S.B. 1062
Credit: LA Times
A funny thing happened on my way back from a recent trip I took to Arizona. The state became embroiled in a heated political battle over Senate Bill 1062.[1] Okay, it may not have been funny. But these kinds of battles are common.
According to some, S.B. 1062 championed religious liberty, allowing business owners with religious convictions to deny service to a party if the business owner felt that serving that party would substantially burden or contradict his religious convictions. According to others, S.B. 1062 violated the civil rights of homosexuals by formally and legally legitimatizing discrimination against them.
Last Wednesday, Governor Jan Brewer vetoed the bill, explaining, “I have not heard of one example in Arizona where business owners’ religious liberty has been violated … The bill is broadly worded and could result in unintended and negative consequences.”[2] Of course, the political pressure on Governor Brewer was hot:
Companies such as Apple Inc. and American Airlines, and politicians including GOP Sen. John McCain and former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney were among those who urged Brewer to veto the legislation. The Arizona Super Bowl Host Committee, which is overseeing preparations for the 2015 game, came out with a statement against the legislation. The Hispanic National Bar Association on Wednesday said it canceled its 2015 convention in Phoenix over the measure.[3]
In observing the volley between supporters and detractors of this bill, two things strike me.
First, homosexuality – and, specifically, gay rights – is not only a hot topic in our society, it is the hot topic in our society. Interestingly, nowhere does S.B. 1062 mention homosexuality. It simply speaks of “the free exercise of religion.” Yet, USA Today reported on Governor Brewer’s veto of the bill with this headline: “Arizona governor vetoes anti-gay bill.”[4] These days, how a piece of legislation will affect the gay community is the litmus test as to whether or not a bill can or should pass, even if that bill does not specifically mention the gay community. Gay rights, then, are front and center. They are the battleground du jour of our society.
Second, there are a lot of homosexuals who deeply despise Christians with orthodox beliefs concerning the sinfulness of homosexual activity and will go to great – and even duplicitous – lengths to paint Christians as homophobic bigots. Stories abound of people who have concocted heinous hate crimes against themselves. Take, for instance, the lesbian couple that spray-painted their own garage with the message “Kill the gay.”[5] Or how about the Tennessee man who falsely claimed that three men beat him and robbed his store in an anti-gay attack?[6] Then, of course, there was the famed incident of the waitress who falsely claimed she was stiffed on a tip because she was a lesbian.[7] Personally, I don’t want to think of anyone in the homosexual community as my enemy. Life is too short to keep an enemies’ list. But I am not so naïve as to believe that there aren’t some in the homosexual community who think of me as their enemy.
So what am I to do?
Jesus’ admonition to pray for those who are on the outs with you (cf. Matthew 5:44) seems to be especially apropos for a time such as this. To this end, I would invite you to join me in praying for three things as the culture war over sexual rights continues to rage.
First, pray for forgiveness. Though it is painful to admit, it was not too long ago that it was exponentially more likely for a message like “Kill the gay” to be spray painted not by someone self-imposing a hate crime, but by someone committing one. And sometimes, that someone was even a self-professed Christian. This, of course, directly defies a myriad of biblical commandments concerning our conduct as Christians. Our call to tell the truth about sin must never be a license to commit sin – especially the sin of hate. We need forgiveness for our missteps – which are plenty – in this debate.
Second, pray for understanding. I want to be understood. I want people to understand and believe that I am not a homophobic hate monger who wants to oppress, humiliate, and exile those who do not share my same faith and ethical commitments. But if I want this for myself, it is only fair that I afford the same courtesy to others. Martin Luther summarized the Eighth Commandment by saying that, when dealing with our neighbors, we should “put the best construction on everything.”[8] I can think of no better way to respond to those who put the worst construction on Christians’ intentions than by putting the best construction on theirs. Generous understanding offers our greatest hope for peace in the midst of a hotly contested and, sadly, dirtily fought culture war.
Third, pray that true love would prevail. The “true” is just as important as the “love” here, for our society has settled for a counterfeit love that reduces love to nothing more than tolerance. Just the other day, I heard a caller to a radio talk show explain how one of the primary virtues of Christianity is tolerance. Really? A quick search of the word “tolerate” in the Bible brings up verses like these:
- Whoever slanders their neighbor in secret, I will put to silence; whoever has haughty eyes and a proud heart, I will not tolerate. (Psalm 101:5)
- Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; You cannot tolerate wrongdoing. Why then do You tolerate the treacherous? (Habakkuk 1:13)
- It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that even pagans do not tolerate: A man is sleeping with his father’s wife. (1 Corinthians 5:1)
Tolerance does not seem to be the high brow Scriptural virtue that some would like to peddle it as. This is not to say that we shouldn’t live with, work alongside with, and care for people who do not share our same moral commitments. In this way, we should indeed be tolerant. But tolerance does not necessarily entail endorsement.
