Showing posts with label bible. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bible. Show all posts
Monday, 20 May 2013
Sunday, 10 February 2013
Wohl dem, des Hilfe der Gott Jakobs ist; des Hoffnung auf den HERRN, seinem Gott, steht; der Himmel, Erde, Meer und alles, was darinnen ist, gemacht hat; der Glauben hält ewiglich; der Recht schafft denen, so Gewalt leiden; der die Hungrigen speist. Der HERR löst die Gefangenen. Der HERR macht die Blinden sehend. Der HERR richtet auf, die niedergeschlagen sind. Der HERR liebt die Gerechten.
Der HERR behütet die Fremdlinge und erhält die Waisen und Witwen und kehrt zurück den Weg der Gottlosen.
-- Psalm 146, Luther Bible, 1545
Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God: Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever: Which executeth judgment for the oppressed: which giveth food to the hungry. The Lord looseth the prisoners: The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind: the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down: the Lord loveth the righteous:
The Lord preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.
-- Psalm 146, King James Version
Der HERR behütet die Fremdlinge und erhält die Waisen und Witwen und kehrt zurück den Weg der Gottlosen.
-- Psalm 146, Luther Bible, 1545
Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the Lord his God: Which made heaven, and earth, the sea, and all that therein is: which keepeth truth for ever: Which executeth judgment for the oppressed: which giveth food to the hungry. The Lord looseth the prisoners: The Lord openeth the eyes of the blind: the Lord raiseth them that are bowed down: the Lord loveth the righteous:
The Lord preserveth the strangers; he relieveth the fatherless and widow: but the way of the wicked he turneth upside down.
-- Psalm 146, King James Version
Friday, 9 November 2012
A bit of a political protest is becoming apparent as the ballots are tallied in one North Georgia congressional district: a protest on behalf of science.
According to the Athens Banner-Herald, Charles Darwin received nearly 4,000 write-in votes in one of the 24 counties that make up the state's 10th Congressional District, where the unopposed Republican incumbent had declared the theory of evolution to be the work of Satan. How many write-in votes went to Darwin in the 23 other counties of the district is not clear, as not all of the counties report write-ins, yet the symbolic protest was sizable enough to attract the attention of national news outlets and, Darwin supporters hope, attract a real challenger to the race in 2014.
Broun's broad dismissal of science -- from evolution to the Big Band to embryology -- at a political rally in a Baptist church was especially inflammatory because he sits on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. In the viedo released by the church, Broun stood in front of a wall of mounted deer heads, and said that science was opposed to the Bible, which is the "manufacturer's handbook."
Echoing the ideas of Christian Theonomists such as R.J. Rushdooney, who taught that the world is divided into four spheres and that God is king of all four, Broun explained that science is a blasphemous attempt to displace God. He told the audience he doesn't accept the authority of science, but of the Bible, which "teaches us how to run our lives, individually, how to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all of public policy and everything in society. And that's the reason as your congressman, I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions for how I vote in Washington D.C."
The brouhaha that followed the congressman's version of theocratic government was turned into a symbolic protest at the polls, last week, in part due to the work of a UGA professor.
Jim Thompson of the Athens Banner-Herald reports:
Even in 2008, in the context of the massive turn-out for Democrats inspired by Barack Obama's first election, Broun managed a decisive win. The Democratic challenger Bobby Saxon won only about 39 percent of the vote.
Nevertheless, the write-in votes can be read as a core of opposition to Broun, or to conservative evangelical candidates more generally, even in the deeply Republican districts of deeply Republican states like Georgia.
The Flagpole, the University of Georgia Athens paper, reports that in addition to the votes for Darwin, there were about 2,000 other write-in votes in the congressional race in Athens-Clarke County. Another 23,000 voters reportedly ignored that part of the ballot entirely.
