The Internet Monk Archives

Another Look: Let Them Eat Cake

In conjunction with this morning’s post, we present a rebroadcast of this interview with a renowned business leader. William Sola oversees franchises all across our country and around the world. This interview was first broadcast on June 1, 2010.

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Reporter: Hello, today I’m with William Sola, great, great, great grandson of Jack Sola, founder of the Sola Bakery Company. Thanks for joining us today, Mr. Sola.

Sola: My pleasure.

Reporter: You are the latest in a long line of Solas to have inherited the Sola Bakery business. if I understand correctly, your company is now being run in quite a different way than it was in the past. Can you tell us about that?

Sola: That’s right. we operate strictly on a franchise basis now — you tell us you want to run a Sola Bakery, we verify that you’re a believer in the Sola name, and boom! there you go, you can run your own Sola Bakery.

Reporter: How do you go about helping these franchise owners get started in business?

Sola: We give them the book.

Reporter: The book?

Sola: That’s right, the Sola Bakery book.

Reporter: I assume that this book contains all the directions one would need to get a bakery going — specific steps for setting up a business, company policies, the unique Sola recipes, all of that?

Sola: No, not really. The book is more like a history of Jack Sola and his family. It lays out his roots, the background of why he started the bakery, and then tells about his life, his sayings, and especially the sacrifices he made to start the first Sola Bakery. It also tells the exciting story of the early growth of the business, and several letters that the first company managers wrote to bakeries around the area to help them with their specific problems. Oh, you can find bits and pieces of various recipes in there, and fragments of policies and procedures. but mostly, it’s the story of Jack Sola and what he created.

Reporter: It doesn’t contain specific company policies and the actual recipes for baking Sola products? How then do you maintain quality control? How do you make sure one Sola cake is like another Sola cake?

Sola: We don’t care too much about quality control or consistency. We pretty much just give new owners the book and let them go. They’re on their own then. We think the book contains enough principles to keep them straight and faithful to the spirit of our founder, but they are free to develop their own recipes and run the business any way they want. This has led to a whole new, exciting era in Sola Bakery history, and we are celebrating it with our new slogan.

Reporter: And what is that?

Sola: “SOLA BAKERIES: A SURPRISE IN EVERY BOX.”

Reporter: Oh my. But, doesn’t that confuse people? Doesn’t it bother you that people don’t really know what to expect when they buy a product from a Sola Bakery? And what if they get something really bad, or even harmful?

Sola: Actually, we like it that people don’t know what to expect — it adds an air of spontaneity and excitement that we think is great! Here at headquarters, we just say, “LET THEM EAT CAKE!” and then wait to hear the thrilling reports from the field. If a customer isn’t satisfied with her local Sola Bakery, we figure there are enough other franchises in the area. We don’t care if she tries them all until she’s satisfied.

Reporter: So, the “Sola” name really doesn’t indicate what kind of a product you’re going to get.

Sola: That’s right. What we can guarantee is that it will be a “Sola” cake, no more, no less. Beyond that, it’s up for grabs. And we like it that way.

Reporter: And there you have it — William Sola, President of Sola Bakeries, telling us that, when it comes to Sola Bakeries and Sola cakes, it’s a surprise in every box.

Good night, and GOOD LUCK.

How the Bible “Works” Today

Sunrise over Jerusalem, Jonathan Kis-Lev (link below)

In our discussion on Monday regarding Andrew Perriman’s views on eschatology, commenters asked some important questions about Perriman’s exegetical method and what it does to our understanding of the Bible. For example, Damaris wrote:

Still, I see a problem in Perriman’s exegetical technique — if I’m understanding correctly: as I said above, the Bible becomes a dead historical artifact and has little that applies to us today. (emphasis mine)

I thought Scott provided a good answer when he replied:

Actually, that’s a big point for Perriman. He sees Scripture as more historical than systematic theology. It teaches theology, but as an historical document. The theology flows out of a particular historical framework (though that wouldn’t necessarily mean every bit of Scripture is journalistic history).

But what we can do, moving forward, is to look at the historical narrative of Scripture, and follow the history since then (2nd century & forward), and we can find important pointers in helping us move forward in our own context. Now, having said that, I don’t believe Perriman would say we cannot form theology from reading Scripture. But that theology must come first from the historical trajectory of Scripture, rather than from a protesting monk in 15th century Germany or from modern evangelicalism. And as we understand Scripture in its own historical framework, we shall build a more robust & healthy theology today.

