Review for The Resignation of Eve

If you have a moment, head on over to my friend +Tiffany Malloy's blog and read her review of The Resignation of Eve.

Tiffany writes:

Henderson writes the stories of women who have reacted to this issue in different ways. There are some women who realize they have these gifts, but are happy not to use them because “women aren’t allowed” to do what they are gifted at. … Another group of women have found it too difficult and have left the church or the faith. A portion of these women still go to church gathering on Sundays, mostly for their husband or children, but have checked out emotionally and mentally.

This book is filled with stories of questions, disillusionment, confusion, hope, and hurt. I love that the stories were honest and exposed the thoughts and feelings of women on all sides of this issue.

Why this matters

This is why the issue of women and the Church matters to me. My wife, +Meredith Imler is one of those incredibly gifted women who had been systematically (and sometimes overtly, one pastor even told her to her face that "God wouldn't do that") excluded from using her Spirit-given gifts and Spirit-given calling within the Body of Christ. #blog

Thanks, +Tiffany Malloy, for putting the book on my radar.

Source: What if eve resigned? at Learning to Love

Great Little Lecture on the Historical Jesus

Check out this interested presentation from Ben Witherington on the historical Jesus. I love that he rips the picture of Jesus that the horrendous Da Vinci Code and the Discovery Channel presents. He begins with a distinguishment between the Jesus of history and the historical reconstruction of Jesus (historian’s Jesus), and it only gets better from there.

Check it out:

Adding Hover Captions with CSS

While researching how to add CSS-based semitransparent image captions, I came across this handy guide for using CSS3 transitions to create nice, animated fading captions. Here is an example:

How a Kryptonian handles his business.

I ended up modifying the approach to create semitransparent image captions without the hovering. You can check out an example here.

Source: Smooth Fading Image Captions with Pure CSS3

What if I told you

#blog HT: +Darryl Schafer

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Post imported by Google+Blog. Created By Daniel Treadwell.

Scripture: A Proposal

Scripture

Both human and divine?

The following is my proposal for how we should think, talk about, and view scripture. I’d love your thoughts. Tell me what you like, what you don’t, and what’s at stake.

Introduction

We believe that Scripture consists of the Protestant canon. We have no scriptural basis, no manuscript basis, and no scientific basis for this claim. It rests solely upon our faith in the Spirit guiding our historical spiritual community. It was not delivered to us on plates of gold; it came into being through much struggle, trepidation, and time. We listen to other Christian works such as the Catholic Apocrypha, popular Christian devotional and academic works, and even ancient Christian non-canonical texts (such as the Acts of Mar Andrew and Mar Matthias) for human and divine wisdom, but hold the Canon over and above all these as the only set of works co-opted by God as his instrument of communication.

Composition

And we consider it to be human compositions1 which were co-opted by God and breathed through by God so that it is “useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.”2 We cling onto usefulness and deny the practice of using it as the fourth member of the trinity, as God incarnate.

Worth

And that it is the sole record of God’s revelation in literary form. As such, we elevate it above all other texts and base our construction of the world upon our readings of it. Insofar as worlds are constructed by the language and categories as socio-cultural worlds, the Paraclete creates the Christian world through the melding of the revealed biblical stage and the present and local cultural stage which has implications for the world stage.3

[Not] Lost in Translation

This message will always need to be translated by the help of the Paraclete into each culture it encounters. Additionally, it was produced within a specific geo/cultural-historical context and must be translated into each successive and adjacent context by aid of the Paraclete.

The Paraclete enhances our ability to read the Bible and understand its overarching narrative and to craft and translate it into our interpretive frameworks.4 In that way, it is subjective. Though subjectivity in this sense is not of the same sort that plagues Christian apologists in their nightmares and writings; it is truth in context.

It is objective in that it describes the world as God wills it to be.5

  1. We rebel against the notion that God is the initial crafter of these texts. []
  2. 2Ti 3:16 NRS []
  3. Grenz and Franke 2001, 75 []
  4. Grenz and Franke 2001, 81 []
  5. Grenz and Franke 2001, 272 []

On the Development of NeoFundamentalism

Roger Olson posted a great essay by Michael Clawson on NeoFundamentalism that is spot-on in describing what has/is happening within segments of Evangelicalism. I’ve been saying this for some time now, but I’ve never laid it all out as well as Clawson does!

An Aside On Co-Opting the Narrative

I wonder if the NeoFundamentalists will end up co-opting the “rules of the game” of Postmodernity the same way the Fundamentalists did those of Modernity.

For instance, Fundamentalists assumed the structure of Modernity but replaced its metanarrative of Science/Reason with that of their own interpretation of the Bible. And even their method of interpreting and validating the sole interpretation of the Bible as iron-clad universal Truth.

So, I wonder if the NeoFundamentalists will do the same. As a historian of philosophy and religion, this is fascinating. As a devoted Christian, this bums me out. I’ve seen some indications that suggest they might adopt some of those structures or, at least, co-opt them as defense mechanisms.

Pastor Mark on the Unbelievable? Podcast and the Dangers of Neo-Fundamentalism


How we react to controversy says much about our theology.

Here’s some stew for your Monday morning. A month or so ago, Mark Driscoll was interviewed by Unbelievable?’s Justin Brierly. As per usual with Brierly, he asked Driscoll hard questions about the book the Driscolls just released as well as hard questions surrounding his public ministry and public perception. If you recall, he did the exact same thing with Rob Bell when Love Wins came out.

The interview itself is fascinating. It showcases the good elements of “Pastor” Mark: cultural engagement, a desire to bring young men into the fold and to form them, the willingness to ask hard questions, the devotion to our sacred text.

