Currently Reading Give God the Glory: Ancient Prayer and Worship in Cultural Perspective By Jerome H. Neyrey see related

"What is male in us is most especially the intellect."

--Philo of Alexandria (Q&A on Genesis 3.52)

Gratia vobis et pax a Deo Patre et Domino nostro Iesu Christo.

Surprise, I'm alive!  For all most of you folks knew, I could've been dead, so thanks for your concern.  At any rate, however, I was merely postponing making another post until a certain associate managed to get certain materials into my hands... and of course, life wouldn't be complete without massive delays.  I'll strive not to make this too terribly long-winded...

Last time I posted, as I recall, was the 17th, and I mentioned that I'd have to attend my uncle's viewing, this uncle being my deceased step-father's brother.  I barely remember it anymore, except for one thing.  Turns out that a cousin of mine has become a pastor with no small affinity for apologetics, because that was definitely the most apologetics-oriented funeral sermon I've ever heard.  See, my uncle was an unbeliever, and so my cousin (my uncle's nephew) said that he wanted to say to us what he'd say to my uncle if he were still here to listen.  (Of course, as my mother noted, my uncle would've no doubt hated it; he was never a fan of 'preachy' funeral messages.)  At the very least, we got a cosmological argument, a teleological argument, and some further apologetics pertaining to Christianity as the solution to the human problem.  It definitely highlighted to me an interesting way to handle the matter.

On the 19th, I headed off for one of the most amazing Bible studies in a long time.  Garbed in my Chinese silk robe, I rode with my friend Daniel to the chapel, where we found over time that there'd be a total of six of us, with the other four being Ryan M., Matt O., Dave, and Rob, who traveled from another state to be there for this.  We were intending to focus on getting through Philippians, though for the first portion, we managed to talk in wide, sweeping circles about eschatology, Christianity in China and ancient Bithynia, and the connection between honor and kinship in the ancient Mediterranean.  I was, no surprise, behind most of this.  I also managed to go off on a tangent on reading the Lord's Prayer in light of a peasant setting, and I believe I covered the Hazon Gabriel and Gnosticism, while I was at it.  In other words, we'd barely finished Philippians 1 before lunchtime rolled around, and so we grabbed some pizza at a local place for such things.  Heh... I'll just mention that when we were pooling our money, everyone decided that I was going to be the one holding it all, evidently, and so they were swapping bills in and out of my hand.  After this, I simply had to remark, "I have no idea what just happened, but I think I made a profit", and I subsequently pocketed the cash, not sure what was going on.  Eventually did figure it out, though, and after a great meal we returned to the study with a determination to get through the text.  The only Bible I'd brought was my Greek-English interlinear New Testament, and the ordinary text is contained in thin columns in the margins, so I just read the word-for-word rendering beneath the Greek, which produced a rather peculiar effect.  Aside from the issues of Philippians itself, we also touched upon topics like Greco-Roman letter-writing, Roman imperial ideology, and assorted intertextual echoes.  All in all, an excellent time, concluding with an extended period of prayer and followed by several hours of discussion of more pressing matters that I cannot go into here.  On the way back in the car, Daniel asked me to hold his cup, and so I said sure and promptly put it in the empty cupholder right next to him and simply gave him a stare.  He felt, needless to say, rather silly.

Since I last posted, it was also wonderful to see a few of my friends here and there.  Met with my biological father again and talked plenty about my sojourn in China, got to see Daniel a couple times (including to read some stuff by Philo of Alexandria), spent time with my friends Tracy and Joy, and hosted my girlfriend Sarah for a while as well.  I also perhaps got put under hypnosis, which was... interesting.  Not entirely certain if I really was or not, because although I remember most everything quite fine, I do recall that when the hypnotic suggestion of changing temperatures was given, I could physically feel it getting warmer or colder.  Very interesting.  Also got a number of new CDs, including some stuff by Norma Jean, Living Sacrifice, and Haste the Day.  Good stuff, by and large.

Reading, reading...  Been doing a fair bit of that, I suppose.  Utterly set aside John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion for a time when I have more patience for it.  The chapters are getting a bit longer at this point, and the text simply doesn't lend itself so easily to the sort of divisions that presently are critical in my reading schedule.  Finished N. T. Wright's Surprised by Hope.  It was spectacular, with perhaps the sole flaws that I wish Wright would've focused more on hell, and also I'd love for him to one of these days spell out his political stances more clearly, because he constantly drops hints, and the matter rather intrigues me.  Also got through Esler's fine Conflict and Identity in Romans.  I likewise managed to finish The Variety of American Evangelicalism, ed. Donald Dayton, and The Central Message of the New Testament by Joachim Jeremias, and the other day I got through Robert Bowman's Jehovah's Witnesses, Jesus Christ, and the Gospel of John (excellent book that's conversant with the best defenders of the Watchtower's views; the book focuses in on John 1:1 and John 8:58, though an appendix briefly treats John 20:28), and We Left Jehovah's Witnesses, a collection of personal testimonies that were quite fascinating.  Currently working on:

• Give God the Glory: Ancient Prayer and Worship in Cultural Perspective by Jerome Neyrey
• Christus Victor: An Historical Study of the Three Main Types of the Idea of Atonement by Gustaf Aulen
• Paul's Letter to the Romans: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary by Ben Witherington III
• The Da Vinci Cod by 'Don Brine'

The first of these books is quite excellent.  Precisely what I'd expect from a Context Group treatment of prayer and worship.  Quite helpful, and I think I'll have use for this in preaching at some point.  The second book is... eh.  Highly flawed and rather imbalanced.  Aulen treats the Ante-Nicene Fathers before the New Testament, which strikes me as an unjustified move.  He all-too-frequently defines disparate views in terms of whether he believes they focus on the atonement as Christ acting qua man (the "Latin" view) or Christ acting qua God (the "classic" view).  Frankly, I think that this dichotomy is rather spurious in many cases, as no room is left for the view of Christ acting qua theanthropic individual, as the God-man whose atoning work must be seen simultaneously as involving his deity and his humanity as both utterly indispensible elements of what transpired.  While Aulen chastises the Latin view for (allegedly) disconnecting the incarnation and the atonement, I would charge that his accounts do so artificially.  Aulen also caricatures the Latin view as "legalistic" merely because it is "juridical", whereas more properly he should term it "legal".  Moreover, Aulen continually criticizes the Latin view as "rational" and champions how free the "classic" view is from this sort of treatment.  I think that's rather one of the primary problems with exclusively holding to the "classic" view (and, for the record, I adhere to a synthesis of the two in order to more adequately reflect the fullness of the New Testament's varied presentation of the facets of Christ's death).  And as an added bonus, while Aulen prefaces his work by saying that he means this to be merely a historical study and not a defense of the "classic" view, this pretense is undermined by the clear tone of the work, which includes numerous editorial remarks that highlight his bias.  All in all, the book is certainly useful in exploring the issue of the atonement, but really needs to be taken with a few grains of salt, rather than blindly accepted (as some folks I know regrettably seem to do).

As for Witherington's commentary, it has its ups and downs.  While he mentions Esler's book near the beginning as an important recent work on Romans, Witherington manages to steadfastly avoid even so much as mentioning the book from there on out.  This is rather unhelpful, as I'd been quite interested in how Witherington might make use of that material.  Witherington does, unfortunately, rely a bit too heavily on Stowers, but largely only for the contributions of Stowers that were actually useful.  Witherington comes down chiefly on the side of a primarily Gentile audience, and I look forward to his explanation of his translations in Romans 16, which are really a crux of the matter.  As for the critical matter of Romans 7, which I think is very important, Witherington sees it as explicitly Adamic, and thus focusing on Adamic humanity as a whole.  How this relates to the Torah, Witherington regrettably spends little time discussing.  His repeated insistence on giving nomos so many meanings seems to be done without ample justification.  He also ignores the strongest argument against seeing Adam as the direct referent in Romans 7, and has practically no interaction with Wright's view (the "I" is Israel viewed corporately, but told as a recapitulation of the Adamic transgression; I personally consider this to be the most likely solution).  As for Romans 9-11, however--the section I just completed last night--Witherington comes through with pizazz and makes for some fascinating reading.  Very nice to see somebody get past the typical Reformed treatment to one that's more sensitive to what the text actually says, not to mention the way pretty much everyone understood it until the maverick Augustine traipsed in and, as usual, mucked things up.  (If it's not clear, allow me to mention that I have a rather unflattering view of Augustine and his influence on subsequent theological development.)

