For your ignoring pleasure, here’s Matthew 8:20. Let’s all hope it meets Lara’s high emotional standard. What if I used exclamation points more? Or if I used caps. Or maybe little pink letters when I talk to people over IM. Would I be more emotional then?
Foxes, Birds, Bees, Tress
October 9, 2004 by E1st
About righteous giving: Say there is a leper at the city gates, begging for alms from the passersby. A certain man begrudgingly gives to the leper each day as he enters the city, annoyed to always find the man at his customary post.
Another fellow who regularly passes is always pleasant and kind to the leper, but he does not offer him alms. However, on some days he feels especially sympathetic and full of good will and on those days, he too, gives to the beggar.
Who is the more righteous giver? The begrudging or the warm-hearted?
The answer depends on the framework of the question. On one hand, you are speaking of righteousness. Righteousness is a concept which requires God, and if these givers are seekers of God, then the warm-hearted man is more justified. It is a matter of the heart; his heart is in the right place, the other one’s isn’t. The act of giving out of joyful service to the Lord and out of kind-hearted compassion for one’s fellow man is certainly better than self-righteous giving for the sake of deceiving oneself that he is justified in the eyes of God as a result.
On the other hand, if neither of these men lives by a standard of godliness, not only is any righteousness precluded, but the answer to the question also changes. Jesus tells a parable of a wicked judge who eventually caves into the persistent requests of a spurned widow. This judge has no concept of God, all he knows is that he is being annoyed, and he grants what she wants so she’ll stop bothering him. The man who begrudgingly gives on a daily basis is like this judge. He knows nothing of God, but still, through force of annoyance or ritual, gets the job done for the beggar (widow). Here, if the other man also has no concept of God, neither has any righteousness, so the question comes down to strict pragmatism. The man who begrudgingly gives is like a judge that caves to the widow’s request…at least he gets the job done.
At least, that’s how I’d answer your question. On this website, when I see a question like that, it’s typically a trap. I’d be thrilled if you could still spring it on me.
Let us hash it out a bit further, if you’ll indulge me.
First, if you will, explain what you mean by “justified.” I’ve heard the term used this way before, but it doesn’t resonate for me with the connotations it apparently carries for some Xtians. Help me with that.
As to our trio– let’s assume they are both godly men, or attempt to be. And let’s take out the element of self-righteousness or self-aggrandizement. Let us presume that Grumpy Giver shleps by with his head down, no eye contact even, keeping a low profile. Perhaps it is his surly nature, perhaps he is humbly avoiding being seen in his daily distribution. Whatever…
And say the Merry Miser makes no big deal out of it when he does give, either. So let’s just say that neither of them seems to be looking especially for a pat on the back for their giving.
Who then is the more righteous giver?
I’ve been so busy I didn’t even read your post until just now…and I think that there is more to me than pink letters. I used to change my colors seasonally. They’ve only been pink since April. You and I chatted years before that phenomenon became the norm.
“Justified” is the word that Christians use to describe a better than bad but less than righteous standing in the eyes of God. We are justified, redeemed, by Christ’s sacrifice, and through that we are also made righteous. If I had to try to make a metaphor out of it, I might say that justification is a property that we internally can possess. If it’s winter, and you’re cold, it’s being given enough food that you’re insulated by your blubber. Righteousness is a coat which is given to you as a gift, part and parcel with the justification, but is not something which humans intrinsically possess. We are justified (improved in the eyes of God) by faith, and He counts it as our version of righteousness, even though we are by nature not capable of real righteousness.
I am not sure how theologically heinous that metaphor is. There’s almost no chance that it is properly nuanced to describe the terms in an official theological framework.
As for the rest of the question, I guess I’m not sure that I understand the point. The answer, it seems, would have to depend on the homeless man. What is it that he wants more, fellowship or livelihood? It sounds as though these two givers are two different parts of the same body; one relieves the man’s physical poverty while the other addresses his social destitution. Each man’s style complementing each other, the homeless man is better off than before.
