Good Inferential Theology
By Tim Etherington | July 7, 2010
The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man’s salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down in Scripture, or by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture – Westminster Confession of Faith 1.6
Is it legitimate to make inferences in theology? Covenant theology both Baptistic and Presbyterian makes it a confessional matter. That’s a pretty strong belief in the legitimacy of the practice to include it in your confession of faith. Even more than that, the covenantal theological system has some inferences that are fundamental to it. There is a lot riding on the legitimacy of inferring in your theology for Reformed folks. The million dollar question is, is it legitimate?
To answer that question I have often pointed to the doctrine of the Trinity. It is nowhere stated in Scripture in one succinct passage, it must be understood by putting passages together and inferring the meaning. That’s not a bad argument but I came across another one today. Actually, it is an example of inference being practiced in the Bible.
Abraham was told that the blessings of his covenant would not come through Ishmael, the child of the flesh, but through Isaac, the child of promise. God goes so far as to call Isaac Abraham’s only son. And then God tells Abraham to take this son and kill him. How did Abraham reconcile these two contrary things? He didn’t spiritualize the sacrifice of Isaac, he took a knife in his hand and raised it over his son’s chest with the intent of plunging it in. And yet he’d told his servant “Wait here and the boy and I will return” before taking Isaac up to the place of sacrifice. Abraham inferred that since he must kill Isaac and yet nations would come through Isaac that God could and would raise the dead. God didn’t tell him that, he inferred it. And to double up that inference, the book of Genesis doesn’t tell us that, the author of the Book of Hebrews infers that Abraham believed it.
So if someone wants to deny the practice of inferring by saying that the author of Hebrews was inspired and therefore able to accurately make that inference, fine. But what are we to say about Abraham’s inference? Just because the act is accurately recorded and interpreted in the Bible doesn’t mean that the act itself was inspired. Abraham inferred resurrection based on the fact that God doesn’t lie and that he doesn’t break his promises. And this act of Abraham’s obedience is lauded as a good thing. It wasn’t blind faith or “pan-sacrifice-alism” as in “I’ll sacrifice Isaac and it’ll all pan out in the end.” It was an act of obedience and faith and inference.
Tags: Covenant Theology, Hermeneutics | 1 Comment »
Book Review: The Sword
By Tim Etherington | May 31, 2010
The way Crossway described the book got me: Fiction yet theology, future yet Medieval. They said it was a book for men with a strong male lead. Plus there are swords. I pegged this as one of my summer reads right away.
I have had thoughts for a review since about page 4 and I’ll write this under three heads: Storytelling, Writing, and Theology.
Storytelling
Litfin is a theology professor and this is his first foray into fiction. That said, the story is fairly well done. I never felt like the storyline got stuck though I did begin to wonder at one place if Litfin had forgotten one of the important subplots. No, he hadn’t and that was the point. We were supposed to feel that gap. It was a good tactic to keep you engaged emotionally with the story and the characters. The story line was good but it wasn’t great. Don’t expect C.S. Lewis here (and for the record, Litfin never pretends to be Lewis). While not compelling it was entertaining and engaging. I have found myself entering the world of Chiveis in my head and imagining other adventures. I even spent some time on Google Maps and found the location he describes including the cathedral on the cover. I’m such a nerd.
Writing
In the videos on the website, Litfin says that he did a lot of research for the book which included how to write fiction and the writing reflects it. It isn’t bad but it isn’t polished yet. His writing is sufficient. He knows how to keep the episodes moving so that each time I put the book down I wanted to pick it back up. However, his dialogue was stilted and awkward at times. A few times it was groan-worthy. One of the things I remember hearing about fiction writing was “Show it, don’t say it.” In a few places, Litfin does both. It wasn’t a show stopper. I wasn’t so bothered by his writing there but I did wonder why his editor let that go.
Despite these few relatively minor irritations I thought the writing was capable and shows potential. His characters were mostly people you felt like you knew. The world he describes is one you believe (most of the time. Where’d the radiation go though?) Once again, it isn’t stellar writing but it is good, light, pop Christian fiction. Just the target he (and I) was aiming at.
Theology – There may be some spoilers here so beware!
