Advent week 4

How long should the sermon be? It depends.

NEW YORK (AP) — How long should a sermon be?

The major branches of Christianity in the U.S. have sharply different traditions, with sermons at historically black Protestant churches lasting — on average – nearly four times as long as Roman Catholic sermons.

Related Content: Christianity

That’s among the findings of an analysis by the Pew Research Center — billed as the first of its kind — of 49,719 sermons delivered in April and May that were shared online by 6,431 churches. Pew described its research as “the most exhaustive attempt to date to catalogue and analyze American religious sermons.”

According to Pew, the median length of the sermons was 37 minutes. Catholic sermons were the shortest, at a median of just 14 minutes, compared with 25 minutes for sermons in mainline Protestant congregations and 39 minutes in evangelical Protestant congregations. Historically black Protestant churches had by far the longest sermons, at a median of 54 minutes.

Pew said sermons at the black churches lasted longer than mainline Protestant sermons even though, on average, they had roughly the same number of words. A possible explanation, Pew said, is that the preachers at black churches allow more time during their sermons for musical interludes, responses from worshippers in the pews and dramatic pauses in their oratory.

Mary Beard and the snowflake issue:

The real problem, though, with imagining a straightforward stand-off between snowflakes and free speech is that it wildly over-simplifies something much more complicated. For a start, one of the reasons that my students in the 2010s get anxious about reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses or the early books of Livy is that they have a much sharper idea of what those works are about. Fifty years ago, we usually did not recognize (nor were we taught to) that the Metamorphoses was a poem founded on rape. Back then, we saw it as a series of “ravishings” (with an awkward hint of pleasure implied); and the transformation of the victims into trees, or whatever, was treated as just one more curious aspect of ancient mythology. As for the “Rape of Lucretia”, I was introduced to it principally as the event which kick-started the triumphant story of the “fall of the Roman monarchy”. If my generation was partly responsible for opening students’ eyes to the more uncomfortable sides to all this, then we have to be prepared for an uncomfortable reaction. Calls for trigger warnings do not come from nowhere.

Even more problematic is the self-serving nostalgia that allows people to claim that universities were once a haven of free speech that has been lost or destroyed over the past decade or so. In my experience, no-platforming is a slippery phenomenon, far more often threatened, or fretted over, than carried out. But more to the point is the question “whose speech are we talking about?” To be sure, half a century ago there may have been an illusion of free speech on campus, but that was sustained by the exclusivity (in terms of class, race and gender) of the university community itself. It was, for the most part, the free speech, and right to argument, that came with the privilege of being part of a group of elite white men. Those of radically different backgrounds and assumptions were simply not part of that world and their voices were never or only rarely heard (far less so than today, even though it is right to deplore the lack of diversity in universities, so-called elite ones especially). Personally, I cannot abide the practice, or threat, of no-platforming. Provided that speakers remain within the law, we should argue with them not put our fingers in our ears. But, at the same time, we should not forget that, while this method of excluding some voices is new and disconcertingly direct, the exclusivity itself and the refusal to hear “outsiders” is as old as the Academy; right back to Plato.

Definitely scatological.

Well done, Marg.

I am genuinely thankful for Grudem’s kind efforts, but I’m not convinced that his focussed attention on the phrase “in such cases” provides evidence that 1 Corinthians 7:15 allows for divorce in the case of abuse. Furthermore, I find his approach problematic. It was a too-narrow focus, in the first place, that brought about the incorrect idea that adultery and desertion were the only two biblically-sanctioned reasons for divorce. Certain phrases within Matthew 19:9 and 1 Corinthians 7:15 have been closely scrutinized and highlighted, while other phrases have been downplayed, and the reasons behind these two statements from Jesus and Paul have been overlooked or minimised. The result has been that these verses have been used to say things that neither Jesus or Paul intended.

Matthew 19:9 and 1 Corinthians 7:15 do not actually state that sexual immorality and desertion are the only biblically-sanction reasons for divorce as has been claimed by many Christians.

Paul does not mention abuse in 1 Corinthians 7 because it was not the issue at hand, but he does mention and condemn both physical and verbal abuse in previous chapters in 1 Corinthians. (See 1 Cor. 5:11-13 NRSV and 1 Cor. 6:9-11 CSB). Abuse is a valid reason for divorce regardless of how we understand the phrase “in such cases.” I discuss this further here: Paul’s Words on Divorce, and Leaving an Abusive Marriage

An unusual form of respect, and my father and mother have both donated their bodies for such research:

Paper lanterns rose into the night sky last week behind the Suter Science Center at Eastern Mennonite University. The 16 students who released them gathered to honor those who had donated their bodies to science, providing their anatomy lab with cadavers to study.

“Most likely, tonight, there are people out there missing them,” Professor Julia Halterman said, opening the memorial. But this service was very different from a funeral, she explained, as “we celebrate how we have learned from them in their death.”

They only know the cadavers’ first names: Anna, Jeane, Richard, and Earl. Yet several students referred to them as their “silent teachers.” They made surprising discoveries, in some cases – one of the men had three lobes in his left lung, making him one of just 3 percent of people with the condition.

Students shared reflections on and gratitude for the dissection experience. Then they sang “Amazing Grace” along with classmates Caroline Lehman on violin and Jonathan Nielsen on baritone saxophone, before trekking out into the cold to release the lanterns.

“Her sacrifice allowed me to learn and grow,” one student reflected. “I pray that you all rest peacefully.”

“In so many classes, we just learn the theoretical concepts,” another said. He enjoyed getting to “pass on” the gift of his donor’s sacrifice by leading prosections with underclassmen.

Another was thankful that someone would choose “for a student somewhere to get to experience this.”

Grandma Orca:

Humans aren’t the only species in which grannies help raise their grandkids. Killer whale grandmothers boosted the survival of their grandkids in a new study. The grandma whales were even more important to the youngest generation when food was scarce, the New York Times reports.

The findings provide a possible explanation for why killer whales are one of just five species, including humans, that undergo menopause. Female killer whales typically stop reproducing in their 30s or 40s, but can live into their 90s. Why this extra life stage after reproduction evolved was something of a mystery to evolutionary biologists: The most successful genes in evolutionary terms are the ones that get passed onto the next generation, but somehow by not breeding these grandma whales appeared to still be helping their own genes persist.

The study followed 378 killer whales off the coast of the Pacific Northwest and found that those with grandmothers lived longer. Calves that had lost a maternal grandmother within the last two years had a mortality rate 4.5 times higher than those with living grandmothers. The impact of grandma orcas was biggest in the years that salmon, the whales’ main food source, were hard to find, suggesting these matriarchs’ wisdom may have helped their grandkids find food in lean times.

