Trite but Truetag:www.TriteButTrue.com,2010://12010-03-09T05:09:43Z"We have now sunk to a depth at which restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men." --George OrwellMovable Type 3.35Grace and Legalismtag:www.TriteButTrue.com,2010://1.1032010-02-23T22:16:40Z2010-03-09T05:09:43ZWhat characteristic most distinguishes Christianity from other world religions? Someone has suggested it is “grace”—the idea that one is saved solely by the unmerited sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross and not by any form of human merit or action....John
What characteristic most distinguishes Christianity from other world religions? Someone has suggested it is “grace”—the idea that one is saved solely by the unmerited sacrifice of Jesus upon the cross and not by any form of human merit or action.
Now “salvation” is largely a Judeo-Christian term, but the basic concept of getting right with God and being rewarded with eternal bliss has its counterparts in other religions as well. Muslims yearn for paradise; Buddhists seek enlightenment; Hindus desire to merge with the Absolute Soul and escape from the cycle of reincarnation.
The question, of course, is how does one attain ultimate bliss either before or after death? Is it a free gift with no strings attached or is it earned in some form or fashion? Most religions maintain you have to do something, even if, as some Christians say, it is as basic as just believing in Jesus as the Messiah and trusting in his atoning sacrifice.
Hindus have to seek the knowledge that helps overcome bad karma with good karma. Buddhists must look within themselves to conquer desire and acquire a true perception of reality. Muslims must uphold, insofar as possible, the five pillars of Islam to please Allah. Jews must attain the holiness of character and action that God requires. But in every religion, at least to some extent, it is the benevolent nature of deity or reality that allows such a path to bliss even to exist.
So, in the broadest sense, all religions have some notion of a universal benevolence one might term grace. But in the narrower sense, most religions teach that blissful outcomes are the result of human efforts rather than of a purely divine initiative. Christianity teaches that salvation is a divine gift whose only attached string is that the gift must be accepted.
Legalism is, in a way, the Christian counterpart to the teaching of most world religions that human action and initiative is essential. Legalism, like grace, has both a broad and narrow sense. Broadly speaking, it is the idea that one can please God only by adhering scrupulously to a law or a code of conduct. Narrowly speaking, legalism is the process of thinking like a lawyer and trying to define precisely every word and intent of that law code.
To give one simple example, a Christian legalist would see the words of Jesus in Matthew 5:32 to constitute a Christian law about divorce: “Everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” Defining the meaning of each word in this law would then be necessary in order to obey the law perfectly. The paramount question becomes, “Is there a legal loophole that might justify divorce and remarriage for a good Christian?” If not, is there any way around this law of divorce—say, a generous policy regarding annulments?
The foundation of legalism is the belief that salvation depends on keeping the law, a human activity. The forgiveness found in Jesus (or, for Jews, in connection with Yom Kippur) goes only so far. If you continue to break the law of God, the sacrifice of Jesus will eventually lose its efficacy and forgiveness leading to salvation will become impossible. As Hebrews 10:26 says, “For if we go on sinning deliberately after receiving the knowledge of the truth, there no longer remains a sacrifice for sins.”
The tension between grace and legalism is strong in Christianity. Even Paul recognized it in the first century (Romans 6:1-4) by alluding to those who thought that grace (free pardon in Christ) might be a license to sin all the more. This tension is usually resolved by saying that good behavior is a grateful response to grace, not a way of earning salvation. As Thomas Erskine said, "Religion is grace; ethics is gratitude."
But this does not solve the tipping point issue: At what point does repeated bad behavior nullify grace? Even more to the point, exactly what kind of bad behavior will bring about a Christian’s damnation? Some Christians say, “Once saved by grace, always saved by grace.” Others are not so sure. They think the Bible teaches there are many things you can do to lose your salvation (e.g., Hebrews 3:12; 6:4-6; 1 Timothy 4:1-3; 1 Corinthians 9:27).
A more subtle form of legalism is patternism. Patternism is the assumption that there is in the New Testament a detailed blueprint for the conduct of Christianity. Patternism becomes a variant of legalism when the perceived blueprint becomes a law in and of itself, and lawyers must argue over every detail of the pattern.
For example, in 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1, the writer lists the qualities one should look for in bishops (overseers) and deacons (servants) of the church. In 1 Timothy 3:1, Paul says an overseer should be “the husband of one wife.” According to patternism, this quality is a qualification that must be carefully defined. Obviously, the qualification requires an overseer to be married. But does it mean an overseer can never have been divorced (one and only one wife)? Does it mean an overseer cannot be a widower (one living wife)? Does it mean an overseer can never remarry if his first wife dies (one wife forever)?
Patternism taken to the extreme sees most everything mentioned in the New Testament (or even not mentioned) as a potential law whose infraction might send a person to hell. According to this thinking, divorcing a mate for any reason other than proven adultery is a grievous sin. But so is having a church kitchen, since kitchens are not mentioned in the New Testament. So is having multiple communion cups, since scripture says Jesus took “the cup.”
The list of prohibited things can be quite long, and one violation is just as damning as the next since God expects complete obedience. The lawyers of the church must constantly argue over what is binding and not binding, which practices unmentioned in the New Testament are mere aids to legal activities and which are illegal additions to the scriptural pattern.
For centuries, Christians have had to navigate between the extremes of legalism and license. Legalism often casts doubt on the hope of salvation because you never know if have lived just right. Patternism adds to the number of “laws” that must be followed and leads to even more bickering and division over how those laws must be obeyed. License, ironically, is just an egocentric form of legalistic thinking. License says, “If there is no law preventing it, I can do whatever I want.” The focus is still on outward constraint or absence of constraint rather than upon an inward directive to find and do what is truly right.
“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound!” Despite how human beings distort it, religion is ultimately about magnanimity rather than pettiness. In Hinduism and Buddhism, everyone is eventually saved, thanks to the fact that reincarnation gives you a billion or more tries to get it right. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam give you only one lifetime, but they assure you God really wants you to be saved—if you will only give Him a little cooperation.
Biblical Presuppositionstag:www.TriteButTrue.com,2010://1.1022010-02-01T18:54:59Z2010-02-02T17:23:45ZIn his book, The Soul of Christianity (2005: xvi), Houston Smith writes that Christians “don’t even bother to ask if life is meaningful. They take for granted that it is.” It occurs to me that the meaningfulness of life is...John
The Soul of Christianity (2005: xvi), Houston Smith writes that Christians “don’t even bother to ask if life is meaningful. They take for granted that it is.” It occurs to me that the meaningfulness of life is only one of many presuppositions that inform the biblical text. Human civilization was already thousands of years old when the Bible was written, and the Bible’s presuppositions reflect the accumulated wisdom of these millennia of human experience.
Of course, something presumed usually remains unstated since it is thought to be commonly known and agreed upon. The policy that “things that go without saying go even better with saying” is often neglected both in the Bible and today. As a result, modern readers unaware of biblical presuppositions sometimes misunderstand the Bible because they think its silence on a certain matters means that its writers hadn’t considered the question seriously, or that they were indifferent to the issue, or that they were non-prescriptive, thereby leaving posterity the freedom to do as it wished because “the authority of the Bible does not address this subject.”
A signal example of this tendency appeared in an article by Lisa Miller in Newsweek magazine (December 15, 2008: 28) where she writes, “While the Bible and Jesus say many important things about love and family, neither explicitly defines marriage as between one man and one woman.” We might think her implication is that since the Bible does not explicitly define marriage, we moderns have its blessing to define marriage as we wish. But it is perhaps more accurate to say she is implying that religious people who accept the Bible as a rule-book for life have no authoritative grounds on which to define marriage as between a man and a woman.
Lisa Miller’s article either willfully or unwittingly misses the point that the Bible presumes adherence to an ancient code by which sexual relationships were carefully delineated (cf. Leviticus 18). The common-sense definition of marriage as between a man and a woman is assumed as self-evident in the Bible, and only sexual aberrations are discussed at any length. Miller tacitly concedes as much when she goes on to say, “The Bible was written for a world so unlike our own, it’s impossible to apply its rules, at face value, to ours” (30), which is to say, “Even if the Bible did define marriage explicitly, it wouldn’t make any difference to me. I’m just messing with you.”