Ultimately, as Christians, we ought to aspire to a much higher value than that of tolerance. We ought to aspire to love. “Love,” the apostle Paul reminds us, “does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth” (1 Corinthians 1:6). To love someone well, we must tell him the truth, even when the truth is unpopular. This is our calling with all sin – sexual and otherwise.
So these are my prayers. Now, it’s your turn. Will you join me in praying the same?
[2] Aaron Blake, “Arizona governor vetoes bill on denying services to gays,” The Washington Post (2.26.2014).
[3] Bob Christie, “Arizona Religious Bill That Angered Gays Vetoed,” ABC News (2.27.2014).
[4] Dan Nowicki, Yvonne Wingett Sanchez and Alia Beard Rau, “Arizona governor vetoes anti-gay bill,” USA Today (2.26.2014).
[5] Alyssa Newcomb, “Lesbian Couple Charged With Staging Hate Crime,” ABC News (2.19.2012).
[6] Chuck Ross, “Report: Man falsified police report in alleged anti-gay attack,” The Daily Caller (12.26.2013).
[7] Cavan Sieczkowski, “New Jersey Waitress In Anti-Gay Receipt Saga Reportedly Let Go From Job,” The Huffington Post (12.9.2013).
A Camel Controversy
And you thought it was it only impossible for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.
As it turns out, threading camels isn’t the only thing that’s impossible according to some archaeologists. Domesticating them before the tenth century B.C. also turns out to be quite the trick. Writing for the New York Times, John Noble Wilford provocatively declares, “Camels Had No Business in Genesis.”[1] Wilford explains:
There are too many camels in the Bible, out of time and out of place.
Camels probably had little or no role in the lives of such early Jewish patriarchs as Abraham, Jacob and Joseph, who lived in the first half of the second millennium B.C., and yet stories about them mention these domesticated pack animals more than 20 times. Genesis 24, for example, tells of Abraham’s servant going by camel on a mission to find a wife for Isaac.
How does Wilford know that camels had no role in the era of the biblical patriarchs? He cites a study, recently published by two archaeologists from Tel Aviv University, which employed radiocarbon dating to test some camel bones found in the Aravah Valley. This study found the bones to be from the last third of the tenth century B.C., which, Wilford notes, is “centuries after the patriarchs lived and decades after the kingdom of David, according to the Bible.” So there you have it. Thanks to some late breaking bones, Genesis is discredited – at least the parts that talk about camels.
Now, before we fall prey to camel chaos, a few things should be noted. First, the Tel Aviv archaeologists, by declaring that camels could not have been used in the way Genesis 24 describes them, are making an argument from silence. Their assumption runs like this: because we do not have domesticated camel fossils dating before first millennium B.C., there must have been no domesticated camels before the first millennium B.C. The Bible must be wrong. But a lack of evidence does not necessitate a lack of existence. One need to only think back to 1961. This was the year the “Pilate Stone” was discovered at Caesarea Maritima. It had an inscription dedicated to the emperor of Rome at the time, Tiberius Caesar: “To the Divine Augustus Tiberieum: Pontius Pilate, prefect of Judea has dedicated this.” Before this stone was discovered, because there was no hard archaeological evidence of Pontius Pilate, many assumed that Pilate was a fictional character, made up out of the sacred authors’ over-active imaginations. Whoops. So much for that argument from silence.
It should also be noted that the archaeologists who discovered these bones do not even have complete silence in favor of their argument against camels during the time of the biblical patriarchs. They only have archaeological silence. There are extra-biblical references to domesticated camels prior to the first millennium B.C. Titus Kennedy, adjunct professor at Biola University, notes that a camel is mentioned in a list of domesticated animals from Ugarit, dating anywhere from 1950 to 1600 B.C. In an interview with Christianity Today, Kennedy explains:
For those who adhere to a twelfth century B.C. or later theory of domestic camel use in the ancient Near East, a great deal of archaeological and textual evidence must be either ignored or explained away …
[Israel] doesn’t have much writing from before the Iron Age, 1000 B.C. … So there aren’t as many sources to look at. Whereas in Egypt, you have writing all the way back to 3000 B.C. and in Mesopotamia the same thing.[2]
Kennedy concludes that there were not only domesticated camels at the time of the biblical patriarchs, but before the time of the biblical patriarchs. Thus, the biblical record is quite believable. There is no reason that Abraham could not have acquired “sheep and cattle, male and female donkeys, male and female servants, and camels” (Genesis 12:16), just as Genesis says.
Ultimately, the difficulties with the premature conclusions drawn from this discovery reach much deeper than simply whether camels were around in the second millennium B.C. These difficulties are summed up in Wilford’s conclusion:
These anachronisms are telling evidence that the Bible was written or edited long after the events it narrates and is not always reliable as verifiable history. These camel stories “do not encapsulate memories from the second millennium,” said Noam Mizrahi, an Israeli biblical scholar, “but should be viewed as back-projections from a much later period.”
