A friend of friends is in jail for being a Christian

A friend of friends is in jail because he is a Christian. The Al Abrabiya News reports:

A 32-year-old Iranian-born American Christian convert, Saeed Abedini, was arrested in September on his return visit to Iran. (Courtesy: American Center for Law and Justice)

A Tehran court will next week put on trial an Iranian American Christian on charges that could carry the death penalty, his wife said Thursday, in a case that has raised concern among U.S. officials.

The article continues:

Saeed Abedini, a naturalized U.S. citizen who converted to Christianity, was arrested in September on a return visit to Iran and in a recent letter said he suffered beatings in prison, his wife and his U.S.-based lawyer said.

 His wife said that the 32-year-old will face charges of harming national security starting Monday at a trial under Abbas Pir-Abassi, a revolutionary court judge who has been criticized overseas for harsh verdicts.

Here is a video with the letter being read:

A petition can be signed at ACLJ

And please continue in prayer. 

Joseph Massad, IPMN and a false history of Zionism

With the words, “Zionism, anti-Semitism and colonialism,”the Presbyterian Israel/Palestine Mission Network using Twitter linked to Aljazeera and the article, “Zionism, anti-Semitism and colonialism” with the subtitle “Zionist leaders consciously recognised that state anti-Semitism was essential to their colonial project, writes Massad.” Palestinian Joseph Massad is a controversial professor of modern Arab Politics at Columbia University. Massad, in his article is attempting to portray Zionism as a parasite that feeds off of anti-Semitism.

He gives a history of Zionism and reverses all truths that are related to Zionism. But before considering the article, one needs to understand Massad and his views about European Jews who now makeup a great deal of the population of Israel. Massad believes that European Jews are not related to ancient Israel. And he blames Protestants for forging what he considers a lie. In doing so he shows some ignorance of Christianity. Massad, in a 2004 article in the Egyptian news site Al-Ahram Weekly writes:

In keeping with the Protestant Reformation's abduction of the Hebrew bible into its new religion and its positing of modern European Jews as direct descendants of the ancient Hebrews, post- Enlightenment haters of Jews began to identify Jews as "Semites" on account of their alleged ancestors having spoken Hebrew.

In a conversation with Jewish historian Benny Morris, Massad states:

The claim made by the Zionists, and by Professor Morris, that late nineteenth-century European Jews are direct descendants of the ancient Palestinian Hebrews is what is preposterous here. This kind of anti-Semitic claim that European Jews were not European that was propagated by the racist and biological discourses on the nineteenth century, that they somehow descend from first-century Hebrews, despite the fact that they look like other Europeans, that they speak European languages, is what is absurd. [1]

Massad’s background ideas are interesting but much of it is invented to fit his outlook on the Middle East. He seemingly does not understand that all Christian Bibles contain the Hebrew Bible. Massad believes that the European Jews are not descendants of ancient Israel. He believes that the Holocaust did happen, that it was a horrible occurrence. He rightly believes that the word anti-Semitism was invented in the nineteenth century by those who hated the Jews. But Massad incorrectly believes they were mistaken about the Jews being Semites. He also believes that the Arabs are not Semites either but he believes they are now the ones being treated as Semites by anti-Semites.

The Aljazeera article is lengthy and simplistic as well as incorrect. Pages could be written correcting the article. Massad goes to great lengths to insist that Zionists were glad for the rise of Nazism and collaborated with them. Here are some examples of Massad’s twists and turns:

The first one I will note is a simplistic account. It is this:

In 1933, Labour Zionism signed the Transfer "Ha'avara" Agreement with the Nazis, breaking the international boycott against the regime: Nazi Germany would compensate German Jews who emigrate to Palestine for their lost property by exporting German goods to the Zionists in the country thus breaking the boycott. Between 1933 and 1939, 60 percent of all capital invested in Jewish Palestine came from German Jewish money through the Transfer Agreement. Thus, Nazism was a boon to Zionism throughout the 1930s.

Of course this was something the Nazis wanted and it did break the boycott. But the important thing to consider is that most Jews in Germany had or were losing their jobs, property and rights. The boycott was only Jewish and as Walter Laqueur in his A History of Zionism puts it, “Neither the western powers nor the Soviet Union considered for a moment reducing or breaking off trade relations with Germany.” [2]

Laqueur also states that during that time half the Jews in Germany were able to leave, but they only had six years to do so. With the start of war “the doors closed.” [3] It was not that the Zionist needed Nazism and anti-Semitism to build Israel; it was Nazism and anti-Semitism that nearly destroyed the Jews.

As Laqueur points out, “… the imputation of cooperation and collusion with the Nazis is pernicious nonsense.” [4]

The next statement by Massad is a twisting of facts. He states:

… Zionism would always claim that its collaboration with anti-Semitism was strategic, namely to save Jews.