I’d like to take his answer a step further and discuss how I think Scripture “works” in our lives today — we who live so far removed from the events it records and who live in a vastly different time and culture.

Continue reading “How the Bible “Works” Today”

Winning The War, Part V—It Is To Your Advantage That I Go Away

The layoffs, in retrospect, shouldn’t have been a surprise. All of the signs were there, the top management jumping ship, the ramping up of the propaganda concerning the rosy future of the company, the wave of earnest young consultants walking around asking questions. I was taken in the first wave of three, and so I lost the most comfortable sinecure of my entire life. The panic attacks started about a half a month later. I awoke in the middle of the night with cold sweat pouring off my back, my heart racing like the engine of a Formula One race car. Fortunately, the panic attacks went away after a time. For some people they don’t, and I count myself extremely fortunate.

Slowly, we learned to live at a less opulent level, and were the better for it. About five years ago though, the attacks came back. This time, they attacks were occasioned by the material I was reading about climate change, ecological collapse, and Peak Oil. In particular, I got myself really worked up over Peak Oil, the concept that the production of crude oil had peaked and was heading for a slow but inexorable decline. When I thought about how intertwined petroleum and petroleum products were in every facet of our society, I began to despair deeply. It is one thing to lose your job. It is another thing to lose your civilization.

At one point, I blamed the Lord. “Why did you have to go?” I upbraided Him. “I could sleep nights if I knew you were the Secretary General of the United Nations with plenipotentiary powers. As it stands, we’ll probably end up with Tony Blair or or some other Eurocrat. Why couldn’t you stick around and fix things?” Almost immediately I realized what I had done. I had joined the crowd who wanted to make Jesus king by force after his picnic in the wilderness.

Continue reading “Winning The War, Part V—It Is To Your Advantage That I Go Away”

2,000 Light Years From Home

I recently announced on these pages my decision to leave evangelicalism to venture into Catholicism. I am taking some time to share some of what went into this decision. These are my thoughts just as it is my journey. I am not telling anyone else what to do. If you find that remaining an evangelical is the safest and most appropriate home for you, then by all means, that is where you should stay. If you are comfortable in a mainline Protestant denomination, or in the Orthodox tradition, I rejoice with you. This is my journey. Read, and then comment. All are welcome to weigh in.

There is something very comforting about math to me. Don’t get me wrong—I am no mathematician. To own the truth, I never went above geometry in high school, and I took the easiest college math class, something called Math and Society, just to get my math credit to graduate. But I like the fact that math is a constant. Two plus two equals four was true last year, a hundred years ago, a thousand years ago. And while there are always new ways to apply math, at least we don’t have math nerds coming up with new “rules” every other week. I have no interest in someone with a pocket protector who wants to tell me that two plus two now equals purple.

While Pythagoras is generally considered as the father of modern math, there are those who think math did not really exist until the first Texas Instrument calculator appeared in the early 1970s. (And there are those who think math, or at least the ability to think mathematically, ended with the invention of the handheld calculator. But that is not the topic of conversation here today.) That we don’t have to learn math any longer since we can just push buttons and let a machine do the thinking for us.

We would think it very odd for someone to toss aside 2,500 years of math in order to teach some new “revelation” or teaching regarding numbers. Again, there are always new ways to apply the principals of math, but no reason to create new numbers.

Yet that is what evangelical Christianity seems to do. Let’s disregard two thousand years of tried and proven true theology and instead go with the revelation du jour.

Continue reading “2,000 Light Years From Home”

NT Wright on the Intermediate State

This morning, as a side note, I mentioned that Andrew Perriman does not find support in the New Testament for the “intermediate state” — a place of conscious existence between death and resurrection. As you might suppose, this is an ongoing topic of discussion for me in my work as a hospice chaplain. I find Wright’s explanation more compelling than Perriman’s and think of this more traditional understanding every week when in worship I confess my belief in “the communion of saints” and when I pray for my patients and their families.

N.T. Wright on the “Intermediate State,” from Rethinking the Tradition:

We should remember especially that the use of the word ‘heaven’ to denote the ultimate goal of the redeemed, though hugely emphasized by medieval piety, mystery plays, and the like, and still almost universal at a popular level, is severely misleading and does not begin to do justice to the Christian hope. I am repeatedly frustrated by how hard it is to get this point through the thick wall of traditional thought and language that most Christians put up. ‘Going to heaven when you die’ is not held out in the New Testament as the main goal. The main goal is to be bodily raised into the transformed, glorious likeness of Jesus Christ. If we want to speak of ‘going to heaven when we die’, we should be clear that this represents the first, and far less important, stage of a two-stage process. That is why it is also appropriate to use the ancient word ‘paradise’ to describe the same thing….