This is the first documented non-human example of what is called the “grandmother effect,” in which older females help their extended family survive. Scientists have observed a grandmother effect in a few other species, such as African elephants, that are long lived but do not undergo menopause.

The researchers hope the findings can inform conservation efforts by underscoring the importance of protecting these older females, not just the breeding age females and offspring that are currently the focal point.

Definitely clever:

That’s one way to cut down on bathroom breaks.

A start-up company in the UK developed a new, downward-tilting toilet meant to make employees so uncomfortable in the loo that they take care of business quicker.

The StandardToilet is slopped about 13 degrees forward to increase strain on the legs, making it painful to sit on for longer than five minutes, Mahabir Gill, founder of the company, told Wired in an article published Monday.

“Anything higher than that would cause wider problems. Thirteen degrees is not too inconvenient, but you’d soon want to get off the seat quite quickly,” Gill told the mag.

The porcelain throne isn’t meant to be a torture device, Gill said, claiming health benefits like improved posture.

Still, the primary purpose is to promote brief relief, cutting down the time workers spend on their phones and reducing monetary losses.

New Jersey shore line… sad… 

Sea level along the New Jersey coast has risen 1.5 feet, more than twice the global average of 0.6 feet over the last century, according to a Rutgers University report compiled for state officials and released Thursday.

The Rutgers scientists say the rise is largely the fault of humans, and our use of fossil fuels.

The report, commissioned by the state Department of Environmental Protection, presents few positive scenarios for the Garden State as sea levels continue to rise, even if fossil-fuel emissions decrease, as called for by the Paris accords.

As New Jersey is experiencing higher sea levels, it is also undergoing subsidence, meaning the land along the coast is sinking because of geological forces and groundwater withdrawal. In turn, New Jersey is seeing not only more flooding from more precipitation during storms but also an increase in what’s known as sunny day flooding — water that rises higher tidally, rather than because of storm surge.

Scientists who study climate almost universally agree the global climate is changing because of the combustion and processing of fossil fuels that release carbon dioxide or methane into the atmosphere. Both gasses have properties known to prevent solar radiation generated by the sun from escaping the atmosphere, essentially trapping heat.

“Human-caused climate change is accelerating sea-level rise in New Jersey and, together with shifts in coastal storms, driving increases in coastal flood hazards,” the authors state in a summary of the report, which includes historical sea-level rise information and projections.

Ronald Sider, in his new book If Jesus is Lord makes the case for pacifism. Today I want to post his simple, clear opening introduction about the Three Options (not Two):

C.S. Lewis makes the point vividly: “Does anyone suppose that our Lord’s hearers understood Him to mean that if a homicidal maniac, attempting to murder a third party, tried to knock me out of the way, I must stand aside and let him get his victim?” Just war Christians regularly charge that pacifists fail to love their neighbors who are threatened. Pacifists, they allege, take no responsibility for history. In fact they prefer tyranny to justice.

I think just war Christians are correct that if there are only two options (to kill or do nothing to defend neighbors), then faithful Christians should kill. Lewis is surely right: Jesus would not want us to step aside and passively watch while an aggressor brutalized others.

The problem with this critique of pacifism is that there are never only two options (to kill or do nothing). There is always a third possibility: to intervene nonviolently to oppose and seek to restrain the aggressor. Nor is nonviolent resistance to evil a Utopian, ineffective approach. In the past one hundred years (and especially the past fifty years) nonviolent resistance to injustice, tyranny, and brutal dictatorship has again and again proved astonishingly successful. Gandhi’s nonviolence defeated the British Empire. Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolent civil rights movement changed American history. Solidarity’s nonviolent campaign defied and conquered the Polish communist dictatorship. A million nonviolent Filipino demonstrators prevailed against the vicious dictator President Ferdinand Marcos. A recent scholarly book examined all the known cases (323) of both major armed and unarmed insurrections from 1900 to 2006 and discovered an amazing result: “Nonviolent resistance campaigns were nearly twice as likely to achieve full or partial success as their violent counterparts.”

It is simply contrary to the facts of history to say that there are only two options: to kill or to do nothing in the face of tyranny and brutality. I agree that to stand aside and fail to resist evil is cowardly, irresponsible, immoral, and blatantly contradictory to Jesus’s command to love our neighbor. But the historical record demonstrates that there is always a third option: vigorous, nonviolent resistance. And it frequently works—in fact, it apparently succeeds more often than violence.

But not always. Sometimes, at least in the short run, nonviolent actions fail. What then should Christians do?

That is the central question of this book. Does Jesus ever want his disciples to kill in order to resist evil and promote peace and justice? When Jesus commanded his disciples to love their enemies, did he mean that they should never kill them?

The next segment of the conversation between Heidi Lene Maibom and N. T. Wright raises a question worth a little consideration. Still engaged with the question “What is wrong with the world?”, Prof. Maibom reacts to Wright’s suggestion that God is at work putting it right. In the discussion she gives a common description of the Christian view of God. The video embedded below starts about 56 minutes into the conversation with Prof. Maibom’s response.

I guess I simply don’t see what meaning positing some kind of … paternalistic figure much like a father who has created the world is going to give the world. I don’t see it. That doesn’t make it any more meaningful to me that somehow we’re supposed to reflect his glory or whatever the story is. That, to me, gives no more meaning than not having it. Why would God be there? Why would there be a supernatural creature that looks so suspiciously like your dad, and where’s your mom anyway, where’s she gone? There is something about that whole story that to me …, in so far as I find religious or spiritual idea attractive, I’m much more on the mystical side or the gnostic side even. You know god is within you and the devil or the bad is within you. It is not something external, it is not some kind of external existence some kind of male figure or anything like that. I find the whole question of supernatural beings kind of puzzling. I think once we start thinking harder and harder about it, we might go with, you know who Maimonides is, Guide to the Perplexed, Jewish philosopher? He would ask questions like: It says in the Bible God turns his back. What sense does that make? Does God have a back? So there’s lots of questions where it seems to me that the way we’ve conceived religion is a reflection of the limitations of our ways of thinking.

The relevant portion of the video below runs about 6 minutes.

Wright responds by first noting that the view of God as father isn’t taken quite this literally by many Christians, although some certainly have this image and understanding. The portrayal of God in Christian art, like the image to the right from a work by Lucas Cranach the Elder, reinforces the understanding put forth by Maibom. The portrayal of God by Michelangelo in his creation images in the Sistine Chapel give a similar impression as does the front-piece to Luther’s Bible at the top of the post.  We have to work for a better understanding.

