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Defining Purity

Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:43:54 GMT

Blessed are the Pure in Heart, for they shall see God.
- The Gospel of Matthew, Chatper five

Purity of heart... is to will one thing.
- Soren Kierkegaard

I have a lot of trouble listening to Christians talk about purity. All of our phrases seem to point to a major misconception. We talk about "saving our purity," as though we can trade it in someday. We talk about "losing our purity," as though purity can be misplaced.

But you can't lose your purity like you lose your car keys. Purity isn't an object, even an abstract one, that you possess in the first place.

What is purity? It is undilutedness. Imagine a silver ring. To the degree that it contains no specks of other metals, it is pure. A Christian's purity, when it exists, is a matter of absoluteness; it is a stance toward God.

To the degree that Christ is at the center of our vision, our goals are pure.
To the degree that Christ is at the center of our praxis, our actions are pure.
To the degree that Christ is at the center of our desires, our hearts are pure.

Most importantly, to the degree that we find our identity and worth in Christ alone, we ourselves are pure.

Here is a spot of good news.

"Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears,we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure."

What do you think of this image of purity? What implications would it have for Christian living? If this is accurate, can a person lose their purity?

-NDSR

Romans 9: a free-will reading

Sun, 15 Nov 2009 18:40:41 GMT

Romans 9 has always been one of the most contested battlegrounds in Reformed-Arminian disputes, so much so that R. C. Sproul has proclaimed that Arminian theology is demolished by a single verse from the chapter: "So then it does not depend on human will or effort, but on God who shows mercy." How can anyone read that verse and then claim that salvation does depend on human will or effort? Arminians, for their part, do not help themselves by making outrageous statements like, "Oh, I don't believe in predestination," and by more or less ignoring the book of Romans in their preaching and theology.

This is especially unfortunate given the potential that Romans has for both Arminian and open theist readings, provided we keep in mind the unity of the letter as a whole and the covenantal issues that Paul is dealing with. So without attempting to be entirely comprehensive or persuasive, I do want to give a reading of Romans 9 that free-will theists can offer as a more plausible interpretation than the Reformed version.

The basic Reformed reading of Romans sees the declarations that God has mercy on whomever he will, that human beings are clay in his hands and that God accepted Jacob but rejected Esau prior to anything they did as straightforwardly teaching that God chooses some individuals for salvation and others for damnation based on nothing but his own sovereign decision. Needless to say, I think that is a deeply misguided reading, for a number of reasons.

Most primarily, Paul is not dealing with the salvation of individuals here. He dealt with that in cc. 3-6. What Paul is dealing with here is God's covenant-faithfulness. Paul establishes his anguish over the fact that, by and large, Israelites are rejecting Jesus while non-Jews are entering into the promises God made to Israel. The center of the debate is located in verse 6, as James White (of all people) correctly notes. The promises God made to Israel seem to be unfairly being given to another group of people. "Has the word of God failed?"

But Paul says that it has not failed, because not all who are biological descendants of Jacob are truly Israel. Nobody deserves to be counted as 'Israel' because they were born Jewish, or because they keep the works of the law. To illustrate why this is the case, Paul points out that God chose to continue Israel's line through Jacob instead of Esau, for no reason that can be found in either of them. But there is a serious problem if we take this to mean that Esau was damned, because Paul is clearly referring to being chosen to carry on the line of Israel.

This is even more clear if we follow the reference that Paul is making in verse 13, "As it is written: Jacob I have loved, but Esau I have hated," which is from the first few verses of Malachi. In it (a sort of prophetic play), God tells Israel how he has loved them, and Israel responds, "How have you loved us?" God replies, "Look at Esau. Even though he was the older brother, I loved Jacob and hated Esau. Look at how Esau's mountains are a wasteland, and how his inheritance is being consumed by jackals of the desert." It is the same situation as the Genesis account and the same situation that Paul is addressing: God has chosen one group of people as his representatives on earth, and overlooked another. It has nothing at all to do with individuals being chosen for salvation or damnation.

Still, Paul senses a possible objection, which is that God is unfair to decide who his covenant people are. Paul's answer to this objection is simply that God is free to choose. What is significant for a free-will reading of the passage is to recognize that while God is free to harden whomever he wants, his decisions are not arbitrary. Later in chapter 9, Paul summarizes his thoughts, observing that

Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, have obtained righteousness—namely the righteousness that comes from faith. But Israel, pursuing the law for righteousness, has not achieved the law. Why is that? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as if it were by works.