Here are a few other biblical presuppositions that I find interesting and important:
1. Comprehensibility: The Bible assumes people can understand what is written in its pages. It does not see itself as a book of riddles or as hopelessly inconsistent and confusing or as impossible to understand except by the most thoroughly educated. The Bible is addressed to the common man.
2. Mental Health: The Bible presumes its readers are mentally healthy. This is what validates the golden rule, for example. “Whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” (Matthew 7:12) makes sense only if people in general are not sadomasochistic. It presumes you are mentally healthy, want the best for yourself, and therefore know what would be a good way to treat others.
3. Common Sense: In addition to presuming that marriage is between a man and a woman for the purpose of procreation, pleasure, and intimacy (and sometimes for economic or political reasons), the Bible does not specifically condemn abortion because it assumes that abortion is an absurd notion. In the ancient world, children constituted your family’s workforce and your social security insurance, not to mention your posterity. It was only logical to have as many children as you could feed.
4. Human Decency: The Bible believes (without ever saying it) that people can recognize human decency when they see it. It also assumes that leaders have a God-given obligation to be decent to those whom they lead because leaders on earth, to a certain degree, stand in the place of God and play God with the lives of others.
5. The Possibility of Transformation: The Bible assumes that people can change permanently for the better. Paul, after giving a laundry list of bad guys, tells the Corinthian Christians this: “And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:11). The endless exhortations found throughout the Bible presume people can actually change if they so desire.
I find that many of these biblical assumptions constitute the bedrock of what we call Western (and American) Civilization. If you assume the world is incomprehensible, you have no motivation to do science and discover how it works. If you assume people are psychologically unreliable, you cannot form community. If you assume people are inclined to act wickedly, there is no expectation of altruism or mutual aid. If you think people cannot change and that they are fated to remain whatever they are, you have no encouragement for making the world better. Finally, if you do not believe in God, there is no reason to believe life is ultimately meaningful.
Thousands of years of human experience tell us that certain positive presuppositions have fueled human progress—and they basically have been passed down to us in the Bible.
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The Four Faces of Jesustag:www.TriteButTrue.com,2009://1.1012009-10-20T17:38:05Z2009-11-02T01:37:07ZThe portrait the New Testament paints of Jesus is complex, even paradoxical at times. Jesus in the four gospels can be both harsh and gentle, this-worldly and other-worldly, plain-spoken and cryptic, practical and idealistic, all-embracing and exclusivist. What is interesting...John
Jesus as Humanitarian
In Acts 10:38, Peter is credited with summarizing Jesus’ ministry as follows: “He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.” This is Jesus the do-gooder—a person who feeds the hungry, heals the sick, causes the blind to see, and even raises the dead.
This Jesus is a humanitarian not only because of his good deeds but because of his irenic spirit. He counsels us to love our enemies, to turn the other cheek, to forgive others endlessly. This Jesus cares about the poor and downtrodden. He is kind and compassionate. He calls for deep introspection and says that mercy should triumph over justice by reason of the fact that all of us have failings. “Let him who is without sin . . . be the first to throw a stone” (John 8:7). He challenges us to do unto others as we would do unto him (Matthew 25:31-46).
This is the sweet Jesus who can say, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28).
Among those who favor Jesus the Humanitarian are Thomas Jefferson, Mohandas Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, and, more recently, John Howard Yoder.
Jesus as Savior
Jesus describes his own ministry as “to seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10). He said this to and about Zacchaeus, a wealthy man, so he was clearly referring to the spiritually lost rather than the socio-economically lost. Matthew 9:11-13 refers to “tax collectors and sinners” as the people Jesus came to heal of their spiritual infirmities.
A humanitarian might spin this by saying that Jesus is only figuratively “saving” those who exploit the poor by convicting them of their greed and inhumanity, thereby putting them back on the humanitarian highway. But in the total context of the New Testament, something more seems to be at stake. The name “Jesus” means “God is salvation,” and the angel in Matthew’s gospel says to Joseph, “You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Likewise, Peter says in Acts 5:31, “God exalted [Jesus] as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.” To forgive sins in the generic sense used here and elsewhere means far more than simply to prick someone’s conscience or call someone to a higher standard.
The apostle Paul, a contemporary of Jesus, gives the most eloquent descriptions of Jesus as Savior. “In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them” (2 Corinthians 5:19). Or again, “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:4-5). The other writers of the New Testament uniformly agree with Paul as well as with John the Baptizer who is reported to have said, upon first seeing Jesus, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29).
Saving people from their sins is a positive characteristic, even if it carries more religious and metaphysical baggage than pure altruism. But Jesus as Savior, although comforting, can be arbitrary. It is this Jesus who proclaims, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6).
Among those who stress Jesus as Savior are Billy Graham, Pope Benedict XVI, and basically the entire Christian establishment.
Jesus as Lord
While you might admire Jesus as a model humanitarian or appreciate his self-sacrifice on behalf of your sins, it is quite another thing to make him your Lord and Master. Yet, tough Jesus demands first place in the lives of his followers. He says quite plainly, “”If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father or mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciples” (Luke 14:26). Shortly afterward, he continues, “So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple” (Luke 14:33).
The shocking force of these words has led to the distinction between clergy and laity in the Catholic Church. The priests, nuns, and monks who pledge to sacrifice their worldly possessions, ambitions, personal pride, and sexual relationships epitomize a commitment to make Jesus the sole ruler of their lives. The Catholic clergy basically is charged with modeling “literal” Christianity and bearing the load for the less-committed laity (although even the clergy is seldom required to renounce everything).
Of course, the New Testament does not make any clear distinction between clergy and laity. It calls all Christians to submit strictly to the teachings of Jesus. As Peter said at Pentecost, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified” (Acts 2:36). Paul says similarly, “For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living” (Romans 14:9). In other words, Jesus is the Lord of every living Christian.
What exactly the lordship of Jesus means for the average Christian remains somewhat unclear. Traditionally, it means leading an increasingly holy and blameless life, making a concerted effort not to bring the name of Christ into disrepute. For missionaries, it means giving up the comforts of the United States for the sake of taking Jesus’ message to foreign lands. For Christian activists within and without the USA, it means making the personal sacrifices necessary to challenge the system and bring about a greater measure of justice in the world.
Among those who have emphasized Jesus as Lord are Saint Francis of Assisi, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mother Teresa, and, more recently, Shane Claiborne (see Jesus for President, 2008).
Jesus as Judge
While Jesus is famous for saying “Judge not, that you be not judged” (Matthew 7:1), he himself is commonly portrayed in the New Testament as the supreme judge of all humanity. Speaking of himself, Jesus says, “For the Son of Man is going to come with his angels in the glory of his Father, and then he will repay each person according to what he has done” (Matthew 16:27).
This theme of Jesus presiding over the Day of Judgment appears often in the New Testament (Acts 10:42; 2 Timothy 4:1; 1 Peter 4:5). The apostle Paul says, “For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil” (2 Corinthians 5:10). Elsewhere, Paul’s language becomes even more vivid as he describes “the Lord Jesus. . . revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus” (2 Thessalonians 1:7-8). Revelation 2:23 has Jesus saying, “I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you as your works deserve.”
Theoretically, those who accept Jesus as Savior and Lord have nothing to fear from Jesus as Judge. Nevertheless, the question of who will actually be among the saved and who among the damned remains an open (if commonly avoided in polite conversation) question. Tough Jesus is no fool. He knows who has been faithful to his teaching and who has not. And he will judge.
Among those who have presented Jesus as Judge are Jonathan Edwards, Ray Comfort, and many a street preacher.
So What?
The four faces of Jesus explain much of what passes for “Christian” behavior. Those who hold up Jesus as Judge are sometimes tempted to play the role of his executioner—all the while forgetting the admonitions of Jesus the Humanitarian to be humble peacemakers. Those who model Jesus the Humanitarian appear tempted to believe they can create heaven on earth. In my view, their reluctance to acknowledge the essential sinfulness of humanity and the impossibility of a perfect (or even semi-perfect) world makes their efforts quixotic. In the final analysis, people need a savior more than a social worker. People must change from the inside before they can hope to change their outward condition.
Those who play at religion without accepting Jesus as Lord tend to practice a domesticated Christianity whose significance hardly rises above that of the Kiwanis Club. Their un-Christ-like behavior leads to accusations of hypocrisy and ultimately gives Christianity a bad name. On the other hand, those who renounce everything to serve God and others are dismissed as radicals pushing a model impossible for everyone to follow. Even to accept Jesus just as Savior lays one open to the accusation of seeking “pie in the sky in the sweet by and by” without giving a hoot about what happens in the here and now.