Wright goes on:

But this is why in the New Testament it says again and again that actually God is a puzzle. We don’t know exactly who God is until we look at Jesus. And sooner or later all these questions come back to Jesus. Now there’s a problem about that as well, because particularly in some Christian circles there’s a sort of sense that whatever the question is Jesus is going to be the answer to it.  So you stick up you hand and say Jesus and you’ll probably be right in Sunday School. But the New Testament is saying something much more subtle than that. That Jesus is actually an extremely interesting human being, if I can put it like that without seeming myself to be patronizing. But that as you look at Jesus, the New Testament is saying um, yea, God has been a bit of a puzzle. And sometimes he seems to be absent and sometimes maybe it’s just a voice inside your head and you’re not sure. But, when you see Jesus, then you start to get a fresh idea of who God might be.

… So for me it isn’t the postulation of a supernatural being. It is the deep awareness that many humans have across cultures that human life has a dimension to it which you can’t put into either a test tube or a bank balance, and which catches up with you, either when you fall in love, or when you hear a wonderful piece of music, or whatever. … And that into that, there comes the ancient Israelite story, and from the ancient Israelite story about a God who made heaven and earth to work together.

You see, the natural – supernatural distinction is not one that resonates well with the Bible. I think that’s a modern way of trying to say something which is in the Bible, but actually distorting it. In the Bible it isn’t supernature and nature. It’s creation which is multifaceted and in which strange things happen and God seems to show up. Or some people think he’s shown up. Then the story about Jesus kind of brings all that into focus.

Tom Wright has this knack for compacting many ideas in a very short space. As Christians when we think of God, the incarnation in Jesus should be first and foremost. God isn’t well represented by our human intuitions, attributing creature attributes to the creator. To speak of him as heavenly father is appropriate – but to envision an elderly man with human characteristics is not. This is far more like the ancient pagan view of God than the Jewish or Christian understanding of God. God is a puzzle, but our understanding becomes somewhat clearer as we ponder the ancient Israelite story brought to a climax in the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

The other significant misunderstanding in the world today is this divide between natural and supernatural. This isn’t the right way to think about the world or about God. Creation is multifaceted and God is at work in the world though processes we describe as natural as well as, on occasion, in more direct ways that make a break with the so-called natural approach.

What does it mean to say that we see God through Jesus?

How is creation multifaceted.

Are supernatural and natural biblical concepts?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail [at] att.net.

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

Spring Break is about over and time to enter into the Spring schedule.

It was so good to see History Channel’s kick-off episodes Monday night — check in again next Monday for episodes 3 and 4.

An interview I did. A second one.

Kris and I both appreciate stories like this:

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Greg Schiano is stepping down from his position on the New England Patriots‘ coaching staff, citing a “need to spend more time on my faith and family.”

Schiano, whose hire had never been officially announced by the club, announced his decision Thursday in a joint statement with coach Bill Belichick.

“This is not the result of any one event, but rather a realization that I need to spend more time on my faith and family,” Schiano said. “I don’t want to look back years from now and wish I had done things differently. Therefore, I am taking time away from the game to recalibrate my priorities.”

Schiano was hired by the Patriots less than two months ago, although the team never specified what his role would be. It was widely assumed he would play a lead role on defense as the club replaced playcaller Brian Flores, who was hired as Miami Dolphins head coach after the season.

For a long and articulate strategy for the conservatives/traditionalists in the UMC, see this by William Abraham.

A wonderful brief interview with Jimmy Dunn, two questions from which are here:

2.What do you hope readers take away from reading Jesus according to the New Testament?

Since Bible knowledge does not seem to be particularly high here on the English south coast in a tradition which focuses primarily on liturgy, I hope to increase knowledge of Jesus as he has been remembered and portrayed in the New Testament.

In a recent meeting with a church men’s group I was fascinated, and a little dismayed, at some of the questions they asked. For example, I could answer simply by referring the questioner to the forewords in Luke’s Gospel and Acts—passages which they had heard read on numerous occasions but evidently had never taken in.

I hope readers will find the richness and diversity of the ways Jesus is portrayed in the New Testament both fascinating and enriching for their discipleship and their worship.

3.Which book has done the most to make you who you are today?

That’s a tough one, since I have been influenced by many books, such as Calvin’s Institutes, and my doctoral supervisor Charlie Moule’s The Birth of the New Testament.

But I doubt if I could commend (or blame) any one book for who I am today and would rather attribute any praise (or whatever) to the Holy Spirit.

Trendcendence, a very insightful piece:

Yet we’re in a place now, thanks to our technology, in which we can break the surly bonds of our own personal immanence through the process of trending.

Trending ushers in a kind of transcendence that I call “trendcendence” – the state of being in which you move beyond the atomised individual you surely are, to a state of communal consciousness that gives you both god-like quality in terms of reach and longevity.

Case in point: The Christchurch killer and Egg-Boy.

Two more polar opposite actions you could not envisage, yet actions that deliver the same result in terms of their reach.  The first action; a cold, heartless killer slaughtering people in a place of worship.  The second – and resultant action/reaction – a young man smashing an egg onto the head of a hard right politician conducting a media interview in light of that first action.

One, a murderous action that sent shockwaves around the West, particularly here in the Southern Hemisphere.   The other, a fairly innocuous and cheeky action that drew praise for its bravery, and scorn for its stupidity, in equal measure.

Yet both actions linked by this common desire for trendcendence. Both self-consciously recorded by their perpetrators in the very act of carrying them out.  And all for audiences that they know either exist, or will exist upon the broadcast of that material….

No action is an action any longer if it is not seen to be an action.  Unless it trends.  And trending is a tremulous, jittery creature, hard to raise, and quick to fall. There’s a window, and both killer and Egg-Boy took the chance and went through that window to global super-stardom.

As ISIS showed us so terribly in recent years, it’s not the slaughter of innocents that is the intention, but rather that the rest of us see the slaughter of those innocents. Sure it’s a lonely beach, with kneeling prisoners awaiting their fate – but unless it trends those murderers have not completed the job….

Trendcendence offers a hand up to the powerless and for a while, just a brief while, tells them that they are powerful.  Powerful enough to scare, terrify, amuse. To whatever.  It’s the result that, in the end, matters, not the process.

Trendcendence is eternity to the ephemeral; our culture’s refusal to ever get used to the dark, snake-scaled idea that Someone is holding out on us.

To refuse to believe that we don’t matter in the scheme of it all. To transcend whatever surly analogue bonds would hold us, and snarl or smile our digital response to an immanent world, and for one brief moment, to fly.

How odd to read this (critical) review of Razib Khan of David Sloan Wilson’s new book when I’m reading and blogging through another book on the rise of “scientific morality”:

In This View of Life: Completing the Darwinian Revolution, evolutionary biologist David Sloan Wilson continues the project of scientific imperialism that has defined much of the latter part of his career. This View of Life takes as given that humans are shaped by our evolutionary past, and proceeds to show how general principles derived from the discipline can be applied to policy decisions and social problems, guiding our species-wide goals to further our flourishing. Wilson aims to break evolution out of its biological box, offering it as a universal framework for understanding and shaping human phenomena.

