Moving

I received an invitation today. Friends from my eighth grade class at school are planning the next reunion and get-together. That’s right, my eighth grade class.

I moved to the Chicago suburbs during the years we used to call “Jr. High.” Now, it’s “Middle School.” My folks built a brand new house in a new subdivision. Dad had been transferred to his company’s office in Wheaton from Dixon, IL, his hometown and the place we had lived for a few years near my grandparents. Now we were starting a new adventure.

I can still see the tears in my grandfather’s eyes as we drove away.

The community into which we were moving was made up of “immigrants” like us — folks who had come from other places to take jobs in the burgeoning western suburbs of Chicago. Families with baby boom babies like me were filling the subdivisions and schools. I got my first job as a paperboy in our neighborhood. We were in “section three,” which was still under construction. I started in the late fall and remember the panic of watching the late afternoon skies grow dark while I tried to find street signs and addresses on unpaved lanes and cul-de-sacs. I finally gave up, crying, and Dad drove me around and helped me get the papers delivered.

The school I attended was not one of the newer “Jr. Highs” but a K-8 elementary school. We had a dress code, and I was sent home the first day to change because I wore blue jeans. For boys, hair had to be neatly trimmed above the ears, collared shirts tucked in and belts worn. No sneakers were allowed. Girls had rules about skirt length and make-up was forbidden, as I recall.

I entered the school just as we were all being immersed in adolescence. Thrown together like refugees on a ship, we became close, so close that today, over forty years later, we who lived through those junior high years still feel like best friends, and we reunite whenever we can.

I have more than one story like that, because I am a person who has moved often. Now, I haven’t relocated as often as people whose folks were in the military or in similarly transient vocations. However, over the course of my life, I have been transplanted with fair regularity. Like many who move often, my memories are compartmentalized, like separate chapters in a storybook that have little relation to one another.

Continue reading “Moving”

Daniel Jepsen on The Meaning of Genesis 1

Note from CM: This is the third and final post in Pastor Dan’s series. Read the first two posts HERE and HERE. Dan blogs HERE.

* * *

The meaning of Genesis One: The Universe as God’s Temple
by Daniel Jepsen

What does creation mean? Don’t skip over that question. It is at the very heart of understanding the very first thing we are told about the most important being in the universe. It is his creation. But what is the meaning underneath that bare assertion? Why does God tell us not only that He created, but give us a picture of some kind about His creative act?

Now, I don’t want to be dogmatic; you are welcome to disagree with me, as long as you don’t impugn my motives. But I have come to the personal conclusion that the view best handles the data of the text (Genesis One) in its literary, historical, and theological context is to understand it not as describing the historical progression of creation, but its theological meaning.

Now, although this is an old viewpoint, it is different enough from what most of us have heard that it is not always easy to understand. The main idea is that the seven days are not meant to be understood as a sequential scientific description of creation, (whether the days are understood as 24 hours or millions of years). Rather, verse one simply tells us that God created everything and the rest of the chapter describe the meaning, not the sequence, of creation; and the framework to best show the meaning was seven days.

The genre and context of Genesis One:
First the literary genre. What makes me think that this is not necessarily straight historical narrative? Well, at least three things. First, the whole passage is marked by repetition and numerology. The number seven and its multiples are especially prominent:

  • And God said (10 times)
  • According to their kinds (10 times)
  • Let there be (7 times)
  • Make (7 times)
  • And it was so (7 times)
  • God saw that it was good (7 times)
  • Firmament (21 times)
  • Earth/land (same Hebrew word) (21 times)
  • God (elohim) (35 times)

Second, some of the literary characteristics of this passage are more poetic than narrative. This is especially true of the lack of definite articles before the numbers of the days, something that Gleason Archer, an expert in this field, says only happens in poetic, not narrative, Hebrew.

Thirdly, it is clear to me that the whole passage from 1:2 to 2:1 is highly structured to answer a problem: that the earth is “formless and empty”. As you can see on the chart, the first three days describe God forming this for a specific purpose, and then the next three days He fills those realms he had formed. This is perhaps the most important and noticeable data of the text to someone looking at it closely.

For these reasons, I feel it preferable to read it as either poetry or as arraigned topically or theologically instead of straightforward narrative.