So where does the golden Christian mean lie? Is it really feasible to be the kind of disciple Jesus called his followers to be? This tension between the demands of Jesus and the realities of living is what gives Jesus his eternal edginess and what makes him both appealing and enigmatic to generation after generation. In its youthful idealism, each generation thinks it can somehow solve the problem of how to bring peace on earth, goodwill to men.
When I was a teenager, I read the gospels carefully and wrestled with their implementation. I registered for the draft as a conscientious objector. I tried to live a simple, non-materialistic life. I agonized over whether it was wise to give panhandlers the change in my pocket since Jesus had said, “Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you” (Matthew 5:42). I memorized the Sermon on the Mount. I tried to live a pure life and abstained from alcohol, drugs, pornography, and sex before marriage. I contemplated how, with my talents, I could best serve the cause of Christ.
Over the years, however, I have concluded that despite all I have tried to do or be, I am still a most unworthy servant who falls far short of the ideals Jesus set. I am still selfish, to a noticeable degree, with my time, money, and talents. I have yet to give it all away to others in need (see Matthew 19:21). I still get angry at those who do me or others wrong, even if I do not retaliate. I forgive only in part. I still invite my friends to dinner instead of lame, halt, and blind (see Luke 14:13-14). I do good, but I do it moderately. I am critical of the sins of others and wish they would be as responsible as I am (see Luke 18:9-14).
As an inveterate sinner in heart if not always in deed, I am aware of my need for the grace of God, the continual pardon of my sins and shortcomings. While I try not to abuse the grace of God, I feel completely lost without it (and often even with it because I fall so short of Jesus’ standards). As Christians, we walk a tightrope between self-righteousness and self-loathing. Ultimately, in despair of measuring up, we throw ourselves upon the mercy of God.
In an earlier post, I gave my philosophy of life. I still have no better answers for how to live. In my mind, I see the four faces of Jesus, some smiling at me in kindness, some sad with disapproval. The greatness of the Bible, in my opinion, is that it forces us all not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought but to think soberly “according to the measure of faith that God has assigned” (Romans 12:3).
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Guilty Pleasurestag:www.TriteButTrue.com,2009://1.1002009-07-23T15:50:58Z2009-07-23T16:11:47ZI have guilty pleasures. Several, like Georgia Mud Fudge Blizzards from Dairy Queen, involve chocolate, but some relate to books. Reading books by the Marxist literary and cultural critic Terry Eagleton is one of my guilty pleasures. Indeed, the first...John
the first of my posts on “Trite But True” was inspired by After Theory (2003) in which Eagleton critiques belief in God.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I found Terry Eagleton “defending” religion in his latest book, Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009). I use quotation marks because Terry Eagleton is still an atheist, but, curiously, he finds religion more congenial to his Marxism than the liberal humanism so prominently displayed in the recent books of militant atheists like Christopher Hitchens (God is Not Great)and Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion).
I enjoy reading Terry Eagleton because his prose is often eloquent, stimulating, and insightful. His clever analogies make me smile. For example, he says the contention that science and technology have made religion superfluous is like “saying that thanks to the electric toaster we can forget about Chekhov” (7). He further observes that “science and theology are for the most part not talking about the same kind of things, any more than orthodontics and literary criticism are” (10).
Eagleton sees four worldviews competing for dominance in our time: liberalism (both economic and humanistic), socialism, religion, and science (136). In the books by Hitchens, Dawkins, and their ilk (a group he labels “Ditchkins”), he finds secular liberalism trying to ally itself with science against religion.
“The difference between science and theology,” Eagleton opines, ”is one over whether you see the world as a gift or not; and you cannot resolve this just by inspecting the thing, any more than you can deduce from examining a porcelain vase that it is a wedding present” (37). Thus, religion is fundamentally no more opposed to science than is socialism, and science must not become the private domain of liberalism or be commandeered to serve its capitalistic agenda.
While Eagleton rejects religion as simply unbelievable, he does see Christianity, Islam, and Buddhism in their purest forms as compatible with his ideal of socialism. “The mainstream Christian theology I have outlined here may well be false,” he writes, “but anyone who holds to it is in my view deserving of respect” (33). “I also seek to strike a minor blow on behalf of those many millions of Muslims whose creed of peace, justice, and compassion has been rubbished and traduced by cultural supremacists in the West” (34).
As a radical thinker, Eagleton finds a kindred spirit in Jesus. “If you follow Jesus and don’t end up dead, it appears you have some explaining to do” (27). Obviously, though, Eagleton would rather deliver lectures at Yale than end up dead himself, so his radicalism is mainly limited to his thoughts. But liberalism can never become a true ally of religion, he maintains, because “the advanced capitalistic system is basically atheistic” (39). Why? Because its values, beliefs, and practices are “godless.”
What really unites socialism and religion, according to Eagleton, is their sense of “tragic humanism,” by which he means “that only by a process of self-dispossession and radical remaking can humanity come into its own” (169). Neither religion nor Marxism is as optimistic about human nature and human perfectibility as is a secular humanism that puts its faith in the idea of progress and firmly believes religion is the chief obstacle to such progress.
While I find Eagleton’s spirited defense of biblical theology gratifying, I also view it as disingenuous. As an unbeliever, he must know that the socialist’s faith that “the powerless can come to power” (27) is far different that the Christian’s belief that Christ was “crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God” (2 Corinthians 13:4). Socialism and Christianity may be compatible in many regards, but they have completely different outlooks. The New Testament’s solution for sin and suffering comes at the Day of Judgment—and not by revolution on earth.
Likewise, Eagleton’s naïve appreciation of Islam seems wrongheaded. If he has read the Qur’an (3:28; 4:56; 8:55; 9:5; 98:6), he is surely aware that it does not suffer infidels gladly. Were he to loudly proclaim his atheistic views in Bagdad or Kabul or Islamabad, I doubt he would find “peace, justice, and compassion” for very long.
Ultimately, Eagleton is not so much defending religion as he is taking advantage of a golden opportunity to criticize liberalism, the sworn enemy of his socialist philosophy. You might say he is temporarily and hesitantly making religion, the enemy of his enemy, his friend.
“Our age,” he says, “is divided between those who believe far too much and those who believe far too little” (137). I suspect he himself belongs in the latter category. While his critique of liberalism as an ideology without the moral authority, intellectual insight, or political will to defend itself is often spot on, he never makes a convincing case for his own Marxism. It, too, has already been weighed in the balances of history and found sadly wanting.
The books of Terry Eagleton are my guilty pleasures. They are rhetorically and stylistically satisfying, but the food for thought contains a lot of empty calories and, in the last analysis, is not very good for you.
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The Doctrine of Moral Equivalencetag:www.TriteButTrue.com,2009://1.992009-06-09T15:15:25Z2009-06-09T15:52:17ZI am indebted to Dennis Prager’s thought-provoking book Think a Second Time (New York: HarperCollins, 1995) for bringing to my attention the “Doctrine of Moral Equivalence.” The DME is the idea that one cannot or should not make fine distinctions...John
Dennis Prager’s thought-provoking book Think a Second Time (New York: HarperCollins, 1995) for bringing to my attention the “Doctrine of Moral Equivalence.” The DME is the idea that one cannot or should not make fine distinctions between behaviors considered immoral or unethical. This idea takes many forms.
• You can’t fight violence with violence because all forms of violence are wrong. By this reasoning, capital punishment is wrong because it is responding to a wrong (typically murder) by doing the same wrong (execution).
• All life is sacred. The life of a dog is just as important as the life of a human being.
• A person who steals 10 dollars is just as bad as a person who steals 1000 dollars because a thief is a thief.
• Western capitalism is no more justifiable than Chinese communism since both have committed injustices and have infringed upon human rights.
• Christianity is just as dangerous a religion as Islam since both Christians and Muslims have, over the course of history, slaughtered those they believed to be infidels (unbelievers).
• George W. Bush was just as bad as Adolph Hitler since they both used strong-armed tactics to get their way and because their policies have resulted in the deaths of many innocent people.