AE- where can you find cities that still rock “city gates”? And where are you finding lepers?
I think your example is outdated.
Dude, I live in Florida. EVERYTHING is gated. But yeah, I figured sticking with the biblical metaphors would keep it focused on the content of the question and avoid the distractions that might be presented by offering a more contemporary setting. If I offer you an alcoholic outside the 7-11, it starts to get all tangled up with his own complicity in the destitution. So a good old-fashioned outcast leper –more sympathetically viewed as being at the EFFECT of his circumstances, than at the CAUSE of them– serves a little better for the hypothetical.
But your answer about justification utterly knocks me for a loop, Eric, to the point I have to just shut up and think about it for a while. I always assume that if I’m THIS inclined to argue about anything, the failure is on my part… so let me hold my tongue, or mouse, as it were.
Apropos of nothing whatever, but just because it’s eating me, it is my daughter’s birthday today and she’s going for away-overdue biopsy that she’s been putting off for a long time, even though she knew she needed to get it. I would not want to spend my birthday finding out I have a genuine medical problem because of my own stubborn refusal to seek appropriate care in a timely fashion.
OK Eric, work with me, here. If I heard this coming from anyone else, I would just say “bullshit,” because frankly, I don’t see anything in that framework that would differentiate a human being from your basic cocker spaniel.
Dogs love their gods (humans) with as intense and pure a faith as you could ask for. I mean, it doesn’t get any better than the faith of dogs.
BUT WHERE IS FREE WILL? CHOICE? RESPONSIBILITY?
This drives me bats. I’m not arguing faith. I am among the daily faithful. I have an atheist rationalist friend who gets really pissed off at me because I can’t explain faith and won’t try, not even for the intellectual parrying.
But this theory makes right living totally optional, Furstie…
“‘Justified'” is the word that Christians use to describe a better than bad but less than righteous standing in the eyes of God… ”
Sounds good so far
“But this theory makes right living totally optional, Furstie… ”
If this were all fake, meaningless, not based on anything real, then yes, you might be right. People could pick up their voucher and do nothing good and be as bad as they want, after all they are covered.
However, it’s not quite so easy in a Christian reality where accepting Christ is putting your sinful nature to death on His cross. You only can have one master, either you’re a slave to sin or a slave to God (with Paul’s caveat that slavery is a human metaphor). If you choose God, you invite Christ to reside in you. You cannot live in sin if you live in Christ. If you don’t live in Christ, then you’re not saved.
“You just said it was LESS than righteous
The one time I rolled out the guest cot & invited Christ to reside within me, He ended up being rather an unruly body-mate. He was always drunkenly bringing home Mary Magdalene at 5am, letting His holy grails pile up in the sink, and borrowing my crown of thorns without asking. Clearly my converted 1-person body wasn’t big enough for the two of us, so eventually I sent Him packing. Word on the Appian Way is He’s residing within a spacious duplex penthouse now.
I love Bess. Bess will be my write in for vice-president instead of Ani DiFranco. Who doesn’t want to vote for the The Furst & Bess(t) ticket…
Meantime, original sin is NOT a judaistic notion. Where is your authority for that? It may have been Paul
Bring it. John Kerry looked right at me just one minute ago and said, “What is your faith without deeds? Faith without works is dead.” I believe he meant to address that to George Bush, however.
By the way, I think they both answered the homosexuality question really well for their respective positions. I think Shrub was actually speaking from his heart on that one. When he tries to pull stuff out of his head, it usually sounds like he’s pulling it out his posterior…
what a bitchy little man…
“Meantime, original sin is…”
Oh goodie, let’s quote scripture! Prior to sin entering the world through Adam (or Eve, however you want to paint it), there was no death. After sin entering the world, “for dust you are, and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:19b) Sin and death entered the world through Adam. Paul, prior to noting that without sin there was no death in his Romans sin section (5:12-21 most applicable), points to the Old Testament scriptures from the prophets in order to establish that no man is without sin. It’s a tidy little list, you can cross reference them, found in Romans 3:10-18. It would be easier to just read through to about verse 26.