This however does not square with the facts that during Nazi rule, Jews from Britain and the United States were given priority by the Zionists over German Jews for immigration to Palestine. Indeed, two-thirds of German Jewish applicants to immigrate to Palestine were turned down by the Zionists, whose criteria for the ideal immigrant was a Jew's commitment to Zionism, youth, good health, training, wealth, needed skills and knowledge of Hebrew.

The first sentence simply isn’t true. The rest is the twist. It was the Palestinian government which set the standards. As Laqueur puts it:

The labour schedule became the bone of contention between the Palestine government and the Jewish Agency. In 1934 the Agency asked for 20, 000 certificates for labour immigrants and received 5, 600. For the year starting in April 1935 it asked for 30, 000 and obtained 11, 2000. In 1938, after the outbreak of the Arab riots, the government severely restricted immigration. Of the 22, 000 certificates requested by the Agency, little more than 10 per cent, 2,500, were granted. [5]

Laqueur goes on to explain that slowly, year after year the certificates for new immigrants were cut off.

Writing about the supposed later attempts by Israel to create anti-Semitism in other countries so as to encourage their Jewish citizens to move to Israel, Massad writes:

In light of the new post-war period that saw the end of state-sponsored anti-Semitism, the Zionists set out to attack Jews in a number of countries and to conjure up the spectre of anti-Semitism in countries that opposed Zionism. In Iraq, the Israeli Mossad planted bombs in synagogues, libraries and cafes in the early 1950s, which killed and injured Iraqi Jews and spread panic amongst them that Iraqi Muslims and Christians were targeting them. Collaboration ensued between Israel and the British-sponsored Iraqi regime to bring about the exodus of Iraqi Jews to Israel.

This is utter fabrication. In her book, Last Days in Babylon: The History of a Family, the Story of a Nation, Marina Benjamin writes of her family and community as the British were victorious over the Axis powers occupying Baghdad at the end of WWII. She writes of the thugs and looters who ravished the Jewish Community:

In Bataween, cries of horror and suffering could be heard throughout the night, drifting up from the old mahallah where women were being raped, babies crushed, children mutilated. In this free-for-all slaughter, Jews old and young were killed. Some were shot and some stabbed. Houses big and small were broken into and plundered [6]

This was after two war years of continuous harassment.

As Israel won her independence and Palestinian refugees fled to Iraq the Jews lost their freedoms. They lost jobs and property, there was a bomb thrown at a group of Jewish men in a coffee shop. Four were injured. The Jewish people of Iraq had been encouraged by the government to leave if they would renounce their Iraqi citizenship [7]

One final statement by Massad, he writes:

Israel and Zionism have been in deep mourning over the passing of actual anti-Semitic regimes and of regimes that they could cast in that role, as these regimes had provided them with so much propaganda power to justify their colonial project. After the fall of the USSR, the Zionists ran out of arguments and of regimes they could label "anti-Semitic". In this new situation, Israeli propaganda would become outright hysterical. Attempting to cast some of the anti-Zionist pronouncements of the Iranian President Ahmadinejad as genocidal anti-Semitism, Israel is hoping it could cover up its ongoing colonisation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

President Ahmadinejad is a hate filled leader who denies the Holocaust and has made it known that Israel should be pushed into the sea. He is the supreme anti-Semite.

There is so much more that could be said about Massad’s article. He rightly blames Israel for encouraging Egyptian Jews to bomb buildings in Egypt. But he states that it was to encourage Egyptian Jews to flee to Israel. Instead it was to encourage the British to stay in Sinai so that Egypt would not invade Israel.

Massad’s words are not trustworthy—so why is the Presbyterian Israel/Palestine Mission Network linking to it. Their intentions are not trustworthy either.

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 [1]Note 21 at “Joseph Massad, Wikipedia, Joseph Massad, quoted in Andrew Whitehead, "History on the Line, ‘No Common Ground’: Joseph Massad and Benny Morris Discuss the Middle East," History Workshop Journal 53:1 (2002), pp. 214-215)

 [2Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism: from the French Revolution to the Establishment of the State of Israel, paperback reprint (New York: Schocken Books 2003) 501-02.

[3]Ibid.

 [4]Ibid,500.

[5] Ibid, 509.

[6]Marina Benjamin, Last Days in Babylon: The History of a Family, the Story of a Nation, (New York: Free Press 2006) 123.

 [7] Ibid, Chapter 11.

 

Emergence Christianity and the Word of God

A conference to honor Phyllis Tickle and her recently released book, Emergence Christianity: What It Is, Where It Is Going, and Why It Matters, was recently held in Memphis Tennessee. Given that I had just written a review of her new book I followed the event on Twitter. Since the conference many emergent writers have written about the event, and I have also read those. One such posting was “Emergence Christianity ’13: Questions,” by Terry Ramone Smith. He is co-pastor of Church of the Misfits, a Disciples of Christ church. Smith, in his article, is basically troubled by the idea of Scripture as the sole authority for Christians (sola Scriptura). His arguments are spurious but nevertheless important enough to examine.   

