartoons” — caricatures of the message of the Scriptures that tend to capture only some of the details (and distort through overemphasis) while overlooking others.
(In saying this, I’m not making an unqualified endorsement of Orthodoxy. I looked up “aerial toll houses” mentioned in your prior comment; all I can say in response is that 2000 years is a long time, and there is a lot of room for contingency in the way that ideas ramify and speciate. And every tradition that undergirds a set of institutions needs ways to keep people in line)
Another, even less sympathetic possibility, is that seeing God as “like Christ” (which certainly seems to be implied in texts such as Jn 14:9 and Heb 1:3) would imply an obligation of christian leaders to “image God” by functioning in ways that are conformed to the likeness of Jesus.
But that would entail things like “having the mind of Christ” and “not grasping equality with God but rather emptying self and taking the form of a servant” (Phil 2), or laying down one’s like for the sake of one’s brothers (1 Jn 3:16), becoming poor in order to enrich others (2 Cor 8), and on and on. But it seems that for this class of leaders (I’m not painting all with the same brush; there are many unheralded people who do live like this; they are the true great ones in God’s sight), this is an insupportable cross to bear.
Well, that might be the case with some church planters in my area since they don’t talk much about Jesus. Some of these egotists are so cute, they wouldn’t want anyone upstaging them. Additionally, in the New Calvinist gospel, Jesus has been subordinated to the point of not mentioning Him much … New Calvinist icons (e.g., Piper) get more sermon time than Jesus. I can think of one young reformer at a church near me who spends more time on his hairdo and tweeting at the coffee shop than reading the Gospels.
Ken F (aka Tweed),
Jersak makes way more sense of the Hebrew Bible Scriptures than does the standard belief system of PSA (penal substitutionary atonement).
PSA, whether the reformed version or the non-reformed version, is out and out human sacrifice (my opinion), there’s no way around it
In the “historical narrative” approach (NT Wright a substantially orthodox example, Andrew Perriman a more radical example), it is possible to see Jesus’ crucifixion as “penal” in that Jesus suffered the wrath of God that was coming against unrepentant Israel (in the coming great “Jewish War”, AD 66-73), and “substitutionary” in that by dying in this way, Jesus created an indelible memory among His followers (and perhaps others who were paying attention) of “what happens to would-be messiahs”, and that saved them from sharing Jesus’ fate when the war finally came.
In other words, by dying in this way, at the hands of the Roman occupiers, Jesus prophetically warned Israel (and especially His followers within Israel who remembered and obeyed His prophetic warnings) of what was going to happen to it if it persisted in its militant messianic ways (Jesus the “green tree”, militant Israel the “dry” in Luke 23:31).
Recall the strange “The Son of Man came … to offer His life a ransom for many” saying. Through history, the Church has debated “ransomed from whom?” There is no satisfactory answer on the view that the “ransom” relates to post-mortem punishments. “Ransomed from the devil” seems to give “the devil” way too much power and to have dualistic overtones, as if the devil and God are equivalent bargaining partners in an negotiation in which humanity is the commodity to be traded. “Ransomed from God Himself” is the favored Reformed view, but it’s a bit incoherent.
The historical narrative approach suggests: “ransomed from the Romans “. Jesus died at the hands of the Roman occupiers in order that His followers, a generation later, would not die at their hands.
And that is exactly what happened. The church in Jerusalem remembered Jesus’ warning to flee the city at the approach of the Roman army, and they thereby escaped the agonies of the siege. More generally, Jesus’ Jewish followers would not have embraced either the militant nationalist or militant messianic ambitions of the Jewish rebels that moved them to rebel against the Roman occupation, and so would not have participated in it; they would have been spared death by Romans swords or by crucifixion, which was the standard penalty for rebellion and brigandage.
This interpretation IMO makes wonderful sense of the Gospel accounts in their historical context. It looks a bit problematic theologically in the sense that by placing Jesus’ sacrifice into its historical context, it seems to vitiate its relevance to us (and, more problematically from the perspective of NT interpretation, to 1st century Gentile believers). I’m not sure what the solution to that objection is, and I’m not too anxious about it. Exegesis temporally and logically precedes theological system and we are still in “early days” of the narrative historical approach to the Scriptures.
And he’s a great guy. He allows comments on his various web sites and he actually answers emails from peons like me. I think my biggest beef with him is I once heard him refer to Miller Lite as beer. But I suppose that is forgivable.
Patti,
yessssss
Ken F (aka Tweed),
Yeah, he sounds like a Mensch.
Ken A,
http://Www.soteriology101.com
Ken A,
Hey Ken,
I am a bit late but I figured I would let you know about some authors that were integral to my leaving Calvinism as your comments seem to indicate that you don’t feel non Calvinists deal with the texts which seem to you to point to Calvinism. Many in fact do deal with those texts and to my mind do so much more compellingly than Calvinists. Roger Olson (his Against Calvinism makes some very strong arguments), Paul Marston and Roger Forster (they are Open Theists, which I disagree with, but their book did a good job dealing with Calvinist proof texts), William Lane Craig (he is a Molinist which is a different take on providence than Classical Arminianism but is otherwise largely Arminian in soteriology, and I personally most closely agree with his take), Jerry Walls and Joseph Dongell (their book is good and Walls has some audio out there, especially his appearance on Soteriology 101, that is quite good). Recently Soteriology 101 that was mentioned in another comment has been putting out some good teaching on the subject. To your other point, there are thousands of churches in America alone, Calvinists aren’t the only ones doing expositional preaching. Whether everyone should or not is another question entirely.
Related to what I said above, it is annoying that they say what they do in the video because to me it seems, even worse than being obviously arrogant, rather dishonest. These guys know there are lots of non Calvinist theologians, commentary writers, seminary professors, and so forth. The New Calvinism movement is frustrating with their rhetoric and spin. These guys know they have a platform and credibility with their audience so they make claims like this and people will cheer and believe them.