Tim Kimberley over at the Parchment and Pen blog, is featuring a series based on the top ten Biblical discoveries in archaeology.
As promised, I intend to link to them from here, and so here is the fifth offering, at number six on the list:
Top Ten Biblical Discoveries in Archaeology – #6 Pontius Pilate Inscription
To be honest with you I’m not big on poems in general and I came across this John Donne sonnet in Tom Wright’s book ‘Surprised by Hope‘.
Wright introduces this as “That well known piece“, which aptly demonstrates how ignorant I am of poems as I’d never heard of it, but I certainly appreciated this one.
Death, be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so ;
For those, whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill me.
From rest and sleep, which but thy picture[s] be,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more must flow,
And soonest our best men with thee do go,
Rest of their bones, and soul’s delivery.
Thou’rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,
And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,
And better than thy stroke ; why swell’st thou then ?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more ; Death, thou shalt die.
I was tickled by the reference to Papaver Somniferum poppies, but hey, t’was the 16th century.
For me the victorious culmination of the poem is the most potent and gripping aspect. The timely reminder of that most wondrous Christian hope, namely, death is defeated and will itself be subject to a final death…..wonderful.
Ugh, don’t know if you saw all of the ridiculous headlines about a church minister planning to conduct the first communion service on Twitter. Here’s a taster:
In a modern spin on Christianity’s most sacred rite, worshippers are being invited to break bread and drink wine or juice in front of their computers as they follow the service online.
Churches usually require a priest to take the Eucharist, but the Rev Tim Ross, a Methodist minister, will send out a prayer in a series of Tweets – messages of up to 140 characters – to users of Twitter.
Anyway, I think Joel sums up my sentiments rather nicely:
Ah, Jim has just posted on this and he’s even more scathing, and I mean seriously scathing….
2011 marks the 400th anniversary of the King James Version of the Bible and it’s really heartening to see this being commemorated outside of the church, with the announcement today of a special set of Royal Mail stamps.
My personal fav is the New King James version for no other good reason than I’m most familiar with it. I’ve been involved in more pointless discussions than I care to remember with folks who hold to the view that the original King James version is the ONLY true infallible rendering we should read, as if Jesus himself penned it. Having said this, who can deny the sheer beauty of the poetic nature of the King James Bible.
The Church have also begun celebrating with the single most terrifying sculpture I’ve ever seen. In fact, I’m not even going to post a piccy here as I don’t want nightmares, but will guide you over to Biblicus Semitae.
I feel like I should issue a certificate 18 from the Censors Office, something like:
Contains terrifying imagery
Go and view if you dare.
This is a cross-post by Derek Leman of Messianic Jewish Musings and just to let you know that I’ll also be featuring the follow up posts to this one:
Jewish Roots and non-Jews, Part 1 by Derek Leman
A great thing has happened in the past few decades in the lives of numerous thousands of Jesus-followers. The yearnings of people who love God and who read the sacred texts of scripture with eyes of faith has broken through centuries of error, misanthropy, and the tragedy of anti-Semitism.
Hundreds of thousands of Jesus-followers have become philo-Semites in various ways and at various levels.
Common issues have included:
(1) The rejection of supersessionism (replacement theology), which was the idea that Christianity had replaced Judaism in the promises and plan of God. The fullest definition of supersessionism is given in R. Kendall Soulen’s The God of Israel and Christian Theology. Supersessionism has varying types and levels as well and some people manage to shed the most egregious levels while retaining others.
(2) The rejection of anti-nomian reactions to God’s commandments. The explanation many heard about why Christians do not keep the Sabbath is so obviously false, it has been a continual problem. Note the glut of Christian writing attempting to spiritualize the Sabbath (including even recent major books by popular authors). The same arguments used against the Sabbath would call for a commandment-free Christianity. It occurred to practically no Christian authors that Sabbath was and still is God’s commandment for Israel (including Messianic Jews) and that Paul’s freedom-from-Sabbath statements were about non-Jewish disciples only.
(3) A discovery of and deep love for the Biblical holidays. Christians began hearing missionaries to the Jews (such as Jews for Jesus) give Passover presentations in churches starting in the 1970?s. The growth of the early Messianic Jewish movement began to include many non-Jews and the idea of Jesus-followers celebrating Passover, Tabernacles, Hanukkah, and other Biblical holidays spilled over and spread. Hundreds of thousands of Jesus-followers have taken hold of the holidays to one level or another. And the joy of God’s calendar is as evident to these lovers of God as it should always have been and always should be for Jewish people.