Other write-in votes from those dissatisfied with Broun included votes for: "Carl" Marx, Burning Bag of Dog Shit, Doritos, Michael Stipe, Ron Paul, Satan, Stephen Colbert, and Taylor Swift. A fictitious candidate from a previous protest against Broun, "Pete McCommunist," also won more than 100 write-in votes. An actual person who also ran a write-in campaign, Brian Russell Brown, won 238 votes.
Bill Nye the Science Guy, who has come out in opposition of teaching creationism to children and slammed Broun for his anti-science statements, also won some of the one county's write-in votes.
Not all of the opposition to Broun, notably, was from the left. Georgia's libertarian-leaning talk show host Neil Bortz, who's most significant political foray to date was probably promoting fellow Georgian Herman Cain, came out strongly in opposition to Broun. Bortz said Republicans like Broun were "hurting the brand," making the party look like it consisted of un-evolved Neanderthals and redneck hicks.
The radio show host encouraged listeners to write-in Darwin.
The coalition of libertarians, UGA faculty and students and others who want their government officials to accept science didn't carry the day, in North Georgia, but the small symbolic protest was nonetheless noted when they went to the polls in Athens-Clarke County.
According to the Athens Banner-Herald, Charles Darwin received nearly 4,000 write-in votes in one of the 24 counties that make up the state's 10th Congressional District, where the unopposed Republican incumbent had declared the theory of evolution to be the work of Satan. How many write-in votes went to Darwin in the 23 other counties of the district is not clear, as not all of the counties report write-ins, yet the symbolic protest was sizable enough to attract the attention of national news outlets and, Darwin supporters hope, attract a real challenger to the race in 2014.
Broun's broad dismissal of science -- from evolution to the Big Band to embryology -- at a political rally in a Baptist church was especially inflammatory because he sits on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. In the viedo released by the church, Broun stood in front of a wall of mounted deer heads, and said that science was opposed to the Bible, which is the "manufacturer's handbook."Echoing the ideas of Christian Theonomists such as R.J. Rushdooney, who taught that the world is divided into four spheres and that God is king of all four, Broun explained that science is a blasphemous attempt to displace God. He told the audience he doesn't accept the authority of science, but of the Bible, which "teaches us how to run our lives, individually, how to run our families, how to run our churches. But it teaches us how to run all of public policy and everything in society. And that's the reason as your congressman, I hold the Holy Bible as being the major directions for how I vote in Washington D.C."
The brouhaha that followed the congressman's version of theocratic government was turned into a symbolic protest at the polls, last week, in part due to the work of a UGA professor.
Jim Thompson of the Athens Banner-Herald reports:
"A campaign asking voters to write-in Darwin’s name in the 10th Congressional District, which includes half of Athens-Clarke County, began after Broun, speaking at a sportsmen’s banquet at a Hartwell church, called evolution and other areas of science 'lies straight from the pit of hell.'Broun won re-election fairly easily, though, garnering more than 200,000 votes in his district, more than he won in 2006, 2008 or 2010.
"Jim Leebens-Mack, the University of Georgia plant biologist who started a 'Darwin for Congress' Facebook page in the wake of Broun’s remarks, said the number of Darwin votes cast in the race were 'in the ballpark, a little bit more' than he had expected.
"The Darwin votes, Leebens-Mack added, made it 'clear to me, and I hope everybody, that Paul Broun is vulnerable' in terms of continued re-election to Congress. Broun was first elected in a special 2007 election, and won re-election in 2008, 2010 and again on Tuesday in a newly drawn 10th District, reconfigured as part of congressional reapportionment."
Even in 2008, in the context of the massive turn-out for Democrats inspired by Barack Obama's first election, Broun managed a decisive win. The Democratic challenger Bobby Saxon won only about 39 percent of the vote.
Nevertheless, the write-in votes can be read as a core of opposition to Broun, or to conservative evangelical candidates more generally, even in the deeply Republican districts of deeply Republican states like Georgia.