Smith gives a history of women beginning to work in factories during WW II and explains that many became single after their husbands came home with post-dramatic stress disorder. He states, “The “Biblical place” for a woman started to change.  Biblical inerrancy was challenged.”

Not only does this leave out huge stretches of women’s history in the United States, relying simply on a small few decades, it also fails to note any place in the Bible where women are confined to the home. 1 Timothy certainly encourages younger women, if they are widows, to remarry, “bear children, keep house, and give the enemy no occasion for reproach.” This is in contrast to going about the neighborhood gossiping and getting into other people’s business.

But nothing in these verses confines a woman strictly to her house or the vocation of house-keeping. In the New Testament one can read accounts of women sewing for the poor (Acts 9:36-42), doing business for the church (Rom. 1:1-2), teaching others (Acts 18:24-28), prophesying (Acts 21:7-9), being sent to do the Lord’s work (an apostle) (Rom. 1:7), mothering house churches (Acts 16: 14-15; 40)[1] and more. 

In fact in the Gospels, Jesus commends his friend Mary for leaving kitchen duties in order to listen to him teach. A woman working outside of the home does nothing to contradict the Scriptures. In fact, if one searches both the New and Old Testament one finds women busy in many ways inside and outside of the home.

Next Smith suggests that in the push for LGBT rights the authority of Scriptures was challenged. Yes, it has been challenged but Christianity has stood, and will continue to stand against the activist push. There is no place in the Scriptures where homosexuality is praised or blessed; instead the Scriptures offer love, forgiveness and transformation. Jesus upholds, in his words about marriage and divorce, the biblical definition of marriage which is between a man and a woman. He goes back to Genesis and places the definition in God’s account of the beginning of marriage. One cannot answer any question about human sexuality and morality without the Genesis text.

Next Smith suggests that the church see the Scripture as true but not factual. Using the book of Jonah as an example Smith wants to see all of the text as metaphor or as an analogy. And he suggests reconsidering the canon. He even goes so far as to state that the Coptic New Testament contains 87 books in contrast to the western New Testament  which contains 27.

F.F. Bruce in his book, The Books and the Parchments: How we got our English Bible in the chapter “Other Early Versions,” under “Coptic” does not state that the Coptic version contains that many more books than the western versions. The same is true of Bruce M. Metzger’s two books on the formation of the N.T. text. In his, The Early Versions of the New Testament: Their Origin, Transmission and Limitations, there is a whole chapter on Coptic early versions of the N.T.; there is nothing about 60 extra books.

Finally, Smith suggests adding manuscripts to the canon of Scripture. He writes:

I think next, we need to realize and live into the fact that we are living in a world that is extra-Biblical.  Until and if our canon is revisited, it is incomplete.  I urge you, pastors of faith communities, to consider what books are worthy of the canon for your community.  What makes sense to be in your Holy Book?  Does some works by Brian McLaren deserve to be in there?  Dietrich Bonhoeffer   Phyllis Tickle?  Charles Darwin? Henri Nouwen?

While Tickle and Darwin might think that was appropriate, I doubt that Bonhoeffer or Nouwen would. I am uncertain of McLaren. Smith’s posting is a mockery of all that belongs to the follower of Christ.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his small book, Psalms: the Prayer Book of the Bible writes:

The Holy Scriptures is the Word of God to us. But prayers are the words of men. How do prayers then get into the Bible? Let us make no mistake about it; the Bible is the Word of God even in the Psalms. Then are these prayers to God also God’s own word? That seems difficult to understand. We grasp it only when we remember that we can learn true prayer only from Jesus Christ, from the word of the Son of God, who lives with us men, to God the Father who lives in eternity.

Bonhoeffer goes on to explain how praying through Christ allows the prayers of God to become the prayer of men and then again the prayers of men become the prayers of God. But the important thing I wish to be seen here is that Bonhoeffer is very clear that the Bible is the Word of God. Bonhoeffer would declare, alongside the Church universal, that any attempt to add extra material to the word of God is heresy—it is sticking a knife into and wounding the faithful. And, most of all it is an insult to God who has given his word as a gift to his people.

The church’s prayer should be that God would pick up the poor, misguided, wandering sheep of the Emergent movement and carry them on his shoulders until they are established again in his green and healthful pastures.

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[1] In this case one reads of a woman who was not only a merchant but also provided a place for the church at Philippi. 

Links that lift up Christian hope in the midst of suffering

I am putting together several excellent links for Monday reading.