Prager argues, rightly it seems to me, that this Doctrine of Moral Equivalence is wrong because one can indeed assign degrees of turpitude. The measured violence used by police to protect society is legitimate and not to be compared with the gratuitous violence of a Mafia hit man. A person who makes personal use of supplies at the office is not as evil as the chief financial officer of the same company whose risky and fraudulent activities eventually drive the business into bankruptcy, thereby stealing the livelihood of its employees and the capital of its stockholders. George W. Bush certainly did not committed crimes against humanity on a par with those of Adolf Hitler.
Nonetheless, I believe Dennis Prager, who is Jewish, errs when he implies that Christianity affirms the Doctrine of Moral Equivalence. The question arises, “Who speaks definitively for Christianity? Who determines what Christian doctrine is or is not?” Do you quote the Pope or Billy Graham? Jeremiah Wright or Jerry Falwell? Mother Teresa or Jimmy Carter? Obviously, over the centuries many have claimed to speak as Christians or in the name of Christianity, some more stridently, eloquently, and authoritatively than others. But claiming authority does not make it so. Christianity is, after all, as it is in the mind of God, not as it may be half-perceived or half-distorted by its various human adherents.
Nevertheless, in order not to beg the question one must ask, “How can anyone know what Christianity is in the mind of God?” The only reliable answer, to my mind, must lie in the core document of Christianity, the New Testament, since it constitutes the closest thing Christians have to ultimate and authentic authority in Christian doctrine. Any latter-day revision that contradicts the original teaching of the New Testament must naturally meet with skepticism, for if one cannot trust the New Testament as a doctrinal standard, why should one trust anything in Christendom?
The New Testament, plainly and simply, does not teach the Doctrine of Moral Equivalence. For example, I John 5:17 states, “All wrongdoing is sin, but there is sin that does not lead to death.” Later Christian writers will clarify by distinguishing between venial sins (wrongdoing) and mortal sins (sins that lead to eternal punishment in hell). In Luke 12:47-48, Jesus concludes that those who intentionally do wrong bear greater responsibility than those who do wrong in ignorance. While ignorance of the law is no excuse and wrongdoing is wrongdoing, nevertheless intentional wrongdoing and ignorant wrongdoing are not morally equivalent.
Luke 12:48 also says that “to whom much is given, much is required.” This conveys the notion that some people are more morally responsible than others simply because they are better educated, more intelligent, more spiritually enlightened, or better endowed with financial resources than certain others. In other words, according to Jesus, both nature and nurture may conspire to create a lack of moral equivalence in the eyes of God. The idea that all human beings are sinful and in need of God’s grace (that is, forgiveness by way of atonement) in no way suggests that all human beings are equally sinful.
Prager’s contention that Christianity espouses the Doctrine of Moral Equivalence derives primarily, it seems, from Jesus’ teaching about loving your enemies, which a number of Christians have taken to be an endorsement of pacifism—the belief that it is always wrong to kill. It is Prager’s belief that some people just deserve killing. Among these, he includes Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, and Charles Manson (Think a Second Time, 192). He believes that pacifism is a logical extension of the Doctrine of Moral Equivalence. If it is always wrong to kill, then killing Hitler would be just as bad as killing an innocent child.
His point is well-taken, and I would say that the majority of contemporary Christians, despite the teachings of Jesus, have renounced pacifism for pragmatic reasons. But the question remains, “Is original, authentic Christianity, as conceived in the mind of Jesus and God, fundamentally pacifist?” The answer to this question, I believe, is “Yes.” Jesus recognized that vengeance and retribution will never solve the problems of the world. The Middle East is still held in the throes of implacable hatred simply because both the Muslim and Jewish religions believe in vengeance and in the fundamental idea that some people just deserve killing. For Muslims, polytheists and atheists deserve killing (Koran 9:5; 10:4), not to mention anyone who slanders the prophet Muhammad or denigrates Islam. For Jews, anyone who would deny them the holy land of their ancestors deserves killing, as do those who would attack or kill innocent Jews.
The pacifist ethic of Jesus (loving your enemies and turning the other cheek, Matthew 5:38-48) is a heavy burden for conscientious Christians to bear. But it is not the Doctrine of Moral Equivalence. Jesus clearly recognized that some people are guiltier than others and some sins more deserving of punishment than others. Killing is wrong, not because one murder is as unjustified as another but because the mindset that “some people just deserve killing” is ultimately destructive to humanity and leads to the sea of misery in which we find ourselves drowning. It is for God to dispense judgment and justice, not human beings (“Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord,” Romans 12:19).
It is an article of Christian faith that if we treat people kindly and altruistically, they will eventually respond in the same way and the world will be a better place. If others don’t respond in kind, at least Christians will have done their part to make this world a better place and will have secured for themselves a place in the world to come. As G. K. Chesterton famously wrote, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult; and left untried.”
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Honortag:www.TriteButTrue.com,2009://1.982009-06-08T18:48:35Z2009-06-08T19:03:37Z“Tout est perdu, fors l’honneur” (All is lost, save my honor). These were the words that King François Premier of France penned in a letter to his mother after his defeat and capture at the Battle of Pavia in Italy...John
Tout est perdu, fors l’honneur” (All is lost, save my honor). These were the words that King François Premier of France penned in a letter to his mother after his defeat and capture at the Battle of Pavia in Italy (24 FEB 1525). I have been thinking about honor recently owing to two events.
In November of 2008, the professional golfer J. P. Hayes disqualified himself from the PGA Tour Q-school when he discovered he had inadvertently made two shots on one hole with a golf ball not approved for competition by the United States Golf Association. His admission of an honest mistake (his caddy had handed him the ball) cost him a 2009 PGA tour card and, presumably, quite a bit of money. When interviewed about his decision to self-report a violation no one else would have noticed, Hayes said, “I didn’t feel like I had an option. We play by the rules.”
Another incident came in January of 2009. Micah Grimes, the coach of a high-school women’s basketball team in Texas was fired for refusing to apologize after his team beat another team 100-0. Grimes responded, “We played the game as it was meant to be played. My values and my beliefs. . . will not allow me to apologize for a wide-margin victory when my girls played with honor and integrity.”
What is honor? What exactly did François Premier have left? What did the girls play basketball with? Did J. P. Hayes deserve to be praised and Micah Grimes deserve to be fired? Hayes strictly followed the golfer’s code of honor and won acclaim. Grimes somehow broke his principal’s code that you should not run up the score on a hapless team—and it cost him his job.
Honor can mean “esteem” or “acclaim” as in “to be held in honor.” But that is not the sense it has in the examples I have given. In these, honor is adherence to a code of behavior. The motto of the West Point military academy is “Duty, Honor, Country,” a motto made famous by the graduation speech given by General Douglas MacArthur on 12 MAY 1962. Such honor is not a biblical virtue, although the concept appears in the Bible. It is not a biblical virtue, I think, because honor as adherence to a particular code of behavior is an ambiguous term. Whether one’s honor is good or bad depends on the legitimacy of the code of behavior it obeys. Honor, in an of itself, is not a virtue.
Sometimes honor is quixotic, vain, or misplaced. Lord Cornwallis, the British general, surrendered to George Washington’s forces at the Battle of Yorktown, but he refused to offer his sword to Washington (or even to attend the surrender ceremony) because it was beneath his honor. Instead, he instructed his lieutenant, Brigadier General Charles O’Hara, to present the sword of surrender to Washington’s French ally General Rochambeau. Rochambeau refused to accept it and pointed to Washington. Washington then refused to accept it and pointed to his lieutenant, Benjamin Lincoln.
I have always considered my father and my father-in-law to be great men of honor in the best sense of the term. From my youth, I have been keenly aware that my father lived by an unwritten code. Once, when I was quite young, I was severely provoked (as I remember it) by the remarks of a neighborhood girl. I lashed out and hit her. Upon learning about this, my father let me know in the strongest terms that I was never again to hit a female, no matter how provoked. I am happy to say I never have, but it was my father’s code of honor that has constantly guided me in this and other matters on which I have had to choose a course of action.
My own sense of honor is a bit prickly. I have resigned secure, high-paying jobs simply because I didn’t like the way business was being done. In retrospect, my code of honor may have been too delicate and recherché for my own good, but at least, if much is perdu, like François Premier, I still claim my integrity.