Litfin teaches theology at Moody Bible Institute so I expected Dispensationalism but it isn’t there. This isn’t another version of Late Great Planet Earth or Left Behind (not that I expected it.) There is no theological ax to grind, at least not in this installment. Instead what Litfin explores is essentially this history of the Church. Early on the lead characters have no knowledge of God, only the false gods of Chiveis whom they’re not fond of. There is a nagging sense that there is a good God out there, if they only knew him. While those around them seem fine with these ugly gods, Teo and Ana want something more. When they find the Bible the last third of it is (conveniently) rotted and unreadable. Litfin here is exploring what it was like for the Church before the New Testament. What did they know about God? How did they approach God? I’m assuming that in future installments we’ll see them discover the New Testament and be blown away by Jesus coming and fulfilling all of what they knew. But that will is for a future volume.
I very much appreciated how God is present in the story. He isn’t a theory or idea but an “actor”. That is, he acts; he is active. But from a Christian perspective, how does Hebrews 1:1-3 apply in a world which has largely forgotten Christianity and has only recovered the Old Testament? Asked another way, will God reveal himself apart from Jesus Christ after the Incarnation? I knew what I thought and I was glad to see that Litfin seems to agree with me.
What is great is that Litfin does his theology without long-winded debates and discussions between stick-figure characters. The characters explore their new faith and grow in it. Yet, they seems to too quickly become “Christians” without Jesus. There is an animal sacrifice to atone for sin but there is much more discussion of God’s mercy for those who repent. That they got this from a few chapters of Genesis, Ruth and a couple of Psalms seems a bit of a stretch to me. And then the “house community” that formed seemed to be a church small group with a pastor (Maurice) was a bit too convenient for me. Add to this the “church split” and I felt like I was in a small, American, Protestant church!
Litfin briefly explored the issue of hermenutics. I think that’s a good idea but I didn’t feel the way Valant came to his opinion of how to read the Bible was “organic”. His was essentially Gnostic but it seemed to come out of nowhere basically. How did he get to that place? I didn’t feel like we went along on his ride. Also, the prevailing method of reading texts and mythology in Chiveis should have come in to play here. We always read and interpret texts according to our culture. I think Litfin was trying to tip his hat to Medieval Church struggles but this didn’t work well for me.
What was beautifully displayed again and again was grace and holiness. I appreciated that. Characters love and forgive because of Deu. Teo and Ana are repeatedly put into situations where, if this were a Hollywood movie or a TV show they’d have been naked in a minute. Our hero and heroine are clearly attracted to each other but both are noble and and behave honorably to each other. I liked that. Sex is present elsewhere in the story, but as is likely to happen in a godless world, it is misused. Teo and Ana maintain their purity in the midst of it all because God is an actor here.
Over all I’m glad I read the book and hope to make volume 2 next summer’s light read.
Tags: Bibliophile | No Comments »
For the Audience
By Tim Etherington | May 6, 2010
There are few things that the Bible explicitly says the angels rejoice over. One is when God created the earth (Job 38:6-7). The other is a sinner repenting (Luke 15:10). There are other places in the Bible where the angels say things (usually with loud voices) that would seem to indicate that they’re rejoicing such as Luke 2 at the announcement of Jesus’ birth and a few places in Revelation. These seem to be fairly disconnected events that cause the angels joy but I think they are all for basically the same thing and that one thing is pretty incredible.
“Through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” (Eph 3:10)
Lisa and I were talking about this verse the other day and as we unpacked it, it blew our minds. There are some important implications here. Paul says that God’s work in and through the Church is to show the angels his wisdom. Don’t let that pass by too quickly. Consider a few other things in conjunction with this: Man is a little lower than the angels (Psalm 8:4-5). Some of the angels fell but God didn’t redeem them even though he did redeem fallen man (1 Peter 1:12). God’s strength is shown in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).
So now put that all together under the umbrella of Ephesians 3:10. God chose to not redeem fallen angels but he did redeem fallen man and he did that to show the angels his magnificence. God demonstrates his strength and power in weakness. This is why Jesus didn’t become a human king or ruler, but a carpenter from Nazareth who was executed on a cross. God exalts the humble and humbles the proud. God saves people for his own glory to show the angels, fallen and not, His power. They never experience his mercy and grace.