As for The Da Vinci Cod, that's not a misspelling, it's a parody.  And a pretty blasted good one, too.  As the author says, "Where there's a code, there's a cod...".  'Don Brine' (a parodic pseudonym for Adam Roberts, a literature professor at the University of London) is witty, clever, and outstrips the original in many ways.  I don't often read fiction, but this sort is worth it, and any of you who have read The Da Vinci Code will get extra enjoyment out of this little treat.

Pretty soon, I'll be returning to college, and so I'll have quite a shift in reading material.  A large portion of it will consist of whatever class readings I get assigned; also, I plan to read some classical Greek literature now that I know what part of the library contains the Loeb Classical Library series; and in addition, I think I'll try using the InterLibrary Loan system to get my hands on all the books on my wishlist that cost tremendous amounts of money, so that I can read them even while I can't afford them.  And I hope to take copious notes.  Of course, I eventually intend to purchase them anyway... but for now, I'll just make the best use I can of my free ILL privileges.  I also look forward to being able to hook my laptop up to the college's high-speed Internet connection so that I can (i) upload pictures and videos from my time in China, (ii) download some of the audio debates I've stumbled across without being informed that it'll take five hours (literally!), (iii) view You-Tube videos again, and (iv) download anything and everything I find useful from JSTOR's stash of old Journal of Biblical Literature articles, and maybe more depending on what I can access on JSTOR via college.  I recently had a chance to read Philip Harner's 1973 article on qualitative anarthrous predicate nouns in Greek, with special attention to John 1:1c.  Awesome.  The Watchtower uses it, but so incorrectly that it boggles the mind.  The actual article strongly supports the traditional rendering of the verse (i.e., "the Word was God", or "the Word was Deity"), and in fact thoroughly debunks the Watchtower's insertion of the indefinite article (i.e., "the Word was a god").

Speaking of which, since the last time I posted, I've had about three meetings with my Jehovah's Witness friends.  First up was on the 26th, and they showed up 45 minutes late.  Evidently something in their schedule had changed or something, and they'd had something else they needed to do.  Alright, so be it.  They're darn lucky I was still (for some reason) waiting for them, especially since I'm not exactly known for this "patience" thing that I've heard mentioned in the fables... Anyway, "Shem" was no longer the second guy; now it was a fellow I'll call "Mephibosheth".  I like that name.

Erm, so they showed up at quarter of 1, at long last, and I had all my materials on the table, because today was Chapter 4 from the What Does the Bible Really Teach? book: "Who Is Jesus Christ?"  As I think I might've mentioned, I'd been meaning to prepare an essay defending the orthodox view of Jesus against various objections and such. Well... I'm a procrastinator, and so I had to do the bulk of it yesterday in a rush for probably about seven or eight solid hours, and add some more this morning, carefully rationing my time. (I used my opening statement from a debate I had a while back as a template.) After it came to around 24.5 pages, I set it to print and then went for a shower. So thus I had my materials prepared, plus some print-outs from Let God Be True and the Should You Believe in the Trinity? booklet.

Returning to the story at hand, I mentioned after a prayer that I had looked through the chapter and found some disagreeable portions, so we might have to deviate from the ordinary routine in some fashion.  "Uriah" asked which part of the chapter I'd found questionable, and so I leafed through it and informed him that it was pp. 41-42, remarking "cuz we're Trinitarian folk 'round here".  Uriah was quite surprised; his memory must've been failing, 'cuz he coulda sworn I was a non-Trinitarian.  Oopsies.  Anyway, since I also surprised them a bit by not having any real objections to most of the rest of the chapter, we agreed to spend this meeting on everything up through page 40, and then to tackle the meaty stuff the next time.

So, no real big excitement this time around, at least not the sort of excitement that would involve me spending an hour debating theology with folks.  The material basically just covered the fact that Jesus is the Messiah, that he was proclaimed at his baptism, and a couple messianic OT texts (Micah 5:2 and Daniel 9:25). I talked a fair amount of the time--explaining first-century Jewish messianic expectations, mentioning various perspectives on who Jesus was/is, and likewise elaborating on some of the ridiculous suggestions atheists come up with for the miracles of Jesus. I also mentioned some stuff about Daniel 7, and so Uriah said that next time he'd bring me a book of some sort about Daniel, a point-by-point interaction with critical scholarship.  Sounded interesting, and it goes without saying that I'm always ready to augment my library with something new and interesting.  Oh, and Uriah told a story about a non-Trinitarian woman he met who didn't think her church believed in the Trinity, and who got a rather incredulous response from her pastor when she mentioned it... since the word "Trinity" was part of the name of the church.

Mephibosheth was pretty quiet during most of the meeting.  His reading wasn't quite as polished as Uriah's, either, so I figured he might be a bit new to the whole thing.  So at the end of everything, I asked Mephibosheth to tell me his story, and so he did, and it actually went on for a while.  Basically, he was raised as a JW, but when he was around 13, his parents fell away.  He basically followed suit, as did the rest of the kids, save for the two oldest.  Many years later, he had a daughter, and I'm guessing that he and his wife divorced by this point.  His daughter was 3, and one day he was seized with thoughts about his daughter's future, and so he called his older sister and said he needed to get his life back on track.  That was about six years ago, since his daughter is 9 now, and he was baptized four years ago.  That story drew the meeting to a close.

The next encounter was on August 2nd, and later that day I was scheduled to attend a church picnic of sorts to welcome my church's new pastor.  After I had gotten everything more or less in order, the appointed time arrived, and I opened the door to find Uriah.  No Shem, no Mephibosheth, just Uriah flying solo for a time.  And so I invited him in and asked how the other two guys were doing.  Shem's been having some problems with partying drunkard neighbors, as it turns out, and so he's been losing a lot of sleep lately; only got like 1.5 hours the previous night, which was why he couldn't make it.  As for Mephibosheth, he's dealing with some conflict at home.  He remarried in March, and he gets his daughter during the summers, I guess, and the daughter doesn't appreciate having to share daddy's attention with the new lady.  So I think the both of these guys could use some prayers from you folks.

Anyway, my mother had been doing some baking for the picnic, and so we waited to get things started until she had finished mixing the cake batter/mix/whatever the heck state cake is in before it gets taken out of the mixer.  Don't ask me, I'm the world's worst cook.  Anyway, while we waited for this to get done, Uriah and I made small talk, and he gave me the book he'd promised to bring, Pay Attention to Daniel's Prophecy!, plus the latest issues of Awake! and The Watchtower. (The latest issue of the latter has a defense of their insertion of the Tetragrammaton into the NT text, for example.)

Finally we began with a prayer and moved on to the first paragraph of the section in What Does the Bible Really Teach?.  Just covered the pre-existence of Christ, so there was nothing objectionable, as he expected.  After he read the next paragraph, though, we got right into the issue of whether or not Christ is a created being, and I'd say I did a large amount of the talking, including reading the section on Colossians 1:15 from last week's edition of the essay I'd been writing.

(Somewhere in here, Uriah inquired as to my preferred translation of the Bible.  I responded that I'm somewhat partial to my NIV and my NRSV, but that I first and foremost try to reference the original language text whenever possible, and that I also use the Modern KJV and the original text in parallel on my computer.  And I added that in this sort of context, I also check the NWT to see what sort of take the Watchtower has on a passage.)

From there, I think I spent ages rambling about the distinction between eternal, uncreated, divine things and temporal, created, non-divine things, using a little chart, and I explained that, drawing on the categories current in the first-century of divine hypostases, the earliest Christians had been led (taking their cue from Jesus himself) to place him in the first portion of the graph instead of the second, and that as centuries of theological reflection in the face of challenges led Christians to consider the implications of having done so (especially over against challenges from blokes like Arius), they eventually realized that the only suitable formulation for the truth they'd found was the Trinitarian formula of three co-essential persons constituting the one and only true God.  At some point during this, I read a number of quotations from the second-century Church Fathers to demolish the argument in Should You Believe in the Trinity? to the effect that the Christians in this period did not believe in the full deity of Christ.

