Inerrant fundamentals

Peter Enns does a little linguistic poking at Albert Mohler Jr. and the biblical inerrancy crowd in a recent Patheos post.  Enns translates a panel "discussion" by Mohler and other Southern Baptist Theological Seminary faculty on why the biblical inerrancy folks are theologically superior to the rest of us. The list of 34 arguments made by the panel serves as a great introduction to the linguistic and rhetorical flourishes used by the godly inerrant warriors against the ungodly traitors of scripture that claim every word is not literal truth.

I do not disagree with the points made by Enns. It is a great exercise in how issues and ideas are framed by Mohler and others. It is meant to help those struggling with the strictures of biblical inerrancy to find an experience of Christ that will given meaning and purpose to their spiritual lives.

It is of no concern of mine whatsoever what Mohler thinks about how the Bible has to be. Mohler and his faculty are absolutely free to believe as they wish, and my purpose in this life is not to change their minds, ridicule them, crush them, mock them, or whatever. My concern is to help those who feel trapped by Mohler’s way of thinking, people with whom I have had many conversations over the years.

They need to hear that the boundaries drawn in panel discussions like this do not reflect all or the best of the Christian tradition. Rather they sell God and the Bible woefully short by placing burdens on the text–and its readers–that neither should, or can, bear.

While I found myself nodding and smiling at the points made by Enns, I have two more fundamental quarrels with Mohler and company.

Mohler is a big proponent of the cultural and political warrior mode of Christianity. What is missing in the writings of these glorious warriors for orthodoxy is the teachings of Christ. You will never understand and appreciate what the Lord taught by reading or listening to Mohler and the other leaders of the culture war movement. There is an enormous gulf between the inerrant culture warriors and other Christian scholars. If you read or listen to someone like N. T. Wright, Christ is all but resurrected in your mind.

Here is a simple illustration. N. T. Wright was asked to succinctly summarize the chief political concern of the bible.

“The chief political concern of the Scriptures is for God’s wise and loving ordering of his world to be operative through humans who will share his priorities, especially his concern for the poor, the weak and the vulnerable. This concern was embodied by Jesus in his inauguration of ‘God’s kingdom’ through his public career and especially his self-giving death, which together set the pattern for a radically redefined notion of power.”

God's love, our obligation to attend to those in need, and the servant example of Jesus are front and center. Wright and others keep us grounded in the ministry of Christ and God's love. If you want to discover what it means to follow Christ, there is no question. Even a cursory reading of the Gospels will affirm your obligation to emulate Jesus in demonstrating the love of God to all you come in contact with.

The culture warriors are offering a different meal altogether. Their fundamentals consist of following them in defining morality narrowly as regulating sexual behavior and reproduction. As long as you profess faith in Jesus as the messiah and keep the commandments they deem fundamental, you win the golden ticket to heaven. That may be a hostile way to frame it, but look closely at the writings and public statements of Mohler and others.

The religious authorities encountered by Jesus often played the same game as the culture warriors. They were good at telling others what rules to follow but missed the underlying meaning of the scriptures. Jesus took them to task time and time again for missing the forest for a few trees.

The other fundamental objection I have with the inerrancy crowd is that they do not really believe the scriptures are to be taken literally. If they did, they would have to follow the 613 commandments that make up the Torah (Genesis to Deuteronomy). True orthodoxy is not an a la carte menu for you to pick and choose the rules to follow. In Matthew 5:17, Jesus said he did not come to abolish the law, which then forces the inerrant fundamentalists to look to the Apostle Paul for a few excuses for what rules can be ignored.

Christ promised following him will be simple (Matthew 11:28-30):

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

Those words make sense when the rules boil down to loving God and loving others as the two guiding principles. Jesus said you cannot go wrong by putting God and others first. Whether you consider that easy is another story. Lifting the crosses of others may not be your idea of a light burden.

Therein lies the rub. There are more than 2000 verses that instruct us to care for the suffering of others. Yet, the culture war fundamentalists ignore those strictures while raising up a few verses as immutable. And all too often these same fundamentalists preach the glory of materialism and the virtues of capitalism as part of their political creed. It is the sort of fundamentalism that reeks of hypocrisy with a capital H.

The inerrant fundamentalists really want to you ignore your own conscience and meekly follow their authority. What that means is that you should not let the Holy Spirit guide you because you cannot be trusted. Only they know what the Holy Spirit really wants and you better acquiesce to their authority. Thanks, but no thanks.

Do you believe in angels?