The Flagpole, the University of Georgia Athens paper, reports that in addition to the votes for Darwin, there were about 2,000 other write-in votes in the congressional race in Athens-Clarke County. Another 23,000 voters reportedly ignored that part of the ballot entirely.
Other write-in votes from those dissatisfied with Broun included votes for: "Carl" Marx, Burning Bag of Dog Shit, Doritos, Michael Stipe, Ron Paul, Satan, Stephen Colbert, and Taylor Swift. A fictitious candidate from a previous protest against Broun, "Pete McCommunist," also won more than 100 write-in votes. An actual person who also ran a write-in campaign, Brian Russell Brown, won 238 votes.
Bill Nye the Science Guy, who has come out in opposition of teaching creationism to children and slammed Broun for his anti-science statements, also won some of the one county's write-in votes.
Not all of the opposition to Broun, notably, was from the left. Georgia's libertarian-leaning talk show host Neil Bortz, who's most significant political foray to date was probably promoting fellow Georgian Herman Cain, came out strongly in opposition to Broun. Bortz said Republicans like Broun were "hurting the brand," making the party look like it consisted of un-evolved Neanderthals and redneck hicks.
The radio show host encouraged listeners to write-in Darwin.
The coalition of libertarians, UGA faculty and students and others who want their government officials to accept science didn't carry the day, in North Georgia, but the small symbolic protest was nonetheless noted when they went to the polls in Athens-Clarke County.
Wednesday, 1 August 2012
Al Mohler, who once effected a purge of "liberals" at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, was recently reflecting on that after nearly 10 years. In that reflection he gives a curious account of what he considers liberalism, and how that liberalism happened at the flagship seminary of the famously conservative Southern Baptists.
Mohler:
1) Mohler is suggesting that theological liberals are not liberals because they hold liberal positions, but because of the how they come to those positions. It's the hermeneutic of private interpretation that bothers him. Presumably one could hold that individuals can and should interpret the Bible for themselves and still come to exclusively conservative positions on things, but Mohler would still object to them (in principle at least).
Mohler's making opponents out of a lot of evangelicals who would agree with him on particular issues that normally get classified as "conservative" or "liberal," on the basis that their interpretive principles are in themselves "liberal," even if that hasn't been the result.
2) The emphasis is on confessions, rather than biblicism more strictly.
Not to say that Mohler goes anywhere near suggesting a confession could be authoritative beyond or separate from the Bible. There's no question Mohler believes confessions are valuable only to the extent they sum up essential Biblical doctrines. Yet there is a matter of emphasis. The problem he's pointing to came not specifically because of disregard for the Christian scriptures, in his account, but because of a weakening of authority and a loosening of "confessional accountability."
I read that as implying that the Bible can be read in a rather open way, as a dialogue, with interpretation ongoing and developing, etc., whereas with these confessions (as per Mohler), there's absolute closure and an end to interpretations. One can either assent or not assent, but it's no longer a matter of reading.
The Baptists have a long tradition of confessions, but it's more common, post-Fundamentalist-Modernist controversies, to hear an emphasis on fidelity to the Bible and also a commitment to certain sort of reading (i.e., "literal"). Where the Abstract of Principles doesn't even mention the Bible, more recent Southern Baptist documents make beliefs about the Bible central. In the Southern Baptist Convention's statement of faith, for example, in 1925, '63 and '00, the Bible is the very first item on the list, above even beliefs about God.
I suspect that this emphasis on confessions and grassroots Baptists turn towards (unarticulated) confessionalism evidences a growing concern that the Bible and the literalist hermeneutic were not enough. That authoritative official interpretation is necessary.
If this is the case, then this development is not unrelated to the evangelicals who've become Catholic and Eastern Orthodox in recent years.
3) The SBC statement of faith says of the Bible that it is "the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried." It's really not clear to me how or by whom such things should "be tried," according to Baptist polity, if not by individuals.
There may be an answer to that, from Mohler or other confessional Baptists. I don't know what it is, though.
