Reality Check

Here is simple reminder that many of us a very blessed. We can forget that in a consumer society that equates life with purchasing power and success with the number of toys we have stuffed into our over-sized houses and garages. There is more to life that material possessions and although they are certainly useful and fun and a distraction from the boredom of life they cannot satisfy the deepest longings of the human heart. We were made for something greater.

Chasing Creativity

Here is a little something I stumbled across recently entitled, "33 Ways To Stay Creative." As you will see some of the ideas are better than others but overall it makes for some interesting reading. Creativity over the long haul is not easily attained and although it sounds counter-intuitive, it must be worked at diligently. But the rewards are many and almost everyone appreciates those who are not only concerned with what they say but how they say it!

Here, see what you think... personally I found #33 particularly insightful!

Searching for the Historical Adam

The cover article in the June 2011 issue of Christianity Today is entitled, "The search for the historical Adam." I tweeted the other day, that this search and the debate it has engendered is more important than the contentious discussion about the new perspective on Paul. (That is the full version of my much shorter 140 character tweet!) In fact, this particular issue makes much of the new perspective discussion irrelevant unless there is a way to interpret the scriptures in a way that is consistent with the findings of science or vice versa.

In terms of Christian theology it is not enough to forge ahead as if science does not exist, nor can Christian scientists, or those who are interested in science, ignore the biblical and theological issues raised by the present state of the research. We are, or should be, interested in truth, and in this debate there is still a lot of work to do. So far there is plenty of heated rhetoric but little light. There are all kinds of facts on the table but no agreed upon way of integrating the data into a coherent system.

Christians who have thought about the issues know the challenges that are attached to almost every interpretive decision. The questions are complex and have far-reaching implications on all sides. But regardless of the difficulties this issue is not going away. It cannot be ignored or downplayed. The time has come to roll up our collective sleeves and get to work. And maybe this is a blessing in disguise - maybe, just maybe, it will finally get us past the rather silly preoccupation with certain elements of ecclesiastical correctness that has become an all too common shibboleth in some circles today.

Deja Vu All Over Again

Christian Reconstruction is an attempt to reconstruct the world according to Christian principles. Or to put it another way, it is an attempt to Christianize the world. It is not new and has appeared numerous times in history although it has not always been called by that name. It is often, although not always, wedded to a post-millennial view of biblical prophecy which believes that Jesus will return to the earth at the end of a thousand year period known as the millennium during which the world will be Christianized but not necessarily converted. From a Christian point of view it tends to be very optimistic and triumphalistic about what they see as 'triumph of the gospel,' even though the mere Christianizing of the world does not sound to me like much of a triumph.

Of course, in our world people can believe what they want, including Christian reconstructionists. But that does not mean we have to accept their ideas or even their implicit claim that what they believe is 'Christian' at all or resembles the gospel taught by Jesus and his apostles. From a biblical and theological standpoint I think that Christian Reconstruction fails to understand the nature of the Bible as a library of books that find its ultimate meaning and significance in Jesus Christ. They try to squeeze out of the Bible a Christian political or economic or educational or legal system, and much else besides. These they package as a Christian worldview over against other worldviews. But although the Bible has important things to say about politics, economics, education, law, and indeed all of life, it does not give us a definitively Christian way of doing these things that is absolute and can therefore be explicated in exhaustive detail.

At a more practical level, Christian Reconstructionism is divisive, elitist, and more critically, it distorts the gospel message and distracts people from the tasks that the risen Lord gave to his people. In what is known as the great commission, Jesus said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age" (Matthew 28:18-20). Only by the most incredible rhetorical sleight of hand can these words of Jesus be interpreted to mean "Christianize" the world, or can his command to teach them to observe everything he has commanded result in the imposition of a 'Christian' political or economic or legal system!

One of the darlings of Christian Reconstructionists is an author named Rousas John Rushdoony. In his day, Rushdoony was a prolific writer whose works could never be described as bland! But for all of his literary output the careful reader with a basic grasp of historic, Christian orthodoxy will quickly realize that Rushdoony is a mixed bag at best. While he has some genuinely fascinating insights here and there, by in large his works are a hodge-podge of theology, politics, economics, law, sociology, and cultural commentary that is all mixed together and served up with his own idiosyncratic slant. For all his writing he does not understand the flow of redemptive history and the role of Israel in God's plan of salvation. Even more ironic is his misunderstanding of biblical law and its place in salvation history even though he wrote two large volumes on the Decalogue. In these works he makes the error of making "law" the hermeneutical grid through which he reads and interprets the Bible - an exegetical commitment that distorts the meaning of scripture over and over again.

Rushdoony is worth reading as an academic curiosity but beyond that great caution should be exercised. And yet he continues to be quoted with approval today by men who, frankly, should know better. I first read Rushdoony more than 35 years ago in my late teens and I was surprised way back then when he expressed his doubts, of all things, about the numbers of Jews killed in the holocaust. Incredibly, in one of his larger works, The Institutes of Biblical Law, he shares his views on the holocaust with the reader in section 10 of a chapter on the ninth commandment under the title, "The Lying Tongue" (585-590). All this to say that if the title of his book - The Institutes of Biblical Law - is an attempt to imitate John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion he is sadly delusional. The reader would do well to read Calvin and would be missing very little if Rushdoony is forgotten. Reviving Rushdoony in our day is inexcusable and completely unnecessary. There are much better treatments of every subject on which he writes, and this overall theological framework is deeply flawed. Christian Reconstructionism should not be confused with the Christian gospel and Christians have much better things to write about and to work on. Let's not repeat the mistakes of the past but learn from history and work together for a better tomorrow.