Thanks to artistic depictions, we tend to think of angels as these otherworldly winged creatures that fill the heavens with song and slay the evil with flaming swords. Yet I have always viewed the idea of angels as more of a quaint adjunct to my faith rather something real and tangible. I may have to rethink that position.

On Monday, a member of my son's neuroendocrine cancer support group died. Karen lost her battle with cancer after 7 years of fighting it with everything she had. On some level, she became another statistic in a disease with a 10 year survival rate of only 30%. While statistically average in her struggle to survive, she was extraordinary in how she lived with the disease.

After diagnosis, Karen took it upon herself to reach out to others with the disease, offering encouragement, love, information, and energy. She became, for lack of a better word, a tireless advocate for those afflicted with the disease and the oncologists struggling to improve diagnosis and treatment. None of that description really does her justice.

During the memorial service yesterday, her husband described the countless hours she spent answering emails, talking on the phone, answering messages posted on internet boards, and networking with doctors and fellow patients. Even when she felt terrible, she did not waste time feeling sorry for herself. There were jokes and anecdotes to tell. Her shoulder and her ear were always available to whoever needed them. One oncologist joked that she knew more about the disease than he did. What she did understand better than any of the oncologists was what it meant to fight the disease as a patient and her mission was make sure other patients had as much ammunition as possible.

Karen lost her fight with cancer during what should have been uneventful surgery to correct a complication of the disease. When news of her death spread across the patient support boards, Facebook, email, and telephone, hundreds of tributes from fellow patients poured in from across the globe.

The subject of religion never come in our interactions with Karen. She was focused on getting my son information about how to manage symptoms and treatment side effects. I learned she was a devout Jew (and child of a Holocaust survivor) during the memorial service. It was also during the memorial service that the subject of angels came up. Her rabbi said the following:

"In the Jewish tradition, angels are not mystical beings with wings. They are God's messengers and appear in human form. They walk among us and tell us what we need to hear. I firmly believe that Karen was an angel."

Looking around at the overflowing crowd at her memorial service, filled with people from her family, congregation, and the neuroendocrine cancer community, it is hard to argue with that depiction.

After the service in the chapel, the crowd walked with her casket to the grave site. As we walked, clouds started to fill the sky. As we recited the mourner's prayer (kaddish), it started to rain. The raindrops were huge and the wind swirled leaves around us. Then the sun broke through the clouds as we each took turns throwing three shovels of dirt into her grave. Maybe it was all a coincidence, but it did not feel like it. It felt like angels joined the mourner's prayer and the sun sparkled in our tears as we said our final good-byes to her body.

I don't know what angels are, but Karen turned her disease into a blessing for others, including my son. For that I am thankful.

Her husband closed his tribute to the love of his life with this:

"Go walk with the angels, Karen. Your work here is finished."

Amen.

Update: After I posted this, I came across a tribute to Karen from another person fighting neuroendocrine cancer. It is consistent with the possibility that Karen was indeed an angel.

A Benevolent Force provided three glorious days without pain so Karen could enjoy her birthday party. It had been postponed because of her abdominal pain but last month, with 64 friends and relatives, a DJ, music and a fresh-waxed dance floor Karen and Ken wowed the crowd by performing the stationary Cha-Cha-Cha. Everyone cheered in amazement and begged for lessons on how to do the dance.

There are many, many more things Karen would want you to know. She was a thoroughly good person. She knew how to have fun yet she championed many causes: pro-woman; pro-people of color; pro-self advocacy. Karen was proud to be descended from Holocaust survivors and of her Jewish heritage. If she liked you, she never held back. You knew you were liked. She liked just about everyone except those few doctors who are condescending or aloof.

Saying Good-bye

Friends and family gathered at a small cemetery chapel today (Oct. 16, 2012) for a traditional service. Then the Rabbi walked with Karen and the group to her graveside where, in the Jewish tradition, each person tossed a bit of earth down on her coffin. Of course, Karen was not there. A little bit of her sweet soul was settling into every heart.

Let's see. Everyone described Karen as a person that knew how to love. She gave hope and comfort to many people suffering from a rare and difficult to treat form of cancer. God gave her a last hurrah and called her home surrounded by loved ones. She was carried to her final resting place by a crowd of people touched by her presence. Her absence will be felt long after her death.

I don't know what an angel is, but Karen could probably pass for one. She will be missed.

