Cleansing the Temple: Does Jesus Sanction Violence? Steve Crosby

In today’s climate of heightened political rancor, some believers use the cleansing of the temple gospel narrative as a proof text to justify all manner of egregious and violent behavior toward others — “After all, Jesus whipped people.”—sic. The cleansing of the temple account is one of the favorite proof texts of those who want to try to deflect the potency of Christ’s clear ethical commands to overcome evil with good and to love one’s enemies.

The NEB version translates Psalm 69:9 as: The zeal for your house shall destroy me. According to the Synoptic Gospels, within one week of the cleansing of the temple, Jesus is dead.[1] The Synoptic gospels make it clear that this event sealed his fate.  His first (and last!) public sermon in the synagogue (Luke 4) and the cleansing of the temple stirred visceral human hatred unto murder. Why? What was it about both events that stirred such deep hatred among “normally decent" people? What was going on? How should we understand the cleansing of the temple narrative in the light of illegitimate attempts by so many to justify their violence and hatred by claiming Jesus as their model?

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No Carry-on Baggage Allowed - Isaiah 46:1-4 - Greg Albrecht

Bel bows down, Nebo stoops low; their idols are born by beasts of burden.
  The images that are carried about are burdensome, a burden for the weary.
  They stoop and bow down together; unable to rescue the burden, they themselves go off into captivity.
  "Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all you who remain of the house of Israel, you whom I have upheld since you were conceived, and have carried since your birth.
  Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he, I am he who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you." —Isaiah 46:1-4

If you have flown commercially lately, for business or pleasure, you know that airline travel has become much more difficult than it used to be. Even if you haven't traveled on an airline lately, you probably have heard that airlines have added lots of extra charges. 

Some airlines are now carefully weighing and measuring your checked luggage. I guess they have to, considering the stuff some people try to cart on board. When it comes to our relationship with God, religion can become just so much carry-on baggage. It can drag us down. It can seem to be so necessary, so important, so vital and so spiritual, but religion can seriously burden and impair our relationship with God. 

How much spiritual baggage are you trying to drag with you as you journey through life? Is the spiritual baggage you are lugging around helping you, or is it bogging you down? Is your spiritual baggage restricting your freedom in Christ?

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Who were Adam and Eve? Peter Enns

Peter Enns: What's the deal with Adam and Eve? from Plain Truth Ministries on Vimeo.

Søren Kierkegaard: Father of Religionless Christianity - Interview with Stephen Backhouse

Art by Delphine Lebourgeois

Kierkegaard: Father of Christianity without the religion - Interview with Stephen Backhouse

CWR magazine is known to our readers as promoting Christianity Without the Religion. But of course, we’re not the first to do so. Some of the 20^th century’s theological greats—Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Karl Barth, for example—were great critics of Christ-less religion as over against the living faith of Christ-centered revelation. But if we were name “the father of Christianity without the religion” in the modern era, the honor would surely go to the Danish thinker and provocateur, Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855). He once wrote,  

There is nothing so displeasing to God as taking part in all the “religious” Christianity with the claim that this is worshiping God. If you believe, as surely you must, that to steal, rob, commit adultery, and slander is displeasing to God, then official Christianity and its worship is infinitely more abhorrent to him. Again, it is my duty to exclaim, “Whoever you are, whatever in other respects your life may be, by refusing to take part in all this public worship of God as it now is, you have one sin the less, and that a great one.” You have been warned.

A relentless opponent of the Danish Lutheran state-religion, he sowed seeds for today’s nones (non-affiliated Christians) and dones (“done with church” Christians). But his influence extended far beyond either Denmark or even Christendom. He is also recognized as the father of existentialism, leaving his mark on philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus. With that introduction, CWR magazine is pleased to welcome Stephen Backhouse, author of Kierkegaard: A Single Life (Zondervan, 2016), to shed more light on this author, his thought and his influence.    

CWR: Stephen, could you give us a brief summary of Kierkegaard the man?

Ha! No. I doubt I can briefly summarize Søren Kierkegaard, the funny, cranky, annoying, joyful, worshipful, genius who attacked Christendom in the name of Christ and the common man and who massively overestimated our ability to understand him as he did so. I can tell you that he died in 1855 at the age of 42 after a life of fragile health and probably epilepsy. That he spent almost all his days in Copenhagen, Denmark. That when he died there was a near riot at his funeral because his supporters and his enemies alike were offended he was being given an official Christian burial. That a popular newspaper waged a public campaign of mockery against him. That two generations or so of Danish boys weren't given the name Søren because of the association with him. That he loved - and was loved by - a wonderful woman named Regine but that he broke off their engagement because he knew he was being called to stand outside of the comfortable Christianized life that 19th century Danish marriage represented. That he wrote. A lot. All the time. That he invented existentialism, that he gave us the idea of 'the leap of faith', and that if you value 'being authentic' or like people who 'walk the talk' and 'practice what they preach', and that if you suspect there is a big difference between being a follower of Jesus Christ and being a member of common sense Christian culture then your imagination has been shaped by Kierkegaard whether you know it or not.

