Updike's Easter Poem

Make no mistake: if He rose at all
it was as His body;
if the cells’ dissolution did not reverse, the molecules
reknit, the amino acids rekindle,
the Church will fall.

It was not as the flowers,
each soft Spring recurrent;
it was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled
eyes of the eleven apostles;
it was as His Flesh: ours.

Reformed catholicism claims permission to reprint it, so read the whole thing there. Here's someone who gets it.

Bye-Bye, Tigers

Over half of tigers lost in 5 years: census

NEW DELHI: India has lost more than 50 per cent of its tiger population in the past five years with the numbers dwindling to 1,411 from 3,642 in 2001-02, according to the latest tiger census report.

A Liberation Theology Analogy

This rough analogy of the relationship between "liberation theology" and "theology" came to me tonight at church:

You have a collection of 100 CDs. You only play one, and of that one, you only listen to three tracks, and of those three tracks, you only listen to the middle three minutes of each one. You then proclaim yourself an expert on music, proclaim that music never really existed before this CD came out, and insist there really is no other kind of music besides what is on that album, even though you have so many other CDs.

Really, guys, not everything is about poor people.

Light Blogging...

I know blogging has been very sparse the last month or so. It's not likely to improve any time soon. It is, however, likely to improve some time after that. So, please don't delete your link or bookmark.

Profound Thought of the Day

Of yesterday, actually:

Justification is not the article by which the church stands or falls. The resurrection of Jesus is.

Brrrr. Cold in South India!

Not really. It gets down into maybe the 60's (18-ish C). Mornings are REALLY foggy until 9:00. I can't see the big mansion down the road or even where in the sky the sun is. Apparently this is "cold" enough to interfere with the wires and boxes of my ISP. I lose internet access several hours a day, and they have to come and manually reset it.

Just thought I'd share.

I Was Wright about 1 Cor. 15.44!

Mistranslation and misinterpretation of this verse has led many to conclude that Paul did not believe in a physical resurrection, only a "spiritual" one. The ESV gives it as follows:

It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.

The NRSV is worse with "physical body" versus "spiritual body." Actually, in Greek, the terms are soma psychikon and soma pneumatikon, which are more literally rendered as "soulish body" and "spiritual body," respectively. Both are types of bodies and both are physical--if a "spiritual body" is not physical, then neither is a "soulish" body; no one uses the word "soulish" as a synonym for "physical" or "soul" as a synonym for "body." As Wright repeatedly points out, in a nice way, "Yeah right. Everything in the NT, including Paul's other writings, points to physical resurrection, but then Paul, with one verse, shows that no one really meant or believed in that."

What Wright (The Resurrection of the Son of God, p. 346) actually says:

What Paul desires, to take his terminology at face value, is not to let the soul fly free to a supposed astral home, but to stop the "soul," the psyche, from being the animating principle for the body. Precisely because the soul is not, for him, the immortal fiery substance it is for Plato, he sees that the true solution to the human plight is to replace the "soul" as the animating principle of the body with the "spirit"--or rather, the Spirit.

The neat thing that made me go "Yes!" when reading this was that this is exactly what I had figured out on my own, at age 16 (or was it 17?), with my trusty (but not so good) interlinear Greek New Testament.

The Pentecostal Corner: Our Hermeneutics of Suspicion

This is intramural sports; I'm not connecting all the dots.

The Pentecostal doctrine of subsequent Spirit baptism, we admit, is developed primarily from the book of Acts and not the Pauline corpus.

Evangelical scholars such as John Stott say that it is a basic hermeneutical principle that we must form our theology only from didactic portions of Scripture, not narratives. Accordingly, Pentecostals misuse Scripture to demonstrate their doctrine.

Some thoughts I've had over the years:

1. Who decided this rule, and what name did he adopt for his papacy?
2. Isn't it convenient that this rule usually precludes just one book of the New Testament from our theological formation (some Paulinists also sadly extend it to the Gospels as well) and is used primarily to rule out just one particular doctrine?
3. Why is it that the same people who say we must follow this rule still use Acts 5.3-4 as their primary prooftext for demonstrating the divinity of the Holy Spirit?

Some Thoughts on the Fatherhood of God

Or, turning a recent lesson into a post-not-a-book.

In studying about "God the Father," it is somewhat surprising to find that in many theological texts, the Fatherhood of God is not treated in a systematic fashion, certainly not in any way comparable to "God the Son." The subject is primarily as it relates to the development of Trinitarian doctrine. In some ways, this is understandable; it is not the least bit controversial to say, "The Father is God." No one disagrees with that.

When we casually think about the subject, we tend to view the Father as "God in the Old Testament." Actually, God is rarely called "Father" in the OT; it is through Jesus Christ that we really come to know him as such. Important OT references to the Fatherhood of God include Deut. 32.6, Isa. 64.8, Hosea 11.1, and Exod. 4.22

Feminist theologians have raised concerns about the depiction of God as Father, particularly as it is used to reinforce patriarchical dominance and communicate the idea that maleness or men are somehow more like God and women somehow less. It is important to remember that in Gen. 1.27, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." Both are equally created in the image of God. It is from Gen. 1 and 2 that we should get our ideas about how God intends the relations between men and women, not Gen. 3 onwards with the Fall and its aftermath.

The solution to traditional views of God the Father and the problems it can produce is not through the "balancing out" of our view of God by highlighting the "Motherhood" of God. There are a few feminine analogies or depictions of God in Scripture such as Isa. 66.13 and Lk. 23.37. We should always be hesitant, however, to project sexual imagery onto our understanding of God; we need less, not more, of this. God is unique, one, and Other; he does not contain the sexual dimorphism or division present with the human race and created order of life.

Jesus told us to call God "Our Father," and so we should not hesitate to do so, but our understanding of God's Fatherhood should accordingly be formed by Jesus' teaching, including his anti-domination and hierarchy sayings such as Matt. 23.1-12 and Mark 10.42-45. The Fatherhood of God must be understood as primarily analogy and metaphor, not as something literal. Israelite religion showed considerable restraint and did not take the idea of a "male God" as far as what the pagan religions did with fertility gods, spawned demigods etc.

In Hosea 11.1, God says of Israel, "Out of Egypt I called my Son." Recall that Hosea is best known for his prophetic illustration of God's relationship with Israel via his relationship with his adulterous wife, Gomer. In the same book, then, we see God depicted as both Israel's husband and father. This should be a clear signal that God as Father is essentially metaphor and should not be pushed too far.

Quicky Wright Quote

Yes, I'm still around, getting back into the swing of things after a wacky non-productive, non-restful break. I'm way behind on my readings but trying to get caught up. All I'll say at this point: N.T. Wright's The Resurrection of the Son of God (2003) is awesome. It's very clear (why can't the German theologian write like this?) and very devastating in its tight common-sense logic. I love this quote on the resurrection in 1 Cor. 15:

[For Paul] You may be allowed to eat meat offered to idols, but you cannot deny the future bodily resurrection and claim that denial as an allowable Christian option.

It's sad that some need to be reminded of this.

Happy New Year

I'm out of town for the next week, and my internet access will be spotty while away. Have a great one!

BENAZIR BHUTTO ASSASSINATED

Pray for Pakistan. That country is a mess.