In other words, the Bible cannot be trusted to get its facts straight – at least not all of them. When reading the Bible, then, skepticism must be given preference over faith.
Finally, if I assume camels could not have been in Genesis based on an argument from paleontological silence, it is only reasonable for me to assume that a Savior cannot rise from death based on medical science. After all, doctors have long known that dead people tend to stay that way. Thus, Jesus’ resurrection must have never happened. But if this is true, then my “faith is futile; I am still in my sins … [and] I am to be pitied more than all men” (1 Corinthians 15:17, 19). Wow, that’s a downer.
Let’s hope the archaeologists are wrong on this one. After all, I don’t really like to be pitied.
[1] John Noble Wilford, “Camels Had No Business in Genesis,” New York Times (2.10.2014).
[2] Gordon Govier, “The Latest Challenge to the Bible’s Accuracy: Abraham’s Anachronistic Camels?” Christianity Today (February 2014).
Michael Sam Makes It Public
Credit: cnn.com
“Does the NFL have any gay players?” my wife asked me last Sunday. She was watching a Hallmark Valentine movie where one of the characters, an NFL quarterback, came out as homosexual. “No, sweetie,” I responded. “The NFL does not have any openly gay players. There have been some players who have come out after they left the NFL, but to date, no players currently in the NFL are openly homosexual.”
It didn’t take long for that to change.
The next morning, while I was working out and watching ESPN, there was Michael Sam, former Missouri Defensive End and candidate in the NFL draft, coming out on national TV as a gay football player. “I am an openly, proud gay man,” Sam told ESPN’s “Outside the Lines.” Granted, Sam is not an NFL player…yet. But his prospects are good.
I am surprised – pleasantly so – by how muted the negative response to Sam’s announcement has been. Some journalists have hinted that responses could turn negative, but to date there is no swell of detractors decrying Sam as a dangerous degenerate. By the same token, those who are writing and speaking about him are hailing him as a hero. Brendon Ayanbadejo, a former linebacker who is currently a free agent, was effusive about Sam’s announcement, comparing him to Jackie Robinson and Rosa Parks. To cap off his feelings concerning Sam, he said, “To borrow from Neil Amstrong, this is one small step for gay men and one giant leap for the LGBTQ community.”[1] Juliet Macur of the New York Times wrote a manifesto demanding that an NFL team draft Sam. She begins by writing, “It’s time,” and ends by declaring, “Sam must be drafted. It’s time to move forward. The teams and the league are on the clock.”[2] For Macur, Sam’s status as a future NFL star is not a matter of his talent, but of a moral imperative that says the NFL must have an openly gay player.
For orthodox Christians, all of this can be hard to sort out. On the one hand, there is something to be celebrated here. It is refreshing to see so many display a measured sensitivity to and deep compassion for those with same-sex attractions and those in same-sex relationships. The gay slurs, gay jokes, and gay bashing of yesteryear have drastically dissipated and, for my part, I say, “Good riddance.” Such speech is diametrically opposed to the biblical command to love, which Paul says is the fulfillment and summation of all biblical commandments (cf. Romans 13:8-9). On the other hand, Christians cannot pretend that our society’s sexual free-for-all, which demands not only the toleration of, but the celebration of sexual practices that are far from biblical standards for human sexuality, is nothing more than an issue of civil rights. Whether it’s Michael Sam touting his homosexuality or Richie Incognito and Jonathan Martin exchanging texts about how many women they have slept with and the use of prostitutes,[3] the spacious sexual ethic of our society is simply not something Christians can endorse. Partly because it’s immoral and Scripturally forbidden, yes. But also because it hurts, belittles, and objectifies people, which, in and of itself, is tragic, no matter what your ethical worldview.
Ultimately, the loose sexual standards of our society are nothing new. The path of sexual salaciousness is well worn – not only in twenty-first century America, but in all the societies that have come before her. But we can choose a different path. We can choose the path of sexual commitment in marriage while walking “humbly with our God” (Micah 6:8). I pray that we do. For when we do, we not only live out God’s sexual standard in our commitments, we show God’s lavish love by our humility.
[1] Mike Foss, “Ex-NFL player: Draft prospect who came out is like Jackie Robinson and Rosa Parks,” USA Today (2.10.2014).
[2] Juliet Macur, “It’s Time for the N.F.L. to Welcome a Gay Player,” New York Times (2.9.2014).
[3] Adam H. Beasley, “Texts shed light on relationship between Miami Dolphins’ Jonathan Martin, Richie Incognito,” Miami Herald (2.5.2014).
Let Freedom Ring…Temperately
It was Jean-Jacques Rousseau who wrote, “Man was born free, and everywhere he is in chains.”[1] Of course, Rousseau’s conception of freedom was one where man was free from all restraints, most especially moral and social restraints. Rousseau argued that man’s ideal state is one where he is not reliant on morals or on others. Reliance on morals and others rather than self-reliance, Rousseau opined, threatens man’s very survival and existence.