Before all our Christmas thoughts are totally forgotten here is a link to theologian Ben Witherington’s bog and his thoughts about Christmas of 2012 after losing his daughter just a few weeks after Christmas of 2011. His loss lifts up a Christian’s grief, yet is filled with the hope and faith that truly belongs to the ones who belong to Jesus Christ. The title is: “Seeing Christmas with new eyes.” After explaining that his daughter had died and that he was looking at Christmas through different eyes he writes:

Our Christy girl will be celebrating Christmas with the saints above this year. My father got there before she did, and my grand parents long before that. They know far better than I do that the primary family is the family of faith, the everlasting family of which Christ is the head. Any other kind of family is temporal and temporary. So I have resolved to see Christmas this year as not a revisiting of family affairs of the Witheringtons but rather a celebration of family affairs which began in a manger in Bethlehem.

The Christian celebration of Christmas has absolutely nothing to do with paganism, or the feast of the winter solstice on December 21 (wrong day anyway) or Saturnalia. It has to do with the celebration of the coming of the Christ child into this world sometime between 2-6 B.C. to form a forever family of followers. And I am thankful to be a part of that number. The name which I bear that matters most and is everlasting is Christian, not Witherington, however much I may be proud to be a Witherington.

Jared Wilson at The Gospel Driven Church wrote a posting which I think is golden in its approach, As It Gets Worse, It Cannot Get Desperate. Although Wilson does not say so directly I believe he was urged on by the event of Louie Giglio being pushed aside after being picked by the president to pray at his inauguration. Here is one of his exceptional lines, “But cheer up. The worst thing they can do is kill us (Matthew 10:28). And we all know what Jesus does with dead stuff.”

Another great section is:

Christ the Lord sustains the universe by his powerful word, he declares the end from the beginning, he laughs kings to scorn, he walks on the storms, he stirs the mighty seas, he makes the mountains his footstool, he brims with sovereign glory from everlasting to everlasting. He is God.And so:

 Will we bear the derision and disgrace? Yes, and count it wealth (Hebrews 11:26). Will we suffer the plundering of our property? Yes, and count it joy (Hebrews 10:34). Will we suffer division in our families and communities? Yes, and count it worthiness of Christ (Matthew 10:37).

 Last but not least, I discovered a Catholic blog, "God and the Machine," written by Thomas L. McDonald, who writes of himself:

 I’m a Catholic revert, catechist, theologian-in-training, tech reporter, religion reporter, author, editor, gamer, husband, father, traditional conservative, Distributist, medievalist, Ratzingerian, Augustinian, chicken-owner, newt-fancier, and some other things I forget at the moment.

So there is a lot of technical information on his blog but how I discovered him is through his interest in poetry. He has a posting on Adelaide Procter a Catholic and Victorian poet who was a friend of Charles Dickens. He has two poems by her and notes that one will do well for today. I will place it here:

THE CHURCH IN 1849

by Adelaide Procter

OH, mighty Mother, hearken! for thy foes
Gather around thee, and exulting cry
That thine old strength is gone and thou must die,
Pointing with fierce rejoicing to thy woes.
And is it so? The raging whirlwind blows
No stronger now than it has done of yore:
Rebellion, strife, and sin have been before;
The same companions whom thy Master chose.
We too rejoice: we know thy might is more
When to the world thy glory seemeth dim;
Nor can Hell’s gates prevail to conquer Thee,
Who hearest over all the voice of Him
Who chose thy first and greatest Prince should be
A fisher on the Lake of Galilee.

Of course with the last part I thought not of Peter but of Christ the Carpenter (He is both the Lord and prince of the church). But for me the important part is that God choose all his church from those who are sinful and often trembling. But in faith, we look beyond this day knowing Christ's redemption, promises and coming.

Picture by Ron Andersen

The fringe side of Emergent Christianity & our union with Christ

On the fringe side of Emergent Christianity there are too many departures from the faith. There is this:

Jesus came as an evolutionary breakthrough in modeling, demonstrating, and seeing what human consciousness is capable of. It was missed in his own time; people flatlanded it. Only today, by God’s grace, are we getting to grasp today what Jesus is getting at in significant numbers.

Our seminaries, churches, and Sunday Schools are largely flatland, passing on a diminished vision.

A kindling is needed, another way of seeing whose roots are in spiritual practice. As we practice, we begin to see the world with Jesus’ eyes.

One of the unfortunate curveballs that Christian theology has given us is immense theological distance from Jesus – ‘Christology’ as it developed was bent no [to] proving how Jesus is different than everyone else, the only Son of God instead of Paul’s “Jesus is the firstborn of many sisters and brothers.” We couldn’t handle this invitational revelation; we needed to admire Jesus more than be Jesus. (Italics mine)

The author is Michael Morrell, and his post, “The Way of the Heart – Cynthia Bourgeault Part 2: See What Jesus Sees; Do What Jesus Does.” I blogged about something he wrote last year—“Heretical evangelicalism merges with progressive goddess worship.” In this particular posting, created in 2011, Morrell is writing from his notes after attending “Servant Leadership School in Greensboro, North Carolina.”