So if God has hardened Israel, it is not because of his prior decision to do so, but "because they did not pursue [righteousness] by faith." In chapter eleven (cc. 9-11 form one literary unit, all dealing with the question posed in 9:6), Paul, utilizing the metaphor of pruning a vineyard, observes that "[Israel's branch was] broken off by unbelief" (11:20), but "even they, if they do not remain in unbelief, will be grafted in, because God has the power to graft them in again" (11:23). Paul does not believe that God has decided irrevocably in advance that Israel will not be saved, but rather portrays God responding to Israel's faith or lack of faith as it arises. In fact, Paul seems to portray a partly open future, although he ultimately believes that "all Israel will be saved," though it is difficult to say what exactly he means by this, given his statement that not "all who are descended of Israel are Israel."

Paul's vision of a partly open future also comes across in his choice to quote Jeremiah 18, which far from presenting God as statically exercising his will as determined in ages past, presents God flexibly responded to his creatures as situations change.

Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. If at any time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be uprooted, torn down and destroyed, and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned. And if at another time I announce that a nation or kingdom is to be built up and planted, and if it does evil in my sight and does not obey me, then I will reconsider the good I had intended to do for it.

Here in particular Calvin's analysis of the biblical text looks clumsy, as he describes passages like this as examples of God "lisping" to us, speaking baby-talk, the way a nursemaid babbles nonsense to an infant.

A case study for Paul's understanding of hardening is presented in Pharaoh's role in the Exodus, where the text first tells us several times that Pharaoh hardens his own heart and only then tells us that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Paul is certainly right that God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and hardens whom he wants to harden. But why would we take from Romans 9 that he has no basis for determining who he wants to have mercy on or harden? He hardens Pharaoh because Pharaoh wanted to play hard ball. God hardened Israel "because of their unbelief." God shows kindness to you "provided that you continue in his kindness." Across the board, Romans 9 shows God responding to the morally responsible choices of his people.

So when my Reformed brothers and sisters point to Romans 9 as the linchpin of their theology, I'm just not convinced. Paul simply isn't talking about individuals being appointed to salvation, and his thinking all seems to assume that God acts based on the response he gets from people. I think the burden is definitely on Reformed readers to demonstrate that Romans 9 has anything to do with their doctrines.

-NDSR

Abort the Retarded: a solution to a problem?

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 21:53:32 GMT

In his groundbreaking text Theology and Down Syndrome: Reimagining Disability in Late Modernity, Amos Yong spends two chapters examining the medicalization of disability that began in the middle of the 19th century, especially with the advent of IQ tests, which lend an air of objectivity and authority to classifications of an individual's "dullness"

Unlike some genetic defects, Down Syndrome is caused by a chromosomal split that is unpredictable and undetectable until after its effects are already in place. For that reason, natal testing is not useful for preventing occurrences of Down Syndrome, but is often used to advocate selective abortions. What is more, many mothers of disabled children explain that in their natal counseling they were led to feel that only bad mothers choose to bring "defective" children into the world. So it's no surprise that since 1989, 90% of Down Syndrome fetuses have been aborted.

But regardless of one's position in the pro-life/pro-choice discussion, the practice of selectively aborting on the basis of handicap, specifically Down Syndrome, is highly problematic according to Yong. (By comparison, we can imagine the pro-choice opposition to selectively aborting by gender.) The solution Yong offers is not to genetic screening, but to "interrogate our biases, assumptions, attitudes and practices." The story we are told is that the life of a person with Down Syndrome is not worth living and that the humane thing to do is to prevent their birth. Yong approaches that story with several counterpoints.