Rousseau wrote his words concerning man’s freedom in 1762. We’ve been trying to decide whether or not he was right ever since.
Case in point: Beyoncé’s performance at the Grammy’s. Anand Giridharadas of the New York Times, in an article on her Grammy appearance, characterized Beyoncé like this: “God-fearing girl from Texas, scantily clad and sexualized vixen, mononymous superstar and feminist icon, the wife who took Jay-Z’s last name, Carter.”[2] What an interesting combination of characteristics. She’s a sexualized vixen and a God-fearing girl. And both were on display in her Grammy performance. On the one hand, Beyoncé sang a truly blush-worthy and downright raunchy song in an outfit that defied common decency. On the other hand, she performed with her husband, Jay-Z, as together they extolled the pleasures of sex within marriage. Extolling the pleasures of sex within marriage is solidly Christian. Grinding in front of 28.5 million viewers is crass voyeurism. Marital intimacy is solidly moral and, I would point out, biblically commanded (cf. 1 Corinthians 7:5). Dropping your bedroom onto a national stage is a Rousseauian dream.
The apostle Paul writes, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1). Rousseau’s freedom was a freedom to sin. Paul’s freedom was a freedom from sin: “You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love” (Galatians 5:13). Rousseau abhorred the notion that man would rely on others. Paul called Christians to be people on which others could happily rely.
Thomas Jefferson once noted, “It would be a miracle were [people] to stop precisely at temperate liberty.”[3] Jefferson feared that, left to their own devices, people would all too easily and quickly lapse into “unbounded licentiousness,” running headlong for the unbridled freedom of Rousseau rather than toward the virtuous liberty of Paul. And this is, sadly, what has happened.
But not completely.
There are still some who understand that true freedom is not so much about the moral bounds you can break, but about the responsibility you can take. There are still some who understand that freedom is not so much about the selfish hedonism in which you can engage, but about the loving service you can offer. That’s true freedom. That’s real freedom. And, by God’s grace, we can still carry forth in that freedom. We must carry forth in that freedom.
Anything else is just “a yoke of slavery.”
[1] Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, Christopher Betts, trans. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 45
[2] Anand Giridharadas, “Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s Sultry Dance Makes a Case for Marriage,” New York Times (2.3.2014).
[3] Esther Franklin, Thomas Jefferson: Inquiry History for Daring Delvers (Esther Franklin, 2012).
“Look at me!”
This past weekend in ABC, I talked about how far too many of us live by the narcissistic credo, “Look at me.” What children will say to their parents at the pool right before they do a flip or a dive is the same thing we want, albeit we may not say so in so many words. Instead, it is our actions – sometimes wild and dramatic; other times passive, yet aggressive – that cry out for people to notice. And oftentimes, our actions produce their desired effect. Oftentimes, people look at us, even if for all the wrong reasons.
Sadly, having others “look at me” is a desire that not only resides in the hearts of people in the world out there; it is a desire that resides in my heart. I want people to take note of who I am and what I do. Whether it’s a Bible study that I lead or a sermon that I preach or a blog that I post, I can quickly become all too curious to know what people think of what I have said or written and if people care. And if they don’t think highly of what I’ve said or written, or if they don’t care, I can easily become hurt. After all, just like so many others, I like to be remembered and recognized. I want people to “look at me.”
One of the most puzzling motifs in the Gospels is what a scholar named William Wrede deemed “the Messianic secret.” The Messianic secret describes those times when, after a particularly profound and revealing utterance or after some miraculous feat, Jesus warns His disciples not to share His identity or actions with anyone else. For instance, after Peter claims Jesus to be “the Christ,” that is, the Messiah, Jesus warns the disciples “not to tell anyone about Him” (Mark 8:29-30).
Wrede claims that, historically, Jesus did not believe Himself to be and did not speak of Himself as the Messiah. Later Christians came to this conclusion quite apart from what Jesus actually said and did. According to Wrede, the Gospel writers made up these Messianic “secrets” and inserted them into the Gospels as an apologetic to argue for Jesus’ Messianic identity.
Not surprisingly, orthodox Christians take a different view of these secretive statements. We believe these statements were not later glosses to create for Jesus a Messianic identity He never claimed, but genuine statements by Jesus concerning who He is and what He had come to do.
But why would He want to keep His grand identity a secret? The general consensus is that Jesus knew many people would misunderstand what it means for Him to be the Messiah, for many of the Jews of that day had visions of the Messiah as a political revolutionary dancing in their heads. Jesus, of course, was no such Christ. He had not come to overthrow a government, but to usher in a Kingdom.