(4) The growth of teaching organizations and the proliferation of literature with various names including Hebraic and Jewish roots. Some of this material was poorly thought out, lacking in depth, and so on, but it was new for these Christians who soaked it up. And the beauty of it for many people was bringing the whole Bible back into view, so that study of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) became popular again in this subset of people.
(5) The realization that Jesus is Jewish hit many people with force. The essential denial of the Jewishness of Jesus throughout church history is a scandal. The realization that Jesus did not start a new religion rightfully caused many a non-Jew to repent and seek a deeper way of viewing his identity and purpose.
(6) Related to the second point (above), many found that the old arguments about grace versus law were distorted and that the Torah is full of grace. A new view of Paul was developing in scholarly circles. Many in the Jewish roots movement sought alternative ways to interpret Paul. Sadly, the well-thought-out New Perspective on Paul by scholars proliferated a bit late for many in the Jewish roots movement who had already developed less helpful ways of reading Paul. A common Jewish roots reading was to deny any Torah-free statement by Paul using scriptural gymnastics. The realization that Paul’s letters are directed at a non-Jewish audience which is not obligated to Torah missed the Jewish roots movement just as it has missed church theology for thousands of years. To this date the Jewish roots and universal Torah (One Law, Two House) movements have not absorbed the benefits of the New Perspective on Paul literature.
(7) The growth of non-Jews in Messianic Judaism started fairly early and quickly Messianic Judaism became a movement not about Jewish faith and practice in Yeshua, but about non-Jews discovering their Jewish roots. Messianic Jewish leaders welcomed the people and money this brought to their work. The goals of establishing a Jewish movement for Yeshua were sacrificed to popularity.
The Present Situation
Something beautiful and potentially world-changing is at peril due to confusion and the demanding of rights and privileges.
First, the growth of philo-Semitic Christianity is harmed by the adoption in the Jewish roots and universal Torah movements’ disdain for Christianity and the church. Instead of reforming church structures and bringing many of the joyful realizations of Jewish roots into churches, many of these people left, joined Messianic groups, and developed a line of literature denouncing Christianity as pagan.
So now, you are either a Christian pagan or a Messianic. And Messianic to these people means that you keep the holidays, the Sabbath, and various aspects of the Torah (but almost always reject the rabbis, Judaism, and Jewish tradition).
Second, the goals of Messianic Judaism were co-opted by well-meaning non-Jews who simply wanted to live out their Jewish roots. It was easier to do this in a Messianic congregation. The beleaguered leaders of small Messianic synagogues were happy to welcome an influx of people and funding. Meanwhile, the churches people fled from were not willing to take on Passover or Tabernacles. These Jewish roots people were not welcome to express themselves within church structures.
When you have a church in denial of its Jewish origins, a church which does not understand the Pentateuch, a church which promotes unhealthy views of Judaism, can you blame people for leaving?
Even at this moment, churches are largely blind to these issues. Progress has been made. Christians are far more aware today of the Jewishness of Jesus than a decade ago.
But the pressing problems of church life still cause the repair between Judaism and Christianity to be a back-burner issue. Struggling to remain strong in the post-modern world, the church pays only minor attention to its history of anti-Semitism, the new and better views of Paul and Torah, and so on.
It is all too easy for philo-Semitic followers of Jesus to drop out of such church contexts. And there is no home, other than Messianic Judaism, for these disaffected people. So variant forms of Messianic Judaism have developed which are not Judaism, per se, but universal Torah movements.
Looking Ahead to Practical Solutions
Commenters and friends have recently asked me to suggest a way forward for them and people like them.
On the one hand, I have friends in the universal Torah movements who are not at all happy with me. I have been insisting that the Torah was given to Israel on Mt. Sinai, that it is a covenant between Israel and God, that non-Jews are not part of the Torah covenant, that the New Testament affirms the freedom of non-Jews from Torah obligation, and that the relationship of Torah commandments to non-Jews is complex.
I have insisted that Torah does not mean merely the biblical commandments but the whole tradition of Israel that goes with it. There is no such thing as Torah without tradition. The Torah is designed to be filled in by the community of Israel with traditions. So Torah without Judaism is bankrupt. In fact, the word Torah includes tradition inherently (so that the universal Torah movements are not really practicing Torah, but a sort of neo-Karaitism).
