The Beatitudes were Jesus’ beginning statement in the Sermon on the Mount which began with, “Blessed are …..”    Do you recall the last Beattitude mentioned by the Lord?  It is in Matthew 5:11:  “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Jesus’ Beattitudes that began with “Blessed are the poor in spirit,”  reach a counter-intuitive crescendo.  It is only natural to ask for clarification:  “Lord, Do you mean 1) that You expect us to be reviled by others and persecuted, and 2) that we are to see this as blessed???”  I believe the Lord is saying YES to both.  Of course our natural human protests, “Isn’t everybody supposed to like us?”  And Jesus no doubt would say NO!  Instead, we should expect persecution and all types of verbal abuse.  One blessing of the persecuted is that it marks our authenticity as disciples (when we are truly persecuted “on His account” and not for our unfaithful caricatures of Jesus.)   The onslaught of verbal assassination and other persecution is one of the most sure indicators we are right in the middle of doing the Lord’s will.  And counterintuitively before the Lord, it becomes a strange form of encouragement.

Will we follow a Lord who calls us to this kind of social embarrassment and suffering?  It is not that we actively seek revilement, but that in the natural course of discipleship, following the earlier beatitudes for instance, we will provoke the ire of people who are “convicted” by our words and behavior.  The revilers reveal that they have alternate visions of what the kingdom of God looks like, conflicting views of what it means to show care and compassion, and ultimately different pictures of Jesus.

The current worldly picture of Christ here in America is “Jesus the Nice Guy who Cares.”  And there is truth to this picture, as in any caricature.  It is hard for Christians here to correct and deepen this picture of Jesus, for we are tempted daily to buy into it, to be nice like the world thinks Jesus is nice.  But this would ultimately lead to our denying the Christ who was an equal offender of the religious (Pharisees) and the worldly (Sadducess and Herodians) who together planned to kill Him.  One could just as accurately paint a portrait of Jesus on the other end of the spectrum, along the lines of “Christ the Controversialist.”  Sure enough, Jesus is nice and caring–BUT on His own terms.  He is not preoccupied as are his 21^st century disciples with being perceived as caring.  In fact, Jesus’ form of caring was often downright offensive and troubling.  Pure and authentic compassion has to be grounded enough in the Kingdom and the Word to take the risk of revilement.

Let me illustrate with a real but unnamed example of what a disciple looks like whose Jesus is the worldly caricature:  The Nice Guy who Cares.  This is a hard-working minister type involved in many good works.  Fine and good.  But his glory, what makes for music to his ears is not “Well done, good and faithful servant,” but a headline in the New York Times reading:  “Such and Such Church Gets Our Trophy for Caring!”  If we deep down want the world to like us and to think well of us, then we will be tempted in making Jesus just a nice and caring guy, who wouldn’t offend a soul or make anyone angry.  Compassion is indeed called for, but not capitulation to the culture’s mandate to call blue red, just so everyone can feel better and we can be given a “trophy for caring” by a culture that deep down really doesn’t like us.  Where would we display such a trophy?  Hopefully not in sight of the cross.

So the question at hand before the disciple is this:  Where is your holy ground?   You take off your shoes on holy ground, like Moses did when meeting the Lord at the burning bush.  Your culture has places it considers holy ground, whether matters sexual, political or ideological.  You are being asked to take your shoes off on this holy ground so that no feet are stepped on.  Where’s your holy ground?  The failure to recognize our culture’s holy ground will most assuredly mean our stepping on some feet.  And you will hear about it.  When this happens, Jesus calls you blessed.