According to Yong, "the 'suffering' of people with disabilities stems less from their intellectual and physical impairments than from the social prejudices, environmental inaccessibility, and lack of supportive networks."
Those parents who have chosen to raise rather than abort their handicapped children have almost universally affirmed that they themselves have been positively transformed by their decision and have come to see their children as a gift. Yong approvingly quotes Reinders' 2000 study: "These parents no longer identify with their 'old' self. The choice for prevention no longer is a possibility that they find relevant to contemplate."
Part of the story we are told is that it would be an unfair burden on society to support intellectually and physically disabled children though their life. Yong responds that this assumes a zero-sum perspective when in reality there is more than enough money for such an expenditure if only we assigned it value.
Even though trisomy can be detected during pregnancy, the severity of disability remains unknowable until long after birth. There is no basis on which to judge whether the child's life will be relatively unburdened or whether the child would be "better off never being born."
The story also assumes that humans are only instrumentally, rather than intrinsically valuable. Yong quotes Byrne, "It is right to regard cognitive disability in the abstract, in isolation, as negative in value, but it is [also] right to regard the concrete whole of the child (the person) with the disability as of intrinsic, compelling worth." According to Yong, this argument will gather more compelling force as increasingly sophisticated technology is able to identify previously hidden defects in even our healthiest bodies.
Additionally, Yong questions what he calls the presumptuousness of believing we can eliminate human disability through abortion. Prenatal testing followed by abortion cannot be the answer to problems that are socially and environmentally caused.
Finally, there is the problem of the effect of such an implicit condemnation of the personhood of people with Down Syndrome. As one put it, "It certainly doesn't make us feel very welcome, in the human race." Indeed, as one confronts many people with Down Syndrome who claim quite intelligibly that they would not want to be "cured" because to be cured would mean to "not be me anymore," the entire story that it's better not to be born than to be born with Down Syndrome falls apart.

It is unfortunate but perhaps inevitable that viewing Down Syndrome through a medical mindset has led ultimately to the attempt not to live with the people who have Down Syndrome, but to attempt to "cure the world" of such a condition.

What do you think? Does the general story that it's unethical to allow your child to be born retarded resonate with you? What do you think of Yong's counterpoints? Is it a problem than 90% of fetuses with Down Syndrome are aborted? What is the problem we're trying to solve?

-NDSR

Liberal or just humble?

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:01:10 GMT

"Being truly liberal means thinking and speaking in responsibility and openness on all sides, backwards and forwards, toward both past and future, and with total personal modesty. To be modest is not to be skeptical; it is to see what one thinks and says has limits. This does not hinder me from saying very definitively what I think I see and know. But I do this only in the awareness that there have been and are other people before and alongside me and still others who will come after. This awareness gives me an inner peace, so that I do not think I always have to be right even thought I say definitely what I say and think. Knowing that a limit is set for me, I can move cheerfully within it as a free man."
- Karl Barth

Barth wrote this near the end of his life, in a book called Final Testimonies. Barth's is a mind I have tremendous respect for, and I want to live out his vision, if not his conclusions, in every piece of work that I do. Here I question, though, his appellation 'liberal.' Is he describing liberality, or just plain humility?

I would never identify myself as a liberal or as a conservative. They are terms with simply too much baggage attached, and nobody will ever hear what you truly have to say. But if liberal meant only what Barth describes here, I would proudly call myself one.

As it is, I will simply say that I strive to be humble.

-NDSR

Christian resources in a free market

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 21:42:53 GMT

I have been surprised in the last year to see how aggressively (and defensively) some Christians defend the sanctity of the free market, and how much faith Christians place in the "invisible hand" of the market to do the work of God in the world. To be sure, there is a religious component to free market ideology. We talk of the "benevolence of self-interest" (to paraphrase Adam Smith), the power of "market forces," (very spooky, when you think about it) and the capacity of capitalism to "create wealth out of nothing" (mirroring the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo.)

At the same time, however, I've figured out that much of the defensiveness comes from a misunderstanding of those who critique the ideology of free markets. Defenders seem to reflexively assume that anyone who criticizes free markets, capitalism, consumerism, globalization or the financialization of the American economy (making money off money) have one thing in mind: state intervention. But it is a false dichotomy to assume that a unrestricted global market and a state-run economy are the only options available.

When I criticize the free market, I do so from the perspective not of Keynesian economic policies (which are themselves far from socialist in nature), but from the perspective of the Christian doctrines of creation, stewardship and the telos of human life. One of the major problems Christians must have with free-market ideology is that it doesn't provide any means of internal critique. The only definition of freedom provided is a negative one: 'free from state control.' Christian understanding of freedom goes far deeper and is comprised of a positive element: 'free to serve God.'

So let's consider two free-market scenarios, from William T. Cavanaugh's short book Being Consumed: Christians and Economic Desire.