Continue reading “Daniel Jepsen on The Meaning of Genesis 1”

Marge’s Funeral Sermon

Note: For background, read “Joe and Marge.”

* * *

I am glad I had the opportunity to meet many of you today. I am also glad i got to watch the video with pictures of Marge from her life over the years. One sad part of my ministry is that I only get to know people in the final season of their lives. It really helps me to see those pictures and understand more about those relationships and those stories.

I didn’t know Marge when she adopted a young daughter and raised her as her own, went to all her activities with her, and shared those joys and challenges that come with a mother-daughter relationship. I did not know her when she had a son later in life, after years of thinking she could not bear children. I wasn’t there on all the occasions portrayed in the pictures, when she held her grandchildren. It was obvious how much she loved you; you can see the pride and joy glowing in her eyes in each photograph.

No, the Marge I have known was the pretty, petite older lady who found herself wandering in the world of Alzhemier’s dementia. Even in that condition, she was pleasant and energetic. In fact, whenever I saw her she rarely sat still. She loved to look out the windows and see what was happening outside. She moved about the house, checking on things, straightening the pillows. When I came to see her, she always greeted me, always spoke to me when I greeted her, and always came and sat with Joe and me as we visited.

One thing I consistently observed was how comfortable she was in Joe’s presence and how she responded to him. Now I want to say something here, and I’m sure it will embarrass Joe. I have been a pastor more than twenty-five years and a hospice chaplain for seven and a half years, and I have never seen a better example than Joe of a spouse who loved and cared for his wife. He was protective of Marge’s routine and made sure she had everything she needed and wanted. He worked flawlessly with those of us who came to the house. He laid down his life day after day so that Marge had as comfortable and peaceful and happy a final season of life as possible — until the day she left this world, lying peacefully in her own bed, right where she wanted to be and where they wanted to be together.

The Bible says it is not our religious rituals that ultimately matter. What matters is “faith working through love.” That is what I saw in Joe and Marge. Their life over the past couple of years became simpler, but no less rich. They were more restricted in what they could do and where they could go, but whatever they did was filled with love. They may not have been able to go to church or practice specifically religious observances, but their life together was marked by faith in God’s presence and help every day.

The Bible asks us a question: “What does the Lord require of you?” What do you think about that? What does God require of us? Here is the answer it gives: “To do what is right, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God.”

In another place it tells us, “Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life and attend to your own business and work with your hands…so that you behave properly toward others and not be in any need.”

Psalm 37 likewise calls us to live this kind of life. It says:

Trust in the Lord and do good;
Dwell in the land and feed on God’s faithfulness.
Delight yourself in the Lord;
And He will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your way to the Lord,
Trust also in Him, and He will do it.
He will bring forth your righteousness as the light
And your judgment as the noonday.

Faith working through love.

This is the kind of life Jesus himself lived. And when he died, laying down his life so that our sins might be forgiven; and when he rose again to give us new life and to send us his Holy Spirit, he made it possible for us to enter his Kingdom and live like that too. By his grace he enables us to have lives that are characterized by faith working through love.

And so, more than anything today, I want to say thank you Marge, and thank you Joe for showing all of us in real life, day after day, what faith, hope, and love look like.

I also want to remind us all that this is what will sustain us in our present time of sorrow and enable us to support each other on the journey to come, until we join Marge before God’s throne. It’s all about keeping that hope and having a faith that works through love.

Matthew B. Redmond: The God of the Mundane

A Pork-Butcher's Shop Seen from a Window, Van Gogh

Note from CM: Today, I’d like you to meet another new friend. Please welcome Matthew B. Redmond, who blogs at Echoes and Stars. Matt has been a pastor and now works in banking in Birmingham, AL. He has a book coming out later this year, published by Kalos Press, called The God of the Mundane. During our recent discussions here about “radical” Christianity, I found out about his writing and knew I had to share it with you.

The good news is that Matt is a devoted baseball fan. The bad news is that he roots for the St. Louis Cardinals. This means on this blog we now have writers rooting for the Reds, the Cards, and the Cubs. I guess this is fast becoming the NL Central blog, and of course, that’s me (CM) clinging to Jesus’ words about the last being first.

The following post combines two pieces Matt sent me: “A Sermon I Wish I’d Preached,” and the original “God of the Mundane” post from his blog.

