Back of the Envelope

Cynthia Lo has a few thoughts on women in ministry:

I do believe that once a woman is married, her primary role is in serving her husband. The same is true once a man gets married; his primary role should be in loving his wife. The words "serve" and "love" have a different connotation in Christ than we put on them in everyday speech, of course. So, if I were to ever get married, then sure, I would be happy letting my husband lead the small group while I "assisted". But what about a single woman's role in ministry? For me, I believe that the ministerial gifts that I have more fully developed are in small group leadership and music. I do believe that God has blessed me with talent and ability in those areas. Therefore, if I were not able to be a small group leader at all in a church, I would not feel that is in line with God's purposes for me. While I am single, my calling is to serve Him fully, and I believe that includes leadership and authority in some fashion.

Kevin gave me an interesting perspective from InterVarsity's standpoint, and from his own PCUSA background. Actually, he mentioned this one Stanford professor that they were trying to recruit to MIT, and his wife actually interviewed for pastoral positions at Park Street. Ultimately, he stayed at Stanford, and she became the senior pastor of a UCC church. I was a little taken aback. Although I believe that women can and should co-lead small groups and serve on the music team and such, I do draw the line at female pastors. I guess not really because I inherently think it's "wrong" (the Bible is surely not clear on that), but because churches with women pastors tend to be super liberal in their theology. But then Kevin said that so many churches base their views on women on a very vaguely worded Pauline teaching. Hmm. Jesus and Paul both included women in very prominent roles in their ministries. Should we be doing the same?

Cynthia actually takes a somewhat more conservative view than I expected (a bit more conservative than my own, actually). It is interesting to watch the church work this out, and irritating beyond reason when people start crying sexism. This is a difficult topic, where once again, we have to deal with the Bible as it is rather than how we would prefer it to be. I may touch on this subject on a later date, but for now, read Cynthia's post.

I had the opportunity to go to a meeting of MIT's Graduate Christian Fellowship last night. I've missed those guys! Of course, it's been a year and a half since I've gone, so I hardly knew any of them. No matter, the new crop of GCFers are just as fun as the old.

What was really interesting was the talk given by Kevin Ford, the Intervarsity staffer at MIT. He talked about the Old Testament law, and the question of whether it's still applicable to us today. This is an important question, especially given how people love to use it against Christians. Obviously, if you believe that the Bible is God's Word and continues to have authority to today, you have to deal with the fact that a lot of it seems inapplicable, when not downright unpleasant. For an example, take this from the Queen of All Evil (no offense to Rosemary, whom I happen to like):

Ok. Homosexuality is wrong because the bible says so. Right? Answer a few of these questions for me then, will ya?

1. When selling your daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. How do you determine fair market value for her?
2. Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?
3. My husband insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself? Or should I get a man to do it?
4. All the men on my street get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev 19:27. How should they die?

You guys are really tough. Super tough. I give you credit for it but I'd rather be a heathen. I'd rather be a heathen because I find many things advocated in the bible, like slavery, to be abominable and a bit contradictory.

I won't address the slavery question right now, although it's something that I've thought a lot about. In fact, I've thought a lot about all these kinds of questions. I try not to take too much offense at those who stereotype believers as ignorant and unthinking people who never seriously study the Bible they claim to believe. Listen, if you think the Bible bothers you, try looking at it from my point of view. I have to believe it.

Fortunately, I'm not the only one to worry about these things. Kevin Ford talked a bit about the Christian thinking on the Old Testament Law, and the first thing to realize is that the Law in the Pentateuch, which is what causes so much trouble, is not a monolithic whole. God was not merely stating what was right and what was wrong, he was establishing a nation. The Israelites had been slaves for centuries; they had no knowledge of government and no unique culture or religion. Thus in addition to the Moral Code, a statement of right and wrong, God had to establish a civil code and a priestly code. While it's hinted at even in the Old Testament, and the New Testament goes through some real thinking about it when it comes to Gentile believers living in heathen nations, I don't know where it's first clearly stated. I do know that the Thirty-Nine Articles of 1562 clearly delineates between the three. Let me sum them up, based on Kevin's talk yesterday.