So when the angels rejoice over one saved sinner it isn’t because people are so precious, it is because the angels are once again blown away by God’s wisdom and power and grace. They don’t celebrate so much over us as they do over God. Our salvation is God showing the angels how he exalts the humble because we’re lower than they are but we experience the grace and mercy they don’t receive.
Tags: Angels, Glory, Soteriology | 1 Comment »
A Parable on the Use of the Means of Grace
By Tim Etherington | April 24, 2010
A young man once fancied a woman. She was beautiful and wise and strong and made a comfortable living. She owned a coffee shop that the young man went to. A friend of his introduced him to her and he fell in love at once and she loved him too.
He began to frequent the coffee shop every morning. He bought t-shirts with the logo, he bought coffee mugs with the logo, he drank many of the different blends of coffee from the shop. And every morning the lovely woman would greet him when he entered the shop and they would spend a delightful morning together.
But after months of this he came in the shop one morning and she wasn’t there. He saw that it was still her shop and recognized that it was still her style and taste in the decor. He saw her handwriting on the blackboards and on notes at the register, but he didn’t see her. His heart was heavy. Yet he thought to himself, “Surely she’ll see that I continue to return to her shop! I know that she’ll see my love for her coffee and she’ll come and meet me again. I will spend more time and money in her shop. That will please her!”
And he did. He started coming in the evenings after work. He bought t-shirts and mugs for his family. His cubicle at work was covered with trinkets from the shop. But every time he entered and she wasn’t there, the coffee didn’t taste as good. The decor seemed nice but not as lovely. For a week or two he stopped coming all together. His heart was heavy and he missed the lovely woman but the coffee shop didn’t hold the same appeal without her.
After two weeks, he returned to the shop and his heart warmed when he saw her behind the register. He got his coffee and sat at their favorite table by a window near the sidewalk. After a moment, she joined him.
“Where have you been?”, he asked. “I came here twice a day for a while. I bought books about coffee. I did all of the things I know you love in order to make you happy but you didn’t come.”
“But my dear, I don’t love you because of your devotion to coffee.” She laid a soft hand on his cheek as she spoke. “And though we will meet here often, this isn’t the only way you can be with me. It is a very good place for us to meet, for it is my shop. But you could call me and we could talk. Or we could meet for a walk in the forest. Or at a concert. There are other places for us.”
“But where did you go?” his sad eyes begged an answer.
“I withdrew from this place to draw you out to love me more than my shop.” She had tears as she spoke. “It was hard for me to pull back but it was the only way to draw your heart closer to me. I love that you love my shop but it is more important to me that you love me.” She wiped a tear from her cheek, “It was hard for both of us but it was the best way to strengthen our relationship. I love you.”
The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: “Stand in the gate of the Lord’s house, and proclaim there this word, and say, Hear the word of the Lord, all you men of Judah who enter these gates to worship the Lord. Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’” – Jeremiah 7:1-4
Tags: Bible, Grace, Jeremiah | No Comments »
The Love/Hate Relationship
By Tim Etherington | April 21, 2010
The word of the Lord came to me, saying, “Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the Lord,
“I remember the devotion of your youth,
your love as a bride,
how you followed me in the wilderness,
in a land not sown.
Israel was holy to the Lord,
the firstfruits of his harvest.
All who ate of it incurred guilt;
disaster came upon them,
declares the Lord.”- Jeremiah 2:1-3
Their faithfulness in the wilderness? God is calling them to remember the wilderness? But in the wilderness God hated them:
For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart,
and they have not known my ways.” – Ps 95:10
So why would God, through Jeremiah hold up the wilderness wandering as an example Judah should return to? A few answers come to mind.
First, the situation in Jeremiah’s time was so bad that the grumbling and complaining in the wilderness look good by comparison! And that surely was the case. In the wilderness they complained but their flirtations with idolatry didn’t last long. Judah in Jeremiah’s time was a real mess so perhaps returning to that would have been a real improvement.
Second, there were two generations wandering in the wilderness. The older generation is the one God hated and the one he swore would die in the desert. Their children were the more faithful generation who entered the Promised Land. Perhaps Jeremiah is pointing to that generation and calling Judah to return to that.
Third, perhaps Jeremiah isn’t thinking of just one generation or just one time period but is calling Judah back to a time when, in general, Israel was faithful. There were times in the wilderness when Israel did follow the Lord. Maybe the overall faithfulness (though imperfect) of the entire exodus period is what God has in mind here.