Eventually, I managed to bring my speech to a close, and Uriah offered two points of observation--first, he commended me for my thorough, cogent research and respectful, non-mocking presentation and especially a willingness to read through a large amount of disagreeable literature from the Watchtower, and said that he'd never met a Trinitarian who had that kind of handle on the material, and even conceded that many Jehovah's Witnesses were definitely beneath my level by miles; and second, he quoted Mark 7:7-8a to apply it to the situation at hand.  (Granted, it didn't really fit...)  Then he asked me to offer some words from my heart about what it's like for me to read a "simple Bible", and so I simply stated that my passion is to understand God's self-revelation in its written form by allowing the text to confront me and by seeking to comprehend it as it would have been comprehended in its earliest setting, and then he and I managed to go off on a tangent about the nature of analogical language in theology for a while, both agreeing that it's quite necessary.

At some point we actually managed to proceed to the next paragraph from What Does the Bible Really Teach?, which confronted the issue of whether or not Jesus is God.  It makes three fundamental arguments: (i) Jesus is created (see prior verse) but Jehovah is eternal (Psalm 90:2); (ii) the Father is greater than the Son (John 14:28; 1 Corinthians 11:3); and (iii) Jehovah alone has the title "God Almighty" (Genesis 17:1).  We only managed to cover (i) and (ii); I think he totally forgot that (iii) was even there. I noted, in my treatment of the paragraph, that (i) relied on the previous section, which we'd already discussed (and, while I didn't point it out, he never managed to demonstrate that Colossians 1:15 establishes the Watchtower position, although he tried to ask some leading questions about "firstborns" in human families, which is when I led us on a trek down analogy lane and ended up discussing the manner in which Christ is begotten of the Father), and I noted that the same kind of language used in Psalm 90:2 is used of Wisdom (the pre-incarnate Christ, as the Watchtower accepts it) in Proverbs 8:23.  But, of course, since Proverbs 8 hadn't come up in the conversation, I led us on to (ii), where I explained the distinction between essence and function/'authority' and offered two possible understandings of 1 Corinthians 11:3 that preserve a Trinitarian understanding.

From 1 Corinthians 11:3, he actually wanted to take some time (I think he might've needed a bit of a breather) to track off to the issue of biblical teaching on men and women, so we tossed that around for a while, and he was pleased to see that I'm relatively egalitarian, unlike some Christian men he'd met. S ometime after this point, my mother brought us each slices of freshly baked banana bread, and so we chowed down as the conversation turned from the issues of Scripture and more to some anecdotes from Uriah from his door-to-door witnessing.  For example, one time he led a study in a house that had about 42 iguanas, of which only around 12 were caged, and Uriah can't stand reptiles.  But he persisted, and one time the family asked for two weeks off because company was coming... and then, when Uriah returned for the scheduled study, the family had moved out!  In another story, he had asked a Trinitarian woman to explain the doctrine, and she just shouted, "I don't need to know!"  In yet another story, he had been leading a study with a family, and they invited a 7-ft. tall, 120-lb. man named Solomon to join them one day... and in the middle of the study, Solomon shrieked, stood up, knelt on the flood, and prayed for the blood of Christ to protect the Christian family from these JW "apostates".  Not exactly the most tactful incident in human history...

At any rate, I told Uriah that we could study again on the 16th, and that my girlfriend would be joining us... and then, of course, I rambled for a few moments about how wonderful she is, but eventually I managed to focus again.  We agreed to continue with the next paragraph in What Does the Bible Really Teach?.  Also, at the end of the study, I offered Uriah my print-out of my essay to read over and research, and he accepted it, slipping it into his satchel.  Given that reading opposition literature isn't exactly held by the Watchtower in terribly high esteem, I was a tad surprised but quite pleased.  In the meantime, I determined to work on beefing up my electronic copy of the essay so that I can print out a more powerful version for next time.

The picnic was excellent, and I enjoyed a chance to finally talk to my new pastor, largely about books and higher education--but more on him later.  Since then, I've gotten to see a few good movies, such as Hancock and Journey to the Center of the Earth.  Awesome.  Simply awesome.  My girlfriend and I also recently watched The Mummy and The Mummy Returns; I wanted a refresher so that perhaps sometime soon I can see the third installment.  Also, I went to the Lancaster Mennonite Historical Society's booksale and procured a very packed boxful of books for under $16.  Very good deal, considering that I obtained:

• A copy of the Tanakh entirely in Hebrew
• A trilingual Gideon New Testament in German, French, and English
• Jesus: A Life by A. N. Wilson - this should be amusing, as one of the targets Wright tears apart in his older Who Was Jesus?, which also critiques Spong and Barbara Thiering
• The Late Great Planet Earth by Hal Lindsey - again, I can't help but roll my eyes at contemporary eschatological hysteria-mongers
• We Left Jehovah's Witnesses, edited by Edmund Gruss - collection of testimonies by former Jehovah's Witnesses
• Let God Be True by the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society - can't believe I found the 1952 revised edition of the Watchtower's 1946 study book
• Heresies Exposed! by William C. Irvine - an expanded edition of a 1917 classic against various 'heretical' views, from Theosophy and "Russelism, or Jehovah's Witnesses" to atheism, agnosticism, evolutionism, and Roman Catholicism.
• The Chaos of the Cults by J. K. van Baalen - sort of the precursor to Walter Martin's famed The Kingdom of the Cults
• Handbook of Denominations in the United States, 2nd ed., by Frank Mead - the book is now at least in the 12th edition, so it's quite outdated, but seems fairly comprehensive, even devoting half a page to my tiny denomination (the Evangelical Congregational Church).
• The Book of Confessions - the first part of the constitution for the United Presbyterian Church.  I'm interested because it includes, among other things, the Heidelberg Catechism and the Westminster Confession of Faith, both of which I've been planning to procure and read eventually.
• The Protest of a Troubled Protestant by Harold O. J. Brown - not exactly sure what it is, but it looks interesting, and it's from the Contemporary Evangelical Perspectives series
• Iglesia ni Cristo: A Study in Independent Church Dynamics by Arthur Tuggy - interesting study on a cult in the Philippines, doubly interesting because I've had a formal debate on the Trinity with a member of the Iglesia ni Cristo.
• Let the Earth Hear His Voice, edited by J. D. Douglas - the result of the International Congress on World Evangelization held in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1974.  Appears to include a lot of fascinating papers, and it's very long (over 1460 pages).
• Jesus: An Historian's Review of the Gospels by Michael Grant - I've heard a lot about this, but really oughta actually read it, now that I have the chance
• Islam and Christianity: A Muslim and a Christian in Dailogue by Badru Kateregga and David Shenk - an interesting dialogue book that has 12 chapters by the Muslim, each with a Christian response, and then 12 parallel chapters by the Christian, each with a Muslim response.
• Evangelism Explosion, 3rd ed., by D. James Kennedy - I've heard of this somewhere, so since it didn't take up much space in my box, no reason not to take it
• Baptism, Eucharist and Ministry - a Faith and Order Paper (number 111) from the World Council of Churches, so this'll be handy somehow
• God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It by Jim Wallis - alright, nothing special, but for some reason it's been popular, so I might as well see if the book has more substance than I expect
• God and Caesar: Christian Faith and Political Action by John Eidsmoe - a fitting counterbalance to the previous book
• Basic Christianity by John Stott - can't pass up a popular classic
• An Interpretation of Christian Ethics by Reinhold Niebuhr - I'm not terribly interested, but I need to start building up my Neibuhr collection, so...
• Biblical Images in Literature, edited by Roland Bartel, et al. - okay, now this seems cool.  Collection of essays on how various literary works have used the Bible.  There's an essay on Moby Dick, one on Shakespeare, and some on Mark Twain and John Steinbeck, among plenty of others.
• The Old Testament and the Fine Arts by Cynthia Pearl Maus - mega-cool.  Divides the Old Testament into segments and provides artwork, poems, short stories, and hymns based in each.  There is some seriously awesome stuff in this, and I can readily envision using some of this in my preaching.  There's one poem by Charles Wesley that's an incredibly moving reflection on Jacob's wrestling match, and another poem called "The Sacrament of Light" by John Oxenham.
• A Christian Manifesto by Frances Schaeffer - I've heard a lot about this book, particular from an economics teacher I once had
• The Evangelical Essential: What Must I Do to Be Saved? by Philip Janowsky - a defense of Luther's doctrine of sola fide
• What is Christianity? by Adolf Harnack - yeah, I actually found Harnack in there, complete with introduction by Rudolf Bultmann.  For better or for worse, a classic that I just had to own.
• The Holiness of God by R. C. Sproul - I've heard it mentioned far too often to not get it
• Honest to God by John A. T. Robinson - same as the one above, but I suspect I'll find it a lot worse
• Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster  - an indispensible devotional classic
• The Resurrection of Jesus Christ by Gerald O'Collins - I'm always looking for stuff on the resurrection, eh?
• Revelation and the Bible, edited by Carl F. H. Henry - a Contemporary Evangelical Thought book, and this one with entries by folks like F. F. Bruce, Gordon H. Clark, J. I. Packer, and Bernard Ramm.  Should be interesting.
• From the Apostles' Faith to the Apostles' Creed by O. Sydney Barr - I'm always up for a book that deals with a creed
• The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra - yeah, that.  Now I can at least say that I've got it on my shelf, even if I never get around to reading it.
• Three Jewish Philosophers, edited by Hans Lewy, et al. - has selections from Philo of Alexandria, Saadya Gaon, and Jehuda HaLevi.  Win.
• Guide to the Christian Faith: An Introduction to Christian Doctrine by William A. Spurrier - not totally sure what angle it comes from, but it's in the Scribner Library series, and I'm always open to something from that
• God Was in Christ: An Essay on Incarnation and Atonement by D. M. Baillie - another Scribner Library title.  Has stuff on the historical Jesus, on Christology, on the Trinity, and on the atonement.  My interest is piqued.
• The October 1988 edition of The Journal of Religion
• The Winter 1966 edition of Evangelical Missions Quarterly