"The Shack" movie unveils toxic representations of God - Brad Jersak

HERESY HUNTERS ARE AT IT AGAIN

Paul Young’s bestseller finally hits the big screen on March 3. That’s news—great news—as I’ll explain shortly.

What’s not news is how the so-called ‘discernment ministries’ (a euphemism for heresy-hunters) have begun yelping. They’re recycling ‘ye olde’ objections but, typically, barking up the wrong tree.

The charge of ‘heresy’ is serious, so it ought to be taken seriously, especially by those wielding it. But as a theologian (PhD), I confess that its sloppy use as a pejorative grates on my doctrinal nerves.

For example, the outcry against Young’s creative portrayal of God’s ‘Threeness’ or his imaging the invisible God as a black woman betrays a crass literalism that the author obviously never intended.

RUBLEV’S TRINITY AND MODERN MISOGYNY

Russian painter Andrei Rublev’s famous icon of the Trinity (15th c.) would seem to break the same rules as The Shack, where Abram and Sarai’s three angelic guests were eventually identified with Father, Son and Holy Spirit—one God depicted as three persons. Yet in Eastern iconography, the Father is elsewhere never depicted because the visible image of God is reserved for Jesus Christ alone.

So how is it, I ask, that Rublev’s icon isn’t tossed onto the book-burning stacks along with The Shack? No doubt it would have been if Orthodox believers were incapable of using limited human expressions (words or pictures) for the divine mysteries.

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Full article appears at http://joshvalley.com

Old Testament Violence Unpacked - Peter Enns

Peter Enns: Old Testament Violence Unpacked from Plain Truth Ministries on Vimeo.

"Why her?" On grieving the departed - Brad Jersak

"Why her?" is a common and important lament. Chris Erskine's LA column on that unanswerable question is a masterful and sensitive treatment. 

"Why her?" It's a natural cry when we lose someone we love -- someone to whom we ascribe worth -- someone whose life is 'taken' from a family and a community where we still know in our hearts they are needed. It's an important cry of the heart that ought not be squished and cannot be answered ... But having been uttered, some of its toxic assumptions need a sensitive, wise response. 

"Why her?" implies a kind of selection process. "Why her and not someone else?" Or "why her at this time?" 

But where there's a selection process, there's a Selector -- whether the fates or the death angel or the gods -- and so sometimes the question is amplified to "Why did God take her?" You can even use Bible verses to talk about God "numbering our days," for example. And this is where things may get ugly. As life-giver, God also seems to be the life-taker. "He gives and takes away," says Job when calamity took his children, his livestock, his estate and his health. 

But is that literally true? Some find comfort in "God took her" because then in spite of the loss, God is still "in control," whatever that means. "God took my son" may bring peace to such people. But also deep resentment if we're honest. "What kind of a God would take ...!? 

The alternative is also ugly, because death sucks no matter how you slice it. But it's also more likely true and ultimately contains some hope of redemption. The truth is that "Death took her" or "Death took him."  It takes everyone eventually. Death is an enemy and it strikes randomly. It is not selective. Toddlers drown in hot tubs, pregnant moms are killed in car accidents, bridegrooms drown on their honeymoon.  I've seen all these things. Why them? The "why" calls for a sense of order in the chaos. None is forthcoming. 

But in the darkness of the shadow of death, there is a Good Shepherd who has experienced death himself. Why him? Because he wants to hold the sobbing survivors in his arms, walk the dying through the valley, and is able to redeem them from death through resurrection. This is good news -- it neither precludes death nor eradicates grief -- nor should it. But perhaps it takes out the venomous stinger of despair if death were to mean non-existence. It does not. Beyond the gates, there is real repose "in a place of brightness, a place of refreshment" in the presence of God. We believe this. It's not fairy dust. It's resurrection after the order of the Firstborn from the dead "who now holds the keys of death" and "tramples down death by death and upon those in the tomb bestows life."

"Why her?" Because everyone dies. "Why now? Why this way?" Because life is hard and death is a curse ... but not from God and not the final word. The better question might be, "Where is God?" But only if it's not asked rhetorically as an accusation of absence. That would just be another form of despair. In we ask with an attentive, receptive heart, and are willing to count God's movements in the loving comfort of those who wipe our tears, the response may come, "God is here, even in the dark" -- "to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death" (Luke 1:79).