1. The Moral Code — These are the principles considered to be universally applicable to everyone. It states what is right and what is wrong. The Ten Commandments are the first of these given, but it's not complete. What Jesus called the two great commandments (To love God and to love your neighbor) are clearly part of the moral code, but don't appear in the ten commandments. For example, the sixth commandment is "Thou shalt not murder." This applies to everyone.
2. The Civil Code — This is how the nation is supposed to be run. In many ways it is an elaboration of the moral code. Take the prohibition against murder. The corresponding Civil Code explains what happens when a murder is committed. What the penalty is (death) and what the difference is between an accidental death (manslaughter) and a murder, and how to deal with those who kill by accident (the cities of refuge).
3. The Holiness Code — The Holiness Code is also called the Levitical Code or the Priestly Code. This is where all the apparently "silly" laws come in, laws like not wearing clothing made with two types of fabric, not eating pork or shellfish, not trimming the hair around your temples, and all the rest. The main purpose of these laws is explained in Deuteronomy 7:6, "For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth." (NAS) "Holy" literally means set apart, or separate, and that is the purpose of the Holiness Code, to set apart the Israelites, to make them different, and give them laws to follow which no one else did. Many of these rules were specifically aimed to prevent the Israelites from adopting practices common among the Canaanites in whose land they were settling, making it impossible for them to live comfortably among them. Did it work? Well, after 3,500 years, 2,000 of which without a homeland, there are still people who identify themselves through the Levitical Code.

The three Codes are interrelated. There is overlap between the Moral Code and the Levitical Code, while the Civil Code was built upon them and encompasses the Moral Code and most of the Levitical Code as well. So what is still applicable today? Since the Moral Code is meant to be universal, it should be followed, even today. And while the Civil Code and the Levitical Code were meant for Israel, to make them a working nation and a religious and cultural identity respectively, it's still possible to learn about God's purposes through them.

So, now for the hard part. How do you tell them apart? The Pentateuch doesn't separate them with clear labels, but here are some indicators:

1. The moral code is usually stated as a command to do this or don't do that. The civil code explains how to deal with disobedience, what the penalties are and how the judgements are rendered.
2. The holiness code is concerned with "clean" and "unclean," and any time it talks about being clean, you can be pretty sure you're reading part of the Holiness Code. Important note: Unclean and defiled are very different things.
3. Sometimes it's very clear that a law applies only to the Israelites, such as when it doesn't apply to the alien living among them. Other nations aren't judged for disobeying the Holiness and Civil Codes, only for disobeying the Moral Code.
4. Worshiping God alone is, unfortunately for pluralists, part of the Moral Code.

Overall, it was a very good talk, and I'm thankful to Kevin for explaining these things. And boy am I glad to be back!

Joe Carter has closed the entries for his symposium on Puritanism and Americanism. The final list can be found here.

Joe Carter is hosting a blog symposium on the link between Americanism and Puritanism, based on an article by David Gelernter. The article puts forth an interesting theory:

Many thinkers have noted that Americanism is inspired by or close to or intertwined with Puritanism. One of the most impressive scholars to say so recently is Samuel Huntington, in his formidable book on American identity, Who Are We? But my thesis is that Puritanism did not merely inspire or influence Americanism; it turned into Americanism. Puritanism and Americanism are not just parallel or related developments; they are two stages of a single phenomenon.

Mr. Gelernter treats Americanism as a religious movement, a kind of American Zionism, with a strong belief that America is a new chosen nation with a destiny to spread freedom. I can't really speak to the history and social development of Americanism. What I can speak to is what I believe, as one of those evangelical Americans who are often equated with Americanism. So, do I believe that America is the new Israel? The answer to that is a simple no. Definitely not. The new Israel, as I understand the Old Testament prophecy and the New Testament interpretation, is in fact the entire body of believers, all Christians who have become God's chosen people. Read, in particular, Romans 9-11. (While often cited by advocates of predestination as incontrovertible proof, this passage is primarily about Israel and the Gentiles.) I do not believe that America is inherently morally superior to other nations, although I often think that America's actions on the world stage are better than those of its critics. I do believe that from those to whom much has been given, much will be expected, and I believe that spreading freedom and liberal democracy is the right thing to do. I further believe that Christian morals can be applied to how we live our lives, and it can be beneficial both to ourselves and our communities. In this sense, America benefits from its religious tradition, although I don't personally believe that God blesses America because of our faith. It's hard to read the New Testament and not come away with the impression that God promises that Christians will suffer rather than succeed.