All that for just $16?  I'm content.  The next day after that was August 16th, and so it was time for the next meeting with the Jehovah's Witnesses.  My girlfriend had been staying at my place for a few days, so after she and I got everything prepared and in order and I had printed the latest edition of my paper, we sat and waited for Uriah and Shem to arrive.  They showed up quite promptly at 12:40 PM, and we began with some small-talk.  Uriah mentioned that he's preparing for an upcoming convention, and that he's been quite busy between that and work lately.  Shem, in the meantime, had to transfer to another plant at work, and so his driving distance had doubled, and his neighbors were still as unpleasant as ever.  I showed them the copy of Let God Be True that I'd managed to pick up at the booksale, and Uriah mentioned a DVD he'd wanted to bring to show me of a re-enactment sort of movie of the relationship between Paul and Timothy, called "Pursue God's Goals".  From there, we eventually circled around to beginning the study with a prayer.

After that, I inquired of Uriah if he'd had a chance to look into the paper I'd given him.  He said he had skimmed at least part of it, but that he took some issue with the title ("A Vindication of Trinitarian Christology Against the Neo-Arian Christology of the Watchtower"), as he generally puts down things that are "against", and from there he began to discuss his reflections.  (I agreed, incidentally, to change the title to something more moderate and to do the same to various apparently agressive remarks here and there throughout.  In reality, the tone of the paper is extremely mild, especially in comparison to classic Watchtower rhetoric against "Christendom", but hey, if a few alterations that don't affect the substance will gain a better hearing, why not?)  He first pointed to Matthew 24:45-46 and affirmed his belief in the Watchtower Society as the "faithful and discreet slave" who provides him with "food at proper time".  This, he said, did not indicate that he was not to double-check their teachings with the Scripture (he says he does this) or that the Watchtower Society is inherently superior (he said that it was merely the obedient vessel that was doing best when God chose to entrust it with the fullness of the gospel), but nonetheless inclines him to accept its teachings as the truth of God.  Uriah then turned us to Romans 16:17-18, concerning divisive people in the church, and then to 2 John 9-10, regarding the importance of remaining in the teaching of Christ.

When I had a chance to reply, I proposed a hypothetical scenario.  After quoting a portion from Should You Believe in the Trinity? about the importance of having the right stance on this teaching, I asked whether, if some organization claimed to be the "faithful and discreet slave" yet got the matter wrong, they could still be the "faithful and discreet slave".  Uriah's answer was that, perhaps 50 years ago when the "light" was not as bright, that could be a possibility, but that at this juncture in time, with the coming consummation of the age, such an organization would not be the "faithful and discreet slave".  This should lay the groundwork for me to emphasize next time that a doctrinal analysis must be allowed to be logically prior to a judgment as to the Watchtower Society's status.

From there, we went on to a couple fairly unobjectionable paragraphs in the What Does the Bible Really Teach? book, and got to talking a bit about the incarnation. We then turned to Luke 1:30-35, and Uriah inquired as to how a Trinitarian could view this passage, because wouldn't God be giving the throne of David to himself?  After a discourse on the distinction between ontological and functional subordination, I pointed out that on a modalistic reckoning, that would be the case, but that an orthodox Trinitarian reading would be God the Father giving the throne to God the Son.  Uriah affirmed his previous remark that I'm essentially the only real Trinitarian he's ever met, because many can't hold that distinction in mind.  We both lamented the fact that many Trinitarians in the churches don't have much idea about what Trinitarian doctrine really is.  I sketched out the famed diagram of Trinitarian relationships, with the "is not" lines bordering the triangle and the "is" lines leading inward from the circles representing the three persons to the central circle representing the divine nature.  I then showed with this diagram how various alternative views of the Godhead are really just removals of one or two central factors in the diagram.  After my explanation of everything, Uriah asked if I knew other Trinitarians who would have this understanding, and I affirmed that I'm not the only real Trinitarian out there, and that (for example) a number of my associates at college would have given the same answer.

At this point, the conversation basically meandered off, and we agreed to devote the next session 100% to the Trinity.  Uriah said that he'd be willing to discuss that one with me for as long as I'd like, even up to a couple years, in order for us to be satisfied with our pursuit of the heart of the matter, since he can sense my sincerity.  I also told him of the plans I have for founding a new campus organization for discussion-based stuff, mentioned that we're going to have a Trinity discussion night, and asked if he could provide extra copies of their Trinity brochure and maybe even come to give a brief talk.  He said that he can hopefully have the booklets in a few weeks, and he seems willing to come give an address.  Should be a good experience for everyone.  When they left, I realized that Uriah had forgotten his copy of my paper, and so I ran out quickly and returned it to him, saying that if he comes across a verse as he researches for the subject a bit more, he can check through the paper to see if I've already given some thoughts on it.

I'm thoroughly anticipating the next encounter on the 30th. I think that since we'll then be off of the text of What Does the Bible Really Teach?, we can focus on the various Scriptures I'd like to discuss, so perhaps I'll start us off with the Johannine Prologue.  We haven't gotten to that text yet in anything, and so I'm looking forward to it very much.

As for that new campus organization, to be called "Mars Hill", things are thus far going quite well.  We've drafted a preliminary draft of how the year might possibly go, and we have appointments to make our case before both Student Government and the Council of Christian Organizations, despite my suspicions that certain persons in the latter will do everything within their power to impede our progress, simply because that's what they do.  (I've established a special blog to host texts pertaining to the group; thus far, you can read our open letter to the Christian community as well as our constitution.  The aesthetics, admittedly, could use some work.  There's also a Facebook group, which I'm currently keeping under lock and key until we get past Student Government.)  Our plans are many, and though there's much work to do, I think we've gotten an admirable headstart.  What are some of our plans, no one asks?  Well, hopefully we can organize a formal debate on the existence of God.  That is, of course, if we can actually find an atheist in the area who's willing and capable of participating.  That could be the tricky part.  Also, a big, controversial discussion of homosexuality, the Bible, and contemporary culture.  And, also hopefully big, a "Politics and Faith" night, ideally with representatives from the College Republicans and College Democrats each giving their views and then submitting to a Q&A time.  We've also got some more open discussions on stuff like eschatology (and, perhaps next year, protology), and some discussions with other faith communities, if they'll be willing to participate.