4) It's not always the case that confessions are enforced so authoritatively as set out by Mohler here. It can still be the case that confessions are open to ongoing readings, interpreted by communities, part of a conversation where commitments have been made but applications and explanations and understandings are still being worked out. He rules this out, though, by promoting this idea of a confession where even having "mental reservations" is unacceptable.
This means, in a sense, a confession for Mohler is not something that can be read. It can't be interpreted, because it already has been interpreted. There's supposed to be a finality to the meaning of the thing, I think. There are thought to be only two responses to a confession, accepting and assenting or rejecting and having reservations.
5) D.G. Hart, historian of American religion, has argued that history of Protestantism in the 20th century has been badly misunderstood as a fight between modernists and fundamentalists or liberals and conservatives, where really it's a conflict between those Protestants who maintained confessional orthodoxy and those who didn't. That's proposing a pretty dramatic revision of the historiography as it currently stands. Is Mohler, though, kind of suggesting the same thing?
Some other notes:
-- The purge at Southern inspired some reflection on and defense of Baptist's confessional history. See Steve Weaver's "The Use of Confessions of Faith in Baptist History," which appears to have been written at Southern circa 2002; Gregory A. Wills' "Baptists, the Bible and confessions," written for Southern Seminary Magazine in 2000; and Robert Paul Martin, "The Legitimacy and Use of Confessions of Faith," who argues confessions can prevent heresy where the Bible could not:
There have been corresponding rejections of confessionalism and counter histories arguing that Southern Baptists are not confessional. Representative is Walter B. Shurden's "The First President of the SBC and Confessions of Faith."
-- It would be worth exploring why history is seen as authoritative in this debate, and to what extent Southern Baptists take their own traditions as authoritative.
-- What I refer to as a purge, above, is more often described as a bold stand for orthodoxy. E.g., Justin Taylor calls it "how the Lord turned the tide at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—from a place of deep theological liberalism to a bastion of orthodox fidelity."
I realize "purge" has negative connotations, but it's the most accurate word I can think of for the situation.
-- I was taught that the Southern Baptists were not a denomination, but a convention. A fine distinction, but significant if you want to make it so. What I was taught was apparently wrong, though.
Mohler:
"The confessional accountability was loosed. And the obligation was ignored. Now it was not done in a blatant way, where someone got up and said 'I deny the Abstract [of Principles],' except in a couple of -- it did happen in a couple of examples. But rather it happened by the claim to private interpretation, which was explicitly ruled out by the founders. Who said the confession must be signed by every faculty member.... It was very clear that if at any point mental reservations should come, it was the faculty member's duty to bring his concerns with his resignation to the president of the school [laughter]. When the conservatives at the SBC -- and this is something very, very important, and I raise this with some fear and trepidation, for I have concerns about my own denomination, which are many -- but, grassroots Southern Baptist, many of whom could not articulate what was wrong, knew something was horribly wrong .... Wonderfully, by God's grace, the issues became clarified. And you had grassroots Baptists who began to understand the issue of the inerrancy of God's word. And, even though they may not know the word 'confesssionalism,' they knew the need for it, even if unarticulated."This is curious, I think, for a few reasons:
1) Mohler is suggesting that theological liberals are not liberals because they hold liberal positions, but because of the how they come to those positions. It's the hermeneutic of private interpretation that bothers him. Presumably one could hold that individuals can and should interpret the Bible for themselves and still come to exclusively conservative positions on things, but Mohler would still object to them (in principle at least).
Mohler's making opponents out of a lot of evangelicals who would agree with him on particular issues that normally get classified as "conservative" or "liberal," on the basis that their interpretive principles are in themselves "liberal," even if that hasn't been the result.
2) The emphasis is on confessions, rather than biblicism more strictly.
Not to say that Mohler goes anywhere near suggesting a confession could be authoritative beyond or separate from the Bible. There's no question Mohler believes confessions are valuable only to the extent they sum up essential Biblical doctrines. Yet there is a matter of emphasis. The problem he's pointing to came not specifically because of disregard for the Christian scriptures, in his account, but because of a weakening of authority and a loosening of "confessional accountability."