Hunger games

I attended a local hunger banquet last night to commemorate World Food Day. The concept of a hunger banquet is simple. People are randomly assigned a meal representing a typical diet for high, medium, or low income groups across the world. It provides a look at the nutritional and caloric disparity in diet. The high income meal was not lavish, but did provide a 4 oz serving of protein, two servings of fresh vegetables, and two servings of grain. The middle income meal was beans and rice, which provides protein and comparable calories to the high income meal, but fewer nutrients. The low income meal was rice, which was deficient in calories and nutrients.



To drive home the disparities, the number of each type of meal was representative of global food availability. About 15% of the banquet attendees received the high income meal, 50% received the middle income meal, and 35% received the low income meal. As we ate, each table discussed the disparities, particularly in the context of our personal experiences. Most at my table had never experienced food insecurity.

One word seems best to describe the thoughts of folks at our table - consciousness. We agreed that we rarely give food a second thought beyond when and what we will eat. There are never questions about if we will eat or whether it will be filling and nutritious. We may choose to eat unhealthy food, but that will be because it will be fast and full of fat. Someone at the table confessed to have eaten a donut or two at the local coffee shop before coming to the dinner.

This particular hunger banquet was an interfaith gathering. There were folks from local Jewish, Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, and Buddhist congregations. Thanks to random assignment, you were likely to eat with strangers from a different faith tradition. It is a good design. Otherwise, we would have clumped up into comfortable enclaves of friends and fellow congregants. We humans love our tribes.

Speakers from every faith tradition spoke about their scriptural call to address the problem of hunger. All did a nice job of hammering home the message that we are our brother's and sister's keeper. I did not have a favorite speaker, but I did have a favorite quote (Deuteronomy 16:20):

Justice, only justice, you must pursue; so that you will live and inherit the land Adonai your God is giving you.

All too often, we pursue injustice out of greed. The result is always death, disease, and dislocation.

In addition to justice and generosity of spirit, the other message driven home was that we are stronger together. Whatever our theological differences, solving big problems requires cooperation and trying to outdo one another in love. How ironic this hunger banquet coincided with a so-called debate in a divisive political contest in which there has been an abundance of trash talk about the poor and the use of faith as a weapon.

The dessert course was a chance to talk with representatives of organizations working to address the problem of hunger locally and internationally. Donations were limited to $1. The goal was not to raise money, but encourage people to donate their time to serve others.

All in all, it was a satisfying meal.

Food for thought

October 16 is World Food Day. Perhaps one day it will be a day to celebrate our bounty. However, it is tough to celebrate plenty when too many across America and the world go hungry. It is a big problem, but one that can be solved if it is made a priority.


Anyone with a passing familiarity with scripture understands that God expects us to make sure no one goes without food, water, and shelter. We fail to honor God when we turn our heads, make excuses, and do not lend a hand. Part of giving thanks for our blessings is giving to others.

Food played a large role in the ministry of Jesus. He showed his disciples that it was possible to feed thousands with a little effort and faith. He told his followers to care for the hungry as if they were feeding him. He even chose bread and wine as the symbols to use in remembrance of his life, death, and resurrection. Every Jew understands the significance of these symbols as they are blessed to usher in every sabbath and holiday.

"Blessed are You, LORD, our God, King of the universe, Who brings forth bread from the earth."

"Blessed are You, LORD, our God, King of the universe, Who creates the fruit of the vine."

Attending a World Food Day event is nice, but doing something to end hunger is better. One place to start is to reduce food waste. A recent U.S. Department of Agriculture study found that 40% of the food produced in America goes to to waste. Waste occurs at every step of the way from farm to your table.

Whenever we confront large and complex problems, we are tempted to say that we are too small and insignificant to solve them. But you can do things to be part of the solution instead of the problem. Pay attention to the food you throw away. Are you buying too much or making too much? Something that looks like a bargain in the stores is less of a bargain if you end up throwing a good bit of it into the compost, disposal, or trash. Canning, freezing, making soup, and sharing with others are simple ways to waste less. Taking those steps requires awareness that we all waste more than we should.

Once you have a handle on your own waste, there are other simple things you can do to make a difference. Encourage grocers and restaurants to donate unsold and unused perishable items to a local food bank. Better yet, volunteer to help a local food bank rescue food from retailers. It is a win-win proposition. Retailers throw away less, get tax credits, and build good will in the community. Food banks and their customers get access to fresh fruits, vegetables, dairy products, and meats that would be otherwise lost. The missing link is getting the food from the retailers to the food bank. This is where a few hours of your time can make a big difference. Just remember those loaves and fishes.