I've lately been doing a lot of work pertaining to my other responsibilities: chiefly, that of planning and coordinating the college's Orientation Worship Service.  After making far too many phone calls for my taste, I'm starting to at least get a few more RSVP notices, thankfully.  But I still have to catch up on e-mail correspondence pertaining to this, I think.

Returning to the subject of my new pastor, I wanted to take a bit of time to say some things about him.  His name may be Les Cool, which is difficult to not joke about, but he's actually quite awesome.  I've never had a pastor quite like him.  For one... get ready for the shocker... he's actually quite well-read!  And his scholarly bent shows through in his sermons.  He absolutely loves to read, and he even said that his favorite place to go on a date with his wife is to a bookstore.  And thus it's little wonder that his collection of books is over four times the size of mine (but just you wait, Pastor Les, I'll be catching up someday).  When he and I got a chance to talk, we spent quite a while just discussing books we were reading, and then got into talk about seminaries and about commentaries on Romans (he recommended Cranfield's, which is definitely one I'm meaning to get my hands on).  Although he hasn't been at our church long, we already feel strongly connected with him and his wife, and his prayers are quite clearly sincere and heartfelt.  He has a true heart for serving our congregation, as evidenced quite clearly on a recent Sunday when he used a sermon on forgiveness to powerfully challenge us to heal a wound dealt to our corporate body a couple years ago.  In short, he's already illustrated quite well how a pastor can identify the problems facing a particular church and preach boldly to address them.  He also preaches quite beautiful, elegant, powerful messages, and he's likewise introduced the first actual sermon series that our church has seen in quite some time.  (In addition, he's switching around some things in our liturgy to shake us out of our complacence.  It's actually a nice touch.)  I have a quite strong conviction that under his pastoral leadership, my home church will see much healthier times ahead.

With that, I conclude another lengthy installment of "JB's Posts Which Largely Go Unread by Everyone", as I prepare to return to the academic grind.

Gratia vobis.

Currently Reading Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church By N. T. Wright see related

"God is my witness, how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ."

--Philippians 1:8

Gratia vobis et pax a Deo Patre et Domino nostro Iesu Christo.

Not terribly much to mention in this post.  I should note that, because of everything that's been happening in the news regarding the Hazon Gabriel stone, I updated my old post rather extensively.  Heh... it sure has gotten me a fair bit of additional site traffic, that's for sure.  I plan to continue to revise the post with new information and links whenever I get my hands on the stuff.

I did finally have a chance to deal with the clutter produced by my personal library.  After a long period of exchanging, I managed to put the useful things on the shelves, and now in addition to several full bookshelves and entertainment units, I've got about 13 full boxes of books to be set away in storage somewhere; hopefully, I won't be needing most of those until I live somewhere with sufficient room to handle my collection in all its glory.

As I mentioned before, Shattering the Christ Myth: Did Jesus Not Exist? has finally been released.  A few days ago, my copy finally arrived, straight from J. P. Holding and complete with his autograph, plus his dog Cocoa's autograph.  Heh... the latter is far more legible.  Anyway, the book itself is pretty big.  Not thick, mind you... big.  As in, the pages are just about the size of a standard sheet of paper.  JPH says that this will be the standard format for the Tekton Building Blocks series.  The whole thing looks very nice.  Granted, there are some unfortunate typos that I somehow failed to catch during my previous proofreading sessions; not sure how that happened.  But for a text of that length, some were bound to slip through, I guess.

Also, this year's Chronos (the proceedings of the Philosophy of Time Society) showed up yesterday, so perhaps I'll see if I can read an article a day.  That seems like a modest goal, right?

Haven't gotten terribly much reading accomplished lately.  I did finish Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis, and it only got worse as it went on.  Also finished reading Bruce Shelley's Evangelicalism in America, which was a pretty nice overview of evangelical history up to 1967, when Shelley wrote.  Now I'm working on N. T. Wright's Surprised by Hope, and it's excellent.  Nothing new to me, since I've read Wright's more exhaustive works, but it's good to see a book devoted to solid, faithful delivery of the biblical depiction of the universe's destiny, and ours as well.  I'm also still working through Philip Esler's Conflict and Identity in Romans, but I'm nearing the end.  Just one more chapter, plus the epilogue.  Thus far, it's really one of the best books on Romans that I've read.  See, this is why we need the Context Group around.  I'm also still working slowly through Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion, dull though it is, and despite my edition's small-print, bolded text being rather grotesque and painful to the eyes.  With diligence, I might be able to finish it by the end of the summer; with a bit less diligence, I should have it done by the end of September.  Either way, I'm determined to finish this thing, and maybe then I'll tackle some Martin Luther, and then finally get around to reading Luis de Molina's On Divine Foreknowledge.  I've been putting that thing off forever, it seems.

The other day I entertained a good friend of mine for a few hours.  I suppose I'd forgotten how enjoyable social contact can be, considering that I largely spend my days sealed away within these walls...  Maybe later today, I'll see about going for a walk.  Not that there's any desirable destination in my area, of course.  And I'll need to be ready tonight to attend my uncle's viewing.  He passed away... uh... well, not really sure when, sometime recently.  Then tomorrow, I'll have a rare visit from my biological father, which should be fairly enjoyable.  He's traveled rather extensively, mostly from working in Central America, and so I look forward to telling him tales of China.  Saturday will be amazing, as the folks from my Bible study at college will be meeting up on the campus to blaze our way through Philippians from 9:00 AM to probably around 4:00 PM.  Gonna be a blast, and then since my girlfriend should be returning to the state on Friday, I have a feeling that she'll be getting some of my time thereafter.

Yes, this was a terrible post.  And I feel like I'm forgetting a bunch of stuff.  Maybe my next one will suck less, but I'm somewhat distracted right now.  Catch you folks later.

Gratia vobis.

Currently Reading Conflict and Identity in Romans By Philip Francis Esler see related

"In attestation to his wondrous wisdom, both the heavens and the earth present us with innumerable proofs, not only those more recondite proofs which astronomy, medicine, and all the natural sciences, are designed to illustrate, but proofs which force themselves on the notice of the most illiterate peasant, who cannot open his eyes without beholding them."

--John Calvin (Institutes 1.5.2)

Gratia vobis et pax a Deo Patre et Domino nostro Iesu Christo.

The most important thing I have to say is this: it's out.  It's out, it's out at last.  What is "it", one might query?  "It" is none other than Shattering the Christ Myth: Did Jesus Not Exist?, edited by James Patrick Holding.  (See table of contents here.)  I've been anxiously awaiting this event for months now.  As you'll recall, I wrote one of the chapters in it, which was so long that despite there being almost 30 chapters in the book, mine (weighing in at 50 pages) takes up a little over an eighth of the length.  I urge you all to seriously consider investing in this book, or at the very least finding a copy somewhere and reading it.  (And no, I don't see a cent from this thing; I just get a free copy in the mail once Holding gets his ten from the publisher. )  I've read the manuscript several times through already, and I can assure you that this is a strong, compelling counter to the pervasive mythicist propaganda spewed by the likes of G. A. Wells, Earl Doherty, Acharya S., Robert Price, and Richard Carrier (who should honestly be intelligent enough to repudiate this sort of foolishness, but evidently isn't).

I've been a little slow with reading lately.  Well, I finished both A. Katherine Grieb's The Story of Romans: A Narrative Defense of God's Righteousness and Timothy Ware's The Orthodox Church.  Both were quite good.  I like the way Grieb thinks and writes, and so it's kind of a shame that the work wasn't more technical.  As for Ware, I really enjoyed learning more about Eastern Orthodoxy, and although there's much in their system that I find disagreeable (claims about being "the Church", prayer to the saints, icons, overemphasis of apophatic theology, doctrine of theosis, essence/energies distinction, etc., etc...), there's also a great deal that's fascinating, and I want to learn more.  I also managed to complete Rudolf Bultmann's Jesus Christ and Mythology, in which he sets forth his program of "de-mythologization".  It was... pretty sad, really.  Totally drenched in smug modernism and existentialist philosophy.  Nothing of terribly redeeming value in the book.  Kind of a disappointment, even from Bultmann.