This is an ambitious program. But first one has to address the historical elephant in the room: the misapplication of evolutionary principles. The prosecution argues that evolution stands of accused of aiding and abetting the abominations that culminated in Nazi Germany. After the defeat of Hitler’s regime, evolutionary theory retreated into the redoubt of biology, concerning itself with natural history, laboratory experiments, and abstruse mathematical models. And there it should stay, argue its critics, lest we repeat the mistakes of the past.

David Sloan Wilson rejects this argument in totality. He notes that the opprobrium hurled at evolution’s application to social problems draws from Richard Hofstadter’s Social Darwinism in American Thought. Hofstadter was a man of left-wing commitments writing in 1944, as the war against Hitler’s regime was still a live concern. His was not a dispassionate scholarly analysis. He aimed to produce something which could be deployed in the fight against “racism, nationalism, or competitive strife.”

This View of Life highlights how men as diverse as Darwin, Herbert Spencer, Francis Galton, and Thomas Malthus were not united in their views, nor were they the cruel anti-humanitarians that their detractors portray them as (Hitler’s own views were scientifically inchoate at best, and ignorant at worst). Wilson’s arguments are familiar to libertarians in particular, many of whom have long argued that Hofstadter misrepresented classical liberals.

The argument for the defense that one encounters in This View of Life may not entirely convince, at least in the chapter-length treatment Wilson provides. The great evolutionary geneticist R. A. Fisher’s central work, Genetical Theory of Natural Selection, contains a long exposition of eugenicist thought as applied to humanity. To not put too fine a point on this, contemporary readers invariably find this section quite offensive. And yet Fisher himself was a complicated figure, a patriotic British Tory conservative and Anglican Christian. The past was truly a different age. …

Most evolutionary biologists would no doubt feel The Phenomenon of Man is a bizarre work. Richard Dawkins has praised sharp critiques of The Phenomenon of Man. In his scientific work Dawkins has suggested that humanity is good not in spite of its nature, but because of it. Similarly, many scientists will look askance at the grand claims Wilson promotes in This View of Life, as he mixes “is” and “ought,” jumping from a positive description of reality to normative prescriptions for human happiness and well-being.

In contrast, religious conservatives may see Wilson’s visions as materialistic and hubristic. Its ultimate evolutionary basis, and nearly messianic aims, ensure that This View of Life will alarm many traditionalists.

The fact is, one can argue that Wilson’s This View of Life is all of these things, and that the author believes in the importance of his vision to such an extent that he is not particularly concerned with causing alarm. Wilson begins the book as an evolutionary biologist, describing the facts as they are. He ends it like de Chardin, an evolutionary priest, preaching to the unconverted the good news at hand.

John Fea is right here to wonder about access.

Didn’t expect this from First Things (but maybe I don’t read it carefully enough):

Among America’s culture wars—from guns to gay marriage, drug legalization to penal reform—no battle is more emotionally wrenching than the decades-long struggle over abortion. And none is more bitterly polarized: As pro-choice states like Virginia and New York are enacting laws that allow abortion up to the moment of birth, pro-life states are advancing legislation that will ban abortion as soon as a fetal heartbeat is detected.

Where might pro-life and pro-choice Americans find common ground? Might it not be possible to work together to reduce the number of unwanted abortions—by making it financially feasible for more women to choose life? America needs a generous pro-natal policy initiative similar to those of France, Germany, and the Nordic nations—one including federal funding for housing subsidies, day care, and medical coverage for willing mothers and their children, based on need. We might call this hypothetical legislation The Woman’s Right to Choose Act, a law that would provide comprehensive, means-tested, public aid—pre-natal care and counseling, post-natal care, and full child support for newborns—to all pregnant American women and their families.

The Woman’s Right to Choose Act could draw on policies suggested by both Democrats and Republicans, such as Senator Elizabeth Warren’s recent national child care proposal and the family and child tax credits advanced by Senators Mike Lee and Marco Rubio. Its prime beneficiaries would be women who actually want to bring children into the world, but fear that they cannot afford to, and so “choose” abortion under duress. This act would embody a “preferential option for the poor”—whose rates of abortion, particularly among minority women, are far higher than among affluent whites. And by using federal funds, it would offer more resources to all American women than even the most well-meaning, well-funded private charities could ever hope to deploy.

Such a robust national program would be costly. Some estimates of Warren’s child support proposal run upward of $70 billion a year. But congressional budgetary data show that we expend $127 billion a year in tax breaks to recipients of stock dividends and capital gains—the majority of that going to the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans. Taxing that capital income at the same rates as wages would more than pay for a robust Choose Act budget. It’s a question of priorities: money or lives?

There is a solid case to be made for pro-natal policies in America on purely social and economic grounds.

Just in case you’re interested in lounging around for two months:

Slobs of the world, here’s a job for you.

NASA and two other space agencies are asking for 24 volunteers to lie in bed for two months as part of a study. The pay? About $19,000.

“We are looking for test persons to take part in a bed rest study from September to December 2019 in Cologne (Germany) and spend 60 days lying down,” according to a statement from the German Aerospace Agency, NASA and the European Space Agency.

The point of the study is to “research how the body changes in weightlessness. Bed rest simulates this condition,” the statement said. Based on the study results, scientists will develop techniques to reduce the negative effects of weightlessness on astronauts.

During the two months, the volunteers will live in a single room, but will be divided into groups. One group will be rotated around in a centrifuge, similar to an artificial gravity chamber, which will force blood back into their extremities, ABC News reported.

Anonymous, to protect his/her professorship:

If you think corruption in elite US college admissions is bad, what happens once those students are in the classroom is even worse.

I know, because I teach at an elite American university – one of the oldest and best-known, which rejects about 90% of applicants each year for the small number of places it can offer to undergraduates.

In this setting, where teaching quality is at a premium and students expect faculty to give them extensive personal attention, the presence of unqualified students admitted through corrupt practices is an unmitigated disaster for education and research. While such students have long been present in the form of legacy admits, top sports recruits and the kids of multimillion-dollar donors, the latest scandal represents a new tier of Americans elbowing their way into elite universities: unqualified students from families too poor to fund new buildings, but rich enough to pay six-figure bribes to coaches and admissions advisers. This increase in the proportion of students who can’t do the work that elite universities expect of them has – at least to me and my colleagues – begun to create a palpable strain on the system, threatening the quality of education and research we are expected to deliver. …

Even for tenured professors, whose jobs are supposedly secure, becoming known as someone who won’t “play ball” by giving the sports star or the legacy an easy pass can mean exclusion from important opportunities and sources of support. So we suck it up as we recap our lectures for students who couldn’t attend due to golf team practice, or teach them skills most Americans learn in high school, or create extra credit assignments to bring up their marks.

