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.

Solid Ground