Morrell took notes during sessions with Cynthia Bourgeault who is considered a “wisdom teacher.” Morrell’s emphasis is on centering prayer and meditation. But via his teachers he takes the ideas into the new age realm:

 It is unitive vision; uninterrupted sight; what the sages and mystics called union with God. It’s seeing from a whole different perspective. Our field of vision does not natively separate the playing field; our unconditioned eye sees from a kind of wholeness, a single grasp of the bigger picture. We call this nondual seeing. And yet we've devolved into separation-based seeing. Practices that invite nondual seeing represent an evolutionary advance in thinking and perception.

The problem with the information Morrell provides in nine posts-(they are found at the end of each posting) - is the total misunderstanding of who Jesus is and our relationship to him. Yes, we are the brothers and sisters of Jesus but by adoption; unlike Jesus we are not eternally begotten of the Father. And it isn’t a non-dualistic consciousness or unitive vision, which Jesus came to advance, but redemption and reconciliation with God.

We are at an “immense theological distance” from Jesus—but he bridged that distance by first taking on humanity, including living among us, and then dying for us. In his resurrection he gave the gift of eternal life. But there is something more and it is where this metaphysical religious viewpoint of both Morrell and Bourgeault gets utterly confused.

In our redemption we are by the Holy Spirit united to the resurrected Jesus. We are not only nourished with the wine and bread of communion but are nourished daily by the Lord in his resurrected body. In fact, as John Calvin puts it, the elements of communion are a sign of his nourishment. Calvin states that the body of Christ, “invigorates and keep[s] alive the soul.” The blood of Christ is meant to “foster, refresh, strengthen, and exhilarate,” the soul of the believer.[1]

Our union with Christ is given important focus by Calvin in his Institutes. Taking the same stance as Augustine’s in On The Incarnation, Calvin writes:

Having become with us the Son of Man, he has made us with himself sons of God. By his own descent to the earth, he has prepared our ascent to heaven. Having received our mortality, he has bestowed on us his immortality. Having undertaken our weakness, he has made us strong in his strength. Having submitted to our poverty, he has transferred to us his riches. Having taken upon himself the burden of unrighteousness with which we were oppressed, he has clothed us with his righteousness.[2]

The difference between being another Jesus with his supposed non-dualistic consciousness and being united to the resurrected Christ is vast. It is the difference between works and grace. It is not a matter of contemplation, meditating or centering prayer, rather it is a gift. We do not strife to bear the righteousness of Christ. We are given the gift. We are given heaven, heavenly riches which have to do with righteousness and Christ himself.  We are received by Christ; therefore we are received by the Father.

There is a mystery that has nothing to do with methodology in prayer, meditation or thinking, but rather with the love of Jesus. “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our abode with him.” (John 14:23)  This is the knowledge and fellowship with God that all believers experience. John in his epistles warns about those who come teaching some strange doctrine insisting there is something more that the church has not yet grasped. “Anyone who goes too far and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God; the one who abides teaching, he has both the Father and the Son.” (2 John 9)

Picture by Melissa Tregilgas

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[1] See Viola Larson “John Calvin on the Sacraments: A Summary,”9,  at Theology Matters. Quote taken from John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Henry Beveridge, Trans., John Murray, Intro., reprint, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing 1989) book 4, chapter XVII, paragraph 3.

[2]ibid  “On the Sacraments,” 9; Institutes, 

A review of Phyllis Tickle's Emergence Christianity

A Review of:

Emergence Christianity: What It Is, Where It Is Going, and Why It Matters

By Phyllis Tickle, Baker Books, 237 pages

History, religious movements and ideas do not come in neat packages. As a young student going to a one room country school my understanding of the past was idealistic. That is because the text books I hoisted onto my lap, as I placed my feet on the oven door to read, were written from an ideal perspective. The authors used the ‘great men’ version of history writing. But no matter, my teacher, Bessie Stevens, tall and looming, with her gray hair in a bun, after morning devotions, read us Marxists stories of the new Russia, with a bit of historical flavor. 

Historiography, the study of historical theory or how history is written, is for the history major generally a required subject. And it breaks apart most idealism including conservative and Marxist histories.