“But if you believe in a loving God…”
I believe in a just God, who made laws that man chose, through free will and his sinful nature, to break. In accordance with God’s justice, punishment ensued. I believe in a merciful God who, while not in any way obligated to do so, sacrificed Himself to take our punishment from us. Apparently you have had small children in the past. Did you ever discipline them? Do rules with consequences preclude love?
“And yes, it IS real, but nobody…”
No one is good except God alone. We have a fundamental difference here. You seem to indicate that man can be perfect with enough work at it. I say that man will always fall short. I say that no one reaches perfection, and no one can be justified by his own works, deeds or righteousness unto himself. In order to be acceptable in the eyes of God, one must accept His gift, as one cannot unite imperfection with perfection. The fact that we’re even a little not perfect would require God to be imperfect to unite with us. It’s a concept called grace which redeems us freely. Sticking to the Romans theme, you can read about it in that 5:12-21 section, and then continue through 6 so that Paul can answer your free pass questions. “What then, shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace?” Did you ask that?
The 613…Here’s an ancedote. When I was younger, I used to pray at night. I had about a dozen that I made up in my head. I ran through the same dozen every night. I couldn’t sleep until I did them sufficiently…which meant focusing singularly. I didn’t even really believe anything concrete at the time, I just knew that I HAD to do it. It was my law, I was enslaved by it, and I can still remember the words 10 years later, simply because I repeated them to myself upwards of 10 times each every night. I couldn’t sleep, they echoed through my mind, my soul, drilled into my brain. I was trapped by that which was good, because my mind warped it into something legalistic. Then one day I stopped. I started praying outside of the box. I relapsed into my legalism on occasions, but I wasn’t trapped any more. It was like an enormous overused metaphorical weight was lifted from my chest. I could breath, I could sleep, and I could PRAY for real. I still prayed, still followed that law, but now, it was fresher, newer…I was no longer enslaved to it. I was freed from the law, because I was released from legalism. The precepts still held, but I was no longer oppressed. Such it is with your 613. Read romans.
“And naturally, this…”
There is a word for Christians who take the name and don’t live the life: “Non-Christians”. A Christian is one who is “Of Christ”. If you think you believe something as profound as the release from sin and death and it has no effect on your life, then you really do not believe it. You are a Christian on the census form, not in your heart.
“God asked Cain, ‘Why has…”
I like this one…Which translation was that? It’s hard to read, but this is the Young’s Literal Translation, generally accepted as one of the most accurate English translations in relation to the original text:
“And Jehovah saith unto Cain, `Why hast thou displeasure? and why hath thy countenance fallen?
Is there not, if thou dost well, acceptance? and if thou dost not well, at the opening a sin-offering is crouching, and unto thee its desire, and thou rulest over it.'”
First and foremost, we are looking at offerings not sin. Cain and Abel just got done giving God an offering. Abel is still alive, at least for a verse or two. Cain’s offering was deemed unworthy. This made him upset. God said, “buck up, if you do well, I’ll accept your offering next time”. His offering was, for some reason, unacceptable this time. But be careful, says God, this downtrodden attitude opens you up to sin. It’s right at the door, and it’s after you. Don’t let it get to you, you need to control your emotions. And Cain didn’t, so Abel was murdered.
There is a problem with “prooftexting”, using a single passage which you may or may not be interpreting right; do you think this passage captures the whole of the Old Testament?
“As to righteousness,…”
Righteousness, in my dictionary, is a oneness with God. It is attaining His standard of holiness. It comes through faith in Christ, as Christ’s righteousness is freely given to you. Justification, in my dictionary, is the redemption that one gains when he accepts this gift of grace. I have tortured the definitions far beyond where they should go already, and I am weary of doing so further. I am breaking rules, bending spoons, and something flowers in full bloom.