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Religions and Philosophies of Life in Epigramstag:www.TriteButTrue.com,2009://1.972009-04-15T04:08:13Z2009-04-19T20:54:32ZHellenism says, “Be moderate; know yourself.” Epicureanism says, “Be calm; enjoy yourself.” Stoicism says, “Be strong; control yourself.” Confucianism says, “Be superior; correct yourself.” Buddhism says, “Be detached; enlighten yourself.” Hinduism says, “Be mindful; merge yourself.” Judaism says, “Be holy;...John
Hellenism says, “Be moderate; know yourself.”
Epicureanism says, “Be calm; enjoy yourself.”
Stoicism says, “Be strong; control yourself.”
Confucianism says, “Be superior; correct yourself.”
Buddhism says, “Be detached; enlighten yourself.”
Hinduism says, “Be mindful; merge yourself.”
Judaism says, “Be holy; behave yourself.”
Islam says, “Be submissive; bend yourself.”
Existentialism says, “Be authentic; create yourself.”
Pragmatism says, “Be practical; accept yourself.”
Materialism says, “Be industrious; maximize yourself.”
Aestheticism says, “Be refined; cultivate yourself.”
Christianity says, “Be unselfish; give yourself.”
I have adapted and expanded these epigrams from an anonymous source. Can you correct, add to, or improve upon them?
Why Do Most People Believe in God?tag:www.TriteButTrue.com,2009://1.962009-03-25T01:08:15Z2010-02-25T19:58:26ZWhy do most people believe in an ultimate reality, an intelligence behind the universe, that is called God? Children, of course, may grow up believing or not believing in God because of their parents’ influence, but eventually thinking adults decide...John
previous post I gave the reasons some people do not believe in God. Here are the reasons why I think most people make the choice to believe.
1. People believe in God because they don’t like the alternative. They want to believe in truth and justice as absolutes. They feel repulsed by the concept of a universe without absolute values where only chance, necessity, and self-interest reign.
“If there is no god, then there will be no time when the blind will see and the deaf will hear and the lame will walk. If there is no God, there is no hope of a time when all will be made right.”
Jeff Jordan, “Not in Kansas Anymore,” God and the Philosophers: The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason, ed. Thomas V. Morris (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994) 134.
2. People believe in God because they see order in the universe. All science is predicated on the assumption that order exists, that the same experiment, properly conducted, will yield the same result every time. They think there must be some overarching intelligence behind a regular, predictable world that can be described by mathematical equations.
“It is hard to resist the impression that the present structure of the universe, apparently so sensitive to minor alterations in the numbers, has been rather carefully thought out. . . . Perhaps future developments in science will lead to more direct evidence for other universes, but until then, the seemingly miraculous concurrence of numerical values that nature has assigned to her fundamental constants must remain the most compelling evidence of an element of cosmic design.”
Paul Davies, God and the New Physics (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983) 189.
3. People believe in God because they are convinced there is a universal moral sense implanted within human beings by divinity.
“The concept of right and wrong appears to be universal among all members of the human species (though its application may result in wildly different outcomes). It thus seems to be a phenomenon approaching that of a law, like the law of gravitation or of special relativity. . . . As best I can tell, this law appears to apply peculiarly to human beings. . . . It is the awareness of right and wrong, along with the development of language, awareness of self, and the ability to imagine the future, to which scientists generally refer when trying to enumerate the special qualities of Homo sapiens.”
“After twenty-eight years as a believer, the Moral Law still stands out for me as the strongest signpost to God. More than that, it points to a God who cares about human beings, and a God who is infinitely good and holy.”
Francis S. Collins, The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief (New York: Free Press, 2006) 23, 218.
4. People believe in God because such belief gives meaning to their lives and to their experience.
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else.“
C. S. Lewis, “Is Theology Poetry?" They Asked for a Paper: Papers and Addresses (1945; London: Geoffrey Bles, 1962).
5. People believe in God because they have had some personal experience that has convinced them of the existence of a spiritual reality beyond the natural.
“The expression ‘mystical experience’ is often used by religious people, or those who practice meditation. These experiences, which are undoubtedly real enough for the person who experiences them, are said to be hard to convey in words. Mystics frequently speak of an overwhelming sense of being at one with the universe or with God, of glimpsing a holistic vision of reality, or of being in the presence of a powerful and loving influence.”
Paul Davies, The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992) 226-227.
6. People believe in God because they feel they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by believing in God.
“Blaise Pascal computed the value of a religious life. . . . The value of eternal happiness must be infinite, said Pascal. If you grant this, he reasoned, it pays to be religious. For if eternal happiness is like the prize in a lottery, and even if the probability of your winning by leading a religious life is very small (like that of the ticket-holder in the lottery), your mathematical expectation (or the value of your ticket in this eternal lottery) is still infinite, for any fraction of infinity is infinite.”
Edna Kramer, The Mainstream of Mathematics (New York: Oxford University Press, 1951) 171.
7. People believe in God because they generally like believers better than unbelievers, and they take this as evidence that believing in God is better for one’s personal character and mental health (not to mention society's) than not believing.
If you watch the documentary Religulous (2008), you will most likely be struck by how unattractive a person the filmmaker and interviewer, Bill Maher, is. Most believers in God would rather be ridiculed about their beliefs than become the snarky, arrogant, and amoral persona Bill Maher likes to inhabit.
No doubt there are many noble atheists, but, historically, those known for their sainthood have virtually all been believers in God.
“I’ve spent a number of years in India and Africa, where I found much righteous endeavor undertaken by Christians of all denominations; but I never, as it happens, came across a hospital or orphanage run by the Fabian Society or a Humanist leper colony.”
Malcolm Muggeridge, "Me and Myself” in Jesus Rediscovered (New York: Pyramid Publications, 1969) 157. Originally printed in The Observer, 15 December 1968.
Belief in God is known as theism. Theism does not require belief in any of the specific deities worshiped by the great world religions. A theist believes in an ultimate reality, a transcendent mind of the universe, but not necessarily in the God revealed in the Bible or in the Koran or in the Bhagavad Gita.
Theists generally settle on an idea of God they find attractive and convincing. A theist might be a deist like Voltaire who conceived of a being who set the universe in motion but who did not personally interact with that universe. A theist might be a pantheist who sees divinity suffused in nature. A theist might also be a Christian, Muslim, or Hindu. Whatever the case, these are the primary reasons why most people choose to believe in God.
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Yes, I Have Read the Book of Mormontag:www.TriteButTrue.com,2008://1.952008-11-19T19:19:42Z2008-11-20T13:49:31ZMormon missionaries often ask, “Have you read the Book of Mormon?” I personally get the feeling this question implies you cannot criticize a book you have not read. Since few have actually read all of the Book of Mormon, the...JohnRoughing It, Mark Twain gives an excellent account of the Book of Mormon, which he describes as “chloroform in print,” a descriptive phrase that has yet to be excelled. As Twain notes, the Book of Mormon is composed of 15 shorter “books,” the longest of which is the Book of Alma (150+ pages). If you had to identify favorite passages among Mormons, I think most of them would come in the last third of the work. This means you have to slog through a lot to get to the “good part.”
While I cannot improve on Twain’s trenchant comments about the Book of Mormon, I want to make my own independent observations that reiterate, document, and expand on some of his thoughts.
1. The Book of Mormon is plagiarism gone amuck. It is a shameless pastiche of the Bible. Countless words, phrases, and whole passages are lifted verbatim from the King James Version of both Old and New Testaments (2 Nephi 12-24 = Isaiah 2-14; Mosiah 13: 12-24 = Exodus 20:5-17; Mosiah 14 = Isaiah 53; 3 Nephi 12:3-14:27 = Matthew 5-7). The minor borrowings are simply too many to enumerate. Ether 12:6-22 is a pastiche of Hebrews 11. Ether 8:8-11 derives from the story of Herod’s daughter’s dance in Matthew 14:1-10. Helaman 10:4-11 reprises Peter’s confession in Matthew 16:13-20.
2. The Book of Mormon is relentlessly dull because it is so wordy, tedious, and repetitive. Sometimes the wordiness is downright comical. In Jacob 4:1, for example, the writer says, “I cannot write but a little of my words because of the difficulty of engraving our words upon plates.” Then he proceeds to repeat the phrase “and it came to pass” 28 times in chapter 5 alone, one of the most confused examples of English prose imaginable. If writing on brass plates is so difficult, why so much repetition and useless verbiage? The Book of Mormon began recycling long before it became trendy. Instead of recycling plastic, however, it recycles the same names, ideas, and phrases over and over and over (4 Nephi, for example, just rehashes all that has gone before).