There is the method of using ‘great men,’ mentioned above—which is great reading; there is the Annals school which has great documentation but is often boring. Try reading four-hundred pages of weather cycles, crop loss, deaths and births in the Mediterranean region.  There is also cyclical history writing. That is the idea that history is made up of great cycles of events that often, in some way, repeat themselves. Phyllis Tickle in her book, Emergence Christianity: What It Is, Where It Is Going, and Why It Matters, is forced into a cycler mode because she sees church history, in the western world, moving in circles of renewal. By this Tickle means that events begin to accumulate which change culture to the degree that eventually the church is forced to look again at such things as beliefs, worship, authority and structure—with an eye toward discarding some of its supposed baggage.

In both this book and Tickle’s last one, The Great Emergence: How Christianity is Changing and Why, she points, among other events, to the Great Schism of the eleventh century, the Reformation and the “disestablishment of slavery” as cultural or social events that caused the church to begin remaking itself. 

In this latest book Tickle spends some time pulling in what she sees as changing events including recent events which she believes are changing the Church. Next she looks at various groups that she now believes can be seen as members of the Emergence community. The middle section of the book is filled with photographs with explanation of various groups participating in Emergence activity. The latter part of the book deals more with what Emergence Christianity believes.

I want to look at two of Tickle’s assumptions: her inclination to subsume everything under Emergence Christianity, and the theology that Tickle believes is emerging from the movement.

In my review of Tickle’s earlier book, The Great Emergence, I pointed out that Tickle had attempted to tie a parochial movement of the United States and Great Britain to the global community by connecting it to such events as the Reformation and the Great Schism. In Emergence Christianity, Tickle seemingly corrects this by pulling in a wider girth of participants. In the earlier book on Emergence she failed to see other movements within the United States that were more apt to bring renewal and change. In Tickle’s new book she simply subsumes them under emergence by referring to them as “push backs.” In other words Tickle places all Christian movements under Emergence Christianity.

Calling it peri-Emergence times and pulling in the global community, Tickle uses Vatican II and its attending bishops who came from differing continents. She refers to Liberation theology and black theologian activist James Cone; she also mentions, in the same breath Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin, their Catholic Worker and hospitality houses. (72-76)

The priest Gustavo Gutierrez, Leonardo Boff and Jon Sobrino along with Martyr Oscar Romero also become members of the peri-Emergence times. Then feminist and LGBT rights activists get added to the mix. While some of these historical figures certainly fit with a lot of Emergent ideas some are simply strains of Christianity as it has always been, living in poverty, caring for the poor and needy and suffering in the process. Tickle’s emphasis on Romero’s death and her placement of him in the mix of peri-Emergence means she fails to understand Romero’s self-identity. He once stated:

The Church will always have its word to say: conversion. Progress will not be completed even if we organize ideally the economy and the political and social orders of our people. It won’t be entire with that. That will be the basis, so that it can be completed by what the church pursues and proclaims: God adored by all, Christ acknowledged as only Savior, deep joy of spirit in being at peace with God and with our brothers and sisters.[1]

Certainly Vatican II, although offering some reforms, Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin as well as Oscar Romero, given their theological foundations, would have nothing to do with the idea that they were peri-Emergence. They were all orthodox in their Christology and all pro-life in their worldview. One cannot simply gather up every Christian religious movement and person and claim them as spiritual ancestors. A gatherer of rags starts with rags, but when one gathers various materials, some shining in their reflection of light, others diminished by their inability to reflect, and suggest that they all belong to the same category—all are diminished.

In Tickle’s proclivity for gathering all Christian religious movements under her heading of Emergence Christianity she does recognize the rise of Calvinism in our own day. But failing to recognize them in their own right, Tickle identifies them as push backs against Emergence. Tickle, after writing of what Calvinism is, states:

None of this is new, of course, but neither is it revival. Rather, it is, as we have said, push-back. It is the application of one integrated body of orthodox, Latinized Christian teaching to Great Emergence circumstances. It is resistance to Great Emergence in many ways, while at the same time sharing Emergence’s etiology and essence. As such and because of its sheer size, it will be a participant in, or at the very least a potent influence upon the events and decisions that, during the coming decades, will determine the shape of Emergence Christianity in its full maturity. (189)

Tickle names Timothy Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City as one of the new Calvinist. One wonders if Keller would be surprised to find out that his identity is as a push-back to Emergence. (See note 6, 190)

Tickle attempts to explain somewhat the beliefs of those she sees directly involved in Emergent Christianity and Emerging Christianity. Yes, she does split Emergence Christianity into two movements.  This is important information because it does change how one might view one group of Emergence Christianity as opposed to others. Tickle writes that there are emerging Christians and emergent Christians. Of the difference she writes:

Emergent Christianity/Village Church/Christians are aggressively all-inclusive and non-patriarchal. They are far more interested in the actuality of Scripture than its historicity or literal inerrancy. … By and large, Emerging Christianity, Church, Christians could not differ with these positions if they tried.[2] (142)