This kind of thing has easily added 10-12 hours a week to my workload, and I know I’m not alone in that respect. As one of my colleagues put it, the unskilled and entitled students will “eat you alive”. Over the past decades as an instructor, I have seen my teaching workload increase dramatically despite holding the same number of courses in the same subjects. What has changed is the proportion of unqualified students in the classroom.

Elite American universities were never fully meritocratic. But the social benefits they produced, such as faculty contributions to knowledge and the upward mobility of first-generation college graduates, lent them legitimacy and purpose. What has been lost in the admissions corruption scandal far exceeds the handful of silver some accepted to sell out those ideals.

Over Martin Luther King Day Kris and I usually spend a week or more in Florida with her sister, Pat, and it was a wonderful time — I had good study time to work on my translation of the “Second” Testament and we had two long walks each day in good weather. We are now looking out into snow and cold, so the warmth and green were nice while they lasted.

Clever dad:

There are some parenting issues that, no matter how old the kids are, just seem to come up again and again. Sleep. Trying to keep school germs at bay. And, always, food. No matter their age, finding meals that are both healthy and appetizing is one of the biggest puzzles of parenthood.

Reddit user BabyHooey understands this first-hand. Recently, he posted that his four kids, all between the ages of 10 and 16, were making dinner impossible. “There are literally no meals left that I can make without someone complaining,” he writes. “Spaghetti? I make my sauce with Italian sausage and one kid has decided she hates fennel. One kid has Celiac, which rules out wheat (obviously not her fault) so that makes it harder. One kid hates cheese, which rules out a lot of things. One kid hates chicken. We were safe for a while with tacos until one kid decided she was never eating tacos again.”

So, he did what was seemingly the last thing left to do: He retired from cooking. He purchased groceries at the store, stocked the shelves at home, and told everyone they’re on their own for dinner. How did the experiment go?

For about two weeks, everyone lived off of sandwiches and cereal. At about that point, I started cooking for myself and my wife only, things that we like to eat and cook. Eventually, one kid said, “That smells really good, can I have some?” I said that I only made enough for the two of us, but if they’d like some of tomorrow’s dinner, let me know and I can make extra. I was expecting, “What’s tomorrow’s dinner?” But instead I got, “Yes, please, anything’s better than more sandwiches.” All of them eventually followed suit. I’m back to cooking for six, but I’m making whatever I want to make.

SAD, seasonal affective disorder, and eye color:

For some people, colder temperatures and shorter days bring to mind beautiful winter wonderlands and cozy nights by the fire. For others, however, winter can be downright depressing. Now, scientists say they may have a clue as to why some people suffer from seasonal affective disorder (SAD) while others don’t: According to one recent study, eye color may play a significant role.

The new research, published last year in the Open Access Journal of Behavioural Science & Psychology, found that people with light or blue eyes tended to score lower on a questionnaire designed to screen for seasonal variability in mood, weight, appetite, sleep, and social activity. The study involved 175 undergraduate and graduate students from South Wales and Cyprus, with an average age of 24.

“The reason that eye colour may make some people more susceptible to depression or mood changes might be because of the amount of light an individual’s eyes can process,” wrote Lance Workman, PhD, the study’s lead author and a visiting professor of psychology at the University of South Wales, this week on the website The Conversation.

Eyes with less pigment—blue or gray, for example—are more sensitive to light, he explains, which means they don’t need to absorb as much for their retinal cells to receive and process images. That also means, however, that people with lighter eyes release less melatonin during the fall and winter.

Melatonin is a hormone produced by the body that helps us transition to sleep. But some experts believe that too much melatonin—or an imbalance of melatonin and serotonin, another mood-regulating hormone—may make people feel lethargic or depressed.

More on James Macdonald and Harvest, this time from his friend Mancow — and Wartburg Watch sums it up and here are the last few points:

7. “He told me that simply by suing his detractors he would win because people would be afraid to talk about him for fear of a lawsuit.”

This is the statement that really got to me. MacDonald was not suing the bloggers because he mistakenly believed that he was standing up for the truth. He did it to intimidate people. If what Mancow is saying is true, then MacDonald MUST pay the legal fees for Roys and The Elephant Debt and hang his head in shame. This man does not belong anywhere near a pulpit, not now, not ever. He needs to go and hide out in some retirement community in Florida. Surely he’s got the money for living well.

8. “When he seemed shocked about this thing called “discovery” in a court case, the writing was on the wall. He would reveal nothing! The case was dropped immediately.”

This is one thing I don’t understand. I told the folks at TED that JM’s goose would be cooked when it came to discovery. I knew that this guy who keeps his finances under lock and key would be opposed to releasing it during discovery. That is exactly what happened. However, I can’t believe that a man like James MacDonald didn’t know about discovery.  I’m hardly the brightest bulb at Ace Hardware but even I know about it.

So was he just stupid or…did he think that TED and Roys would fold at the mere mention of the word *lawsuit?* Thankfully, TED and Roys are made of sterner stuff and I admire all of them. (Well done!) I suspect that he thought they would go crying home to mama.

9. “Why is Harvest $42 million in debt, as the church has stated on its website?”

Well, isn’t that what started the Elephant’s Debt? Going back through the elders’ ridiculous statements, I found all sorts of *nothing to see here, move along* when it came to the debt. Here is one of their statements from October 2012. So, how many of the elders still think they will be debt free in one year? I’d say the odds are low.

Bob on Books is right about the Gillette ad:

A number of those who read this blog are believing Christians, and some of you may disagree with me. The question I have is, do you think Jesus is a model of true masculinity?  I think of the incident where Jesus’s followers are “chest bumping” over who is the greatest among them–typical toxic masculinity. Jesus replies:

“…whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant,  and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all.  For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:43b-45)

Do we consider Jesus weak because he defines greatness in terms of servanthood, and his own mission as one of serving? Jesus says this as he is walking to the city where he will be betrayed, arrested and killed. Do we not consider perhaps the ultimate show of courage to be when someone gives their life for another? Is this not great strength? Is not every other act of service willingly given to one’s partner, one’s children, one’s colleagues, one’s community, likewise an act of strength?

I think it is something like this that Gillette means when it speaks of “The Best Men Can Be.” The cynics just consider it an advertising stunt. If so, it is probably a failed one. I’d rather call it an instance of corporate responsibility as a purveyor of men’s products. I’ve been shaving with Gillette razors since I started sprouting facial hair. I have Gillette razors in my medicine cabinet. I have no plans to stop using them.

It’s the Font, not the brain!