Beyond this, Jesus’ secretive statements also seem to reflect the fulfillment of prophecy. One of the marks of the Messiah, according to Isaiah, is His humility. The Messiah will not clamor to pronounce before the world His identity and power: “He will not shout or cry out, or raise His voice in the streets” (Isaiah 42:2). In other words, the Messiah will not come to this world announcing, “Look at me!”
In a world where we struggle with the desire to be noticed, there is a lesson to be learned from the Messianic secret. Jesus eschewed notice, and yet there has never been anyone more noticeable than Him. His noticeability came through His humility.
Perhaps our noticeability should come the same way. Perhaps rather than shouting “Look at me,” we should practice a gentle humility.
Explaining Our Existence
I recently came across two articles – both dealing with gender concerns – that caught my attention. The first article is by Lisa Wade of Salon and addresses the deep friendships – or the lack thereof – between men. Wade opens her article:
Of all people in America, adult, white, heterosexual men have the fewest friends. Moreover, the friendships they have, if they’re with other men, provide less emotional support and involve lower levels of self-disclosure and trust than other types of friendships. When men get together, they’re more likely to do stuff than have a conversation …
When I first began researching this topic I thought, surely this is too stereotypical to be true. Or, if it is true, I wondered, perhaps the research is biased in favor of female-type friendships. In other words, maybe we’re measuring male friendships with a female yardstick. It’s possible that men don’t want as many or the same kinds of friendships as women.
But they do. When asked about what they desire from their friendships, men are just as likely as women to say that they want intimacy. And, just like women, their satisfaction with their friendships is strongly correlated with the level of self-disclosure.[1]
Men want friends, Wade contends – real friends, with whom they can share real cares, concerns, and fears. But most do not have these kinds of friends. Why is this? Wade chalks it up to society’s assertions concerning what it means to be a “real man.” She explains:
[Real men] are supposed to be self-interested, competitive, non-emotional, strong (with no insecurities at all), and able to deal with their emotional problems without help. Being a good friend, then, as well as needing a good friend, is the equivalent of being girly.
Real men, our society says, keep their emotions hermetically sealed. This is why so many men eschew forming deep and abiding friendships. But as many men seek to be really masculine through sensitivity sequestration, they only wind up being really isolated.
The second article I found interesting is by Sarah Elizabeth Richards of the New York Times. Richards tells the story of Andy Inkster – a woman who underwent surgery and took testosterone to become a man, but has now stopped taking testosterone because she wants to get pregnant. As it turns out, Andy had trouble getting pregnant and sought fertility treatments from Baystate Reproductive Medicine. Baystate denied her request. She received help from another clinic and got pregnant, but sued Baystate for discrimination.
Such a desire of transgendered people to have children is not unique to Andy:
One study published last year in the journal Human Reproduction of 90 transgender men in Belgium found that 54 percent wished to have children … Other research, published in 2002, by Belgian fertility doctors with Western European transgender women found that 40 percent wanted to have children, and 77 percent felt they should have the option to preserve their sperm before hormone treatment. As fertility technology improves and becomes more widely available, transgender people are realizing that they will have more options in the future.[2]
Transgendered people apparently have a strong desire to have children in biologically traditional ways despite their deep reservations with their biologically assigned genders.
At first glance, these two articles seem to address phenomena on opposite ends of the cultural spectrum. The first has to do with entrenched machismo while the second has to do with blurred gender identity. But for all their differences, there exists a common theological root: the divorce of human existence from divine creation.
Foundational to the Christian conception of the cosmos is the belief that everything came from somewhere. Or, to put it more precisely, Christians believe that everything came from someone. We do not just exist. We were created.
It is from the Scriptural story of creation that we learn not just that we are, but who we are. We are creatures and not the Creator (cf. Genesis 3:5). We are fashioned in the image of God (cf. Genesis 1:27). We are fearfully and wonderfully made (cf. Psalm 139:14), which is to say that God intentionally and lovingly fashioned us to be a certain kind of person, the corruption of sin notwithstanding. In the old “nature versus nurture” debate, the story of creation tells us that nature does indeed shape us, but not by naturalistic means. Rather, we are shaped through nature by the One who made nature.
Both of the articles above exemplify with a convicting candor what happens when people forget this story. Men who try to play the role of the sturdy and strong lone ranger forget the part of the story where God says, “It is not good for the man to be alone” (Genesis 2:18). People who undergo surgeries and treatments in an effort to change their gender forget the part of the story where God revels in how He has created us “male and female” (Genesis 1:27).
The apostle Peter warns there will come a time when people will “deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed” (2 Peter 3:5). They will forget their existence is a product of God’s creative word. And they will forget their existence is to be guided by God’s sacred Word. May it never be so of us. May we always be able to say: “I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth…and of me.”
[1] Lisa Wade, “American men’s hidden crisis: They need more friends!” Salon (12.7.2013).