I’m sure that the Lord had all of these issues in mind when He said what He said. So why is it a head scratcher for us? Because we love in a truncated manner and God’s love is more lively and complex than ours. He can love and hate at the same time. And not the “love the sinner but hate the sin” kind of thing but I think that’s a pretty good way for us to get our heads around what he’s saying. God hated the generation that fell in the wilderness. They refused to believe him when He took them to the edge of the Promised Land. They were more afraid of the giants in the land than they were of their God. But God loved them and cared for them. The shoes didn’t wear out, they had manna and quail enough for every day of the journey. He poured water out of a rock for them twice. And these things were written for our instruction (1 Cor 10:6).
It is a good thing God loves like this. It is good news for us that he loves and forgives so that we’re not condemned when we sin. But it is also good that he remembers sin or our enemies, those who consume and ravage and abuse humanity would die and simply blink out existence and there would be no justice.
Tags: Jeremiah, Love, Psalms, Theology Proper | 1 Comment »
When and Where We Can Be Wrong
By Tim Etherington | April 15, 2010
In case you haven’t heard, Bruce Waltke, an eminent Old Testament scholar, has resigned from teaching at Reformed Theological Seminary because of some comments he made at a BioLogo conference. Waltke believes in theistic evolution and made some comments that were perhaps stronger than he’d intended. He also wasn’t clear that he was only speaking for himself and not representing RTS. He tendered his resignation and at first it was rejected but he and the school came to agree that his resignation was for the best. They didn’t fire him for holding to theistic evolution but that took a few days to come out. Waltke for his part has been an example of Christian care and protecting others. He refused an ABC interview because he was sure they’d edit his comments to make RTS look like a wigged out bunch of fundamentalists or something. What a gentleman!
What I want to comment on is not theistic evolution though. Instead I want to comment on the hermenutics that are at stake in this discussion. This morning I read these comments by Rick Phillips at the Reformation21 blog:
[O]ur supposedly eminent Bible scholars are now going on record to say that we must subordinate the authority of Scripture to the higher and more objective standard of secular science.
If Phillips is referring to Waltke, he couldn’t be more wrong. Waltke has publish a list of things he affirms and the authority and inerrancy of scriptures is part of that: “My first commitment is to the infallibility (as to its authority) and inerrancy (as to its Source) of Scripture.”
Phillips goes on:
Some will respond that the Bible does not make scientific claims and therefore we should not be biblically dogmatic when it comes to this topic. But what about history? Isn’t the creation account a record of history? Is the question of the historicity of Adam and Eve a matter of science, but not of history? Further, is it not true that evolution makes not merely scientific but also historical demands? And can the Bible’s theology be true if the historical events on which the theology is based are false?
And here’s where the issue gets dicey. What is the relationship between general revelation (what God shows about himself in nature) and special revelation (the Bible)? Obviously the Bible has priority but in interpreting both humans can and have erred. Those errors don’t mean the Bible is/was wrong or that by recanting of those errors we are denying the Bible’s authority. It just means that we were wrong.
Sometimes we learn things from general revelation that correct our errors in interpreting special revelation. The prime example of this is Copernicus. Up till the 16th century the prevailing opinion among scientists and the Church was that the earth was at the center of the universe and everything swung around it. After all, the Bible speaks of the sun moving across the sky in Psalm 19 and the fact that the earth is unmovable in Psalm 104. The problem that bothered Copernicus was that Mercury seems to move backward across the sky. This illustration shows the problem with Mercury’s orbit and a geocentric universe:
The problem was that if Mercury was circling in its orbit they should have seen it retrograde more often then it did. Copernicus tried a heliocentric model and Mercury’s obit made a lot more sense:
But surely Copernicus was subordinating the authority of Scripture to more objective standard of secular science, right? Of course not. What he did do was allow general revelation to correct a mistaken understanding of the Bible.
If God created the universe and inspired the Bible (and He did) then creation and Scripture don’t disagree. We might make a mistake in interpreting one or both. Phillips is correct when he notes that Waltke isn’t a scientist and is relying on what scientists are telling him. He’s asking questions not about the authority of Scripture but about the correctness of our interpretation of it. To me, that’s a fair question.