3. The Book of Mormon is badly written. It seems to admit that fact to itself. Ether 12:23 notes that criticism will arise because of “our weakness in writing.” He rightly remarks, “I fear lest the Gentiles shall mock at our words” (Ether 12:25). Consider this sentence: “And it came to pass that Moroni felt to rejoice exceedingly at this request, for he desired the provisions which were imparted for the support of the Lamanite prisoners for the support of his own people; and he also desired his own people for the strengthening of his army” (Alma 54:2). Such confused prose and confused narrative abounds in the Book of Mormon (see, for example, Alma 23-25). I personally feel sorry for highly educated Mormon English teachers who feel compelled to defend this book.
4. The Book of Mormon strikes you as somewhat surreal. Most of it is predicated on a detailed belief in something that supposedly has not yet happened—the advent of Jesus Christ. Consequently, the book is chock full of anachronisms. Mosiah, for example, purports to be written in 124 B.C., yet it mentions “Mary” the mother of “Jesus Christ” (3:8), the resurrection of Christ (16:7-8), and the ascension of Christ into heaven (18:2). Other naïve anachronisms include “the twelve apostles” (1 Nephi 13:40), “Bible” (2 Nephi 29:3), “churches“ (2 Nephi 26:21), the “baptism” of Christ along with the descent of the Holy Ghost in the form of dove, “the atoning blood of Jesus Christ” (Helaman 5:9), Jesus in the tomb for “three days” before rising (Helaman 14:20), and speaking in the “tongue of angels” (2 Nephi 31:5-14).
5. The Book of Mormon is obsessed with the spirit of revelation and prophecy (3 Nephi 3:19; 6:20; 29:6). It is, of course, this inspiration from heaven that permits such detailed looks into the future. Prophecy is the device by which absurd anachronisms become legitimate and writers can mix quotes from the Old and New Testaments in the same breath (for example, 2 Nephi 30:12-17 which uses language from Isaiah 11:6-9, Matthew 10:26, and Luke 8:17). It is interesting to see Jesus himself in 2 Nephi 26:3 borrowing language from 2 Peter 3:10 and Revelation 6:14, books yet to be written.
6. The Book of Mormon is preoccupied with themes of the early American republic: the “cause of our freedom” (Alma 60:30), “rights”, “privileges,” “their freedom and their liberty” (3 Nephi 2:12), doing “your business by the voice of the people” (Mosiah 29:26), a “land of liberty” (Mosiah 29:32), “free government” (Alma 46:35). Representative government is instituted (Mosiah 29:25), monarchist traitors denounced (Alma 51:5-6; 60:17-18; 3 Nephi 6:30), and conspiracies to overthrow political freedom detected (3 Nephi 7:6; Ether 8:18-26). The Book of Mormon is a thoroughly nineteenth-century American book, not a book of antiquity.
7. The Book of Mormon sets out to clarify and improve upon Christian doctrine as set forth in the Bible. It carefully clarifies issues that nineteenth-century Protestants longed to have clarified. Has the age of miracles ceased? See Moroni 7:27-29. Do young children need to be baptized? See Moroni 8:5-24. What is the significance of baptism? See 3 Nephi 7:25. How should a baptism be performed? See 3 Nephi 23-27. What should be the name of the church? See 3 Nephi 26:3-10. What exactly is the gospel? See 3 Nephi 27:20-21. What is true faith? See Alma 32:17-21. Numerous doctrinal sermons, evangelistic sermons, and hortatory sermons sprinkled throughout the text explain all the essential beliefs a true Christian must have.
8. The Book of Mormon is strangely fatalistic. Despite all the preaching and teaching, despite all the missionary activity and conversions that take place, righteousness never seems to last very long. The Book of Mormon has a bloodthirsty view of humanity (Mormon 4:11; Ether 14:21; 15:2). The Holy Spirit, the blessings of prophecy, and good Christian living don’t seem to count for much over time. People always return to their sinful ways and eventually self-destruct.
9. The Book of Mormon is full of prophets who talk like nineteenth-century protestant preachers. They speak of “the plan of salvation” (Jarom 2). They extend “invitations” to be saved (Alma 5:62). They call on people to “repent and be born again” (Alma 7:14). They speak of life as “a time to prepare to meet God” (Alma 12:24). They explain archaisms in King James English that nineteenth-century readers might misunderstand (e.g., the word “charity” in 2 Nephi 26:30 and Ether 12:34) and clarify that, despite what you might gather from the Bible, the earth moves, not the sun (Helaman 12:15). The book seems not only to contain anachronisms but to be itself one long, sustained anachronism.
10. The Book of Mormon is not that controversial from the standpoint of Christian doctrine. I think conservative, charismatic Christians of the twenty-first century would object to little or nothing professed in the book. Virtually all of what is controversial and heretical about Mormonism (e.g., baptism for the dead, multiple gods, temple ceremonies, polygamy) does not appear in the pages of the Book of Mormon. This gives support to the contention that the Book of Mormon was originally an early nineteenth-century novel stolen before it was ever published, then revised and adapted by Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon for their own purposes. The Book of Mormon is badly written, but it is clearly within the bounds of standard Christian doctrine. It was written by someone intimately familiar with the Bible and with nineteenth-century biblical theology.
I close with a few specific observations.
1. Unlike in the Bible, there are no important female characters in the Book of Mormon. It is entirely male-dominated. In the entire book, I noticed only one woman mentioned by name (Sariah in 1 Nephi 5:1). All women seem to do is produce male babies who eventually become fodder for slaughter in battle.
2. Unlike the Bible, the Book of Mormon is skin-color conscious. God curses the Lamanites by making their skin turn black (2 Nephi 5:21). Six hundred years later, God blesses the Lamanites by turning them white again (3 Nephi 2:15). Black is not beautiful in the Book of Mormon.
3. Some stories in the Book of Mormon would make great Monty Python sketches. Check out Alma 17-18 (Heroic Arm Slicing); Alma 44:8-20 (Get Scalped and Come Back Fighting); Ether 3:6 (The Finger of the Lord); Ether 15:23-32 (Last Man Standing Falls); Helaman 16:1-8 (The Leaping Prophet); 3 Nephi 28:7-40 (The Three Immortal Missionaries).
4. If you ever wonder where Mormons get their zeal for door-to-door evangelism, read Alma 26:23-29 to learn about some of the first Mormon missionaries.
5. According to Ether 15:2, in the final conflict between the Nephites and the Lamanites one side alone lost two million people "slain by the sword." That's a lot of sword fighting. Two million is nearly five times the number of American soldiers killed in World War II.
What happens when a work of fiction is presented as truth? Some people in the eighteenth century objected to the rise of novels because they were “lies” foisted upon the public as truth. Over time, thoughtful people came to realize that fiction is not really a lie but potentially a form of imaginative truth. Fiction could be “true” insofar as it was “true to life” and provided insightful aesthetic pleasure. In my view, the Book of Mormon is inferior fiction that is neither true to life nor aesthetically pleasing. Is it a lie? I prefer to think of it as influential fiction. And yes, I have read the Book of Mormon, but I never plan to read it again.
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Human Nature and the Christian Waytag:www.TriteButTrue.com,2008://1.942008-05-06T17:26:30Z2008-05-06T17:31:36ZHuman nature wants to have its own way; Christians submit to the will of God (James 4:7). Human nature looks out for its own interests; Christians work for the good of others (Philippians 2:4; 1 Corinthians 10:33). Human nature is...John
The Imitation of Christ, book 3, chapter 54
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Forgivenesstag:www.TriteButTrue.com,2008://1.932008-01-13T03:58:27Z2008-01-20T19:33:17ZOne of the most gripping news stories of 2006 was the murderous assault on ten Amish girls at the West Nickel Mines School in Pennsylvania. Five of the girls died from their wounds, and the murderer, Charles Roberts, killed himself....John
did influence his thinking!
Forgiveness, in a real sense, is refusing to harm someone who has harmed you. It is impossible to forget a major offense, but it is possible to do no harm in return. As my friend Rusty McLen says, “Forgiveness means I am going to trust God to deal with that person.”
Sadly, those who don’t believe in God are basically forced either to retaliate themselves, to somehow reconcile with the offender, or to ignore the offense (that is, if offense is such that the law won’t intervene on their behalf). They have no God to relieve or rescue them from the pain of rage, resentment, and recrimination.