* * *

Almost a year ago I announced my resignation from the ministry. A day later I was working at a bank and since then I have not taught or preached. I do not regret that decision in the least. But regret for the way I way ministered to those in my care has washed over me in devastating waves. There are so many words I wish I had never said, so many lessons I would love to unteach.

And there are a number of sermons I wish I had preached instead.

Of course all the best sermons are forged in the fires of preparation and then beaten into us on the anvil of experience. I could not have preached these sermons then because I had not yet learned what I know now. I had not yet seen nor heard…

So now all the sermons I wish I could have preached roll around in my skull. And sometimes they get written down, like this one I could not let go. For over two years this message has careened against my memories and exploded into a thousand conversations shattering a lot of conventional wisdom, shrapnel everywhere.

There is a God of the mundane.

We live in a culture that celebrates the extraordinary, especially extraordinary people. Athletes, rock stars, actors, actresses, and even those who are famous for being famous have our barely divided attention. We single out the best in just about everything and then they become the benchmark for significance and meaning.

And Christians are not immune. The church has its own celebrities and we have been pointing to them time out of mind because of the extraordinary things they have done in the cause of Christ.

The church is awash in the belief that the extraordinary acts of faith – missions, vocational ministry, street evangelism – are our marks of meaning and significance.

“Do something radical. Or crazy. Whatever you do, don’t be ordinary. Because, obviously, you cannot live a mundane life unto God.”

I wish I had looked in the eyes of homemakers and electricians, accountants and actuaries, farmers and physical therapists and told them differently.

I wish with all my heart I had.

Continue reading “Matthew B. Redmond: The God of the Mundane”

Ryan McLaughlin: How the Sacred Heart Healed Me from Sovereign Grace Ministries

Note from CM: One of the writers I met on our Writers’ Open Forum a couple weeks ago is Ryan McLaughlin. He blogs at The Back of the World. He describes his own spiritual journey like this: “It’s taken me a decade to finally come to this. I walked away from a Charismatic/Evangelical upbringing, ran full steam ahead into Calvinism, broke down and stumbled into Anglicanism, and at long last I’m home in Rome. My family and I were received into the Catholic Church at Easter.”

One theme Michael Spencer and I talked about and about which he wrote was the lack of community traditions and resources for spiritual formation in evangelicalism. In this post, Ryan McLaughlin describes how he found help and assurance in a Catholic practice.

* * *

How the Sacred Heart Healed Me from Sovereign Grace Ministries
by Ryan McLaughlin

June is the month that the Catholic Church devotes to honoring the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Devotion to the Sacred Heart has healed me from many wounds, and continues to renew my confidence in my friendship with God, so I am excited to write about it. Some scars never really fade, and old memories still hurt after many years. But if the truth about the past stings, the Love of Jesus and His Sacred Heart are made all the sweeter.

I remember countless nights spent lying on my back, staring at the ceiling in the darkness of my room. “Maybe God just doesn’t really love me. Maybe He simply hasn’t chosen me.” I had sinned again, and each new sin brought with it doubt about whether I was really loved by God, and every doubt brought with it a reminder of the theology I had bought into: if I wasn’t really saved, then their was truly nothing I could do about it.

As I’ve written about before, my college years were spent heavily involved in a group of churches known as Sovereign Grace Ministries (SGM).  SGM teaches a brand of what’s been called the “New Calvinism“, central to which is a belief in predestination: before time began, God chose some people to be saved from eternal damnation and passed over others, for no reason other than it was His will to do so. Human free will plays absolutely no part in God’s choice, so if you aren’t part of the “elect” who were chosen to be saved, there’s simply no way around it: you’re on your way to Hell. Many SGM pastors, in keeping with the Puritans, believe that there is no way to know with absolute certainty in this life that a person is part of the elect, but one may gain some confidence and hope through sanctification. That is to say, if one sees a gradual increase in personal holiness, and an increase in ability to resist temptation, one can be grateful for the “evidence” that he or she is really saved.

When I was a little boy, I believed with great confidence that God loved me. My parents and pastors taught me that Jesus loved me so much, and came to Earth to make it so that I could spend eternity with Him. And as I became more involved in SGM and read more about Calvinist theology, I still believed that God loved me… at least, He probably did. But I slowly experienced a change in the way I thought of God and how I related to Him. He became, in my eyes, less loving and kind and more austere, distant, and -dare I say it?- arbitrary and just a little bit capricious. I realize now that I was afraid of God, and certainly not in the “fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” sense.