Anyway, I'm now working through three books.  First is Philip Esler's Conflict and Identity in Romans: The Social Setting of Paul's Letter.  Not everything in there is solidly on, and I'm surprised to find that Esler construes pistis Christou as an objective genitive, but otherwise Esler is an astoundingly good antidote to the bad taste left in my mouth by Stowers' ludicrous claims about Romans' audience.  Esler explains, time and time again, why the audience of Romans is quite clearly a mixed audience of Judean and non-Judean; speaking of which, Esler has persuaded me through powerful arguments that "Judeans" and "non-Judeans" (or "foreigners", or "heathens") is a better translation than "Jews" and "Gentiles", and so do not be surprised if any future biblical quotations you see from me will incorporate these corrections.  Second, I'm reading John Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion.  Surprise!  I think I've finally gotten to the point where I can muster sufficient patience for Calvin, despite my rather... strong... views about his theological system as a whole.  Thus far--I've only gotten up to around the fourteenth chapter of the first book--he hasn't set me off too badly yet.  In fact, his stuff on idolatry was quite excellent... although I suspect that any of my Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox readers might have a markedly different opinion, giving that he inveighs against them with some pretty stern and powerful rhetoric.  Finally, just a few hours ago I started reading Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith.  I am... not a fan of this book.  Bell is by far the best of his crowd, but that's not saying much, and while his style is commendable and he often says the right thing, even the very thing I might say, he elsewhere caricatures and nearly demonizes apologetics, and it's quite evident that his outlook is markedly postmodern.  And, for that matter, his thoughts on John 14:6 wholly miss the point of what Jesus was saying, which could be remedied quickly if Bell would do some reading on client-patron relationships in the first-century Mediterranean and their application to religious systems of that day.  Sigh... at least the book moves along fast.

Of course, Bell has this irritating habit of writing one-sentence paragraphs sometimes.

He does it a lot.

It can be extremely annoying at times.

One paragraph actually consisted of a single letter.

Which was kinda neat to look at, aesthetically.

It was the letter "R".

He was talking about a painting in his basement.

And that's how the artist signed it.

Now I'm getting off-track, though.

Not as though Rob Bell doesn't do that, too.

But also, he asks a lot of questions.

Why does he ask so many questions?

Why would God let him be such an irritating writer?

How can God be righteous and just if he permits Rob Bell to write books like this?

Isn't that a real problem?

But it would be wrong for Bell to ever answer these questions.

Right?

Wouldn't that be wrong?

That would be so terrible, I think.

Surely you all agree.

Answering questions is like getting off of the trampoline.

And that's my rather cynical look at Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis thus far.  Sadly, I know far too many folks who number this book among their favorites.  People, Rob Bell might not be the worst thinker out there, but you can do better.  Seriously, check out N. T. Wright's Simply Christian for a start.

The other night, I was reading an online article from Christianity Today by William Lane Craig, and I found this section (on page 6) somewhat thought-provoking:

Properly understanding our culture is important because the gospel is never heard in isolation. It is always heard against the background of the current cultural milieu.  A person raised in a cultural milieu in which Christianity is still seen as an intellectually viable option will display an openness to the gospel.  But you may as well tell the secularist to believe in fairies or leprechauns as in Jesus Christ!

Christians who depreciate natural theology because "no one comes to faith through intellectual arguments" are therefore tragically shortsighted.  For the value of natural theology extends far beyond one's immediate evangelistic contacts.  It is the broader task of Christian apologetics, including natural theology, to help create and sustain a cultural milieu in which the gospel can be heard as an intellectually viable option for thinking men and women.  It thereby gives people the intellectual permission to believe when their hearts are moved.

Thoughts?  I also found this little bit from page 5 interesting:

The idea that we live in a postmodern culture is a myth.  In fact, a postmodern culture is an impossibility; it would be utterly unlivable.  People are not relativistic when it comes to matters of science, engineering, and technology; rather, they are relativistic and pluralistic in matters of religion and ethics.  But, of course, that's not postmodernism; that's modernism!  That's just old-line verificationism, which held that anything you can't prove with your five senses is a matter of personal taste.  We live in a culture that remains deeply modernist.

So yeah, read through that article.  It's fascinating and timely.

Moving on... I spent last weekend with my girlfriend's family.  We spent most of Saturday at her sister's horse show, despite some rather absurd weather (man, I got drenched...), but she managed to snag the overall championship, so it was a fruitful endeavor.  After a stop for some food, I think it was around 8:00 PM by the time we finally made it to the parsonage.  (I should mention that her father is a United Church of Christ minister.)  Had a nice chance to check out her dad's library that evening.  In retrospect, I'd have to say that mine is quite a bit bigger and contains more up-to-date biblical scholarship and philosophy, but he's got a nice assortment of Niebuhr and Bonhoeffer, as well as some tantalizing Strauss and Reimarus.  I can only hope that when I enter the ministry and take a church appointment, I'll be able to get a parsonage as beautifully spacious as that.  I mean... wow.  I could easily deem one of the bedrooms as my study, slip a desk in some sort of nook or cranny, and fill the room with countless bookshelves.

Sunday morning, I got to go to two virtually identical church services, since he officiates at two churches as an interim pastor.  Both churches were small.  I'm guessing about 40-50 people at each service.  My church tends to have around 200.  Of course, I never really think of my church as especially large.  (I've mentioned it here before, but for any who don't recall, I'm a member of the Evangelical Congregational Church, which had its start in my county, if I remember correctly.)  At any rate, there was a children's sermon at both (even, as in the first case, in the absence of any children whatsoever), but the regular sermon was replaced by a presentation called "4 Our Churches", explaining the four-part plan recently approved at the Penn Central Conference.  The services were also rather liturgical and traditional, especially in comparison to my church.  At these churches, the pastor wears a clerical robe; at mine, sometimes the pastor might wear a suit, sometimes simply a dress shirt and tie, and sometimes, quite frankly, our associate pastor might wear a T-shirt and sandals.  These churches had a bulletin full of various responsorial readings and various corporate recitation; the sole such thing in mine is the doxology.  Now, I should mention that at the second service, things were slightly different.  Before the service, I went downstairs to use the bathroom, and on the way back up, I ran into a woman named Pam.  We exchanged pleasantries, and she then asked, out of the blue, whether I knew how to work PowerPoint.  My answer was a rather feeble, "Sometimes I sorta do..."--rather accurate, considering that I have the technical expertise of a stump.  Nonetheless, I was swiftly recruited to basically be the tech guy for the service.  And so rather than sit with my girlfriend and her family, I sat up front and started preparing the laptop as we attempted to properly position the projector.  Of course, in doing this, I became separated from my bulletin, which is pretty essential in order to have a clue what's going on in a service like that.  Eventually, I think my girlfriend passed mine up through the pews to me.  Then, when time grew nearer and I moved up to the first pew from the second in order to operate the computer, I again left the bulletin behind, though I snatched it again as soon as I had the chance.  At any rate, my fundamental task was to play the video (not PowerPoint, as it turned out) for the "4 Our Churches" presentation.  My girlfriend's father, the pastor, had to hold a microphone right above the laptop's speaker to make things loud enough, and the projection took up a fraction of the screen and was somewhat slanted at an odd angle.  Nonetheless, things went pretty well... until the program froze at 3:01.  As the pastor and I tried to work on it in various ways--and the computer barely responded at all, in most cases--the presenter decided to just talk without the video.  In the background, of course, we managed to find some extremely annoying scrolling introductory footage with cheesy music, in order that things might not go smoothly.  In due course of time, I finally managed to get the video back up and running... but, since that would be too good a thing, the presenter was now finished, and so it was all in vain.  So I shut things down, moved some stuff out of the way, and sat in the other front pew... without my bulletin.  Sorta had to fudge the readings that I half-remembered from before, and when the final hymn came around, I had to recall the title, find the alphabetical index, look it up, and then search for that number in the hymnal.  When all was said and done, it was perhaps the most stressful church service I've ever attended--and that includes some where I've delivered the sermon!  But the parishioners thanked me profusely for my assistance; as one said, there was no way they would've gotten even that far without me.  It was pretty shocking to think that I really was the most computer literate person in that room.  Anyway, after a long lunch at which my girlfriend's dad shared some stories about old friends of his from other countries (like C.K. and Duke), we at last packed up and headed out.  It was a great weekend.