From a Christian point of view, to forgive and forget is telling the devil, “I am not taking that hurt back. I am not giving you a foothold in my heart.” Forgiveness understands that what someone does to us is not the ultimate issue. What hatred, anger, and bitterness do to the human heart is the big issue.
“Hatred and anger are bonding emotions just like love,” McLen explains. “They form a chain that is attached to a stake of offense. That chain of bitter resentment limits your range of motion if it is wrapped around your neck. Forgiveness is cutting the chain as close to the neck as possible.”
Forgiving does not mean we won’t try to protect ourselves against further hurt, just as “forgetting“ an offense is not really the absence of memory. But forgiveness does recognize that, long-term, an unforgiving spirit within us typically creates more risk of further hurt than did the original source of harm. As someone has said, “Refusing to forgive is like taking poison and waiting for someone else to die.”
The Amish community suffered grievously from that unprovoked attack, but it understood the wisdom of Jesus. To the extent the Amish Christians internalized the teaching and example of Jesus, to forgive and comfort was the natural thing for them to do. As Peter wrote in 1 Peter 3:9, "Do not repay evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary bless, for to this you were called, that you may obtain a blessing."
Forgiveness is the only remedy for human history; it is a blessing to which Christians are called.
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One Verse in the Qur'antag:www.TriteButTrue.com,2008://1.922008-01-08T16:26:57Z2008-01-13T23:07:26ZI admit I did not read the Koran in the original Arabic. But I didn’t read it in English either. The only copy I owned was a French translation (Le Coran, trans. Kasimirski, Paris: Garnier-Flamamarion, 1970), so I read it...John
Le Coran, trans. Kasimirski, Paris: Garnier-Flamamarion, 1970), so I read it in French. Later, as I started writing my review of the Koran, I realized I needed to reference an easily available English translation since my readers would probably not have any access to or understanding of the French translation I read.
To my surprise, the numbering of the verses in my French translation did not precisely match the numbering in the English translations. I wondered why. Even more shocking was that many interesting verses I had underlined in the French translation did not say the same thing in the English. Sometimes a verse was hardly recognizable because the meaning had so radically changed.
Consequently, I did a little checking into these matters. Here is what I found.
The numbering of the verses is different because there are two systems of numbering. Up to the 1930s, western scholars of the Koran used the numbering found in an edition of the Koran by Gustav Flügel, Corani Textus Arabicus (1834). This numbering system has been supplanted by the one used in what is called the Standard Egyptian Edition (1928). Hence, older translations use the old numbering system while more recent translations use the newer official system.
The marked difference in the translation of certain verses is a thornier issue. Although I don’t read Arabic, I do read a bit of Hebrew, which is a related Semitic language. I know that translating the Hebrew Bible is more difficult than translating the Greek New Testament because of the nature of the Hebrew language.
We simply don’t know for sure what certain ancient Hebrew words actually meant in their time because these words occur only once in the Bible, and the context gives no clear indication as to what they might have signified. Outside the Bible, there are no other ancient Hebrew texts from which to draw further information. Furthermore, questions about spelling, verb tenses, poetic syntax, and idiomatic usages create uncertainty in various places.
All of this applies to medieval Arabic as well. As one scholar has written, “Despite its repeated assertions to the contrary, the Koran is often extremely difficult for contemporary readers—even highly educated speakers of Arabic—to understand.” I take it that, for the average Arab, reading medieval Arabic is a bit like reading Chaucer in the original would be for the average American, or even worse. What is more, the Koran alludes to stories and events that seem to have confounded even the earliest Muslim scholars.
To illustrate what I mean, I have chosen part of one verse in the Koran, sura 4:34a (new system) or 4:38a (old system), to serve as an example. The differences in translation are striking, and I wonder if this is owing to the obscurity of the language or to the controversial content.
In the tenth edition of The Glorious Quran by Muhammad Pickthall (Des Plaines, IL: Library of Islam, 1994), the verse reads as follows: “Men are in charge of women, because Allah hath made one of them to excel the other, and because they spend their property (for the support of women). So good women are obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah hath guarded.”
Here’s how N. J. Dawood’s translation, The Koran with Parallel Arabic Text (London: Penguin Books, 2006), goes: “Men have authority over women because God has made the one superior to the other, and because they spend their wealth to maintain them. Good women are obedient. They guard their unseen parts because God has guarded them.”
In The Noble Qur’an (1993), a translation published in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, one reads, “Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has made the one of them to excel the other, and because they spend (to support them) from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient (to Allah and to their husbands), and guard in the husband’s absence what Allah orders them to guard (e.g., their chastity, their husband’s property, etc.).”
Contrast these three translations with that of The Qur’an by M. A. S. Abdel Haleem (Oxford UP, 2004): “Husbands should take good care of their wives, with [the bounties] God has given to some more than others and with what they spend out of their own money. Righteous wives are devout and guard what God would have them guard in their husband’s absence.”
Consider the same verse in Al-Qur’an: A Contemporary Translation by Ahmed Ali (Princeton UP, 1993): “Men are the support of women as God gives some more means than others, and because they spend of their wealth (to provide for them). So women who are virtuous are obedient to God and guard the hidden as God has guarded it.”
The French translation I read says (in my own rather literal translation), “Men are superior to women because of the qualities by which God has raised the former above the latter, and because men use their goods to provide for women. Virtuous women are obedient and submissive; during their husbands’ absence, they carefully guard what God has ordered [them] to preserve intact.”
Which of these translations most accurately conveys the true message of the Koran? I leave it to you to decide, but I personally suspect it is the one that sounds the most medieval and the least politically correct.
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The Qur'antag:www.TriteButTrue.com,2008://1.912008-01-04T15:42:09Z2008-01-13T23:06:28ZOn December 7, 2007, I finished reading the Koran for the first time. I had heard it was a classic of literature, written in the purest and most beautiful Arabic. Frankly, I was expecting to read a work of some...John
The Koran is derivative
I was surprised to find very little narrative or poetry in the Koran. Most of the characters it mentions are lifted from the Hebrew Bible (for example, Noah, Job, Abraham, Lot, Moses, Pharaoh, Jonah). Their stories are briefly retold, but there is little original narrative (for one of the few exceptions, see 18:60-99). The main point in each story is that a righteous prophet was rejected by evil men and later vindicated, just as Muhammad felt righteous, rejected, and sure to be vindicated (see 35:4, 25-26).
Little is new in the Koran other than the claim that Muhammad is God’s true and final prophet. The idea of one sovereign God comes from the Hebrew Bible. So does the claim that he created heaven and earth in six days (32:4) or the command to abstain from pork and blood (2:173). The portrait of God as merciful to his people and harsh toward unbelievers, hypocrites, idolaters, and reprobates originates, once again, in the Old Testament.
The Koran is repetitive
I was surprised at how uncreative the Koran is. Paradise is always described the same way—a garden with rivers, fountains, plenty to eat and drink, silk garments, gold jewelry, and beautiful, good-natured virgins to serve as brides (for example, 2:25; 3:195; 4:57; 5:85; 29:58; 30:15; 31:8; 35:33; 37:40-49; 38:51-54; 43:70-73; 44:51-54; 55:54-56). Hell is also described over and over again using basically the same words. It is a burning hot place where nineteen cruel angels pour boiling water down your throat or burn off your skin only to replace it with new skin to burn so you will continue to feel the pain (4:56; 8:50; 10:4; 11:106-107; 40:70-72; 48:13; 55:43; 56:41-56; 74:26-31).
The righteous are those who believe in God, who believe Muhammad is his messenger, who believe the Koran comes directly from God, who do right by widows and orphans, who give alms, and who pray regularly (9:71-72; 23:1-10). The damned are those who do not (5:85-86; 10:69-70; 33:64-66; 43:74).
The same language is used incessantly to rehearse a litany of warnings and threats. Sad to say, the Koran is boring.
The Koran is defensive
Purportedly, God is the speaker in the Koran, and Muhammad has memorized what God said so he could recite it for others to copy down (3:7; 6:155; 12:2, 111). Throughout the book, however, one has the distinct impression it is Muhammad putting words in God’s mouth (see, for example, 33:28-34 where God lectures the prophet’s wives or 33:50-52 where God tells Muhammad with whom he can have sex).