Reporter Bob Herbert visited a factory in El Salvador that makes jackets for Liz Claiborne line of clothing. The jackets sell for $178 each in the U.S.; the workers who make them earn 77 cents per jacket (56 cents an hour). The factory is surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. A worker interviewed after her 12-hour shift told of being unable to feed herself and her three-year-old daughter adequately. Her daughter drinks coffee because they cannot afford milk; both mother and daughter suffer fainting spells. David Wang, president of Mandarin Company, which runs one of the plans in El Salvador, admitted to Herbert that the wages are inadequate: "If you really ask me, this is not fair." But then he went on to offer a lesson in "free" trade. "In the United States, if you want to buy a Honda Civic, you can shop around and always you will find cheaper ones." This is what the clothing companies were doing, according to Wang. "They are shopping around the whole world for the cheapest labor price."

Cavanaugh describes a second company, the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation, which was founded by a Basque priest in 1956. It is also being run under no state intervention, and therefore a product of a free market. Mondragon also manufactures goods, employing over 60,000 workers with annual sales over $3 billion USD.

What makes Mondragon extraordinary is that it is based on the principles of distributism: this idea - based on papal social teaching and promoted by Hilaire Belloc, G. K. Chesterton, and others - is that a just social order can only be achieved through just distribution of property and a recognition of the dignity of labor. Mondragon is entirely worker-owned and worker-governed, and it is based on a system of one vote per worker. At Mondragon they believe that labor hires capital, instead of capital hiring labor. Their capital comes largely from a credit union that is supported by workers and the community. The highest-paid employee can make no more than six times what the lowest-paid makes; 10 percent of surpluses are given directly to community development projects. Not only is the company successful and laborers highly satisfied with their work, but the communities in which Mondragon plays a significant part enjoy lower crime rates, lower rates of domestic violence, higher rates of education, and better physical and emotional health than neighboring communities.

From the perspective of free-market ideology, there is no difference between the two organizations, since both are free from state intervention and both consist of entities (customers, owners, workers, etc.) entering into contracts uncoerced. So the market itself lacks any mechanism or even perspective by which to say which of these situations is "better." For another example of a morally problematic situation created by free-market ideology, see Rhiannonator's recent post.

Christians, of course, can only approve of or condemn any situation in the world by drawing on their own traditions, contrary to the intentions of globalizing economies to displace all such local traditions. Free-market ideology tempts us to use 'freedom' as a code word to mask what are in fact bare predations of power, as in the case of the Salvadorian textile worker above. Mondragon, in contrast is founded "on the recognition that true freedom requires a careful consideration of the ends of being human." The free market cannot provide the resources for such consideration; Christians must go back to the gospel of Christ.

What resources do Christians have in a global economy where freedom is equated with unrestrained power?

First and most importantly, we have our traditions and doctrines. The doctrine of creation keeps us necessarily grounded in the reality that wealth doesn't spring from nothing, and that growth must come from work of real value: no Christian should have ever been fooled by credit-default swaps. Meanwhile the doctrine of the abundance of the Kingdom of God frees us from the need to hoard our goods and cling possessively to objects as though they were ours. As Thomas Aquinas put it, "Man ought to possess external things, not as his own, but as common, so that, to wit, he is ready to communicate them to others in their need."
With this tradition from which to draw, we are enabled to enter the market place seeking freedom in its positive sense. Christians can organize corporations whose tasks are more than simply "returning a profit to the shareholder." Christians can create goods of actual utility and quality for the world to use. Christians can enter into partnerships with small business owners in impoverished nations to interrupt cycles of poverty. Christians can refuse to shop around for the lowest prices at the expense of human dignity. Christians can enter into real relationships with the producers of their goods through farmers markets, co-ops, choosing credit unions over national and transnational banks, local jewelers, etc., as well as by purchasing Fair Trade whenever possible.
If Christians can effectively model healthy, attractive and successful methods of working within the free market, governments and secular institutions can be "brought along." Hospitals, public education and the peace corps were all originally matters of Christian conviction before governments began to notice that they worked, and gradually took over those roles in society. Christians can give shape to society specifically by serving it.

What do you think? What other resources do Christians have for interacting with a free market? What are the strengths and failings of the free market itself? Why are there not more organizations like Mondragon?