REMEMBER ALL THOSE classics you devoured in comp-lit class? Neither do we. Research shows that we retain an embarrassingly small sliver of what we read. In an effort to help college students boost that percentage, a team made up of a designer, a psychologist, and a behavioral economist at Australia’s RMIT University recently introduced a new typeface, Sans Forgetica, that uses clever tricks to lodge information in your brain. The font-makers drew on the psychological theory of “desirable difficulty”—that is, we learn better when we actively overcome an obstruction. (It’s why flash cards create stronger neural connections in the brain and are a better method for recalling facts than passively studying notes.) Sans Forgetica is purposefully hard to decipher, forcing the reader to focus. One study found that students recalled 57 percent of what they read in Sans Forgetica, compared with 50 percent of the material in Arial, a significant difference. No word yet on the retention rate of Comic Sans.

Flu myths:

The 2017-2018 flu season was among the worst in history. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), it was one of the longest seasons in recent years, sending tens of thousands of people to the hospital and breaking a record with 185 pediatric deaths.

It’s too early to tell how this flu season is shaping up in comparison, but one thing is clear: There’s a lot of misunderstanding and misinformation about what the flu is, how it’s spread, and the efficacy of flu shots. Which is why we turned to medical experts to set the record straight by dispelling some common myths.

But above all else, know this: There’s no silver bullet to protect you from the flu completely, but there are a few steps you can take to protect your health. “Proper hand hygiene is the most important means of preventing the spread of infection. Hand washing is like a ‘do-it-yourself’ vaccine that stops the spread of germs,” says Mary Anne Jackson, MD, director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Mercy in Kansas City, MO. And of course, she recommends that everyone in your family get the flu shot.

Here are the most common flu myths debunked by top doctors.

Why run away alone when you can run away with friends?

A Kansas man was puzzled when his dog—a dog he thought was lost forever—apparently came back to him with another dog and a goat after going missing.

Kyle Krier from Concordia, Kansas, said he and his wife, Laura, said he let the family dog out of the home to go to the bathroom but the animal never came back home.

“My wife told me there was another white dog in our yard and Bo took off and would not come back,” he wrote online, according to the Daily Mail.

He added: “We looked all over the place for him and could not find him. We decided to go home and wait for him to come back but he never did. I went out in the morning to look for him and found no sign of him anywhere.”

Krier said his dog was seen about six miles away from their home in Concordia.

“My wife got a call that someone had just about hit a black lab, a white lab and a goat on the road. My wife called me and told me the news and I knew right away that was our dog. I left work right away. I saw the crew out in a cut bean field on the east side of the highway,” he stated.

We enter this weekend into the 3d Sunday of Advent.

Good for John Dickson:

Well-known Australian writer, speaker, minister and apologist John Dickson has announced his decision to step down from local church ministry to focus more fully on reaching the “doubting public outside the church”.

Dickson has been in part-time church ministry for two decades, and Senior Minister of St Andrew’s Anglican Church in Roseville for the past nine years. He will retire from this position at the end of March 2019 to be a writer and speaker on a full-time basis.

Dickson, who describes himself as “a public advocate of the Christian faith”, has written 15 books, including the award-winning Simply Christianity: Beyond Religion. Two of his books – The Christ Files and Life of Jesus – were made into documentaries that aired on national television.

Sometimes we don’t know the whole story, and sometimes the real story is being hidden by authoritarian voices, three of whom are exposed here:

In spite of this, [John] MacArthur  blamed secular forces and even Satan for the accreditation situation (in spite of the fact that TMUS was out of compliance on two key eligibility requirements — an independent board and a full time CFO). Much of the challenge came as a result of the significant overlap between the church MacArthur serves, the institution, and its governing structure. As I’ve written before, Christian universities aren’t churches and the more they confuse the two the more the latter takes precedence.

The Chronicle summary of the sermon ends with these warnings MacArthur gave to the community:

“I’m gonna be real honest with you,” he said. “You didn’t have any right to find out about anything. That’s not your responsibility.”

In his remarks he referred to a Bible passage from the Book of Proverbs.

“There are things that God hates, right?” MacArthur said. “One of them is the one who stirs up strife,” he said, urging students to keep their complaints within the university and seminary.

“Keep your mouth shut,” he said. “Don’t stir up strife. You don’t know the whole story.”

This combination of authoritarian leadership and dismissal of dissent is also at the heart of the sexual abuse stories arising out of the Independent Fundamental Baptist churches. The story is similar to what we’ve seen for years in the Roman Catholic Church — stories of abuse not being believed, perpetrators being transferred to new locations without disclosure, and placing the priority on the church’s mission and reputation. That the story opens with a review of the abuses by one of the key families in the movement only adds to the horror. This wasn’t some isolated pastor somewhere in a remote location. Key figures in the movement were engaged in abuse or involved in minimizing the impact.

When abuse was acknowledged, it was expected to stay in the church under the authority of the leadership.

“Any issues, even legal issues, go to the pastor first, not the police. Especially about another member of the church,” said Josh Elliott, a former member of Vineyard’s Oklahoma City church. “The person should go to the pastor, and the pastor will talk to the offender. You don’t report to police because the pastor is the ultimate authority, not the government.”

The insularity of a “we know best” philosophy becomes an impossible situation for those who have been victimized. It provides no place for them to remain within the fellowship in good faith. Either they will be seen as suspect or they have to live with a cognitive compartmentalization that is harmful to a healthy Christian life.

The subjects of the CBS program on #exvangelicals showed some of the same patterns. The churches they were part of provided little space for their questions or concerns. At first marginalized, they eventually leave the evangelical church because the pain of staying is too great. Even though they have left for their own well-being, they seem still to be processing considerable harm dealt them by the very group that was central to their upbringing.

Increasingly, “evangelical” means “white nationalist” or “white Republican”.

In short, this poll helps dramatize the trend among American evangelicals. Instead of the word “evangelical” meaning primarily a set of religious ideas and theological commitments, it has become a political and culture-war marker. If you call yourself an “evangelical” these days, it usually means you think of yourself as white, Christian, and politically conservative.

So it’s no surprise that big majorities of people who call themselves evangelical voted Republican. Choosing to call yourself an evangelical these days usually means endorsing a set of conservative political beliefs associated these days with the Republican Party.

What do evangelical Christians think about Trump and the GOP? This poll doesn’t tell us. To be an “evangelical Christian” can mean a whole bunch of different things. There are lots of non-white people who have religious beliefs that have historically been associated with evangelical Protestantism. There are white liberals who no longer call themselves evangelical but who retain their evangelical religious beliefs.

What this poll does tell us is that the word “evangelical” has come to imply a set of political beliefs, not only religious ones. People who embrace the label tend to embrace those politics. Are they still religious? Sure. But we make a mistake if we try to understand how someone with evangelical religious beliefs could support politicians who seem to go against those beliefs. Calling yourself “evangelical” these days is more about those political leanings than any specific religious commitments or theological ideas.