These doctrines and the feelings they engendered were not without consequences, both in my life and the lives of my close friends in SGM. Despite the fact that we ostensibly believed in “grace”, we had an obsessive and unhealthy fear over our sins: we used to sit in circles in “accountability groups” and confess to each other, in graphic detail, every sin we could recall. We also confronted each other with sins we perceived in that person’s life,  and a guy unwilling to see how he was sinning (according to his brothers in the Lord) was quickly labelled as “prideful”. The fact is, though, that despite the unhealthy vigilance, nothing seemed to work: we kept right on sinning just as badly as before.

And so I lay awake at night, wondering if I was really “elect”. I was frightened half to death, and ironically too scared to admit it, even to myself. I had never felt more distant from Jesus. I also slowly watched many of my friends walk away from the faith entirely, too bruised and beaten by the church and its teachings to believe that there was a God behind it all. And as I eventually rejected SGM and left the church I was attending, I had a new-found loneliness: the vast majority of my friends from SGM, including guys who had been groomsmen in my wedding and who I thought would be there for me forever, simply stopped talking to me.

How could I believe in God’s love?

Continue reading “Ryan McLaughlin: How the Sacred Heart Healed Me from Sovereign Grace Ministries”

A Tale of Two Wilsons

Madonna of Humility, Bartolo

Below you will read two remarkably different responses to this past week’s blogosphere blow-up. One, by the person who put the initial post up at The Gospel Coalition (now taken down), is honorable and reflects the spirit of Christ. The second, which is by the author whom the blogger quoted, well, you can read for yourself and decide.

As for me, I’ll just say we’ve seen wisdom borne out via these two reactions. I appreciate and commend Jared. On the other hand, it is not likely that we will be giving the second Mr. Wilson and what he has to say any consideration from now on. I don’t care to be inviting further abuse.

Whoever corrects a scoffer gets himself abuse,
    and he who reproves a wicked man incurs injury.
Do not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you;
     reprove a wise man, and he will love you.
Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser;
    teach a righteous man, and he will increase in learning.

– Proverbs 9:7-9 (ESV)

* * *

From Jared Wilson at The Gospel Coalition:

…my first apology is due to my brothers and sisters in The Gospel Coalition and to my other complementarian brothers and sisters. I have brought ill repute upon you with my foolishness and rashness, and I ask your forgiveness.

But more importantly, my words hurt others whose pain runs deep and whose healing is difficult. I don’t want to load this apology up with words, because it is the most important part of this to me, and I want to be clear: For those offended or shamed, or otherwise and in any way burdened by my blog posts and my comments, your pain in this matter is totally my fault. Please forgive me.

* * *

From Doug Wilson at Blog and Mablog:

Gather around, children, and I will try to provide you with a brief post mortem on the recent ruckus created by our professional indignati.

The Bible certainly says to weep with those who weep. When one part of the body hurts, the rest of the body hurts. But this happens in community, face to face, and not in the midst of a sob sister rugby scrum, with them trying to get us to back away from any particular truth the Scriptures plainly teach. We are told to weep with those who weep. We are told nothing in regard to the feminist bedwetters.…

…They deny the authority of Scripture, they accept as dialogue partners advocates of every abomination that Leviticus contains, they attack those who are seeking to be faithful servants of Christ, they call the holy wars of YHWH genocide, and so on, down the street and around the corner. Other than that, they are good Christians.

So what is worse? To deny the authority of the words of the thrice-holy God, or to say that someone is being a bedwetter? Well, in this strange new world, the question answers itself. “Mommmm! He said bedwetters!” I’ll let you in on a little secret, which you may have already guessed if you have been following. For the most part their sheets are dry. If I were dealing with a family struggling with the very real problems of a child humiliated by bedwetting, the only attitude that should have any place in my heart would be compassion down to the ground. But when I deal with these bedwetters, you may feel free to imagine me sitting here at my laptop, hands on my tummy like Santa Claus, bouncing with each chuckle. Ho, ho, ho.