No wonder Jesus said on another occasion:   “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.  (Luke 6:26)  LH

Acknowledgment to artists:  Courtney Schwartz & Justin on Coexalt–see at Zazzle; Painting“Mary Heard His Word”  by Walter Rane & “It is Finished” by Donna Pierce-Clarke; others sources unable to locate

Part of our reflections this Lent have involved reminding ourselves of the seven (even eight) deadly sins, those squid-tentacled sins that stick to us and ensure there are more entrapping arms to come.  We pondered what is THE deadly sin of America, and saw there are surely several strong candidates.  It came as a surprise to me, but the more I considered it, the more I came to see the “pedestrian” and “sleepy” sin of Sloth our greatest concern.  In a time of overwhelming busyness, it is tempting to neglect more important things as well as substitute lesser visions for greater and more demanding ones.  Among the greatest expression of sloth in our time is an unthinking dependence on Tolerance as an answer to our greatest social and moral problems.  This does not take away from the value and validity of the classic form of tolerance described as bearing with those whose beliefs and practices differ from our own in view of the common human dignity of being in the image of God and in view of the Lord’s example of patience and bearing with sinners (like ourselves).

The good and helpful classic tolerance has been remolded by many in the “talking class” (media/educators/politicians) as meaning not merely recognizing the right of others to hold differences but also the necessity to accept and even validate that all differences are equal in value and in truth.  This is a subtle but real form of dogmatic social engineering.  Here are some ways I describe the “new dogmatic tolerance”:

Toxic Tolerance:  tolerance to such a degree that truth suffers and is poisoned; regression to a moral stone age where folks impress themselves with the discovery of the wheel

Tolerance with a capital “T”:  Tolerance above all; what “thinking Americans” think before thinking, a means of coercion, experienced as bullying, thought control, condescension, manipulation & hypocrisy to those on the corrective end of the “Be tolerant” stick

Total Tolerance:  the illusory and impossible idealistic-modern-dream that one can be totally tolerant, maintained by the pretense of ignoring the many things that person or group will not tolerate

An alternative to the above morphed and massaged versions of tolerance can be described as:

Tolerance with a small “t”:  this is the classic tolerance mentioned above, which although admitting many failures in application, has been a part of the Christian teaching as early as Tertullian, the Christian apologist from Carthage who wrote around 217 A.D:

“It is a human law and a natural right that one should worship whatever he intends …  It is no part of religion to coerce religious practice, for it is by free choice not coercion that we should be led to religion.” (To Scapula 2.1–2)

Objections:  Some object that tolerance with the small “t” is not enough.  It takes the “Big T Tolerance” as THE method for getting along.  Coexist, right?  So tolerate is the answer.”  I quote University of Texas Professor of Government, J. Budziszewski, who reveals real problems in applying the Big T Dogmatic Tolerance:

“If you really believe that the meaning of tolerance is tolerating, then you ought to tolerate even intolerance. If you really believe that the best foundation for tolerance is to avoid having any strong convictions at all about right and wrong, then you shouldn’t have a strong conviction that intolerance is wrong. If you really believe that when you do have strong convictions you should refuse to express or act upon them, then your tolerance should be a dead letter; it should be one of the things you are pusillanimous (faint-hearted) about..…

What then is the truth about tolerance? The meaning of this virtue is not tolerating per se, but tolerating what ought to be tolerated. Practicing it means putting up with just those bad things that, for the sake of some greater good, we ought to put up with. We aren’t practicing the virtue when we fail to put up with bad things that we ought to put up with, such as the expression of false opinions in debate; nor are we practicing it when we do put up with bad things that we ought not to put up with, such as rape. But making such distinctions requires knowing the truth about goods, bads, and greater goods.”

Why then is the new Big T dogmatic Tolerance slothful?  Because Jesus calls us not to tolerance but to love.  Josh McDowell & Bob Hostetler put it this way:

Tolerance says, “You must approve of what I do.” Love responds, “I must do something harder; I will love you, even when your behavior offends me.”

Tolerance says, “You must allow me to have my way.” Love responds, “I must do something harder; I will plead with you to follow the right way, because I believe you are worth the risk.”