[2] Sarah Elizabeth Richards, “The Next Frontier in Fertility Treatment,” New York Times (1.12.2014).
Angry At A God Who Isn’t There
The other day I heard the story of a distressed parent. Their son had gone away to college as a Christian and had returned as an atheist. They wanted to know what they could do to bring their son back into the fold.
Honestly, hearing this boy’s story distressed me. After all, nothing less than this young man’s very salvation is at stake. I was tempted to break out into a rant about how far too many colleges and universities deliberately and relentlessly undermine faith while uncritically peddling a deluded vision of a far-flung utopian secular humanistic paradise, but I stopped myself and instead asked a simple question: “Why? Why did your son become an atheist? Was it because of something he heard in some class from a professor, or was it because of something else – something deeper?”
Many atheists like to present themselves as cool and collected, calmly examining empirically verifiable data and coming to the inevitable and emotionally detached conclusion that there is no God. But the reality of atheism is far less viscerally clean.
A couple of years ago, Joe Carter penned an article for First Things titled, “When Atheists Are Angry At God.” In it, he notes a strange phenomenon: many people who do not believe in God find themselves angry at God:
I’ve shaken my fist in anger at stalled cars, storm clouds, and incompetent meterologists. I’ve even, on one terrible day that included a dead alternator, a blaring blaring tornado-warning siren, and a horrifically wrong weather forecast, cursed all three at once. I’ve fumed at furniture, cussed at crossing guards, and held a grudge against Gun Barrel City, Texas. I’ve been mad at just about anything you can imagine.
Except unicorns. I’ve never been angry at unicorns.
It’s unlikely you’ve ever been angry at unicorns either. We can become incensed by objects and creatures both animate and inanimate. We can even, in a limited sense, be bothered by the fanciful characters in books and dreams. But creatures like unicorns that don’t exist – that we truly believe not to exist – tend not to raise our ire. We certainly don’t blame the one-horned creatures for our problems.
The one social group that takes exception to this rule is atheists. They claim to believe that God does not exist and yet, according to empirical studies, tend to be the people most angry at Him.[1]
But why is this? Why would people who don’t believe in God become angry at God? Carter goes on to cite Julie Exline, a psychologist at Case Western Reserve University:
Studies in traumatic events suggest a possible link between suffering, anger toward God, and doubts about God’s existence. According to Cook and Wimberly (1983), 33% of parents who suffered the death of a child reported doubts about God in the first year of bereavement. In another study, 90% of mothers who had given birth to a profoundly retarded child voiced doubts about the existence of God (Childs, 1985). Our survey research with undergraduates has focused directly on the association between anger at God and self-reported drops in belief (Exline et al., 2004). In the wake of a negative life event, anger toward God predicted decreased belief in God’s existence.
In other words, atheism is not as viscerally clean as many atheists would like to have you believe. Atheism is not always the product of cool, clean, detached observation of empirically verifiable date. Instead, atheism is often the product of not disbelief in God, but rebellion against God because a person feels slighted by God in some way. Atheism, although it may hide between a veneer of intellectualism, is also heavily emotional. It’s hardly a wonder that the Psalmists says of the atheist: “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God’” (Psalm 14:1). Atheism is not just a matter of the head. It’s also a matter of the heart.
I never quite did get to the root of the atheism of my friend’s son. But I suspect it was more than just some smooth-talking college professor that led him down the road to unbelief. That’s why, when sharing my faith, I not only try to speak to a person’s head; I try to minister to his heart.
[1] Joe Carter, “When Atheists Are Angry At God,” First Things (1.12.2011).
It’s Not Tricky … It’s Really Not
It seems like it’s been happening to me a lot lately.
The other day on the radio, I heard a commercial for “The Biblical Money Code,” a program that claims to be able to make millions for the person who follows it:
Imagine if you had a secret code for making money … a code buried deep within biblical text. A code that certain investment titans have quietly exploited to amass billions. And what if this code could be used by you, today, to unlock vast amounts of wealth — safely and ethically.[1]
Now, forget the fact that what the Bible has to say about money is about as straightforward and sharp as it can be. For instance: “No one can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money” (Matthew 6:24). Forget the fact that God nowhere promises that you can or will amass billions. Forget the fact that the Bible doesn’t even find it particularly desirable that a person would amass billions. All of what’s in this program has to be in the Bible. You just have to unlock the code.
But that’s not the only biblical “code” I’ve run across recently.
The other day, I received an email from a friend claiming the prophet Muhammad was identified by name in the Old Testament. Where? Song of Songs 5:16: “His mouth is sweetness itself; he is altogether lovely. This is my lover, this my friend, O daughters of Jerusalem.” How does this refer to Muhammad? The Hebrew word for “altogether lovely” is machamadim, which sounds like “Muhammad.” Now, forget the fact that, in context, this is a statement by a wife about her husband. Forget the fact that machamadim is a Hebrew word and Muhammad is an Arabic name. Forget the fact that there is nothing in this verse that would indicate this is a prophetic statement. These two words sound similar, so they must be related. You just have to unlock the code.