“Bring it. John Kerry looked…”
I’ll go to John Kerry for religious advice when I use George Bush as my thesaurus.
Oh, boy is this GREAT!!
“I’ll go to John Kerry for religious advice when I use George Bush as my thesaurus.”
That’s about the best quote I’ve heard this whole campaign!!! Just excellent. I’ll put it on a bumper sticker, right next to my Furst & Bess(t) in ’04 decal.
As to the rest, you are too generous, Eric. What great fun… and since it’s not all over my little block head, I’ll be delighted to dig right in, as soon as I’m done with all this legalistic preparation I’m doing for the next miserable round of court appearances. But this bit is too good to wait….
“…I used to pray at night. I had about a dozen that I made up in my head. I ran through the same dozen every night. I couldn’t sleep until I did them sufficiently…”
You also finish your homework before it’s due, tie your shoes repeatedly before a race and can’t lose a pen even when you try. That, my dear, is no failing of your huge and blessed spirit, but because you have a touch of the OCD, n’est pas? God made all things varied and wondrous, some more wondrous than others.
I’m excited that you’re excited and feel so good about the weekend. I hope you have an awesome race, Furstie. I really do.
I actually sort of did lose a pen yesterday… only, I know where it is (was). After leaving it in the room, I decided not to go back for it since it was running low on ink anyway. I got it when I started working last July.
Dude, I’ll go to George Bush for religious advice when I use somebody in a coma as my thesaurus.
Furstie, do you actually believe that Bush is a “man of faith”? Do you seriously not think that his whole born-again gig is a crock of shite? At the end of the day, what do you think he cares more about: gaining entry to heaven, or fucking innocent people over to make billions for his entire sleazy family and terrible, horrible, no-good, very-bad friends?
I think that you are reading into my statement. I never implied I’d go to Bush for religious advice.
That being said, from what I’ve read of him and heard out of his mouth, I do not doubt that he is a man of faith. It is not my position to judge the condition of his heart. I do not have that sort of power, nor do I want it. His words will need to suffice for me.
Bess, God speaks directly to George W. Bush, and I don’t know why you’d think otherwise. It’s strange that He chose the bodies of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove as his mediums, but I think it’s verified nonetheless.
Meanwhile, John Kerry likes it when babies cry.
You’re really hurting my feelings now, Furstie. You’re smart & I know you know better, but that’s the same mentality latched onto by the hordes of stupid bible-belt fuckwits who will win Bush this election, solely because he reminds them of themselves with their vacant minds & oh-so-full-o’the-Lord hearts.
His words alone suffice for you? What about his actions? How do they hold up?
Yes, words and actions. Listen Bess, just because he doesn’t agree with you on economic policies, foreign relations, or pronounciation doesn’t mean he’s an evil person. It is possible to truly believe you are doing the right thing, and yet still do something completely opposite of someone who also holds that belief.
I’m still dreadfully undecided. I can’t believe how wishy-washy I am. I think I’ll probably vote for the last person I hear speak.
I never said he was an evil person, since I would never use his pseudo-religious terminology to describe someone. Being evil entails being conniving, which entails being smart, none of which Bush is. As far as I can tell, he’s, at most, vacant — a blank canvas for Cheney to play fun-with-terrorism-themed-crayola on.
Now THERE is a ne’er-do-well hoodlum who made good! Boy, once that blue-blood fuckup decided to straighten up and fly right, he really went all the way, huh?
You don’t have to be smart to be evil. Just selfish, and Bush is surely that. But I’m not saying he’s evil. It’s just that it’s hard to be bad and then behave, so I think the only thing that keeps him from descending into the Evil Petting Zoo is that he found God after all his shameless, self-indulgent misdeeds.
I think he really is a man of faith. He’s a little self-righteous for my stomach, but we often find that sort of pious zeal in the reformed and redeemed. A little humility would be nice from someone who’s been given so much grace.