What we have to do is make sure that we don’t equate our interpretation of the Bible with the Bible itself. We can and have made mistakes. We’re currently making mistakes.
Now let me be clear, I’m not advocating theistic evolution. However, I have to point out that some significant Protestant theologians held to it before Waltke did. The author of the Protestant articulation of the inerrancy of Scripture B.B Warfield advocated theistic evolution while blasting the idea of naturalistic evolution. This is well documented in Mark Noll’s book Evolution, Science, and Scripture: Selected Writings. In volume VI of The Fundamentals, books written at the turn of last century to defend Christianity against modernism (i.e. Liberalism) and where the term “Fundamentalist” came from, James Orr wrote on the book of Genesis:
I am convinced, and have elsewhere sought to show, that genuine science teaches no such doctrine. Evolution is not to be identified offhand with Darwinianism. Later evolutionary theory may rather be described as a revolt against Darwinianism, and leaves the story open to a conception of man quite in harmony with that of the Bible… Man’s origin can only be explained through an exercise of direct creative activity, whatever subordinate factors evolution may have contributed.
Conservative evangelical scholars embracing a form of evolution is nothing new and not necessarily to be feared. The debate should be about the genre of Genesis 1:1-2:4 and not whether acknowledging some form of evolution is automatically a denial of Biblical authority, or as Phillips put it, a Trojan horse. We should proceed with caution. We don’t want to let science, which these days is skewed with materialistic, atheistic thought run rough shod over the Bible and we don’t want to let our interpretation of the Bible lead us to reject accurate scientific investigation when it could help our interpretation improve otherwise we could be making the same pre-Copernican mistake the Church earlier made. If we equate our interpretation of the Bible with the authority and inerrancy of the Bible and our interpretation is proven wrong we are making a great mistake.
Having said all of this, I believe that there are some very important doctrines from the early chapters of Genesis that must be maintain however you understand them. Adam and Eve are historical figures or issues such as Jesus’ teaching on divorce (Matt 19:3-9) and Paul’s teaching on federal headship and the fall (Romans 5:12-21, 1 Cor 15:42-49) and authority (1 Tim 2:11-15) are based on myth. If they’re based on myth then they are not reliable. Start tugging on that loose string and soon you’re no longer wearing a sweater.
It seems to me that the most natural reading of Genesis 1 and 2 is six literal days of creation and the spontaneous creation of man. I’m inclined in that direction but I have to admin that that is my interpretation and may be wrong. So I’m opened to the idea of an old universe and gradual creation because that’s what we appear to see in general revelation. I will not abandon the doctrine of Biblical authority and inerrancy so I have to be willing to hold my interpretation of some things carefully. I believe that’s all Dr. Waltke trying to do.
Tags: Genesis, Hermeneutics, Revelation, Science | 4 Comments »
Votes Count
By Tim Etherington | March 22, 2010
On Sunday there were two very important votes taken. One you’ve heard of and one you probably didn’t. Both were significant to me. I think the way Doug Wilson began his post on the one you’ve heard of kind of summed up my feels about both:
As I have already noted, God is still in His Heaven, and things are still all right in the world. Our God in in the heavens, and He does whatever He pleases. God draws straight with crooked lines, and the sun will still come up tomorrow.
God rules in the affairs of man. The proverb “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will” (Prov 21:1) is even in a democratic process where there is no king. That was the lesson I learned on Sunday. Well, one of the lessons. The sermon tilled my rocky heart and reading chapter 4 of Tim Teller’s The Prodigal God trimmed out the corners the sermons missed.
So what are the two votes? Obviously the first is the health care reform bill in Congress. This was huge. Fortunately, they didn’t play any games to get it through like reconciliation but they did play a game to get pro-life Democrats on board with President Obama promising an executive order to ensure that federal money isn’t used to pay for abortions. This is a pretty weak assurance and I’m surprised anyone bought it. Such is politics I guess.
Upon hearing about the passage of the bill I apologized to my daughters for what this will mean to them in 20 or 30 years. Bernadette asked me what was wrong with the bill. I guess my biggest problem is that it forces all Americans into a broken system. They didn’t do anything to address the fact that health care in America is hugely overpriced. Instead they made it a requirement that everyone be part of it. From what I can see, the government has shackled us to an insurance system that is shackled to a bloated health care system. So as the system continues to get worse and more expensive (since more people are part of it) what is likely to happen in the future is that as insurance companies begin leaving the market, the government will step in and take up more of the slack. That means an even bigger deficit and most likely a worse health care system.