Researchers from Finland took a closer look at food waste across the globe and came to an interesting conclusion (emphasis added):

As a result of food loss in the food production chain, it was determined that globally 614 kilocalories per every person a day are lost. Without this loss, present global food production would yield 2,609 kilocalories of edible food a day for every inhabitant in the world. Thus, by halving the food losses, we could feed 8 billion people with the currently used resources.

In other words, we could feed a billion people by just cutting waste in half. Loaves and fishes, brothers and sisters. Loaves and fishes.

Amazing walk of faith

Timothy Kurek is one courageous young man. A devout Christian, he decided to spend a year living as a gay man to experience first hand the discrimination and hatred directed against homosexuals in our society. He has written a book about his experiences ("The Cross in the Closet"). It should be required reading for all of us, especially those that follow Christ.


Brother Tim was raised as a Christian and clearly has taken his walk with Christ seriously. As he put it, Christ was the ultimate example of empathy. Empathy means that you can feel the pain and suffering of others. It moves you to act in ways that show the love of God for others.

The trouble is that many Christians are taught not to love others as Christ taught. That is particularly true when it comes to the issue of homosexuality. Growing up in Tennessee, Tim was not only taught that homosexuality was a sin but that it was an abomination, the ultimate sin.

"You learned to be very afraid of God," said Kurek. According to the preachings of his church, "The loving thing to do is to tell my friend who is gay, 'Hey, listen, you are an abomination and you need to repent to go to heaven.' I absolutely believed in that lock, stock and barrel."

Christians are being taught to hate. It is dressed up as loving the sinner and hating the sin, but it replaces God's love and grace with hatred. We are all sinners. We have all fallen short of the perfection that Jesus proved was possible. However, instead of loving others and leaving judgment to God, there has been a deliberate attempt to create outcasts from the children of God. We are taught to hate homosexuals. We are taught to hate people of other religions, especially Muslims. We are taught to hate atheists. We are even taught to hate people based on political ideation.

As Christians, we know John 3:16 by heart. It says that God so loved the world (all of humanity). Too many of us seem to think that it says that God so loved me and those that think, act, and believe like me. Well, God is much freer with his love than that. All are loved and encouraged to open their hearts to God.

Kurek's eyes started to open when a woman he was friends with confided in him that she was a lesbian and how terribly she had been treated by family and friends. His first reaction was to treat her as badly as the others in her life had done. The Holy Spirit kept pushing him to think and feel the empathy that Jesus practiced and taught.

He decided to do something extraordinary. He decided to live as a gay man for year and see life through the eyes of his friend. Only a handful of people knew the truth. It was a remarkable journey.

But one day, sitting in a café in a part of Nashville where the gay bars and Christian hang-outs intersect, Kurek had his first confrontation. While reading a gay-themed book, he became aware of the "snickers and sneers."

"A guy came up to me when he saw the cover and said, 'You know that is fundamentally false -- you can't be gay and Christian,'" said Kurek, who responded, "I am gay and I love God."

Tim's friends stopped calling. His mother wrote in her journal that she would rather have cancer than a gay son. Their reaction shows how people of faith are being trained to be unloving towards others, even those that they have known and loved for many years.

When the year was up, Tim told his family and friends about his little experiment. For many, including his mother, it was eye-opening. The experience had changed him and all those around him. Their appreciation of the empathy of Christ had grown by leaps and bounds. It was a mustard seed of love that grew large and powerful.

Kurek says his book stays away from theology. That is not true. Theology is our understanding of God. His book says a great deal about God, particularly the love and grace freely given to all of us. It is a theology that is deep and true.

She said her name was Gloria

Our spiritual journey is full of surprises. As followers of Christ, our challenge is to learn and grow from each twist and turn. A woman crossed my path last Saturday. She taught me what it really means to be thankful for our blessings. 

The Saturday morning distribution at the local food bank is usually hectic. Because about 50 more people showed up than usual last Saturday, it was particularly hectic. I was handling meat distribution, the lines were long, and I was more focused on speed and efficiency than I should have been. And then I meet Gloria.

One of the local grocery stores had a given us a bunch of individually wrapped soup bones. After each person had made their selections, I asked if they would be interested in getting a soup bone or two. Usually the response was a polite yes or no thank you. 

Gloria followed a different script. When I mentioned the soup bones, her face lit up. 

"I love soup bones. Soup is my favorite comfort food and nothing beats making it from scratch."

I smiled and handed her the bags. Our eyes meet and I was blown away by her smile and the light in her eyes.