Romans 5:1-21…this is already so much more frustrating than I expected it to be. This is just total nonsense. I honestly mean no disrespect by this, but where did Paul come up with this crap? I’m sure it makes some kind of sense if you’re already indoctrinated into this line of thinking, but to be frank, it just seems intellectually absurd, utterly without basis to the extent that it makes anything that follows equally suspect. So I’m just going to leave this bit alone and pretend I didn’t see it and let’s see if we can start Tardo on some elementary Xtianity, okay?
Moving right along…Romans 3:10-18 … Again with the nonsense… it was okay up to asserting that the Law and the Prophets clearly point to JC as the way to reconciliation… Who was this guy, the original historical revisionist?? He just makes up this premise that we are inherently unacceptable to God. Where is his authority for that? Jeez, talk about prooftexting…
“Apparently you have had small children in the past. Did you ever discipline them? Do rules with consequences preclude love?”
Eric, you are making MY point! Of course I disciplined them, and of course I gave them rules, and I loved them no less when they “sinned” and their sin did not make THEM unacceptable to me. Their acts and their behavior were unacceptable and so I set rules to show them what was acceptable, and I told them to follow the rules, and said if you do these things I tell you, you’ll stay out of hot water with each other and the world and with me. And if you don’t, there’s going to be a price to pay, amongst yourselves, and with the world and finally, with me.
And they never, ever, ever got a proxy or a middleman who could release them from their responsibility for their own actions, and they have to be accountable for their behavior, now and always, and when there are mitigating circumstances, I judge them less harshly, and when they misbehave out of defiance, I am necessarily more stern.
How, how, how, can this Jesus-as-proxy myth fit into your otherwise logical parent/child-God/Man analogy?
Shaking my head in bewilderment…
Ok, let’s go in order of the book.
First, Paul is speaking in the context of the events which have recently transpired. A man named Jesus spoke on the topics which he now reiterates, and this man came with such tremendous power that His teaching carried weight far beyond what you or I might say now. Paul takes this as his basis; “a man who performed innumerable miracles just rose from the dead. He taught these things, let’s look into how they fit, because you listen to the guy that rises from the dead.” You might not believe this, but Paul, the author in question, believed it unto death. He then pointed to verses in the OT which, “well, what do you know! this amazing risen from the dead guy fits!” Don’t think I won’t do it, I’ll do it. And you asked for it, so, POW, Isaiah 53 in the hiz-ouse! Can I get a A-MEN? Ahh, I’m preaching now brother, can I get an A-MEN?! Tell it to me!
Sorry about that.
Anyway, given the Old Testament concept of the suffering servant, the need for a sacrifice, the promise of redemption and the life of the man called Christ, Paul went back and put the verses in the context of these recently revealed truths (in chapter 3). This happens to me all the time at work. I read something, and it sort of makes sense to me. I work on a project for a month and a half, gain that new knowledge then go back and read something again, and it’s a completely different document. I wonder what this pharisee (Saul/Paul) saw when he read the OT for the first time after encountering Christ on the road to Damascus. It was obviously earth shattering to him, considering his historical life after that point.
In chapter 5, Paul claims that sin entered the world with one man, Adam. Prior to Adam there was no sin. Post Adam there was…I don’t see the problem with this claim. God tells Adam that he will die as a result of his sin, and he does. This continues for the next 4000 some on years. Isn’t it natural for Paul to think that we inherited the same result from the same cause as Adam, considering everyone in the intervening millenia shared his fate? He then goes back and takes that parcel of information that he felt that he properly expounded upon in the preceeding chapters (the piece where Christ is a fulfillment of the law, a sacrifice for sin) and applies it to the general condition of humanity…the condition where everyone sins and dies.
You know, a long time ago I decided I didn’t want to use ellipses, “…”, on this website. You should see me on AIM, I am an ellipses machine. In fact, I use ellipses in every casual typing setting I can find. It’s almost my trademark. I feel that my rule has been crumbling of late.