It also showcases the bad: the bullying, the martyr syndrome, the boasting/pride, the holier than-though attitude, the obsession with numbers, notoriety, the presumptuousness, the arrogance, the doing-it-wrong of building up of women, the syncretism of American Masculinity with Eternal-Biblical Masculinity, my way or the highway thinking, et cetera.

Mark’s Attempt at Damage Control

Suffice it to say, in Justin Brierly’s interview with Mark Driscoll, things got a little dicey. Mark was retro-actively offended1 by the questions asked and preempted the video with a woe-is-me post in which he offered suggestions for and commentary on the Church in the UK as well as set up Brierly as an atonement-squeamish liberal who had a bone to pick with him. He then ends by saying it’s all about Jesus and people should stop talking about him.

The first part of Driscoll’s post is decent and showcases some of the strengths of his approach.  If that was all that he had said and had retained that sense of maturity throughout the rest of the post, all-would be well.

But, then came the last two sections of his post.  Having listened to the interview in its entierty and being a regular listener of the Unbelievable? podcast, Mark’s completely mis-characterizes both Justin and the tone of the interview. He would have us believe that Brierly was a feminist liberal who didn’t really believe in the atonement (penal-substitution, of course) and doesn’t believe in hell (Again, go back and listen to the Bell podcast.  While Brierly leans towards annihilationism, he raked Bell over the coals on Hell and its necessity in Christianity).

Calling People Cowards while Engaging in Cowardice

Driscoll’s attempts at undermining Brierly’s manhood and Christianity are both unfounded and cowardly.So there is this rather dis-honest (or ignorant fundamentalist) attempt to de-legitimate Brierly as a Christian and as a “Man” on Mark’s behalf in order to rescue himself from this interview wherein he comes off as a foolish bully who can only point to numbers to validate his points. A quick survey of Joel Oelsteen’s theology and numbers should be enough to dispel such an approach to validating one’s points.

I find this quite cowardly for the so-called-Man who had the arrogance to call all of the pastors in the UK cowards repeatedly and who flat-out called Brierly a coward in the interview!

The last bit, about it being all about Jesus, is fantastic in the abstract – if Mark hadn’t called all pastors in the UK cowards and now wants no accountability for his statements and actions. If you disagree with me here, go back and listen to both the Rob Bell interview and the Mark Driscoll interview.  Rob Bell was treated with the same critical questioning as Mark Driscoll and carried himself in a graceful, kingdom-building manner where as Mark’s only real defense was to proclaim himself as the manly courageous  person who could not be argued with because of his… wait for it…. numbers. (Again, I refer you to Joel Olsteen)

Justin’s Response and the Interview Itself

Justin, in his ever-present spirit of reconciliation and cheerfulness wrote a response to Mark which can be found here, explaining his side of the story. Justin also decided to put up the entirety of the audio so that one can hear the whole exchange. In regards to the charge of being a feminist-liberal “Christian”, Brierly responds:

I would not describe myself as a liberal Christian ‐ I believe Jesus is the son of God, rose from death and people are saved through him. I’m not a complementarian but I do believe people can choose to reject God & I see the cross in a variety of ways (including substitution)

And if you’ve ever listened to the Unbelievable podcast, you know Brierly is correct about… himself.

Summary – The Dangers of Neo-Fundamentalism

Nothing in Mark’s interview and response negates the worth of his and Grace’s book. Nor does it negate the good that his ministry has done. If reading the Real Marriage helps your marriage, AMEN!. If attending his network of churches gets you more involved in building the Kingdom and draws you closer to God -AMEN!

But, if you find yourself mirroring Mark because of the numerical success of his ministry or for the sake of mirroring Mark, please, take pause. He’s as messed up as the rest of us. Take some time to rest up on the Christians he attacks, that he calls heretics, that he loves, that he recommends.

A Mark-Only (or Piper-Only, et cetera) approach will lead you into Neofundamentalism (info on its development; info on its characteristics). Perhaps that suits you. It doesn’t suit me and it does not suit the Kingdom. Mark and his ilk are a part of the Kingdom, but their exclusionary rhetoric and practices are not.

  1. If you listen to the podcast, Mark concludes the interview by saying “it was fun” []

THE Definitive Analysis of the Tebow situation.

HT :: Private.

The Echoes of Partiarchy Remain

Over at Sociological Images, they have a great run-down of cultural artifacts that showcase that male is still the default position in society.

Source 

Women vs. People Round Up

It’s time for a round-up of all the reader submissions illustrating the annoying habit of having products and products-for-women. The phenomenon illustrates the way we continue to think of men as people and women as women, thereby centering men and men’s lives as “normal” and women’s as “special” (and not in a good way).

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Discussions in Egalitarianism

In case you missed it, here’s a list of recent discussions in favor of full-on gender equality. #blog

Some great posts about gender, hierarchy, equality, and marriage

I probably don’t say this enough, but I am extremely hopeful about the future of women in the Church. Sure, there are some extra-loud voices calling for women to conform themselves to narrowly defined…

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Religion in the Classroom

It is vital that Religious Studies students develop a good method of conceptualizing and discussing religion in the classroom. Here is a presentation I use with my online students to re-orient the way the talk about religion in the classroom. The goal is for them to be able to talk respectfully about Other’s traditions and stories without devaluing their own.

The Loss of Faith in the Modern Age

Here is an online presentation I use to introduce Freshmen to the idea that Modernity functions as a religion and is not a neutral position.

I have some ideas on making it better, such as breaking it up into three movements to allow better explanation of key ideas, but I’d love to get your thoughts.

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