Tolerance seeks to be inoffensive; love takes risks. Tolerance is indifferent; love is active. Tolerance costs nothing; love costs everything.      Lance H

Genesis 1 Week 11

Genesis 1 Week 10

Genesis 1 Week 8 Slides

Web Resource: The Big Myth

Quest for Creation Stories of Ancient Near East

song-songs (link to Bible.org site for article)

Genesis 1 Week 5 Youth Group Notes

Genesis 1 Week 5 Slides

Genesis Week 4 Slides

Bibliography for Genesis Class Near Eastern Backgrounds

Grateful acknowledgement for photo of bear from Rose Kendall of Bible Pathways blog; photo of rocking man on tracks from John Mesirow of Legal Juice dot com; and painting of fish by Harry Wentworth entitled, “The Foolishness of Youth”

Grateful acknowledgements for art in this issue:  Lancaster Baptist Church in California with Ministry127  for Salt & Light bulb; snake photo from  band Wicked Wisdom and album cover of same name (dove added!); Wise Up Proverbs from The Table Community Church in Lancaster, PA; and photo for Wisdom from Above by Roberto Nuzzo, church steeple in Vicenza, Italy , 2011 entry for the Nat Geo photo contest & entitled “Dawn, Just Above the Fog.”

Notes & Slides from Class

Class Slides: Genesis 1 Week 2

Genesis Slides Week 01

Genesis Class Notes 01

Here is a link to a short mention of the book by Chuck Colson, of Prison Fellowship.

More God, Less Crime  (click to view)

Hannam Lecture  (click to hear and view)

More from James Hannam

Influence of Christianity on Music no imbeds

Melos Archaion (early Greek music)

ambrosian chant \“Kyrie\”

Gregorian chant \“Agnus Dei\”

O Pastor Animarum, Hildegaard Von Bingen

\“Aguns Dei\” from Le Messe de Notre Dame Guillaume de Mauchant

\“nunc Dimittis\” Giovanni Palestrina performed by Tallis Scholars

\“vigilate\” William Byrd Tallis scholars

Sanctus in D J S Bach

\“Sanctus from B minor Mass\” J S Bach

\“all we like sheep\” from Messiah G F Handel  (need to hear the last bars of this one for the pathos starting about minute 2:50)

\“I know that my Redeemer liveth\” From Messiah

\“in Paradisum\” Requiem Gabriel Faure

As bulletin articles are necessarily sketchy, the following link permits a more detailed engagement along these lines:

God: The Best Explanation by Paul Copan   (See especially the Worldview Chart pages 103–104 in the chapter)

For those seeking a more academic, scholarly level engagement: please enjoy the articles in The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology (2009) edited by William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland.

Most of all, Pontius Pilate’s situational question is everyone’s question:  What will I do with Jesus?   For those grappling with Jesus in Historical context, two helpful, competent, and open-minded scholars writing in this area are N.T. Wright and Ben Witherington.  And of course, there is nothing like reading the Gospels.

Jihad Begot the Crusades Part 1

Jihad Begot the Crusades Part 2

Timeline for Jihad and Crusades (click to view)

Freedom of Simplicity

Michael Ramsey Prize 2011 (click to view)

So what if I don’t have time this summer to read the artistic and engaging Atheist Delusions? (Which you may recall is actually a book setting our civilization in the context of its historical roots–doing the homework of tracing what is owed to the transforming influence of Christianity.)  You can get the gist of the book by the short summary below by C Burrell.  Note the four ways mentioned of how Christianity transformed society.

Hart: Atheist Delusions (click to read)

FHNewsOn Patriotism

What About the Crusades_Part 1 (Click to read)

Suggested reading to supplement Jim’s teaching today are the following:

Onward Christian Soldiers? Christian Perspectives on War (Click to read on site)

Christian Pacifism: Early Christian Views of War (Click to read on site)

Reflective of a strong current of pacifism in our tradition, here are two articles with a different perspective:

Ben Witherington\‘s poem and comments on war (click to read on site)

Pacifism: The Case for Christian Non-Violence (click to read on site)

Resurrection Appearances in Sequence (click to view)

10 Reasons to Believe in the Resurrection Lessons 1–4 (Click to view)

10 Reasons to Believe in the Resurrection Lessons 5 — 7 (Click to view)

10 Reasons to Believe in the Resurrection Lessons 8 — 10 (Click to view)

RBC Ministries Website

FH News Amazing Grace (click to view)

Jesus Loves Me Barth and Poetry (click to view)

FH Going with the Grain

FH Judge Not

FH Launch Out in the Deep

FH Money Coram Deo

FH News Repentance Humility

FH Teresa Liseaux

FH Poor in Spirit

Three clips by the Centre of Public Christianity (CPC) are interviews of the Cambridge trained classicist Edwin Judge.  The other CPC clip is an interview with David Bentley Hart, the University of Virginia trained theologian and culture critic who wrote one of the the books for our course, Atheist Delusions.