…In the New Testament every single Christian is referred to as a ‘saint’, including the muddled and sinful ones to whom Paul writes his letters. The background to early Christian thought about the church includes the Dead Sea Scrolls; and there we find the members of theQumran sect referred to as ‘the holy ones’. They are designated thus, not simply because they are living a holy life in the present, though it is hoped that they will do that as well, but because by joining the sect — in the Christian’s case, by getting baptized and confessing Jesus as the risen Lord — they have left the realm of darkness and entered the kingdom of light (Colossians 1.12-14).

This means that the New Testament language about the bodily death of Christians, and what happens to them thereafter, makes no distinction whatever in this respect between those who have attained significant holiness or Christlikeness in the present and those who haven’t. ‘My desire’, says Paul in Philippians 1.22, ‘is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.’ He doesn’t for a moment imply that this ‘being with Christ’ is something which he will experience but which the Philippians, like Newman’s Gerontius, will find terrifying and want to postpone. His state (being with Christ) will indeed be exalted, but it will be no different, no more exalted, than that of every single Christian after death. He will not be, in that sense, a ‘saint’, differentiated from mere ‘souls’ who wait in another place or state.

…Nor does Paul imply that this ‘departing and being with Christ’ is the same thing as the eventual resurrection of the body, which he describes vividly later in the same letter (3.20-21). No: all the Christian dead have ‘departed’ and are ‘with Christ’. The only other idea Paul offers to explain where the Christian dead are now and what they are doing is that of ‘sleeping in Christ’. He uses this idea frequently (1 Corinthians 7.39; 11.30; 15.6, 18,20,51; 1 Thessalonians 4.13-15), and some have thought that by it he must mean an unconscious state, from which one would be brought back to consciousness at the resurrection — so much so, perhaps, that it will seem as though we have passed straight from the one to the other. The probability is, though, that this is a strong metaphor, a way of reminding us about the ‘waking up’ which will be the resurrection. Had the post-mortem state been unconscious, would Paul have thought of it as ‘far better’ than what he had in the present?

This picture is further confirmed by the language of Revelation. There we find the souls of the martyrs waiting, under the altar, for the final redemption to take place. They are at rest; they are conscious; they are able to ask how long it will be before justice is done (6.9-11); but they are not yet enjoying the final bliss which is to come in the New Jerusalem. This is in line with the classic Eastern Orthodox doctrine, which, though it speaks of the saints, and invokes them in all sorts of ways, does not see them as having finally experienced the completeness of redemption. Until all God’s people are safely home, none of them is yet fulfilled. That is why the Orthodox pray for the saints as well as with them, that they — with us when we join them — may come to the fulfilment of God’s complete purposes.

Hell, You Say?

If we are going to understand what Jesus and the authors of the New Testament meant when they spoke about the wrath of God or judgment or Gehenna, we have to come at the matter with an entirely different frame of mind. We have to read historically and contextually rather than theologically and abstractly. We have to keep at the front of our minds the question: How does the theological content of the New Testament work within its own narrative-historical setting?

– Andrew Perriman

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Hell and Heaven in Narrative Perspective
by Andrew Perriman

Recently I was visiting a patient who told me a preacher came to visit him at the request of a family member. When the patient expressed doubts about whether he believed or not, the preacher told him immediately that he was going to hell. He asked me if I would come back and talk to his wife and him and give them a second opinion (!). About a week later we met, and I told him Jesus said he came into the world not to condemn the world, but so that the world might be saved.

If this had been a person who wanted to talk on a different level about what the Bible teaches about hell (and heaven), I might have had introduced Andrew Perriman into the discussion. Whether one ends up agreeing with him or not, his understanding of how the New Testament approaches the subject of eschatology should be taken seriously.

Perriman thinks the doctrine of hell (and heaven, for that matter) as traditionally formulated is unbiblical.

He is not a liberal or modernist who finds the idea of God’s wrath incompatible with faith in a loving God.

He is not a universalist. He believes God judges, and he maintains belief in an ultimate judgment.

Though his interpetation ends up having some surface familiarity with preterism, he is not a preterist. Preterism is a traditional theological position, whereas Perriman’s views grow out of a different interpretive framework — a “narrative-historical” approach that is kin to other “New Perspective” proponents who have delved more deeply into the Second Temple historical context of the New Testament.