Tickle also points out that although several well known members of Emergence Christianity, Scot McKnight and Mark Driscoll, at first referred to themselves as emerging/emergent, they changed to simply emerging after Brian McLaren published his book, A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions that are Transforming the Faith. The point for me is that there are some who reside closer to orthodoxy than others. Tickle’s theological explanations often do not resemble orthodoxy. (143)

In explaining Emergence Christianity’s theological outlook, Tickle sometimes tends, toward a monarchial view of the Trinity, the persons are simply the actions of God during various ages. After referring to the Trinity as It and explaining many of the Trinity’s actions throughout the Bible, Tickle writes:

The Trinity comes now near to the promised realization of its intention. It comes, as It said it would. And What we saw and feared in the image of the Father, What we saw and embraced as Savior-Brother, we now know as Spirit and cling to as Advocate, even as It has said of Itself from the beginning. Now, without need of image or flesh, It comes, and we receive It as in the last of creation’s ages.(208)

One of the misunderstandings here is what is implied when one speaks of the Trinity. Trinity is always Father, Son and Holy Spirit, so one cannot refer to God as Trinity without including each person. In the same way the persons are not parts. They are each fully God. They are of the same essence. The Trinity is a mystery worth understanding—which is truly paradox.

At other times in her book it is fairly clear that Tickle understands the distinctions within the Godhead, as when she writes about perichoresis, but even here she refers to the distinctions as parts.[3] (172-73) The problem for Tickle is that she sees the ages divided into different manifestations of the Trinity which is itself an old heresy. And the emphasis in the heresy is always on the time of the Spirit which is always contemporary with whichever particular person or group is promoting the theology.[4]

As in The Great Emergence the authority of Scripture is also questioned in this book in several places. Tickle first of all suggests what is needed for authority—which in itself is scary, in another place she offers what she believes will be the authority. Her idea of what is needed is:

… Emergence Christianity, hopefully in conjunction with other communions within the faith, is free to discover and acknowledge an authority based on the paradigm of the kingdom of God on earth. At the same time, however, it must also discover and acknowledge an authority, if possible, that provides for Christians  a peaceful cohabitation with the political or secular authority that frames the physical life … (193)

Tickle believes that Emergence Christianity has and does use both Scripture and story as a “code.” They will also use community, in prayer, as the “agency” for finding authority within the code of Scripture and story. Tickle asks “what shall animate the union of those two and make of them a sacred authority.” (206)

The final big doctrinal issue that is addressed by Tickle as it relates to Emergence Christianity is the atonement. She calls it the bitterest question. Tickle, like some before her, writes as though Scripture has nothing at all to say about the atonement. But this is also a misunderstanding. Atonement theories are theories about how the atonement works—not about whether the atonement is true or not. And all of the theories if understood properly work together.

But evidently Emergence Christians, alongside feminist theologians and progressives consider the death of the Son child abuse. Tickle writes:

For Emergence Christianity—and here there is more unanimity than in some other areas of belief—the concept of an omnipotent and omniscient God who could find no better solution than that to the problem of sin is a contradiction of the first order . Even more repugnant is the notion that, if penal substation as it is popularly and colloquially understood today is indeed the correct understanding of what happen at Calvary, then Christians are asked to accept as Father a God who killed his only Son. (197)

Tickle is quick to explain that those who believe in substitutionary atonement would reply that it is God who sacrifices himself. But she believes that most would not understand and perhaps the better way would be to follow the views of Greek Orthodoxy. But there is a bit of misunderstanding in all of this. While Orthodox theology is more concerned to align salvation with the incarnation and the Christians union with God, and protestant Christianity is more concerned with atonement there are overlaps. And Orthodoxy would not say that Christ did not die for our sins, however they would, wrongly I believe, insist Christ was not a substitute for us.

But the more important position is the biblical text—which includes Jesus’ death for our sin as well as our union with Christ.

For while we were helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. … But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Much more then, having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, having been reconciled we shall be saved by his life. (Romans 5: 6, 8-11)

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. (Gal. 2:20)

Here and there Tickle’s information is interesting and some of it is new. The pictures in the middle of her book with written explanations about their meaning are helpful as is her annotated bibliography. But there is so much misinformation including a rigid, twisted view of church history, that Emergence Christianity is more problematic than helpful. Church history is sad yet good, bitter with sin, joyous with saints, bloody with martyrs, glad with charity and gloriously full of the work of the Trinity. And it’s foundations, essentials and faith will not change.

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[1]Oscar Romero, The Violence of Love: The Words of Oscar Romero, trans., James R. Brockman, forward, Henri Nouwen, reprint, (London: Fount Paperbacks, Collins 1989). 10 Quote found at, “Liberation Theology and whippoorwills.”

[2] Tickle places all those involved in Village Church, www.emergentvillage.com as belonging to Emergent rather than emerging.

