What Song is This?
Reply
The The and the Dangers of Generalizations
In this post, Scot McKnight publishes a letter from a pastor struggling with some Christian leaders’ reactions to the “emerging church,” and an extremely lively conversation has ensued.
I am not going to comment on the post itself, but many of the comments talk about “the” emerging church or “the” evangelical church. This is a common, yet dangerous, practice. The world of Christian thought and practice is so diverse that it’s practically impossible to summarize even what subgroups like “emerging” or “evangelical” Christians believe and practice. I do it myself, I know, though I shouldn’t.
Let me use my own church as an example. Most Americans, I think, would classify us as “evangelical,” if they were familiar with that term. Our church tradition, however, historically had very little interaction with the broader Protestant tradition: we have published our own magazines, read our own Bible commentaries, founded our own colleges, etc. That changed about 20 years ago. Today, our church incorporates some unique beliefs and practices that developed in isolation from the wider church with beliefs/practices borrowed from, say, Bill Hybels or Beth Moore, to just give two examples. At the same time, there are many elements of Hybels’ and Moore’s theologies that our church either outright rejects or simply ignores. Other giants of “the” evangelical world – like J. I. Packer or John Stott – are practically unknown. For many of our members in their forties and fifties, Francis Schaeffer was an enormous influence, but younger members have no idea who he was. Rob Bell has gained currency among our members in their 20’s and 30’s, but no one in our church has even heard of Brian McLaren. An increasing number people are reading John Piper, while others think that Reformed theology is practically heresy.
Even within just one church, it’s difficult to generalize. And now a generalization about generalizations: painting with a broad brush can be easy. You can create a straw man that’s easy to knock down with your arguments. Since you get to paint with your own brush, you don’t have to interact with specific positions or find a real basis for your criticism. You discover that you’re always rights, and anyone else is wrong, if you want them to be. It’s intellectual softness that does nothing to advance the Church.
Frustrations with Origen
In reading God’s Rivals, I became very frustrated with Origen. On the one hand, we have a legitimately brilliant theologian and pastor, a la Bonhoeffer. As McDermott writes, “By night he studied the Bible and by day he prepared his students for martyrdom.” On the other hand, Origen was quite comfortable engaging in wild speculations – for examples, he theorized a Mormon-like pre-existence, where our obedience or disobedience to God resulted in the context of our birth (rich/poor, Christian/nonChristian, etc.). Origen apparently felt that he would throw out these ideas and allow the church to determine which to be true and which to be heretical. He got his wish, unfortunately. In 553 (300 years after his death), he was declared a heretic at the Second Council of Constantinople.
Review: God's Rivals
Gerald R. McDermott. God’s Rivals: Why Has God Allowed Different Religions? 2007, IVP.
McDermott raises an interesting question with his subtitle, and he turns to the Bible and to early Christian writers for some answers. A great idea: in North America, where Christianity is by far the most dominant religion, it’s easy to forget that the Bible and the church were birthed in societies obsessed with a multitude of gods and religious systems. McDermott notes, as well, that Greco-Roman philosophy was itself a religious system, based on the idea that God could be discovered through reason. McDermott devotes one chapter each to surveys of the Old Testament, New Testament, and the writings of Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen.
The insights that McDermott are surprising, at least to me. Using passages such as Daniel 10:13 (referencing the “prince of Persia,” a spiritual being with authority over Persia) and Deut. 32:8-9 (where God allots nations “according to the number of the gods” – McDermott favors “sons of elohim” instead of “sons of Israel” based on manuscript evidence), McDermott argues that the OT hints at the following:
- YHWH created “the hosts” as spiritual beings with varying degrees of authority.
- Some of the spiritual beings were given authority over nations or ethnic groups, such as the archangel Michael over Israel.
- These spiritual beings have largely rebelled against YHWH. This is connected to the fall of Lucifer.
- Because of their rebellion, these spiritual beings have led men and women to worship them instead of worshiping the true God.