But that’s not the only biblical “code” I’ve run across recently.
I remember a conversation I had with some Mormon friends about the kingdoms of glory in the afterlife. “We can enter a telestial, terrestrial, or celestial kingdom,” my friends explained. From where do they get this? 1 Corinthians 15:40 (KJV): “There are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial: but the glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the terrestrial is another.” Now, forget the fact that Paul’s point here is not to talk about afterlife destinations, but to speak of the kind of body we will receive at the resurrection of the dead, as he makes abundantly clear at the conclusion of his argument:
So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable; it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power; it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. (1 Corinthians 15:42-44)
Forget the fact that this verse doesn’t even mention telestial bodies. Forget the fact that no one in the Church interpreted this verse in this way before Joseph Smith. Paul has to be talking about different afterlife destinations. You just have to unlock the code.
With so many so-called “religious experts” peddling so many biblical codes, it is worth it to remind ourselves of the principle of perspicuity. Perspicuity is from a Latin word meaning “clearness.” And classically, the Church has ascribed this characteristic to Holy Writ. The Lutheran dogmatician Francis Pieper summarizes biblical perspicuity thusly: “The perspicuity of Scripture consists in this, that it presents, in language that can be understood by all, whatever men must know to be saved.”[2] Pieper goes on to note that Scripture testifies to its own perspicuity in places like Psalm 19:7: “The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy, making wise the simple.” One can be simple intellectually and still gain wisdom from Scripture, for Scripture is clear. Understanding the Good Book does not take a Ph.D. in theology.
Now, this is not to say that every verse of the Bible is equally easy to understand. No less than the great preacher Chrysostom explains that some parts of the Bible can indeed be difficult to interpret:
Let us suppose … rivers … are not of the same depth. Some have a shallow bed, others one deep enough to drown one unacquainted with it. In one part there are whirlpools, and not in another … Why then art thou bent on drowning thyself in those depths?[3]
Chrysostom compares different parts of Scripture to different rivers. Some parts are shallow and easy to navigate. Other parts are deeper and more difficult to wade through. But though some parts of Scripture are richly deep, none are nefariously tricky. In other words, the biblical authors are not trying to hide things from us with a code, but reveal things to us under the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit.
The long and short of biblical perspicuity, then, is this: finding codes, mysteries, and secrets that cater to our sinful lusts like greed, play “sound like” games with words across languages, and rip words out of a text and shoehorn them into meaning something which, contextually, they clearly do not and cannot mean are not only not biblical, they’re evil. God wants us to understand and follow His Word – not be confused by it and misinterpret it.
So the next time you open your Bible, don’t pull out your decoder ring, pull out your reading glasses. They’ll work much better. And you’ll be much more edified.
[1] “The Biblical Money Code,” newsmax.com
[2] Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, vol. 1 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1950), 320.
[3] John Chrysostom, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, series 1, vol. 13, P. Schaff, ed. (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1889), 507.
For Fathers Only
“Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4).
These famous words from the apostle Paul are meant to call fathers to Godliness as they raise their children. Negatively, fathers are not to “exasperate,” or anger, their children needlessly or vindictively. Positively, they are to “bring them up,” or rear them, in the Lord. The Greek word for “bring them up” is ektrepho, meaning, “to feed.” Fathers are to feed their children. But this means much more than simply “bringing home the bacon,” as it were. This also means feeding children’s souls with time, affection, discipline, and grace.
Sadly, this call to fatherhood is lost on far too many men in our society. And the effects are devastating.
Kay Hymowitz, writing for the City Journal, a quarterly affairs journal for Manhattan, recently published an article titled “Boy Trouble”[1] in which she attributes much of the dismal performance in school, in jobs, and in life of a great number of boys to absentee fathers. In other words, fathers who fail to bring their children up in the training and instruction of the Lord because of their non-presence have a profoundly negative impact on their children. Hymowitz expounds:
By the 1970s and eighties, family researchers following the children of the divorce revolution noticed that, while both girls and boys showed distress when their parents split up, they had different ways of showing it. Girls tended to “internalize” their unhappiness: they became depressed and anxious, and many cut themselves, or got into drugs or alcohol. Boys, on the other hand, “externalized” or “acted out”: they became more impulsive, aggressive, and “antisocial.” Both reactions were worrisome, but boys’ behavior had the disadvantage of annoying and even frightening classmates, teachers, and neighbors. Boys from broken homes were more likely than their peers to get suspended and arrested. Girls’ unhappiness also seemed to ease within a year or two after their parents’ divorce; boys’ didn’t.