I think you have used my name in type more in the past two months than anyone else has in the entirety of my online existence.
Here’s how my Jesus-as-proxy fits…Jesus is God.
Eric, Eric, Eric…
Lor’, chile, I don’t think yo’ ever gonna make me a Xtian, but you sho’ make me a believer… here’s ya AMEN, and well due to ya!
HOWEVER… Isaiah is referring to the people Israel. It’s all about the people, from before in 52, to after in 54.
For instance, how do you get that Jesus was “despised and rejected,” when he was so cottonpicken popular he was followed around by groupies alla time, and the power structure had to have him arrested on the sly just to keep from having a major ri-ziot!
And all y’all flat out mistranslating the Hebrew prepositions in 53:5. We’re talking about the servant being hurt and crushed FROM, as in “on account of,” not FOR, as in “on behalf of.” And as for the servant not opening his mouth, obviously, that doesn’t refer to Jesus because he did kinda cry out in his suffering, with his wavering faith, “Why has Thou forsaken me?” (and BTW, if he’s God, who was he talking to?) as well as arguing his case with the Romans to some extent, did he not?
Though I will say, that this is a little bit of a problem with respect to the people Israel, too, because kvetching is an important custom of the Jews, and the tradition of arguing with God is a dearly held one. The Jews have been through some nasty oppressions that they’ve had to suck up very quietly, but never were they so silent, ans so despised and so forsaken, as when the six million went quietly…
So just for the heck of it, read Isaiah again and just consider it as referring to the Jews as a people, not A Jew in particular. Try to groc it that way, just for the exercise.
You think you’re bad with ellipses? You should see that fool from the NWS, Pasch. He just indiscriminately sprinkles them around in his sentences with no pattern or reason whatsoever, mid-clause, pre-transition, terminally, whatever strikes him.
I hope you don’t see this until after your race, because you should be already sleeping. Have a great race!
Um…did you read the New Testament, AE? Didn’t people yell “crucify him” and wasn’t he betrayed by just about everyone?!
The people’s rejection of Christ before cruxifictions was all the more poignant given their ticker tape parade for Him the week before. Jesus knew this was going to happen when He rode into Jerusalem to the chorus of Hosanna.
Perhaps I’m just not a skilled Hebrew scholar, but it seems to me that the simpler way to read Isa 53 is to let “he” be singular.
“…he will be lifted up and highly exalted, just as there were many who were appalled at him-”
“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering…”
“…he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him smitten by God…”
“…he was pierced by our transgression, he was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon him (!)…”
“…it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer…”
“…the Lord makes his life a guilt offering…”
“For he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors.”
AnneE, it’s talking about a man not a people group. Romans 11 talks about a people group, this passage is clearly (and I try not to be so absolute, but it can’t get any clearer to me) about a person. How do you pierce a nation for our transgressions? A nation is a guilt offering? Did the Holocaust bring peace upon anyone?
First, Furst, just to be absolutely, absolutely clear, I am in no way asserting that Isaiah is therein prophesying the Holocaust. I am only making the observation that the Jews constantly argue with God and cry out against injustice and on that heinous occasion they were virtually silent on their own behalf–and I say virtually, because obviously, there was resistance, there were uprisings, but on the whole, that was a pretty passive march to destruction.
As to Isaiah, your interpretation only works as prooftexting, Eric, because when you read the OT in its entirety, the PEOPLE Israel is referred to in the singular quite frequently and the PEOPLE Israel is called “God’s servant,” e.g., Jer. 30:10, Jer. 30:17 (where the servant Israel is regarded by the nations as an outcast, forsaken by God, just like in Isa. 53:4), Jer. 46:27-28, Ps. 136:22, and in Isaiah we find this usage both explicitly –41:8-9, 44:1-2, 45:4, 48:20, 49:3– and by implicitly– 42:19-20, 43:10– HOWEVER, you will note that when the Messiah is discussed, he is NOT referred to this way. And if he’s God, how is he his own servant. I’ve never heard a cogent argument for this (or for how JC fits into the loving parent analogy).