Perriman believes that evangelical theology is in a season of transition in which we are shifting from a theological paradigm to another that prioritizes the historical context of the text and reading its narrative in that light. Representing this “New Perspective,” Andrew Perriman thinks the church has developed a bad habit of interpreting Scripture according to theological and dogmatic categories rather than understanding it in its historical and narrative context.

Continue reading “Hell, You Say?”

The Homily

Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, and whose trust is the Lord. (Jeremiah 17:7, NASB)

Pray, then, in this way:

‘Our Father who is in heaven,
Hallowed be Your name.
‘Your kingdom come.
Your will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
‘Give us this day our daily bread.
‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
‘And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. (Matthew 6: 9-13, NASB)

Our Gospel reading today is a very familiar passage, or at least should be to anyone familiar with Scripture. We know it as the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus’ response to the request by his disciples to teach them how to pray. And while I have recited this prayer time immemorial, I have just begun to see how it is a declaration of our trust in God. For so long I prayed it as a set of religious items I was to accomplish. It’s not, however. It is our declaration of our trust in our strange and mysterious Father. Let’s look briefly at each line and see if you agree.

Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be your name. To know someone’s name, goes the theory, is to have power over him. I know those who want to attribute names of God to his various characteristics. (El Shaddai: God Almighty. El Roi: The God who sees. El Olam: The everlasting God.) Yet there is a part of this that, to me at least, seems to be manipulative. “I know your name, God, so you now have to act in a certain way toward me.” Knowing God’s name, however, is not something to take lightly. Moses asked God his name and was told simply, “I AM.” The ultimate in mysterious names. In asking God to hallow his name, we are trusting that he knows the meaning of I AM. We are trusting that he will know how to bring glory and fame to his mysterious name.

Thy kingdom come. Kingdoms come from kings. And when a king establishes his kingdom, he brings in his way of doing things. Are we willing to trust our King to do things in the right way?

Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. We are called to trust one who does not share his thoughts with us. God’s will is shrouded in clouds and mystery, and we are to trust him in this. It’s not easy.

Continue reading “The Homily”

Saturday Ramblings 9.21.13

Greetings, iMonks. Do you all have your new iPhones yet? Of course you need to upgrade. Your life is incomplete—nay, it can barely even be called living—should you not have the latest iPhone the day it comes out. What does the new one do that the old one doesn’t? Well, for one, it can tell if you are really you by reading your fingerprint. And it will teach you a new language before lunch. And it will bring peace to the Middle East. All with the white of an egg. See why you must must must get the new iPhone? But before you head out to your local iFruit store, what say we ramble?

Pope Francis granted an interview this week to Antonio Spadaro of America Magazine. And while if you really read the interview you can’t help but come away saying, “This man has a great heart for the Good News,” many are upset the pope said we shouldn’t focus on abortion and homosexuality. Because, you know, Jesus spent so much time talking about abortion and homosexuality. Oh, wait …

If you want a good summary of the interview, Christianity Today provides this for you. I would like to hear from Protestants especially: What do you make of this pope and his message?

A Methodist church in Nashville put up a sign that read, “Jesus had two dads and he turned out just fine.” Guess what that did not refer to? Guess what most people still thought it referred to? Discuss.

Continue reading “Saturday Ramblings 9.21.13”

Reconsider Jesus – The Sent Out

The following is an excerpt from Michael Spencer’s upcoming book: Reconsider Jesus – A fresh look at Jesus from the Gospel of Mark. This week we are looking at a part of Michael Spencer’s writing and speaking on Mark 6. I accidentally skipped ahead and will be returning to Mark 5 next week. The material being covered today is on a subject that is important to both my co-editor, Scott Lencke, and myself: That is, Spiritual gifts, and their existence today. In this passage Michael Spencer gives us a taste of some of his own thinking on the matter. I am hoping that Scott will be able to join us for the discussion in the comments. Are your views similar? Quite different? At Internet Monk a civil discussion is always welcome in the comments. If you have been thinking at all that you would be interested in purchasing Michael Spencer’s book when it is available, please drop us a note at michaelspencersnewbook@gmail.com. The more we get expressions of interest, the more attention we will get from publishers.

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Mark 6:7-13

Mark 6:7-13. 7 Calling the Twelve to him, he sent them out two by two and gave them authority over evil spirits. 8 These were his instructions: “Take nothing for the journey except a staff–no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. 9 Wear sandals but not an extra tunic. 10 Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. 11 And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave, as a testimony against them.” 12 They went out and preached that people should repent. 13 They drove out many demons and anointed many sick people with oil and healed them.