I have insisted that the Church is God’s community on earth for bringing Yeshua to the nations. The supersessionism and anti-nomianism of the Church do not mean God has abandoned Christianity. If God abandoned Israel for waywardness and errors we would have ceased to exist long before there ever was a church.
But what are non-Jews who realize all these things to do? How can people stuck between a church indifferent to Jewish roots and a Messianic Judaism that is trying to regain its purpose as a Jewish movement to do?
There are a number of related questions people want answered:
(1) How should Christianity have developed if it had not been supersessionistic and anti-nomian?
(2) What should non-Jews presently in community in Messianic synagogues do?
(3) What should Jesus-believers who love Jewish roots do?
In a series of posts I want to focus first on issues 2 and 3, the more practical ones. If I don’t forget (remind me), I will come back to issue 1. It is less practical, but for many it would form the theoretical base for the kind of community they would like to see.
A few links I found interesting for one reason or another:
Ekklesia – The changing landscape of religion and the media
Clerical Whispers – Sinéad O’Connor: An Unlikely Prophet for a Scandalized Church
Richard Bartholomew – Documentary Shows Child-Witch Stigmatisation Still Occurring in UK Churches
Bible and Interpretation – Not in the Theater: Challenging Josephus’s Location for the Place of Herod Agrippa’s Death (HT)
Psychology Today – Who Have More Out-of-Body Near-Death Experiences—Atheists, Catholics, or Muslims?
Catholic Online – Jubilee year brings over 100,000 pilgrims to shrine of St. James
BBC – Full face transplant man reveals his new look on TV
Biologos – How Could God Create Through Evolution?: A Look at Theodicy, Part 1 – Part 2
Ah, another NHS “infection control” issue, this time in relation to Gideon International Bibles in hospitals.
I strongly suspect that if the Trust wishes to use this as the primary reason to remove Gideon Bibles from patients bed-side lockers, then we will witness a swift resurgence of consternation relating to:
Muslim doctors and nurses are to be allowed for religious reasons to opt out of strict NHS dress codes introduced to prevent the spread of deadly hospital superbugs.
The Department of Health has announced that female Muslim staff will be permitted to cover their arms on hospital wards to preserve their modesty.
This is despite earlier guidance that all staff should be ‘bare below the elbow’ after long sleeves were blamed for spreading bacteria, leading to superbug deaths.
I’ve always supported first and foremost the fight against infection control and the issue of manual handling in relation to Christians and controversies surrounding jewellery and clothing. However, the Department of Health and individual NHS Trusts must be seen to adopt an equable and even-handed approach, toward all religions.
Original Article:
I’m not sure if it’s me or if most Christian stuff out there on the Interweb is a little negative today.
Anyway, Seismic Shock takes our first cursory gander at the the new Palestinian President of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), who is most certainly not very Zionist friendly, to say the least:
Recently Bishop Younan was interviewed by a Danish newspaper. He was asked for his opinion of Christian Zionism and the bishop said, “I hereby declare that Christian Zionism is not only a sick theology but it is a heresy, right along with Arianism and Nestorianism and others. I believe it is time we named this misinterpretation of Christ and the gospel for what it is.”
Richard Bartholomew informs us of a Channel 4 Dispatches programme to be aired tonight, on the traumatic and sickening subject of child-witch accusations in churches in the UK!
Dispatches goes undercover in some African churches in the UK, where evangelical pastors perpetuate a strong belief in witchcraft. They preach that some people are possessed by evil spirits, and that these spirits bring bad luck into the lives of others.
The only way to rid the possessed from the witchcraft spell and lift their curse is to ‘deliver’ them: a kind of exorcism that can be very traumatic. Some pastors charge significant sums of money to perform these deliverances.
Often it is children who are denounced as witches by these pastors, and this labelling can lead to the physical and emotional abuse of those children at the hands of their families. In extreme cases it has led to the deaths of some children.
In parts of Africa, branding a child a witch is now outlawed, but in Britain this practise is perfectly legal, despite the fact it can have horrific consequences.
Dispatches reveals just what goes on behind closed doors in these African churches, exposing the pastors who exploit the religious beliefs of the most vulnerable.