The Tuesday following that, I think it was, my best friend Daniel joined me for a day rich with ranting and plotting.  Let me simply remark that the Christian community on my campus is not healthy.  There are a handful of individuals--I shall not name names--who, through their conduct, manage to sow division wherever they go, and I am most definitely not happy.  I really don't mind if I'm excluded, mocked, whatever.  I'm used to all of that and more.  But when it's directed at my friends as well, and when it threatens the unity of the Christian community, that's when I start to get mad.  And while I must be too non-specific to recount any particular atrocities, allow me simply to offer an assurance that what has been done, even recently, is definitely grievous.  And so, with a heavy heart, I've vowed that if I catch word of just one more such incident, just one, the folks at the Wednesday night service are perhaps going to be on the receiving end of a sermon that most of them probably are not going to like.  It will not be a pretty sight, and probably won't change the ways of the worst offenders... but at the very least, it will be made perfectly clear to the offenders that their actions do not go unnoticed, and to those excluded that they are most certainly far from alone.

At any rate, we spent a while after that doing some analysis of the theological perspectives of some of the folks from back at college.  Many, alas, fell into the fundamentalist camp, which we subdivided into three: the "good" fundamentalists who hold rather fundamentalist views on at least most things, but are intellectually engaged and open to reason; the "inexperienced" fundamentalists, who are that way primarily because they're new to Christianity and were introduced to a fundamentalist version, or else were raised fundamentalist and only fairly recently started really thinking about things; and the "bad" fundamentalists, who will simply not be open to discussion because they don't operate that way.

After a while, we managed to accidentally relocate my old copy of Right Behind, a rather excellently done parody of the first Left Behind novel, and so we took turns reading the first 50 or so pages aloud to one another over supper.  We found ourselves reminded of "Left Behind Fridays".  The book was quite accurate to the spirit of Left Behind, but made the absurdity so evident through cutting barbs that it took on a whole new quality.

Somewhere in all of this, I think at the very beginning of the visit, I took him through this thread on the Internet.  I think I forgot to mention here that, some time ago, I was reading the local newspaper and found a letter to the editor by one George Kanoff that primarily concerned the Shroud of Turin, but in which he also took some shots at Christianity as a whole, including a flippant remark about the historicity of Jesus:

The historicity of Jesus has been questioned for several centuries as of now, but the Christian community will manufacture evidence to support its tradition in spite of the evidence to the contrary.

Well, it wasn't long before I fired back, and around a week or so later, the letter actually showed up in the paper.  My local newspaper also puts all of these letters online and creates forum threads around them, and so I joined up to duke it out with critics.  I've had, as should be apparent, quite a blast, especially with that dunce "Whirlwind".  Nonetheless, it seems that he and his cronies have fled in a panic at their inability to so much as phase me.  It shouldn't be difficult to see that I beat them all, hands down.  Good times...

At any rate, after some fun with Right Behind, Daniel and I began to make preparations for our tasks for the coming academic year.  See, first of all, I'm the president of Ministry Team, and he's the secretary, which is basically also a vice-presidential position.  So we had to hammer out some things for that.  Furthermore, I know I've mentioned previously that he and I are among the founding members (along with my old roommate, Chris) a new group on campus, one that will be devoted to fostering discussion, intellectual enrichment, and outreach.  You know, the sort of thing that should've been done all along, but which we need to start because the closest comparable thing fell apart a few years back because it had no leadership.  Anyway, the group is tentatively named "Mars Hill", and Daniel and I went through the constitution for the Council of Christian Organizations (CCO) so I could see the various sections involved in order to draft one for our group.  We then got into specifics of what sorts of events to run, when to do things, how to go about approaching CCO about the matter, etc., etc.

That ended our evening, and the next morning I sat down and, over the course of several hours, churned out a constitution, along with an open letter to the Christian community to explain further the reasons why the group is necessary.  I then sent both off to Daniel, who recently returned it with a couple of notes, and thus we're in the process of refining it all.  When we reach a good point, we plan to send it to Chris, who will be the organization's first president, since Daniel and I already hold high offices in other groups.  Chris, of course, is unlikely to check his e-mail promptly, and so if I don't hear back from him in, say, five days or so, I will probably call his cell phone, yell at him to check his e-mail, and perhaps pronounce a ritual curse on him and his lineage.  In other words, the usual.

At any rate, my newest tale is of another meeting with my favorite Jehovah's Witnesses, "Uriah" and "Shem".  Chapter 3 of What Does the Bible Really Teach? concerns the restoration of the earth.  In short, since I agree that our ultimate hope is not some ethereal, disembodied existence in another realm but rather bodily resurrection and a renewed earth inundated with the glorious presence of YHWH, there was fairly little disagreement, which actually seemed to catch Uriah off guard, if anything.  He kept having to ask, over and over again, if I was sure I didn't disagree with what the book said (which primarily consisted of Scripture quotes, at those parts).  Ordinarily, you see, that chapter is one of their hardest to get through with folks, and even with me, they figured it might take two sessions instead of just one.  Oh, and we did have a brief tangent on the subject of hell, in a sense, and I basically got them to accidentally concede one of their typical arguments against conscious, eternal punishment.  At any rate, before they left, I told them that the next chapter would provoke some controversy, and that they should come prepared.  Uriah just smiled, and I have a feeling that he seriously underestimates the coming storm.  But, either way, the next meeting will be 26 July.  I've been slacking too much to be ready on the 12th, and on the 19th I'll be meeting up with a bunch of guys from the Guys' Bible Study at college to spend a day working through Philippians.

And so, with that, I bid you adieu.  This weekend is shaping up to be primarily concerned with housework.  Particularly, figuring out what to do with books.  It should come as no surprise that my house is covered in them.  I've got boxes and boxes of them, and they need to be reorganized and relocated.  Ugh... oughta get to work, I suppose.

Gratia vobis.

Currently Reading The Orthodox Church: New Edition By Timothy Ware see related

"I desire, I invite this process, injection begin
Begin, break the skin, salvation quickly driven in
Pride in fracture, in subjection
A new supply running red with purpose
Nothing less than flawless in design"

--"Bloodwork", Living Sacrifice
(Album: The Hammering Process)

Gratia vobis et pax a Deo Patre et Domino nostro Iesu Christo.

Before all else, I'd like to wish a very happy birthday to a very beloved brother in Christ, Jimmy Li.  I'm sure most of my readership knows this guy.  Skilled apologist, devoted evangelist, military man, perpetual student, and gifted poet, all in one package.  Jimmy, may God bless you abundantly from the deep well of his riches.

I've given up on my announced goal to read through all the Ante-Nicene Fathers this summer. I just haven't had the energy to plow through any more of Arnobius' Against the Heathens. In other words, I've done no work on this plan in the past ten days, and I don't foresee a new burst of energy there. On the plus side, I'm making some progress in my offline reading, at least. After a great deal of effort, I finally completed Stowers' A Rereading of Romans: Justice, Jews, and Gentiles. I believe that I now can appreciate his overall proposal for Pauline thought. While interesting, I suspect that he has it largely wrong, although various other elements of his research (e.g., Hellenistic civilization decline narratives, the use of speech-in-character, etc.) seem to be rather valuable bits of information. I also finished Why You Should Believe in the Trinity: An Answer to Jehovah's Witnesses quite a while ago.

Since then, I've had a chance to at last read my copy of Christopher Hitchens' god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. (I may have time to tackle some Dawkins later this summer, though there's a bit of Sagan I'd like to get through first.) Looking back on it, it seems quite clear that Hitchens is a true master of rhetorical prowess. Eloquent, articulate, armed with a keen wit, and certainly not afraid to lay his opinion bare, whether asserting that the event commemorated by Hannukah was among the worst disasters of human history or denouncing Gandhi as a hypocrite whose legacy is of little value and whose program did great damage to India and would have wrought more havoc if he hadn't been assassinated. In terms of dealing with the real content, however, Hitchens falls regrettably short. While he appears to expend an effort, he does not in fact undermine the standard theistic arguments; he gladly lumps all 'religion' together whenever this enables him to broadly identify 'religion' itself as the culprit, in all of its manifestations, for various abuses; and his ability to interpret sacred texts is no better than that of the extremists he so incessantly decries. In short, an interesting and captivating read, and one no doubt quite invigorating for the irreligious reader, but not a book that's bound to actually assist anyone in effectively countering apologists in the intellectual arena. Thus, another in a long line of busts in atheistic propaganda.