The end result of this, I think, is that the electorate will march up to the Democrats, grab them firmly by the ear and walk them to the curb. Unfortunately, the only ones to take their place are the equally confused Republicans who currently lack a clear voice and leader. They’ll get in and decide to “fix” a fatally flawed system thereby making it worse. Sigh.
And yet Jesus rules the nations.
The other vote was much happier. Eight years ago when my family joined Lakeland Evangelical Free Church the church was about 400 people. That felt strange and huge to me. Since then we’ve doubled in numbers but the building remains the same size. So about 4 years ago our elders started looking into property options. We’re pretty much maxed out on our current 5 acres so eventually a move will be required. So after years of looking the plan has come down to two phases. First, we’re going to renovate the existing building to maximize the space we have. Second, we need to be looking to an eventual move. Since the real estate market is so soft now it seemed wise to try to purchase land now so when it is time to move we’ll do a capital stewardship campaign for the new building.
Free Churches are congregational and so while we elders did all this research and planning and praying and seeking advice, it is the congregation who must approve large expenditures, major facility upgrades and real estate purchases and sales. Three weeks ago we had a congregational business meeting where we presented a motion to the congregation to these ends. We didn’t take a vote on it at that time, we simply wanted the congregation to see what we were looking at. Two weeks ago we did a town hall Q&A with the congregation about the motion. Based on that discussion we split the motion into two pieces, one for the upgrade and one for the land purchase. Sunday while Congress was voting on the healtcare bill,our congregation voted on these two motions.
What the elders have said throughout this process is that we don’t want it to be our plan unless it is also Jesus’ plan for our church. One of the ways we would expect to hear His voice in this would be to hear it from His body, the congregation.
In order to pass these measures we needed a quorum which we well exceeded and a super-majority (75%) voting affirmative. The first measure, the renovation, passed with just a few no votes. The land purchased passed the super-majority but only by a few extra votes. It was closer but it passed. So we move ahead.
At the same time, that was my last official act as an elder at Lakeland. I’ve now been released so that I can focus on LifeSpring, Lakeland’s church plant.
God is sovereign over both votes.
Tags: Ecclesiology, Politics, Sovereignty | No Comments »
Saint Sarah Connor
By Tim Etherington | February 20, 2010
I miss Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I watched it when it was on TV and caught many episodes. Then I got season 1 on DVD for Christmas and used a gift card to buy season 2. And that’s it. It was canceled by Fox after only two seasons. Why? The simplest answer is that it never got the ratings Fox was looking for. Fox can be ruthless with even good shows that don’t make it. Firefly was another excellent show they killed.
I like Sarah Connor for a number of reasons. It was a thoughtful show with tight writing. It explored an interesting universe. I liked all of the actors. It just had a good chemistry. But there was more to it.
James Cameron wrote and directed the first two Terminator movies. He is very much anti-Christianity but Christian themes still came through in Terminator. Miraculous birth of the savior of humanity. In Terminator 2 we see Sarah Connor as a driven woman at the beginning but when she goes to kill Miles Dyson, the man who is reverse engineering the remains of the Terminator from the first film, she can’t. In the pinch Sarah finds that human life is special and I think in that moment she saw herself behaving more like a Terminator than a human.
Sarah Conner Chronicles picks up at the end of T2 and time jumps past the events of that horrible T3 film. So the Sarah we see in the TV series is the Sarah we saw in T2. A tough woman, not the cupcake who needed to be protected, she kicks metal butt. And she cares for people too. “Human life is sacred” is a lesson an artificial intelligence is taught in the series.
But the Christianity in the TV series is much more blatant than that. The FBI agent assigned to investigate Miles Dyson’s death is a Christian. Agent Ellison carries a Bible and even gives it to a fleeing couple. He is seen in a small group reading the Bible together. Scripture is quoted quite often and not in a demeaning manner. It is actually a development point of the story. Even the music often contains religious messages. When the FBI raids the home of the man they believe has murdered a number of people (he’s been replaced by a Terminator) the music that starts playing is Johnny Cash’s “When The Man Comes Around”. It starts and ends with Johnny reading from Revelation and the song itself is about Jesus’ return. That ends season 1. Season 2 starts with a song about Samson and Delilah. In season 2 the Connors are hiding in a church. Derek, a solider from the future who is working with them, when asked what he did all night, he points to the large crucifix and says “I spent the night talking to him.”