…It is very significant for me that Jesus empowers his disciples with his own authority, and specifically gives them power over “unclean spirits.” Jesus’ first miracle, according to Mark, was an exorcism, and the battle with the forces of darkness is never far from Mark’s focus. But this passage must be considered in the subject of whether spiritual gifts and ministries continue today, or did they cease when the “apostolic age” came to an end? This issue is the source of a major split among evangelicals and has been a major issue in my own life and ministry. Without getting on a personal soapbox, I can say that issues such as “Are tongues for today?”, “Does God heal today?” and “Should Christians cast out demons today?” have occupied hours and days of my own study and consideration. Is the Bible actually that confusing on these issues? I really don’t think so. In fact, the cessationist position (that all these gifts and experiences ceased with the apostles) may be well intentioned, but it has robbed the church of what Jesus clearly intended to give to his followers.

In the simple words, “he gave them power,” Mark communicates that Jesus intended for his followers to walk in all the power he ministered in and he intended to share his authority with his followers for the purpose of compassionate Kingdom ministry to the oppressed. When cessationists make the apostles into a special group honored by Jesus above other Christians by giving them power and authority, they go well beyond what scripture teaches. It is true that the apostles are mentioned in passages such as Revelation 21:14 and Ephesians 2:20 -“…built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone”- in a way that gives them importance within the body of Christ, but these scriptures point to the faithful testimony of the apostles as witnesses of Jesus and the conveyers of the Gospel. Certainly, the New Testament is “Apostolic” in the sense of being written within the circle of the apostles and upon their teaching. Paul mentions the “signs of an apostle” in 2 Corinthians 12:12, but where is the sense that these were exclusive to the apostles or would cease? Paul himself refutes such an idea in I Corinthians 12:4-11, where the manifestation of the Spirit is clearly given to all the body of Christ, as the Lord himself desires. In fact, how does the idea of supernatural ministry being the exclusive domain of the apostles square with I Corinthians 12:28, where miracles and healings are intentionally placed after the ministry of apostles?

Every cessationist I know is frightened by the excesses of the Charismatic/Pentecostal/Third Wave movements. Certainly we ought to be concerned with excess, for it is the work of the devil, discrediting the real. But we ought to be more concerned about a kind of theology that tells the church supernatural means are not available to encounter the powers of evil and the results of sin. Cessationism is the primary culprit in turning the church towards secular and worldly means of doing everything from church growth to pastoral counseling. In some seminaries, secular psychology is accepted with little question, despite its corrupt worldview and self-defining methodology. In many churches, laying on of hands for the sick, anointing with oil or praying against the demonic would get the pastor fired or the church split. Yet, here we have Jesus entrusting his own power and authority to twelve disciples who would hardly be impressive today for their spiritual maturity or wisdom. They simply have faith and are, therefore, empowered for ministry. May God quickly send the day when this will not need to be explained…

Nadia on Grace

From Pastrix: The Cranky, Beautiful Faith of a Sinner & Saint, by Nadia Bolz-Weber, here are some thoughts on “grace,” a summary of what she learned in a church basement when she began attending church again.

I won’t comment on her words, simply present them and ask you to consider and discuss.

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God’s grace is a gift that is freely given to us. We don’t earn a thing when it comes to God’s love, and we only try to live in response to the gift.

No one is climbing the spiritual ladder. We don’t continually improve until we are so spiritual we no longer need God. We die and are made new, but that’s different from spiritual self-improvement.

We are simultaneously sinner and saint, 100 percent of both, all the time.

The Bible is not God. The Bible is simply the cradle that holds Christ. Anything in the Bible that does not hold up to the Gospel of Jesus Christ simply does not have the same authority.

The movement in our relationship to God is always from God to us. Always. We can’t through our piety or goodness, move closer to God. God is always coming near to us. Most especially in the Eucharist and in the stranger.

…I need to clarify something, however. God’s grace is not defined as God being forgiving to us even though we sin. Grace is when God is a source of wholeness, which makes up for my failings. My failings hurt me and others and even the planet, and God’s grace to me is that my brokenness is not the final word. My selfishness is not the end-all… instead it’s that God makes beautiful things out of even my own shit. Grace isn’t about God creating humans as flawed human beings and then acting all hurt when we inevitably fail and then stepping in like the hero to grant us grace — like saying, “Oh, it’s OK, I’ll be a good guy and forgive you.” It’s God saying, “I love the world too much to let your sin define you and be the final word. I am a God who makes all things new.”

– Pastrix, pages 49-50