So that's my take on it. I'm not saying that David Gelernter is wrong about what Americanism is and where it comes from, just that if his definition is correct, then I'm not an, um, Americanist, I guess the word is.

It's interesting how often you see serious theology on the internet. Michael Novak takes a hard look at the tsunami and God:

The question is not, "Does God measure up to our (liberal, compassionate, self-deceived) standards?" The question is, "Will we learn — in silence and in awe at the far-beyond-human power of nature — how great, on a far different scale from ours, is God's love?"

It would be the greatest and most obscene of illusions for a man, any man, to imagine that he has greater love for a child mangled in the oily, dark waters of the recent tsunami than the Creator of that child has. It would be like Ivan Karamazov being unable to forgive God so long as one single child anywhere went to bed at night crying in loneliness and in pain. Who is Karamazov to think that his own love for that child — a purely abstract, speculative, hard-case, counterexample love — is greater than that of the child's Creator?

The tapestry on which God weaves human existence is not the tapestry within the framework of time that we experience. As we do not comprehend the power of nature (especially nowadays, when we live so far removed from it, so protected from it), even more we do not begin to comprehend the love and goodness of God.

The truth is, the sight and smell of awful human death is sometimes more than we can take. Perhaps we should feel confidence in the power of God's love, but we do not see it. All we feel is the night. Our darkness is as keen as that of the unbeliever and the nihilist.

Yet in that darkness, we the believers alone (not the unbeliever or the nihilist) feel betrayed by One whom we love. We alone feel anguish because we cannot understand.
...
It does seem that the Creator is not always kind, not even just, within the bounded space that we experience. It does seem that the Creator acts with undeniable cruelty. In our time, we have seen unimaginable suffering. Like Job, we cannot deny what we see.

Neither can we deny the Light, which is what makes the absurd seem absurd. Only in contrast to Light is the absurd absurd. Otherwise it is only a brute matter of fact.

No less than the unbeliever or the nihilist does the devout Jew or Christian inhabit the night. But only the believers continue in the silence to utter the unseeing yes of our love. The yes that Ivan Karamazov cannot say in the night Alyosha does say.

I don't have the answers, just some thoughts from asking the same questions. Perhaps I'll say a bit more later.

John Zimmer over at Letters from Babylon has some thoughts on what it means to love God with all your heart:

Naturally, I must first ask what it means to do that. I think loving God with the heart does not mean merely loving God with the emotions. Humans are emotional beings and we should become emotionally involved with our Creator. While loving God with our emotions is certainly a part of loving God with our hearts, then, I do not believe the story ends there. Recently I heard a subdued but powerful sermon at BWC that I think speaks to the topic. The speaker noted how our hearts are not always willing to obey God, even when we know what it is that God wants us to do. The prophet Jonah, for example, knew that God wanted him to go to Nineveh to preach repentance. Yet Jonah's will did not consent. It seems to me that the reason for our reluctance to obey God is incomplete love for God in our hearts. Might it be that to love God with the whole heart means in some sense to desire completely to obey God?

As I understand it, in the ancient world the heart was not so much seen as the seat of emotion as the seat of the will. It was the place from which you made your decisions, in a sense it was the root of your self-determination. If that is the case, loving God with your heart consists of first freely making the decision to love God. Not just once, now, but every day, every hour, making the decision to love God. Even then, it doesn't seem to me that that is enough. If you really love someone, you need to be doing those things that love requires. In the words of Jesus: "If you love me, you will keep my commandments." (John 14:15, NAS)

I'll admit that I hadn't really thought of it in the way that John has, although I had come to the same conclusion. But there is another way to look at loving God with your will, and that is by submitting your will to his. This is not contradictory so much as complementary to the way I've always looked at it.