I read that as implying that the Bible can be read in a rather open way, as a dialogue, with interpretation ongoing and developing, etc., whereas with these confessions (as per Mohler), there's absolute closure and an end to interpretations. One can either assent or not assent, but it's no longer a matter of reading.
The Baptists have a long tradition of confessions, but it's more common, post-Fundamentalist-Modernist controversies, to hear an emphasis on fidelity to the Bible and also a commitment to certain sort of reading (i.e., "literal"). Where the Abstract of Principles doesn't even mention the Bible, more recent Southern Baptist documents make beliefs about the Bible central. In the Southern Baptist Convention's statement of faith, for example, in 1925, '63 and '00, the Bible is the very first item on the list, above even beliefs about God.
I suspect that this emphasis on confessions and grassroots Baptists turn towards (unarticulated) confessionalism evidences a growing concern that the Bible and the literalist hermeneutic were not enough. That authoritative official interpretation is necessary.
If this is the case, then this development is not unrelated to the evangelicals who've become Catholic and Eastern Orthodox in recent years.
3) The SBC statement of faith says of the Bible that it is "the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried." It's really not clear to me how or by whom such things should "be tried," according to Baptist polity, if not by individuals.
There may be an answer to that, from Mohler or other confessional Baptists. I don't know what it is, though.
4) It's not always the case that confessions are enforced so authoritatively as set out by Mohler here. It can still be the case that confessions are open to ongoing readings, interpreted by communities, part of a conversation where commitments have been made but applications and explanations and understandings are still being worked out. He rules this out, though, by promoting this idea of a confession where even having "mental reservations" is unacceptable.
This means, in a sense, a confession for Mohler is not something that can be read. It can't be interpreted, because it already has been interpreted. There's supposed to be a finality to the meaning of the thing, I think. There are thought to be only two responses to a confession, accepting and assenting or rejecting and having reservations.
5) D.G. Hart, historian of American religion, has argued that history of Protestantism in the 20th century has been badly misunderstood as a fight between modernists and fundamentalists or liberals and conservatives, where really it's a conflict between those Protestants who maintained confessional orthodoxy and those who didn't. That's proposing a pretty dramatic revision of the historiography as it currently stands. Is Mohler, though, kind of suggesting the same thing?
Some other notes:
-- The purge at Southern inspired some reflection on and defense of Baptist's confessional history. See Steve Weaver's "The Use of Confessions of Faith in Baptist History," which appears to have been written at Southern circa 2002; Gregory A. Wills' "Baptists, the Bible and confessions," written for Southern Seminary Magazine in 2000; and Robert Paul Martin, "The Legitimacy and Use of Confessions of Faith," who argues confessions can prevent heresy where the Bible could not:
"A confession of our loyalty to the Bible is not enough. The most radical denials of biblical truth frequently coexist with a professed regard for the authority and the testimony of the Bible. When men use the very words of the Bible to promote heresy, when the Word of Truth is perverted to serve error, nothing less than a confession of faith will serve to publicly draw the lines between truth and error."
There have been corresponding rejections of confessionalism and counter histories arguing that Southern Baptists are not confessional. Representative is Walter B. Shurden's "The First President of the SBC and Confessions of Faith."
-- It would be worth exploring why history is seen as authoritative in this debate, and to what extent Southern Baptists take their own traditions as authoritative.
-- What I refer to as a purge, above, is more often described as a bold stand for orthodoxy. E.g., Justin Taylor calls it "how the Lord turned the tide at the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary—from a place of deep theological liberalism to a bastion of orthodox fidelity."
I realize "purge" has negative connotations, but it's the most accurate word I can think of for the situation.
-- I was taught that the Southern Baptists were not a denomination, but a convention. A fine distinction, but significant if you want to make it so. What I was taught was apparently wrong, though.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