Over at the Problem with Religion blog, the topic of religion in overseas development and corruption is discussed:
Corruption is perhaps one of those fears we all have concerning overseas aid. The research presented involved two projects, one in India and the other in Nigeria and the aim of the research was to examine if religious belief had effect on people attitudes to corruption. In Indian the researchers found that although people talked freely about corruption, religion was rarely mentioned as something that would modify behaviour – though some subjects were aware of Hinduism’s condemnation of corruption (here it must be remembered that Hinduism does not have one sacred text, as is found in Christianity or Islam, but has a body of writing (mainly much older than the Bible or Qur’an)). Whereas in Nigeria, many subjects, both Christian and Muslim, made reference to sacred texts and religious ideas and ideals. The general belief was that if people were more religious then there would be less corruption. Of course in reality it is both the religious and none religious who engage in corruption. Indeed, it is one of the sad truths of modern day life, that, in general, the more overtly religious a country the more incidents of corruption. China is an exception to this rule, in that it is not an overtly religious nation, yet has high rates of corruption; however I ventured to suggest that perhaps what could explain this anomaly is the notion of ideology – in China there is the ideology of Communism, in Nigeria there is religion, yet it seems (to me at least) that both fulfil the same role: a solution in consciousness to that which is insoluble in actuality. Individuals can believe they are good Party Members or good Christians, while at the same time paying and taking bribes.
Read All (ps this is a very well written, engaging and interesting piece and well worth popping over to read the whole thing…)
And as if all of this wasn’t bad enough, J John laments the all too oft poor quality of coffee in our churches:
Not all church coffee is bad, but the issue that poor church coffee raises is deeper and more troubling. It is that much of what we do as churches can often be described as substandard, second best, mediocre or weak.
Why does the coffee always taste so bloomin’ awful in church? Can anyone tell me?
Hat-tip Biblicus Semitae
Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia Kirill has urged the clergy to use Internet blogs for missionary work. The head of the Russian Orthodox Church warned against idle talk or passing one’s own thoughts for the postulates of the church. The Patriarch was speaking ahead of his second pastoral visit to Ukraine.
This recent appeal by His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, aimed at enhancing the church’s influence through blogging and networking, made the headlines throughout the Runet. IT-analyst Alexander Mitrofanov believes that the Internet is a good vehicle to carry the live language of the church to the people.
“Many priests and church hierarchs have their own blogs in the global network,” he says. “It helps people seeking their paths in life. Jesus Christ taught His apostles to attract people by the word. High technology and the Internet should serve the same purpose.”
Patriarch Kirill sees social networking as an opportunity for dialogue and revival of the epistolary genre. IT expert Alexander Kuzin says the patriarch wants to establish a dialogue with the Internet community in a user-friendly language.
“The Church wants to make itself understood to most readers,” he says. “This does not mean that church bloggers should use a primitive or false language. Unlike former Internet resources, social networks and blogs make it possible to talk and listen. Communication is crucial. A contemporary user wants two-way communication, so that they could ask questions and receive the answers, and could enter discussions with the others.”
The Vatican has been making an effective use of the Internet for years. According to expert Alexander Kuzin, expanding influence is common in church activity.
Justin Topp of the Science and Theology blog (Subtitled; A biologist’s view of science & religion), a quite fascinating blogger, has posed a seemingly simple question:
….How do you personally define the word “I”?
I imagine there could be a plethora of different approaches to answering this question and I ventured the obscure statement:
I find the very concept of hell entwined with that very small word…
Justin responded:
Stuart… interesting stuff. Care to expand and make me feel even more condemned?
This was my rather brutally honest answer:
Oh gosh I don’t want anyone to feel condemned, there’s enough of that going around already.
I’m prone to ‘ups’ and ‘downs’ (physiological not reactive depression), however, there is one constant in the depressed state and that is being consumed with ‘I’.
Poor me, what about me, why me, etc, all focused around me, myself, and I.
‘Up’ periods are focused on those around me, and of course God.
And so for me (and I must stress this is a personal confession) my worst times are when I am solely focused on ‘I’ at the expense of all others. This truly is hell, albeit a living one.
For me this is a simple truth, that to be completely self-absorbed is indeed a highway to a personal living hell. The antidote to this encapsulates the entirety of the essence and missive of Christ. The true message is to love others and love God. The core of the work of Jesus revolves around communicating the laying down of your own life for others, and to forgo self, or ‘I’.
This is true human liberation in every sense.
Do pop over to Justin’s blog and venture your defintion of ‘I’.