I was surprised at how defensive the Koran is. Obviously, Muhammad was under constant attack and felt the need to have a ready reply to whatever his attackers might say. Among the most interesting parts of the Koran for me are the passages where God quotes Muhammad’s detractors and then tells him how to reply to them (for example, 10:37-38; 11:12-13; 34:3; 43:30). I can hear them calling him a madman, an imposter, a liar, a charlatan, and so forth. I can hear them challenging him to show them a miracle, to show them how God has blessed him by making him rich, or to prove conclusively that what he is saying is true. I can hear Muhammad’s defiant retorts (for example, 5:17-18; 43:23-24).
Because the prophet is so often on the defensive, the boasts and promises of the Koran often seem hollow and insecure. The Koran constantly makes assertions that Muhammad and his followers confirmed by military conquest rather than by reason or by miraculous signs.
The Koran is corrosive
Even for believers in Muhammad and Allah, the Koran is brutal. Thieves must have their hands cut off (5:38). Disobedient wives can be beaten (4:34). Adulterers are to be given 100 lashes (24:2). God’s deterrents are vicious, and since these directives come directly from Gabriel, the angel of God, they are not subject to amendment as far as devout Muslims are concerned.
The Hebrew Bible contains a few imprecatory psalms where the poet calls down curses on his enemies, but the Koran feels like one long imprecatory rant. The warnings and threats—to believers and unbelievers alike—come fast and furious.
To say the Koran is sectarian and menacing is a huge understatement. Of course, it is one thing to be spiritually threatened with hell after death. It is another to be physically threatened with death in this world just because you are bound for hell in the next. Although God is the one delivering the threats against the infidels, you definitely have the impression He would be happy for his faithful to make good on them even before the afterlife begins.
I suppose it is comforting to a good Muslim to have assurance he is on the winning side, to know that God will be merciful to him and merciless to unbelievers. It is equally comforting for Muslim men to know they are superior to women (2:223, 228; 4:34). But from the unbeliever’s vantage point (or the woman’s), the Koran contains nasty threats that are both serious and ominous. In the hands of true believers eager to be God’s avenging instruments on earth (see 3:151, 157-158; 4:95, 100; 5:33; 9:5, 29, 111, 123), the Koran can easily become incendiary.
Long story short, the Koran is a disappointment. As an unbeliever (in Muhammad), I found little wisdom or uplift there, in other words, little reason to believe. If you doubt what I say, read it for yourself.
Note: The sura and verse references given above are to The Qur’an, trans. By M. A. S. Abdel Haleem (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004).
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Bozo and Jesus Debate the Issuestag:www.TriteButTrue.com,2007://1.902007-12-11T19:47:21Z2008-05-06T17:39:53ZIt is difficult to appreciate the revolutionary nature of Jesus' teaching without comparing it to conventional wisdom. Modern Christians have become so adept at spinning what Jesus said or deftly ignoring it that they have basically grown deaf or become...John
Jesus: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).
Bozo: I like you Jesus. I really do. But sometimes you say things I don’t completely agree with. This is a good example. I think it is a lot more fun to receive than to give. After all, you get to keep what you receive or regift it or sell it on eBay. If that’s not “blessed,” what is? If you give it away, it’s gone, period. What are you thinking, Jesus?
Jesus: “Everyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of sexual immorality, makes her commit adultery. And whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery” (Matthew 5:32).
Bozo: Jesus, bless your cotton-picking heart, you've never been married. I think Dr. Laura understands the valid grounds for divorce a lot better than you. Even Dr. Laura says there are four A’s that justify divorce, not just one: adultery, addiction, abuse, and abandonment.
You just don't seem to understand how couples can just grow apart and no longer want to stay together. If men and women can’t divorce one another, human happiness is definitely in peril. Divorce is part of what I call “natural religion,” because it is only natural.
Jesus: “Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Matthew 5:39).
Bozo: There you go again, Jesus. You obviously do not fully understand the rationale for preemptive war. Really, we need to kill evil people first before they have a chance to hurt us. Some people just need killing. That’s the plain truth. If no one resisted evil people, evil nations would take us over. You must have led a pretty sheltered existence, Jesus. I don’t think you realize how bad evil can be.
Jesus: “Give to the one who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you” (Matthew 5:42).
Bozo: Look, Jesus. These days, panhandlers are as familiar with your Sermon on the Mount as good Christians like me are. They use it as a tool to make us good Christians feel guilty and extort money from us. Like, when you tell them to go away, they say, “God bless you.”
Now that we have welfare and Social Security to provide a safety net, along with big banks to give sub-prime loans, I don’t really believe this applies the way it might have in your day.
People should be working, not begging. Just look at how low the unemployment rate is! Just look at how many immigrants we have working all around the country. If somebody is willing to work, he can. Better that than begging.
Jesus: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:24).
Bozo: Very funny, Jesus. You’re joking, of course. I mean, how can capitalism work if Christians don’t get rich, reinvest their money in businesses, and create jobs? Where’s the incentive to build our economy? Watch out or people will starting thinking you’re some kind of pinko socialist.
You're a nice guy, Jesus, but you don’t always think things through. Take for example the time you turned that water to wine at Cana (John 2:1-11). There was another case of setting a bad example. In my humble opinion, people might even say it was giving a drunk a drink. All I can say is that I would have respected you a whole lot more if you hadn’t done it.
Jesus: “Everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart” (Matthew 5:28).
Bozo: Whoa, now, bro! You know very well that’s not humanly possible, unless maybe some guy is gay. Even Jimmy Carter said he lusted in his heart. Did that make him commit adultery and be unfaithful to Rosalynn? No way! It just doesn’t make sense. You are setting the bar impossibly high, aren’t you? You‘re just messing with us, aren’t you?
Jesus: “Go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven” (Matthew 19:21).
Bozo: Now wait just a dad-gum minute, Jesus. If I sell all I have and give it to the poor, I’ll make my own family homeless and put them on welfare. What then? Who’s going to bail us out?
Furthermore, once I give all I have to the poor and they spend it. What then? They can’t come back to me a year later. My money machine has done give out. Can’t you see how short-sighted your advice is?
Jesus: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28, 30).
Bozo: With all you have been saying, it doesn’t seem very light to me. I think you’re being a little disingenuous there, Jesus. Let’s be honest and admit you lay a pretty heavy burden on people. Luckily, we know how to ignore it and let it slide.
We do it for your own good, of course. What would people think of you if your followers did exactly as you said? It would be chaos, you have to admit, and it would all be your fault. You ought to be grateful.
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What Does "Trite But True" Mean?tag:www.TriteButTrue.com,2007://1.892007-12-05T14:40:04Z2007-12-05T14:56:34ZIt appears many visitors come to this site in search of information about the phrase “trite but true." While not an expert on semantics, I thought I might take time to explain what the expression means to me and why...John
The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, the word “trite” derives from the Latin tritus, which is a past participle of the verb terere, “to rub.” Originally, trite meant “worn out by rubbing.” A trite garment was frayed. A trite road indicated a well-beaten path. This sense of “worn out by use” soon took on the expanded meaning of “worn out by constant repetition.” People applied it to speech or thought that was hackneyed, commonplace, stale, and devoid of any novelty or originality.
The expression “trite but true” is paradoxical in that it implicitly contrasts two human values: novelty and truth. The adversative “but” suggests that novelty and originality are not always supreme virtues. Even if something has been repeated a thousand times, it may still be as true as ever. And truth is a good that trumps the human lust for novelty, what Samuel Johnson called “the hunger of imagination.” Just because a notion is new does not mean it is true. Just because an idea is old does not mean it should be discarded as worthless.
I believe that much of what is good for human life and happiness is often dismissed as trite. “Spend less than you earn.” “You have to be a friend to have a friend.” “The harder I work, the luckier I get.” A person can build a life on such bromides.
By this token, I like to say that Christianity is trite but true. By Christianity I mean the way of Jesus as it is revealed in the New Testament--and not at all every distortion or perversion that has cloaked itself in the name of Christianity over the course of history. Certainly, Christianity has endured through the ages in large part because many generations have found the message of Jesus eternally fresh. But familiarity also breeds contempt with the result that nations once called Christian are less so or no longer so.
The purpose of this site is to explore how things considered “trite” may also be profoundly “true.” Consequently, as time passes, I am seeking wisdom not only in the Bible but also in other writings that no longer have the blush of youth. Whether “tried and true” or “trite but true,” the moral genius of the past can surely guide the future.
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