Judge on the Good the Bad and the Ugly of Christianity (click to view)

Humility: a Christian Legacy (click to view)

Nostalgia for a Pagan Past (click to view)

Constantine\‘s Legacy (click to view)

Schmidt interview (click to view)

The Sanctification of Human Life by Alvin Schmidt (click to view)

Christian Book Summary of How Christianity Changed the World (click to view)  Great Overview

Fellowship for Evangelism in the Visual Arts (link)

The chart is offered here with Cameron’s permission.

What’s your Worldview? (click to view)

Early Church History Time Line (click to view)

Please note there is room for disagreement with Professor Stark on several points.  As with all readings in the course, no one necessarily “gets it all right.”  We have responsibility to read well and take truth wherever we find it.  With Stark, for instance, I disagree that the numbers in Acts are off and that he is unnecessarily skeptical in that regard.   I also disagree that persecution of the early Christians was historically mainly top down from its leaders, for it could involve all levels of society.  I believe the best summation on persecution in general is by  historian Everett Ferguson, “Persecutions … were local and sporadic, …  The threat of persecution was ever present, but persecution was not a constant experience.”    The extent and intensity of persecution increased immensely in 250 AD under the empire-wide persecution by Decius.

From Jesus to Christ and Rise of Christianity Stark on Frontline (click to read)

Salt of the Empire by mike aquilina (click to read)

Also enjoy here a short excerpt from Randall Niles (a skeptic who came to believe) on the Gospel/Acts writer Luke as a historian.  The retroscholarship question is, “How can we use Luke as a source when it was written by a Christian?”   The historically informed question today is:  How can we not use Luke to inform our history?

Randall Niles short on Luke as Historian (click to read)

Who Am I? Scriptures on Christian Identity

Who Am I? Scriptures on Christian Identity

Christian History Magazine on Persecution (click to access)

A Reasonable Faith: Top 25 Apologetics Websites (click to read)

The Fall and self-criticism by Jim McAlister

Below is the link to historian Paul Johnson’s article, “The Necessity of Christianity.”

1truth08.html#

There is also room for those wishing to delve deeper into the various topics listed, such as focusing on learning in the Middle Ages, or, for instance, reviewing Peter Harrison’s new book below.  (Professor Peter Harrison is the Gifford Lecturer for 2011.)  Another book of interest in this area would be Ronald Numbers new book called Galileo Goes to Jail: and Other Myths about Science and Religion (Harvard Press, 2009).

The Truth About the Spanish Inquisition by Madden (click to read)

Crusade Propaganda by Madden (click to read)

The Crusades by Crawford (click to read)

The Real History of the Crusades by Madden (click to read)

What the Crusades Were Really Like by Madden (click to read)

Madden review of Movie \“Kingdom of Heaven\” (click to view)

Crusaders and Historians (click to view)

Stark on Science & Christianity (click to read)

The Dynamic Middle Ages (click to read)

Myths of Middle Ages (click to read)

Five Myths About Christianity, Islam, and the Middle Ages (click to read)

Iona’s Tough Dove (click to read)

In support of the above line of reasoning, please read and evaluate six pages from David Bentley Hart’s chapter entitled, “The Face of the Faceless.”  I was only able to scan two pages at a time, so will have to click several times to get through the six pages.