Since finishing that, I've started working on two other books. The first, replacing Stowers, is A. Katherine Grieb's The Story of Romans: A Narrative Defense of God's Righteousness. It's relatively brief, standing at half the length of Stowers' book, and works through Romans in order, presenting a more refreshing reading. She draws on a number of different commentators and theologians, including N. T. Wright and Richard Hays, and the result is something more plausible than that propounded by Stowers. It shouldn't take me too much longer to get through it. The other book I've been working on is The Orthodox Church (New Edition) by Timothy Ware, an Orthodox bishop. It's quite captivating, really. I confess that I don't know terribly much about Eastern Orthodoxy, and so I'm learning a lot from Ware. Thus far, I'm still in the first section, devoted to church history. This is a very good introductory text, from what I've seen to this point, so I suppose Ware's been successful at his goal here.

Witness 2008 last weekend was pretty good. Daniel and I set up our chairs in the shade of the trees, pretty far from the stage, but largely stood in the crowd for various acts. Interestingly, the combination of extreme heat and some physical activity appears to have reactivated an old condition of mine. Usually, I'd just vomit a lot. Thankfully that didn't occur at Witness. I did, however, temporarily find myself nearly deaf and blinded by an intense light, as well as extremely nauseous and on the verge of passing out. No clue how I managed to find my way back to the chair after that. That was during Stellar Kart's performance; later, after listening to Robin Mark sing a bit, we found ourselves amused by his speeches and prayers, which managed to occupy the four corners of "good theology", "danger zone", "weird", and "what the heck?" within a matter of seconds. Perhaps the exhortation, in the middle of a corporate prayer, for us to "give outrageously" and to provide "massive amounts of money" were a tad disturbing. At any rate, eventually Todd Agnew showed up, and right around the time he started playing "Grace Like Rain", it started pouring, so we had to seek refuge under a canopy. It let up for a bit, but a powerful storm was definitely bearing down on the festival, so we adjourned and returned to our cars for around 15-20 minutes until the skies had cleared. After a bit more of Agnew, we hightailed it out of there, and the two of us, after a stop for food, ended up sitting around discussing theology (first the Trinity, then doctrines of original sin in light of an evolutionary protology) at my house until around 11:00 PM.

The next Saturday--that is, yesterday--my afternoon began with yet another meeting with the Jehovah's Witnesses. Chapter 2 of What Does the Bible Really Teach? was fairly uncontroversial in our context, since it covers the Bible being the Word of God. So this was a very peaceful meeting--so peaceful that Uriah had to play devil's advocate a bit at the end to get things a bit stirred up.

I did ask about books that had been used prior to What Does the Bible Really Teach?. I managed to draw out some confirmation that, a couple books previously, they had been working with Let God Be True. I have a PDF copy of it on my laptop, and it's a pretty interesting resource. (The other weekend, aside from goofing around, Daniel and I sat in front of my laptop, reading to each other from the Trinity section in Let God Be True and laughing. I managed to confirm a lot of quotes in Walter Martin's The Kingdom of the Cults, since he cites Let God Be True fairly often.)

At any rate, Uriah, Shem, and I have settled into a routine. Reading the prescribed paragraphs from the chapter in a rotation (me, then Shem, then Uriah), and after each paragraph (or two), Uriah reads the footnoted discussion questions, and I answer. They're always extremely easy and obvious questions, so I can halfway zone out pretty easily if I want to let my mind wander a little bit here and there. Sometimes Uriah or I will bring up various related things for discussion, but not terribly often.

I told Uriah and Shem that we could tackle Chapter 3 (a basically biblical section on the promise of new creation) on July 5^th, and we agreed to begin the study with some prayers for guidance. Should be interesting to see if I can slip a somewhat Trinitarian prayer in there. I also procured another copy of their pamphlet Should You Believe in the Trinity?, since as I said before, somewhere along the line I managed to lose my old one.

Uriah told me a story, after I asked for the pamphlet, of a recent case where he knocked on a door and the woman who answered was very interested in discussing the Trinity.  As Uriah told it, he then said to her, "Okay, let's say the Trinity is true. Can you show me where it is in the Bible?"  She replies, "Well, it's all over the place!"  Uriah then says, "Alright, well let me see an example."  Sadly, she wasn't able to do it, told the JWs to go away, and then refused to accept a copy of their pamphlet when they offered her Should You Believe in the Trinity?.  He and I agreed that Christians should be competent at defending their beliefs from the Scriptures... although I'm not totally sure if Uriah remembers just what an interest I happen to have in defending that particular doctrine from the Scriptures.  The next meeting should be fairly subdued--I checked through Chapter 3, and there's no cause in there for complaint--but after that comes the fun, since Chapter 4 gets into Christology and tries to argue a bit against the deity of Christ.  My plan is to let them know at the beginning of that session that I looked through the chapter ahead of time and found some disagreeable things, and so rather than work through the chapter in the usual way, I'd be interested in hashing out some of those issues for one or two weeks, and then we can move on once we find some resolution.  If we eventually reach an impasse after a couple of discussion sessions on the issue, I may suggest that we move on to the next few chapters and then revisit the issue of Christology.  Of course, the next few chapters--dealing with atonement and the afterlife respectively--are bound to produce some interesting disputes as well.

Then last night, I went to a metal concert at Crocodile Rock. Now, let me say that if you've never had the opportunity to attend such a concert, especially with a cold... well... I have no conclusion for this sentence.  It was a fairly interesting experience. Everyone was crammed like sardines onto the floor of the club... and I never quite grasped before just how identical metal sounds when you have no clue what the lyrics are.  Some of the guys there had hair far longer than mine.  (For those who haven't seen me lately, I should perhaps mention at this juncture that when rendered straight, my bangs hang past my lips.)  At any rate, first up was Advent, then The Famine, then Oh Sleeper, then the newly reformed Living Sacrifice, and finally Demon Hunter.  All throughout the first several hours, I confess I was fairly anxious for the whole thing to be over. But the moment Demon Hunter took the stage and launched their first song, everything else went away, and I took delight in joining the madness of the crowd.  Heh... my vocal cords are still pretty raw.  Knew the words to all but one song.  Managed to get back home sometime after 1:00 AM.  Church this morning was... well, the sermon was a bit different.  Started out with one of Rob Bell's perennially irritating NOOMA videos.  Thankfully it was one of the less annoying ones ("005 - Noise").  Still, I confess that my mental reactions to many of the endlessly repetitive statements/questions was about as cynical and sarcastic as ever.

At any rate, this next week will probably consist of: (a) waiting to hear back about a possible employment opportunity, (b) a fair bit of reading, (c) wasting countless hours online, and (d) continuing to work on my pro-Trinitarian pamphlet.  I'm hoping to spend the coming weekend with my girlfriend before she has to depart on a 16-day vacation, so I probably won't update again until after that.

Gratia vobis.

Currently Listening The Triptych By Demon Hunter Ribcage see related

"All hail the newborn sin
Reject the boundaries, soak the cancer in
Hope kills the filth you crave
So bleed the truth out, fall into that grave
Uphold the brand-new skin
Accept the failure, refuse to rise above
Break through the ribcage
And tear the heart out from everyone you love."

--"Ribcage", Demon Hunter (Album: The Triptych)

Gratia vobis et pax a Deo Patre et Domino nostro Iesu Christo.

Now that I've posted the long, meandering tale of my travels in China, I suppose I can perhaps return to my regular blogging.

The weekend after I returned from China, I spent with my girlfriend Sarah, and that Sunday, we got a visit from two of my best friends, Daniel and Ryan M.  After I related a number of stories and reflections from China, we managed to pack into Daniel's car, a vehicle filled with massive piles of crumpled paper and other strange things (so full, indeed, that Sarah basically had to sit on my lap in order for us all to fit, not that I minded), and drive to a nearby restaurant for a good lunch.  (Of course, with the windows