It’s important to note that McDermott only suggests this as a possible reading. The early Christian writers he covers, however, take it as a given that the gods of other nations are fallen angels. In subsequent chapters, McDermott reviews Paul’s famous words regarding principalities and powers, and the varying views of the four early Christian writers he chose. The Christian writers wrestled with the major question of how much truth other religions contain. Their answer, to differing degrees, is “some.” Clement goes so far as to suggest that other religions may be God’s covenants with other nations, analogous to God’s covenant with Israel, covenants which point to and are to be replaced by the new covenant of Jesus Christ.
Two concluding thoughts: First, McDermott wants to recapture the Bible’s and the early church’s view of other religions as having spiritual components. There are real spiritual beings behind these other religions; they are much more than simply “mistakes” or human searches for God. Because they originate with spiritual beings originally created by God, other religions contain some kernel of truth. McDermott writes,
This also means that other religionists are not our enemy…Our real battle, as Paul advises us, is not against human beings – flesh and blood – but against “the cosmic powers of this present darkness” (Eph. 6:12). (165)
Thus, our attitude toward other religions should be respectful and characterized by “patient persuasion, not hostile argument.”
Second, McDermott does an excellent job of bringing early Christian writers to life. Using Eusebius‘ history of the early church, McDermott interweaves the theologies of these writers with their personal testimonies and contexts. He leads me to desire to read them for myself.
Give It Away Now
Gregg Easterbrook writes that the super-rich (Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Paul Allen, et al.) should give away a far higher percentage of their net worth. Compared to the average American, the super-rich donate a pittance of their net worth, and keep far more than they (or all of their descendents) could ever use. Easterbrook asks,
Why do the super-rich hoard? Certainly not because they need money to spend. As economist Christopher Carroll of Johns Hopkins University points out in an upcoming paper, the super-rich save far more than they could ever spend, even with Dionysian indulgence. Gates’ fortune must throw off, even by conservative estimations, about $6 million a day after taxes. You couldn’t spend $6 million every day of your life even if you did nothing all day long but buy original art and waterfront real estate. The fortunes of Allen, Knight and others mentioned here throw off at least $1 million a day after taxes. Nobody can spend $1 million every day.
Carroll speculates that the super-rich won’t give away money they know they will never use for two reasons: because they love money, and because extreme wealth confers power. We know already that people who give their lives over to loving money surrender their humanity in the process. As for clout, Carroll quotes Howard Hughes: “Money is the measuring rod of power.” That $53 billion ensures Gates will be treated with awe wherever he goes. If he gave away 78% of his wealth like Carnegie did, he might be universally admired, but he would no longer be treated with the same degree of fawning reverence. He might even, someday, find himself in the same room with someone who has more money!
I would add another, less cynical reason why they don’t give more: it’s too hard. That may sound strange, considering the massive, obvious needs in the world, combined with the large staffs that these men can employ to find worthy causes. But the nature of philanthropy makes it difficult to pipeline hoards of money into charity.
Compare philanthropy to the stock market. If I have $1 billion, any stock broker in the country would be falling down all over himself to invest my money. Further, it would be relatively easy to tell whether my $1 billion was “working.” I could check my portfolio weekly – even hourly if I chose – and see whether my net worth was going up or down. My portfolio would be invested in one or more businesses, and there are a multitude of clear measures – such as revenue, expenses, profit, market share, sales volume – I could check to see whether the business was heading in the right direction or not.
There are no monetary returns with philanthropy, and no comparable standardized measures like market share. Even the most tangible measures – number of meals served – tell only part of the story. Maybe the charity served 50% more meals to the homeless than last quarter. But the mission is to reduce hunger. Are more meals a sign of success in feeding more people, a sign of failure because more people are hungry? Further, a stock broker would know exactly what to do with an extra $1 billion. I would argue that most charities would be at a loss over how to handle a sudden doubling of their budget. There would be no guarantee that the money would be spent appropriately, and, unless the billionaire attached a multitude of strings, no way to change the direction of the money once given to the charity. Ironically, the profit motive in business has created a model of scalability and the means to process money that philanthropy has yet to match.
MikeHickerson.com 