Hart 166–167 (click to read)

Hart 168 — 169 (click to read)

Hart pages 170 — 171 (click to read)

Stark on Science & Christianity (click on to read)

A God of Math and Order (click on to read)

Christian Face of Scientific Revolution by Lindberg (click on to read)

Salt of the Empire by mike aquilina (click on to read)

Roman Cruelty, Christian Purity by Aquilina (click on to read)

Rise of Early Christianity by Stark (click on to read)

Epidemics, Networks, And the Rise of Christianity (Pages 159 — 166;  from a scholarly article in professional peer reviewed journal laying ground of Stark’s groundbreaking work in sociology applied to history of Christianity.)

The Early Church_ How Christians elevated culture (click on to read)

Who Invented Charity by Woods (click on to read)

Christianity on Trial_ Arguments Against Anti-Religious Bigotry (click to read)

What follows is a quote from theologian David Bentley Hart whose book, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (Yale, 2009) provides a strong case for the naming of our class.

Hart speaks of “how enormous a transformation of thought, sensibility, culture, morality, and spiritual imagination Christianity constituted in the age of pagan Rome;  the liberation it offered from fatalism, cosmic despair, and the terror of occult agencies; the immense dignity it conferred upon the human person; its subversion of the cruelest aspects of pagan society; its (alas, only partial) demystification of political power; its ability to create moral community where none had existed before; and its elevation of active charity above all other virtues.

Stated in its most elementary and most buoyantly positive form, my argument is, first or all, that among all the many great transitions that have marked the evolution of Western civilization, whether, convulsive or gradual, political or philosophical, social or scientific, material or spiritual, there has been only one–the triumph of Christianity–that can be called in the fullest sense a “revolution”: a truly massive and epochal revision of humanity’s prevailing vision of reality, so pervasive in its influence and so vast in its consequences as actually to have created a new conception of the world, of history, of human nature, of time, and of the moral good.  To my mind, I should add, it was an event immeasurably more impressive in its cultural creativity and more ennobling in its moral power than any other movement of spirit, will, imagination, aspiration, or accomplishment in the history of the West.”  (from the “Introduction,” p. xi.)

For more class material please click on Newer Entries below …

FH Snow

“We shall be saved by His Life” (Romans 5:10)

In this season of reflecting on the coming of the Eternal Son into the world at Bethlehem, we are exploring the precious doctrine of the Incarnation.    We are considering that Immanuel “God with us” means God as us– the Word becoming flesh and dwelling among us.   This is closeness indeed, for God not only draws near us, but actually gets “under our skin” being born the baby Jesus.  This is closeness such that the Incarnation (the Word becoming flesh) touches human life in a deep and transforming way.  By His union with us as God-and-Man, our Lord “lays hold of us in Himself and acts for us from out of the inner depths of His coexistence with us and our existence with Him, delivering us from the sentence of death upon us, and from the corruption and perdition that have overtaken us…. The whole of Christ became a curse for us, taking upon Himself our Adamic humanity, but triumphing over the forces of evil embedded within our existence, bringing His own holiness and obedience to bear in such a way as to condemn sin and deliver us from its power.  It is the inner man, in his rational human soul, that man has fallen and become enslaved to sin.  It is in the mind, not just the flesh … that sin is entrenched.  This means that redemption is necessarily closely linked to revelation in which the teaching of Jesus is to be regarded as an essential part of His saving work.  Christ’s life, from cradle to grave, in which he took on our whole humanity, and not just his death, is to be considered part of the atoning reconciliation.”  (Quoting from Thomas Torrance through his student Andrew Purves).  This deep work of God in the Incarnation is especially emphasized in the Eastern and Orthodox churches this time of year.  LH

Most High, reaching from one end to the other mightily, and sweetly ordering all things:

Come and teach us the way of prudence.

I cannot think unless I have been thought, 
Nor can I speak unless I have been spoken. 
I cannot teach except as I am taught, 
Or break the bread except as I am broken. 
O Mind behind the mind through which I seek, 
O Light within the light by which I see,

O Word beneath the words with which I speak,

O founding, unfound Wisdom, finding me,

O sounding Song whose depth is sounding me,

O Memory of time, reminding me,

My Ground of Being, always grounding me,

My Maker’s Bounding Line, defining me, 
Come, hidden Wisdom, come with all you bring, 
Come to me now, disguised as everything.