"This is my first time here and I feel so blessed. Everyone is so friendly. There are so many choices and so many things I really like. My name is Gloria, by the way."

As she was walking away, she looked at me and said, "God is great. Thank you."

Gloria's infectious joy and gratitude stuck with me the rest of that crazy morning. The sad truth is I have encountered that thankful attitude more among the clients at the food bank than I have among friends and family. It raises the obvious question of why. Why aren't we all more like Gloria? Perhaps the more you have, the less you appreciate anything. Even when you "know" how blessed you are, it is seductively easy to take it all for granted. 

Beyond forgetting to count our blessings, abundance also breeds waste. Across the world, about one third of the food produced winds up in the trash. America is one of the world leaders in waste. A recent study found that food waste in America tops out at 40%. It is obscene. The study estimates that we waste about $1.49 worth of food per person per day in America, with two-thirds of that coming from consumers rather than producers. Across the world, nearly 2 billion people survive on $1.49 a day or less for food.

On a per capita basis in 2008, the food lost from the food supply at the consumer level is equivalent to 124 kg of food per year at an estimated retail price of $390/year at retail prices or .03 kg of food per day valued at $1.07/day. This is roughly 10% of the average amount spent on food per capita in 2008. In 2008, three food groups were responsible for 78% of the total value of food loss at the consumer level, per capita. These groups are meat, poultry and fish ($197/year), vegetables ($61/year), and dairy products ($48/year). Therefore, these food groups might be potential areas to target when educating consumers about food loss.

It is a question of mindfulness. If we truly love God, then our heart should be overflowing with gratitude for our many blessings. That means we should think and act a lot more like Gloria. Appreciating our bounty also requires that we pay attention to what we waste and find ways of reducing it.

One line from the parable of the faithful servant in Luke 12 stands out:

From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.

Thank you, Gloria, for a joyful dose of mindfulness. 

Musings from a booth

Today marks the end of the Jewish celebration of Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacle. I was blessed with the opportunity to share a meal in a friend's sukkah, the traditional booth that serves as a temporary residence during this weeklong festival.

Per Leviticus 23:39-43:

“‘So beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to the Lord for seven days; the first day is a day of sabbath rest, and the eighth day also is a day of sabbath rest. On the first day you are to take branches from luxuriant trees—from palms, willows and other leafy trees—and rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. Celebrate this as a festival to the Lord for seven days each year. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come; celebrate it in the seventh month. Live in temporary shelters for seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in such shelters so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in temporary shelters when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.’”

I have come to look forward to the annual invitation to share a meal in the sukkah. The first time I was included I could not fathom why someone would go to such great lengths to set up a booth in their backyard. Understanding the symbolism was easy. Understanding why someone would spend hours building and decorating a booth, not to mention doing so in early autumn when the weather starts to get a bit iffy around here, was more difficult.

The ritual blessing of the fronds and fruit is a nod to God as creator. Sitting out under the stars and moon gets you into that frame of mind.

This year I tried to be bit more mindful of my blessings. Friendships. Being born into freedom. Having enough to eat and a roof over my head. The spiritual context of the holiday makes more sense to me now, as does the hassle of putting up and taking down that booth in your yard or temple grounds.

I thought of Jesus celebrating this holiday. In His day, Sukkot would have had a strange feel to it with the nation of Israel under the control of Rome. Freedom from Egypt had been replaced by bondage to another regional power. You can still celebrate God being with you always, whether you are living in freedom or under a tyrant's thumb. There would also have been a subversive element to celebrating the Feast of Tabernacle even as Roman soldiers stood guard. You had to believe that eventually God would free you from the Romans.

Of course, there is a difference between physical and spiritual bondage. Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and render unto God that which is God's.

We Americans seem preoccupied these days with our material well-being. We are supposed to revere and envy the rich. The poor are supposed to be downtrodden. Spiritual well-being too often amounts to nothing more than paying lip service to God while pursing the almighty dollar with all one's heart, mind, and soul. Maybe too much prosperity is a curse rather than blessing. We are worshipping the golden calf and selling ourselves into yet another form of physical bondage.

Sitting in a sukkah can be downright disorienting. An important part of Sukkot observance is to welcome neighbors and friends to celebrate the spiritual unity of God's people. That mindset seems to be missing. The children of God in America are very much divided by wealth, politics, race, ethnicity, and religion. It makes me a little fearful for our future.

I guess this Festival of Booths is starting to make a good deal more sense to me.