The Politics of Advent:

We don’t get political,” a friend recently told me about his church. It’s a sentiment many church leaders would appreciate: the implication that the church focuses on the truly important, spiritual things, instead of getting caught up in the quagmire of political debate. Regardless of the many arguments that could be made about the necessarily political character of the church or the need for churches to engage cultural issues, there’s one uncomfortable fact that trumps them all: our worship is political.

Whether we intend for it to be or not, the songs we sing, the words we repeat, the prayers we pray, the rhythm and rituals of our corporate identity shape our political identity. The real question is not whether our churches are political, but whether we’re aware of it. Are we thoughtfully considering the ways that our worship together can counteract the political messages of the world, or does our worship leave our political preferences undisturbed? Are our loyalties and allegiances formed more strongly toward the global church, our risen King, and his coming kingdom or toward a political party, a nation, or a racial category? One way to approach these questions is to discover the church traditions that have come before us, often rich with political significance, and join with centuries of Christians across the world in practicing them.

And in these seasons of Advent and Christmas especially, history points to a church whose worship is particularly political.

Worth reading the whole article, but here’s the ending:

After much debate, Virginia Mennonite Conference decided to ordain Ruth [Brunk Stolzfus] in 1989. She became the first women in the conference to be credentialed. However, George II [Brunk] communicated to conference leadership that, if they went forward with [his sister’s] Ruth’s ordination, he would withdraw his ministerial credentials and membership. When they did not change their decision, George II held to his commitment as well. When his sister entered the pulpit, he stepped down. Yet, though George II and Ruth never reconciled their different positions on women in ministry, they continued to relate amicably to each other for the rest of their lives.

Therein lies the biggest lesson that the Brunk siblings’ story and sermons teach us. Theological (or political) disagreements matter, but need not be toxic to relationships. There are stronger ties that bind us together. Despite not supporting her role as interim pastor at Bancroft, George II still came by Ruth’s house to help her pack her car. Ruth praised George II’s presence—in person and prayer—when her family faced a series of tragedies. And while even good sibling relationships are not perfect (just ask my sister), how George II and Ruth chose to relate to each other still proves instructive. As we spend this holiday season among family and friends with whom we might disagree, it’s helpful to remember that, though we maintain legitimate differences, there are things that matter more.

Church names, sorted by G. Shane Morris, with this conclusion:

Changing the name of your church to sound like a night club, a romance novel, or a spa probably isn’t worth the money you’ll pay your marketing consultant. You won’t appeal to a larger crowd, you won’t shake the negative perceptions many Americans have toward Christianity, and you might even come across as desperate (or worse) dishonest.

I’m not discouraging anyone from attending a church named “Relevant,” although I would suggest (as with all churches) that we keep both eyes on our Bibles. What I’m arguing is that churches should own their identity, no matter their denomination, creed, or confession.

If a congregation isn’t officially part of a denomination, what’s wrong with the older tradition of naming churches after apostles or other biblical heroes? Or why not “Emanuel,” “Redeemer,” or even “The Good Shepherd?” Wouldn’t that say more about a church’s beliefs than would a one-word name that sounds like a ride-sharing app? Why should we hide our theological convictions? They’re core to who we are. And they will remain long after fleeting fashions and edgy branding strategies fade.

Jesus Creed Book(s) of the Year

Time for your Christmas book shopping!!

A banner year for me in reading as there were so many great books to read and to choose from. I repeat my annual claim: Jesus Creed books of the year are books I’ve read and there’s no claim to have chosen the best books of the year as I can only see and read so many. Anyway, I wanted to choose one but couldn’t choose just one book of the year. I could not not choose Goldingay’s translation but I also could not choose either Matthew Croasmun or Matthew Thomas — these two books are brilliant. So, we have a “trinity” of Jesus Creed Books of the Year.

Croasmun tackles sin and shows its magnitude and turns it into an active agent; Thomas shows the so-called “new” perspective is by and large much older than the “old” (Reformation) perspective. John Goldingay’s translation of the OT (ahem, First Testament) sparkles with life and leads the Bible reader straight into the ring of fire itself. I cannot and will not choose between them, but this order would be my subtle ranking.

Matthew Croasmun, Matthew Croasmun, The Emergence of Sin: The Cosmic Tyrant in Romans (Review)

John Goldingay, The First Testament

Matthew J. Thomas, Paul’s ‘Works of the Law’ in the Perspective of Second Century Reception, (Review)

Bible Resources of the Year

David deSilva, Introduction to the New Testament (revised edition). Simply the best introduction to the NT one can buy: so many angles and perspectives and side bars.

Gregory R. Lanier, William A. Ross, Septuagint: A Reader’s Edition

Bible Books of the Year

Rodney Reeves, Matthew, in the Story of God — this book exemplifies everything we wanted in this series: expository finesse along with pastoral sensitivity.

Glenn Pemberton, A Life that is Good. My DMin cohort is pondering wisdom — in the Bible, in the church — and so once again I’ve found a special “First” Testament book on wisdom.

Susan Eastman, Paul and the Person. In my work the last couple years on Paul and Romans I found a number of good books, and a genuine complement to Croasmun is this fine book on the nature of the “person” in the world of Paul.

Craig Koester, Revelation and the End of All Things. This book surprised me: clear, comprehensive, compelling — and it doesn’t have the annoying habits so many have on Revelation, namely, grinding away at one hermeneutical angle.

Stephen Weitzman, Surviving Sacrilege. My friend Drew Strait put me on to this book and what a delightful read it was. Excellent probing of how Jews struggled to survive when (mostly) Rome was against them. [Dear OUP, get an image up on Amazon’s page.]

Church Resource Book of the Year

Fleming Rutledge, Advent. Some don’t preach from the lectionary so they miss the value of such wonderful books, but this is nothing less than the good wine of Advent wisdom.

For the lectionary preacher, there is a beautiful new series: Connections C: 1, and Connections C: 2

Church in Society Book of the Year

Craig Bartholomew, Contours of the Kuyperian Tradition. I have long drawn swords with Kuyper, have read many of his books, and have generally agreed with Rich Mouw’s take on Kuyper. But this new study now replaces all others on Kuyper that I have read.

Biographies of the Year

It was a challenge to choose which biography I liked most this year, and I read about a half dozen. It came down to two:

Matthew Hockenos, Then They Came For Me. A fair minded assessment of Martin Niemöller, one not known enough and one deserving to be far more known.

Gary Moon, Becoming Dallas Willard. And who could not enjoy this splendid sketch of Willard’s life?

Ministry Book of the Year

Andrew Root, Faith Formation in a Secular Age. I was put on to this book by Mike King and it is an excellent example of pastoral theology taking on colossal works in philosophy.