The show is dripping with scripture. No wonder it was cancelled. Hollywood doesn’t often know what to do with faith in film. Often black people are allowed to be believers (Ellison is black) but white people who have faith are either the bad guys or idiots. To see Christianity treated so carefully and kindly in a TV series is rare. And I wonder if it cost Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles a longer run? Surely it was the ratings, right? Either way, I am enjoying slowly working through each episode and enjoying the little bit we got. Maybe, like Firefly, Sarah Conner will get a film made to wrap it up. Probably only be a TV movie but I’d be happy with that. The forth movie, Terminator Salvation was horrible. I hope the franchise doesn’t end on that note. The entire thing has been sold and there are talks about T5 & 6 but I don’t know how they’ll recover the movie series after that.
Tags: Film | No Comments »
Getting Together to Hear
By Tim Etherington | February 19, 2010
Bob Zerhausen wrote an article a long time ago that explains the miracle in Acts 2 not as the Apostles speaking in languages they didn’t know, rather that they were all speaking in Greek. The lingua franca of all the places mentioned there was Greek. So why were people amazed at that? Because, Bob maintains, the event took place at the temple and only the sacred tongue of Hebrew would be spoken there. So it was an amazing thing to hear people at the temple speaking in the common tongue.
Yea, I didn’t buy it either and Bob and I have been round and round about the problems with that interpretation. Not the least of which is the fact that the temple is not mentioned in Acts 2.
Today as I’m studying Nehemiah 8 something hit me. The people gather, Ezra prays and reads the Law and a group of men explain it. For me, this is the high point of Nehemiah. It shows the covenant community returning to their covenantal center with all their heart.
And what this has to do with Bob’s idea is that it didn’t take place at the temple. It took place at the Water Gate which was in the City of David, a district on the other side of Jerusalem. Bob claims that the only place in Jerusalem you could get 3,000 people together to hear the Apostles would be at the temple and therefore the Apostles must have moved there from their upper room. But that isn’t what we see in Nehemiah 8. The people gathered at a convenient spot and a big city gate was opened enough for them.
To be fair, there are a lot of differences between Nehemiah and Acts. Centuries had passed. Jerusalem at Nehemiah’s time was a mess except for the rebuilt temple and the city walls. In Acts, the city had grown considerably. In Acts we’re told explicitly how many people were there and in Nehemiah we’re not.
All of that not withstanding, it is still a remarkable thing that Nehemiah 8 did not take place at the temple. I mean it was a significantly religious event. If I were the planner the temple would have been the first place I would have thought of. The city was in bad shape but the temple had been rebuilt so that is something too.
Tags: Acts, Nehemiah, Pneumatology | No Comments »
Please. Grow Up!
By Tim Etherington | February 9, 2010
Super Bowl. Football. Food. Commercials. Fellowship. Ah, the great American past time. I want to comment on the commercials for a moment. Some were offensive, some were funny, some were stupid. Then there was a moderate flap over the Tim Tebow/Focus on the Family spot. NOW was still rather bothered about it but not all feminists are on board with them. ’nuff about that.
Of all the commercials that I actually watched, the one that stood out was one for the Dodge Charger titled “Mans Last Stand” (a car I’d like as a mid-life crisis present, please). It shows a series of men with a voice over promising to do things like put the seat down, eating fruit for breakfast and putting underwear in the basket. (Men’s underwear was a theme this year, apparently.) After reciting a list of things he will do, the voice over ends with “And because I do this…” and cuts to the Charger racing around looking manly.
What bugged me is was how immature the whole premise is. Basically the message was “Be a good boy and you’ll get to play.” That’s it? Really? Why can’t we do at least some of those things because they’re the right thing to do? Why can’t we get a car because we want a car? A lot of the problems we face in American (and Western) culture comes from the fact that men don’t want to grow up and this kind of advertising really underscores that problem.
Tags: Manhood | 1 Comment »