[3] Tickle states that the idea of perichoresis, the understanding of the communal relationship between the persons of the Trinity, belongs to the Greek Orthodox; perhaps it does but I first learned of this term from an excellent Reformed professor, James Torrance.

[4] See for instance, Phyllis Tickle: The Age of the Spirit

A review of Horizons' "A gift of Love and Life: A Bible Study of John 3:16-17"

This is the last of the five reviews I intended to do from the Nov/Dec 2012, Presbyterian Women’s Horizons. Since Voices of Orthodox Women will no longer be publishing articles I intend sometimes to write some reviews of some articles. When I am interested in a subject and feel it is important enough to write about, I will write. I am certain that will not be so for all issues.

Beth Herrinton-Hodge, with her article, “A Gift of Love and Life: A Bible Study of John 3:16-17,” stands on the very edge of truth about Jesus Christ and his love. But she doesn’t dive into the depths of salvation. She sticks meticulously close to her text; two verses—the cross of Christ is not mentioned in the article.

Herrinton-Hodge makes it very clear, by using verse 17 as well as 16, God loves us and desires to save us—give us eternal life. She writes:

This familiar passage is so simple and straightforward that it’s difficult. God stands before us holding out a wonderful gift of love; all we need to do is take the gift. All we need to do is believe in God’s gift and in God’s Son. Yet, the receiving and the believing are often the most difficult to embrace.

And after adding verse 17, Herrinton-Hodge writes of the broadness of salvation with the additional verse:

John 3:17 reads, “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.”

This verse puts an additional perspective on the familiar words of John 3:16. It contains information regarding the why of Jesus’ coming. He came not to condemn, but to save the world, not just the handful of people who met him or had the privilege of hearing him speak. God sent Jesus to save the whole world.

The article gives just a hint that Herrinton-Hodge is thinking in terms of universalism, (That is, all people will be saved) but I do not believe that is her intent because she insists on belief. However, the editors of Horizons seem to imply this because they, in a separate box on the last page of the article, recommend two resources. One is an article from Christian Century, “A Hopeful Universalism” by Paul Dafydd Jones. The other a book, Who Will be Saved?, by William Willimon.

But to continue on with Herrinton-Hodge’s thoughts, she presents her views on God’s purposes for sending Jesus as found in these two verses. She offers three purposes. The first:

The incarnation of God in the person of Jesus Christ was a supreme act of love. God sent Jesus to this world so that the people whom God loved could come to know God in very tangible ways: by seeing, knowing, talking with, learning from, following and believing in Jesus.

The second purpose was “the gift of eternal life which Jesus brings.” Herrinton-Hodge explains that God gave humanity many good things and wanted to have an eternal relationship with them so he gave the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ. The third purpose was to give salvation. She traces God’s continual maintenance of relationship with humanity despite our disobedience. Herrinton-Hodge writes:

We have tried to make our way in the world without God. By all rights God should have cast us away for refusing the blessed life offered to us. But God does not abandon God’s people.

From that point on Herrinton-Hodge gives a quick small version of biblical history which includes God’s call to Abraham, leading the Hebrews out of Egypt and giving them the law—she writes that this all culminates in the “life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ,” adding, In Christ, God provides a means to salvation so that the promise of eternal life with God is restored.”

Herrinton-Hodge insists that Jesus’ words to Nicodemus were meant to help him move from a literal view of rebirth to its metaphorical meaning. Nicodemus was to make a leap of faith. As she puts it, “God does not want to condemn those who don’t get it; God wants to save, Jesus Christ came to do just that. God loves us. God saves us. God offers us eternal life. Our response is to believe.”

That is all good news except it isn’t complete. The cross is missing—it is simply hinted at with an acknowledgement of Jesus’ death. And belief is almost made into a kind of salvation by works.

So first of all: the cross. The cross is that great high point that marks God’s great love. Jesus speaks of his own acts of service and states that he came “to serve and give his life a ransom for many.” (Matt. 20:28) At the Passover and the first communion service he points to the wine as his blood, “which is poured out for many for forgiveness of sins.”(Matt 26:28) And to his disciples, after his resurrection he admonishes:

“O foolish men and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary for the Christ to suffer these things and to enter into his glory? (Luke 24:25b-26)

Without the cross, in the midst of humanity’s decadence, speaking of the love of a holy God is mere sentimentality. Speaking of God’s continued reconciliation is meaningless unless it is wrapped around the cross.

And secondly, a belief that saves is so much more than mere certainty about facts. It is the leaning of the whole person on the grace of God. When Paul was preaching as a prisoner to King Agrippa he said, “King Agrippa, do you believe the prophets? I know that you do.” And yet as far as we know from history Agrippa never trusted in Christ. A belief that saves comes from faith given by God. We are led to Christ by the Holy Spirit. We are given to Christ by the Father.

“All that the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me, I will certainly not cast out.