-NDSR

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Further resources
The Free Market: the enemy of freedom?
Mondragon, the remarkable achievement by Robert Gilman
50 Factors Within Nations that Determine their Wealth or Poverty by Wayne Grudem
How Did Goldman Sachs Contribute to the Financial Crisis? on Dollarish

Wanna buy an AK-47?

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:21:33 GMT

A few things from this clip really stand out. First of all, these guys clearly are not gun experts. They represent the sort of cowboy journalism that is becoming more and more prevalent as technology becomes cheaper and mass media more respectable.

But that's really beside the point. The point these cowboy journalists are trying to make is that free access to weapons is not a stabilizing element in a society, and can greatly increase the danger of instability.

What do you think? How does seeing this impact your view of conflict regions around the world? How does it impact your view of the gun rights debate in the United States? Why do you think that journalist from outside Somolia has openly recorded in these gun markets before?

-NDSR

Of quiet

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:07:20 GMT

The abbot Anthony said, "Who sits in solitude and is quiet has escaped from three wars: hearing, speaking, seeing: yet against one thing shall he continually battle: that is, his own heart."
- Desert Fathers II.ii

-NDSR

My spiritual inventory

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:33:43 GMT

I don't think too much about how other people think of me. Outside my immediate spiritual community, who I expect to hold me to accountability, I am perfectly willing to state, "Here I stand, I can do no other." What is more, my thoughts and beliefs have been remarkably fluid in the ten years or so since I began following Jesus, so I am not especially afraid of becoming stuck in one place if scripture, community, tradition, experience and the Holy Spirit are guiding me elsewhere.

But recently I have begun thinking about credibility and authority. Granted that I think of my position as one of challenging insider, rather than authoritative teacher, throwing firecrackers to keep Christians from resting too easily in this or that position. And having been accused recently of being an atheist in disguise, and of stepping outside orthodoxy in a number of areas, and these by Christians who disagree with one another on perhaps contestable matter, I have begun wondering whether I am perceived of as an insider at all.

I know that I am more or less orthodox by the major criteria. I believe in the creeds, certainly.

I also know that in most areas where views are hotly contested, I am in the minority camp. Perhaps if you made a cross-section of all those minority views, I'd be discovered to be in a very small company indeed. (Perhaps many of us would find ourselves in very lonely such squares.)

For example, I am an open theist. I am also a pacifist. I am an egalitarian in regard to both family structure and ministry. All of this is fine and considered orthodox by most Christians, and most of the major plays in my own church home (Church of God, Anderson) espouse the same set of views. But most Church of God pastors are not comfortable with evolutionary theory, which I more or less take for granted.

So what do you think? Am I too far out to be taken seriously by mainstream Christians? Am I outside the Christian faith altogether? (Even this idea of in or out on the basis of a particular set of beliefs is not something I necessarily believe in.) How do you think about these matters?

-NDSR

God's Love for Animals

Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:30:04 GMT

What do you think? Do you see compassion for animals as a theme in scripture? How do you believe God feels about animals?

-NDSR

I don't believe in a soul/I'll have to go it alone

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:34:03 GMT

I'm currently auditing a philosophy course on the subject of death. Roughly the first half of the course is focused on the nature of a person (what is it that dies when we die? and therefore what does it mean to die?). This professor does not believe in any kind of transcendent or pre-existent soul, so most of the class so far has been spent looking at every conce ivable argument for the existence of the soul, and explaining how the argument fails to persuade.

I come into the discussion from a unique perspective. I am with Prof. Kagan. I don't believe people have souls. We are bundles of tissues and nerves and synapses that, when working properly, constitute a person. When they are no lo nger working, they constitute a dead person. There is an abstract and purposive part of human consciousness that could be called the soul, but I don't believe it is self-existent or capable of being abstracted from human physicality. So when you die, you die.

Some might think (and certainly Prof. Kagan thinks) that challenging the belief in the soul would be problematic for evangelical Christians, but I don't see any real obstacles. It is not on the basis of an immortal soul that Christians believe in life after death, but on the basis of the saving activity of God. There's nothing special about humans that makes us innately immortal. As Frederick Buechner put it, "We go to our graves as dead as a doornail and are given our lives back again by God just as we were given them by God in the first place."

What do you think? Do you believe humans have souls? If so, how is a soul best defined? Did your soul exist before you were born? What will happen to your soul after your body dies?