Since then, externalizing by boys has been a persistent finding in the literature about the children of single-parent families. In one well-known longitudinal study of children of teen mothers (almost all of them unmarried), University of Pennsylvania sociologist Frank Furstenberg, a dean of family research, found “alarmingly high levels of pathology among the males.” They had more substance abuse, criminal activity, and prison time than the few boys in the study who had grown up in married-couple families.
Hymowitz goes on to consider some of the ways in which societies have sought to compensate for absentee fathers. Some societies have tried to provide robust social support programs, ensuring single mothers have all the financial resources they need to give their sons opportunities that will serve them well. But these social support programs have not stemmed the tide of troubled, fatherless boys. Others have tried to encourage male role modeling in the form of coaches, teachers, and even stepfathers. But the problem remains. Indeed, Hymowitz cites one study done on boys who were raised by their stepfathers and notes that these boys were “even more at risk of incarceration than the single-mom cohort.”
Finally, Hymowitz reaches an inevitable, even if unsurprising, conclusion: “Girls and boys have a better chance at thriving when their own father lives with them and their mother throughout their childhood—and for boys, this is especially the case.” A household needs a father.
Please understand that I do not mean to belittle or disparage the contributions that mothers – and especially single mothers – make to a household. Indeed, I know and have known many faithful single mothers who do all they can to raise their children faithfully, compassionately, and evangelically with great success. To them, I say, “Thank you.” I am saying to men, however: You are needed. The stakes are high. You cannot afford you to be derelict in your duties toward your families.
So get with it. Heed the call of the apostle Paul. You have more influence than you may ever know. Which means you have more responsibility than you could ever dream. Take that responsibility seriously. Little eyes are watching.
[1] Kay Hymowitz, “Boy Trouble,” City Journal 23, no. 4 (Autumn 2013).
Pluralistic Ignorance, a.k.a., “Everybody’s Doing It”
“Everybody’s doing it.” Before this line was used by teenagers in attempts to strong-arm their parents into allowing them to engage in all manner and kind of youthful foolishness, it was the title of a 1938 movie about an alcoholic who creates picture puzzles for a national contest only to get kidnapped before he can deliver the final batch of puzzles. From the reviews I’ve read, the movie wasn’t very good or very believable.[1]
“Everybody’s doing it.” Long after the movie, I remember using this line on my parents – with slight modifications, of course. If I wanted to go to a party, I’d tell my parents, “But everyone will be there!” Or if I wanted my parents to buy me something, I’d tell them, “But everyone else has one!”
“Everybody’s doing it.” This is more than just a teenager’s favorite line. It’s also a dangerous state of mind.
A few years ago, two researchers from Binghamton University in New York, Chris Reiber and Justin Garcia, published a paper titled, “Hooking Up: Gender Differences, Evolution, and Pluralistic Ignorance.”[2] In this paper, they explored the differences between the real and perceived comfort levels with different types of sexual activity among young adults. They discovered what psychologists refer to as “pluralistic ignorance.” They explain:
Pluralistic ignorance (PI) has been demonstrated to play a role in hook-up behavior. PI is characterized by individuals behaving in accordance with (generally false) beliefs attributed to the group, regardless of their own beliefs … Young adults routinely believe that others are more comfortable with various sexual behaviors than they, themselves, are. This leads them to behave as if they were more comfortable than they actually are, and engage in behaviors with which they are not actually comfortable.
After a myriad of charts and graphs illustrating this thesis, the researchers conclude, “Individuals of both genders attributed to others of the same gender higher comfort levels [with different kinds of sexual activity] than they themselves had.” In other words, those surveyed thought that “everyone was doing it,” but, as it turns out, they’re not. And if you think they are, you’re ignorant about what’s going on in the bedrooms of the plurality of people in our world.
Tragically, this perception of the nature and type of sexual activity among one’s peers often leads to the violation of one’s own ethical sensibilities. Thus, far too many people wind up breaching moral boundaries for the farcical, mistaken impression that “everyone is doing it.”
In his epistle to the Romans, the apostle Paul speaks of how “the requirements of [God’s] law are written on [people’s] hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them” (Romans 2:4). The apostle here contends that all people, whether or not they are Christian, have a conscience – a foundational moral compass that helps them distinguish right from wrong. My contention is that we ought to spend more time listening to our consciences and less time worrying and wondering about what “everybody else” is doing. As the research shows, we don’t really know what everybody else is doing and when we try to guess, we guess wrong.
So, to those who are thinking of breaching an ethical boundary so you can roll with a cultural tide, you need to know: the cultural tide will only roll you. Others are not doing what they say they’re doing and you don’t really know what they’re doing anyway. So listen to your conscience, not to them. Or, better yet, listen to God’s Word. You’ll wind up much less morally anguished and much more joyfully fulfilled.
[2] Chris Reiber & Justin R. Garcia “Hooking Up: Gender Differences, Evolution, and Pluralistic Ignorance,” Evolutionary Psychology 8, no. 3 (2010): 390-404.
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