Church History

Robert Louis Wilken, The First Thousand Years. I’m behind but I read this book by Wilken this year and have to say this: this is how to write a book! Beautiful, mature judgment, and he keeps it all personal in so many ways.

“Writers”

I might as well have a section each year for my favorite author: Joseph Epstein, The Ideal of Culture. The best familiar essayist of our day collects his essays from the last few years on culture, on biography, on Jews and on masterpieces.

Classical World

Adrian Goldsworthy, Pax Romana. Amazing gift of writing applied to the grit and grime and glory of the Roman empire.

James Romm, Dying Every Day. An outstanding and well-written study of Seneca, advisor to Nero.

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.

He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.

The largest portion of the Apostles’ Creed focuses on the life and death of Jesus Christ. This is not surprising as Jesus the Christ is the central element of Christian belief and is  contrasted with all others. This was true in the first century, in the early church, and is true today.

Jesus is introduced and described at the beginning of this section of the Apostles’ Creed. Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, our Lord, conceived by the Spirit, and born of woman. There is a lot to unpack in this short statement.

Jesus. J. I. Packer (Affirming the Apostles’ Creed) starts with the name. “Jesus (Greek for Joshua, meaning “God is Savior”) is his proper name. It identifies him as a historical person, Mary’s son from Nazareth in Galilee … The four Gospels described his ministry in some detail.” (p. 60) Jesus was a human being who lived in a particular social context at a specific time in a defined place. Other humans who traveled with him and heard his teaching bore witness to his life. This witness was received by the church beyond the confines of Palestine and is preserved for us today. Our faith is grounded in history.

Christ. But there is more. Jesus is the Christ, God’s Messiah. Christ is not his surname, it is a title and denotes a calling, a role or vocation. Both Packer and Michael Bird (What Christians ought to Believe) emphasize this. Michael fleshes it out for us:

So when the Apostles’ Creed refers to “Jesus Christ,” we should think of it as a reference to Jesus in his messianic office as the Christ, the long-awaited deliverer of Israel. The designation “Christ” is from the Greek word Christos, which itself is a translation of the Hebrew word mashiah, meaning “anointed one” (and from which comes the word Messiah). So for us, the mention of Jesus as “Christ” or “Messiah” should automatically evoke the wider gospel narrative pertaining to Jesus’s messianic ministry in Galilee and Judea. (p. 86)

The messianic role of Jesus, Packer notes, makes him prophet, priest, and king – roles requiring anointing in the Old Testament. In fact, naming Jesus as the Messiah connects him with the Old Testament narrative and the mission of God revealed there.

Son. Jesus is more than a human being, he is the Son of God. While this is a messianic title in places, potentially referring to a human being, the church quickly came to realize it as much more when applied to Jesus. While Jesus was fully human, he was also Immanuel, “God with us” fully divine. The varied ways in which this is conveyed in the Gospel accounts of his life is a fascinating study in its own right. Richard Hays in his recent books Reading Backwards and Echoes of Scripture in the Gospels helps us understand the depth of imagery and understanding that connects Jesus with God.

His only son – there is no other. Jesus is the Son who was present at the Creation of the world. He became flesh and dwelt among us. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14

Lord. The statement that Jesus is Lord is arguably the oldest creedal statement of Christianity. Paul writes that “no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.” (1 Cor. 12:3) Both Ben Myers (The Apostles’ Creed) and Michael Bird both note that the term Lord (kyrios) connects Jesus with the Septuagint’s use of the term for YHWH and adonai. To say Jesus is Lord is to pledge allegiance to him alone, it is an expression of “covenant loyalty” and a commitment of our everything. To say that Jesus is Lord is also a recognition that Caesar is not. In Paul’s first century Roman world context, Caesar was “Lord” politically and religiously. For the Christian, Jesus alone is Lord. A statement and an allegiance worth dying for. Michael Bird elaborates:

The Romans were not interested in the internal disposition of people’s lives. Confession of Jesus as Lord was always a scandalous and subversive claim. Profession of a “lord” is not merely religious language for adoration on some spiritual plane; it is also a matter of social and political allegiance. When it came to who was running the show, the Christians knew that there were only two options, either the son of Augustus or the son of David. (p. 93)

Today we need to strike “son of Augustus” and put country or party in its place. In the USA this is a sore issue these days. But similar problems exist at all times and all places. Our allegiance should be clear when we affirm Jesus as our Lord. This goes far beyond a personal spiritual feeling. It lays claim on our entire lives. Perhaps this is why “no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.”

Conceived by the Spirit, Born of the virgin. This is a very important clause in the creed, but there is some disagreement exactly how to understand it. There is a claim of divine origin. Jesus is not merely a man produced in the usual way. At one time it was believed that the sin nature came through man’s seed planted in a woman. Thus the virginal conception preserved Jesus from sin. But this isn’t the best way to understand Jesus, his humanity or divinity. It doesn’t seem to play a role in the New Testament understanding at all.

Ben Myers points out that this is not simply some unbelievable miracle. Rather it plays an important role in the whole story. “To understand the virgin birth we need to see how it fits into the whole story of Scripture – a story in which miraculous births play a starring role.” (p. 50) God worked to bring about his purposes through Sarah, Rebecca, Hannah…

That is how it goes in the Old Testament: at the great turning points of history, we find a woman, pregnant, and an infant brought into the world by the powerful promise of God. Israel’s story is a story of miraculous births. (p. 51)

The confession that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin isn’t just a bit of theological eccentricity. It’s not a random miracle story. It’s a reminder that our faith has deep roots in Israel’s story and Israel’s Scriptures. (p. 54)

Incarnation. Of course, the birth of Jesus isn’t quite the same as the miraculous conceptions of the Old Testament. The virginal conception of Jesus through the power of the Holy Spirit and his birth are also a witness to the reality of the incarnation. He came as a human baby, fully human and fully divine. Michael Bird points out that “the virgin conception provides clarification to Jesus’s identity as the pre-existant and eternal Son of God made flesh.” (p. 106)

According to Bird, there are four other things the virgin conception and birth of Jesus does for us: it “makes it clear that Israel was the vehicle by which God’s deliverance comes into the world.” (p. 105) This is similar to the point made by Myers. It “underscores the dominant role of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’s ministry.” (p. 105) This goes beyond his conception by the power of the Spirit. Bird cites Luke 4:1, 14, 10:21, and Matthew 12:28 as well as other passages. Moving on, it “means that God’s new world was at last becoming a reality.” (p. 106) Or more completely: “the birth of Jesus is the first sign of a new world being born, a new age dawning upon our own.” (p. 107) Finally, it “teaches us about the victory of God and the vanquishing of Satan.” (p. 107) Here Bird refers to Revelation 12 and its imagery of childbirth.

What else do you see in this opening statement about Jesus?

If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net.

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