While I can read biblical Hebrew, it’s not like I’m down here in my vast library of holy texts. I’m no scholar, but after seven years of Hebrew school under duress, I can tell one preposition from another, and I do take it on good authority of centuries of Hebrew scholars who have been trying to point out to the Christian faithful that “in” does not mean “out” and that “for” does not mean “from.”
(And I’ll tell you something else about translation, as least insofar as the Law is concerned. You will not find one Torah anywhere on the planet that is different from any other Torah anywhere on the planet, right down to every single letter. To be kosher, it has to be exactly the same, because it’s the word of God and you can translate it for the nations, but you can’t change it, not a bit. This was part of the whole basis of the breathy excitement that surrounded the supposed hidden prophesies explained in “The Bible Code,” because you could find these screwy little occurences in any Torah, anywhere, of any age. So naturally, some clever boys with a computer tried to apply it to the NT as well, but which NT? The thing has been tortured in and out and round about from the Greek to Latin to Old English and new English and bad English and contemporary street, so any attempt to apply the (already somewhat questionable) computer-supported search applications to any New Testament texts for the same purpose, is simply torturing the technology.)
Finally, Lara, no, I really haven’t read the Gospels much. I mean, I’ve READ them, but they make me nuts, and as much as I really want to understand what fires the Christian soul, I feel so intellectually appalled and personally assaulted whenever I look into it much that I just can’t hang.
So every few years I take another stab at it, not in any formal way, but usually because I meet some Xtian who lives a Xtian life, however imperfectly, but obviously with an honest, daily intent to follow in the path of their chosen Lord. But to be frank, most such folks I’ve met have not been equipped to get into an intellectual inquiry into the texts. One of my dearest friends–another foster parent I inherited a baby from in Oregon, as a matter of fact– was (is) the most lovely Christian soul I’ve ever met. She took away my fear of Christians, to be honest, and from me she learned that Jews never used Christian children’s blood to make matzah. Yeah. That’s why I feared Christians. Because in 1995, we’re still having to disabuse decent, faithful people of the idea that Jews are some kind of freakish cannibals.
So I guess I have a little trouble with the New Testament. I got to delve into some of this stuff in graduate school but those were courses in the emerging Jewish Studies program at UO, so there weren’t many Xtians in there, and since I was a journalism grad student, I really shouldn’t have been either (I was badly abusing my tuition waiver). But the upshot is I’ve never gotten to have a very satisfying conversation with an honest-to-God Christian about any of it!
But then get this– in a bad storm a couple months ago, I was actually getting really scared down here, and praying for strength and wisdom, or at a minimum, good strong closet walls, and in a web search I came across this Furst fellow, who, in addition to being a smarty-pants brilliant young mathhead writer weather-guy, is also apparently a devout, by which I mean PRACTICING, not just blabbin’-about-it CHRISTIAN! And I have been laughing my ass off ever since… and I figure if you’re going to wrestle with salvation, you might as well have a sense of humor about it. So I’m taking a stab at remedial Christianity and trying to leave my paranoid, critical biases at the door.
(And yeah, I do recall that the crowd was said to have called for his crucifixtion, but I didn’t get that it was the entirety of his erstwhile fan base that had turned on him, though I knew that part about Peter, and sheesh, they still made a saint out of that guy…)
Finally, a new idea. I am in a position where people, whether rightly or not, occasionally look to me as their Christian voice or influence. I have been in a position of power in a Christian organization, I maintain a website where I sometimes voice my views on life, death, taxes to Caesar, and communion by intinction, and I reach at least a few dozen people on a daily basis. To some people, I am the only Christian influence they have.
I better not get it wrong. I try to stick to the beaten path for that reason.
Listen, the Bible is clear about it:
Luke 10:21-24
“At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, ‘I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure.
‘All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.’
Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see. For I tell you that many prophets and kings wanted to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.'”
I hit these topics with logic and theology as hard as I can, but nothing changes the fact that it doesn’t all fit together neatly and concisely. I am thankful for those who can hear it, grab unto it, make it theirs and never have to worry about it again. Those people are my heros, the people for whom God has made it simple. I am not in that group. I attack with “wisdom” and come up short. It is never my intention to convince someone that it is clear as day, I am only trying to convince people that our theological worldview is plausible.
Why should I go out of my way to do that? You hit on it. Why are you even giving me a voice? I’m obviously outflanked, as I always am on here. Luckily, everyone is so far removed from caring about this thread that no one read that. Yes, I realize that I am outflanked. I realize that I’m fighting with rubber bullets. But personal experience covers so much, makes so many things that sound crazy sound wonderful when viewed in the light of what we FEEL. That’s why you give me a chance, and that’s why I insist on fighting a fight against people who don’t accept the terms I need accepted in order for me to win. I cannot convince anyone. I can only try to lower the ceiling on Christianity close enough to the ground that the catapult of personal experience can hurl people to the rope of Faith that they can latch on and start climbing up. Call me bluff on it, tell me it’s bullshit, I don’t care. It’s a battle I need to take on, even when all I am given is worldly weapons which cannot win the war. It’s the other-worldly that got me in this army, and it will have to be the other-worldly that gets you here too.
AE, do you expect to fully comprehend God?
Whoa. This thread is starting to remind me of a satirical point/counterpoint piece in The Onion. Heh.
Somebody needs to point AE to the numerous archival posts in which the exact same science/religion faith/righteousness/piety debate is beaten to death over and over again. I can’t speak for anyone else, but my personal lack of participation in this discussion is largely due in part to its repetitive nature, in addition to the fact that I don’t respond well to archaic biblical dialect; it comes across very similarly to the high-pitched indecipherable gobbledygook of Charlie Brown’s teacher’s voice.
Can we just make a rule that when Bess brings out “gobbledygook”, we stop whatever we were into before then?
I still maintain that a gated community in Florida is not the same as the “city gates” you’d find a leper at in a story from the bible.
Carl, I don’t even expect to fully comprehend Furst, let alone God.
Nevertheless, I think it’s my obligation to continue to seek Him (God, I mean), just as EVEN THOUGH I’ll never be perfect, which is humanly impossible, it is nevertheless my obligation to continue to be as good and righteous as I can and blahblahwoofwoof, except I really do mean it and I think Furst does too, and part and parcel of that is a kind of intrinsic duty to somehow express this other thing we seem to agree on: that there is a God, and faith in Him is as inexplicable as it is essential.
What we do NOT agree on is the role of this Jesus character. And I’m not even really arguing that, because since it’s an article of faith, it’s kind of pointless, even though I think you can poke a lot of logical holes in the official story. Actually, when I was a little kid yid, I had tremendous JESUS ENVY. I wanted that warm fuzzy god that I could hold hands and skip through the meadow with, a nice Jesus-is-my-best-friend kind of god. Just never could get there from here. He had a lot of friends already who were pretty frightening in his name. Anyway, the more implausible I find the whole thing, the more curious it makes me.
And Bess, I like scrumming around in the archives, but it’s not really the exact same debate. It never is, and that’s the point. He’s like a sitting duck that way, even as you can sense his overwhelming enthusiasm…(“Finally, a new idea.”) Because if you have to spread The Word, you have to, and if you have to seek it, you have to. I don’t think it’s bullshit, I’m just not sure it’s The Word, with capital letters. And I think all the Jesus stuff obscures the essential truth of the human obligation, because as near as I can tell, REAL Xtians don’t REALLLY believe that faith alone is sufficient, because they go ahead and strive for goodness and godliness anyway, yet they continue to assert that it’s all about the faith and not the works, while also saying that faith without works is dead. And I just want to get to where all that contradiction is coming from.