My Beloved, My Friend

The Lovers, Chagall

“This is my beloved and this is my friend…”

– Song of Solomon 5:16

* * *

Those simple, graceful words from the Song of Solomon have summarized the way I’ve viewed my relationship with my wife Gail ever since we fell in love as college students. I wrote a song using them as the main theme of the lyric and sang it to her at our wedding. They describe our mutual understanding of the nature of our marriage: we are lovers and we are friends. We are partners. We are two who have left our previous lives to make a life together as one.

Our relationship has never been about authority and submission. Understanding the Biblical passages that use those terms has been a process over the years. As a new Christian and young pastor, I held a more patriarchal perspective in my mind and in my teaching, but to be honest, I can’t say it really translated in any substantial way to our actual relationship. We were partners. I may have been the pastor, but she was right there at my side, as involved in ministry as I was (sometimes more so). In college we had served together on gospel teams and there was no hierarchy involved, save for someone who played the role of team leader. We each played and sang our respective parts and did so in harmony with the others. We carried this right into our life in the church.

At home we’ve always made decisions together or deferred to the other when appropriate. For a number of years my career path was the main one we walked, but only because it provided a clearer way. I’m sure that had Gail had a vocational path as definite as mine, things might have gone differently. I know this has often frustrated her over the years, but she has accepted her lot with grace and has creatively found many significant ministry opportunities in conjunction with what I was doing. We are both highly vocation-minded people. We have seen ourselves from the beginning as Christ’s servants and have always felt a strong sense of calling when it comes to serving others.

Lovers with Daisies, Chagall

I sincerely can’t think of a time when a model of authority and submission fit our relationship. Usually, when I’ve made decisions on my own, they were foolish ones, unless they were decisions to do something loving for her that I wanted to keep secret. We work best when we work together, talk together, pray together, consider things together, and wait for each other to be of one mind.

During certain seasons of our life, Gail has played the “traditional” role (I’m still not sure I know what that means — which tradition?). She stayed home with the babies. She still is the main cook. She does more housework than I do (that’s often my fault, not her choice). She does the laundry, though that is primarily to keep me from destroying her wardrobe.

On the other hand, she has almost always worked outside the home, whether part-time or full-time. When she had the opportunity she went back to school and got her Masters degree. Now she runs her own counseling business. If at any time along the way, it would have made sense for me to stay home or play some other “non-traditional” role to support her in fulfilling her goals, I would have done so gladly. I will do so in the future if need be.

I would never think to set our marriage or relationship up as a template for anyone else. I believe all believers have great freedom in Christ to order their lives by his Spirit and through the wisdom that comes from Scripture, reason, counsel, and experience. Most of all, I believe with all my heart that Gail and I are meant to be partners — lovers and friends — together in Christ.

I have come to a much different understanding of the “authority/submission” texts in the NT over the years, one that I think makes much more sense in light of the overall Biblical narrative with its redemptive trajectory. I think a hierarchical model of the relationship between a husband and wife is part of the problem, not the solution to marital happiness, stability, and effective service for Christ.

There is no hierarchy between two people who call each other “beloved and friend.”

Saturday Ramblings 7.21.12

Welcome to a somber and shortened version of Saturday Ramblings. As of this writing on Friday night, the death toll in the Aurora, Colorado shootings stands at 12, with more than 50 wounded. This just doesn’t seem to me to be a good day to poke fun at Joel Osteen, Ed Young Jr., or any other clowns in the evangelical circus.

I started the day yesterday early as I had to drive to Wichita for some training. I listened to reports from Colorado detailing the shooting spree at a theatre where the latest Batman movie was premiering. I was listening to one of my favorite radio stations, WLW from Cincinnati, though I knew what would be coming. The talk show host could not resist talking about what might have been if only Colorado would allow conceal-and-carry. Later, as I read thru the news from various web sites, I read many others calling for tighter gun control. ABC News was quick to tie the shooter to the Tea Party; too quick, as it turned out. It wasn’t true, and they had to issue an apology. Not that that would put the rabbit back in the hat, though.

In this world, senseless violence and tragic events occur at an all-too frequent pace. Last Saturday in my hometown of Tulsa, a man walked out of a Best Buy into a hailstorm of bullets. Eight struck the man. A ninth broke through the store’s front window and ended in the chest of Wesley Brown, a good man who was picking out a movie with his ten-year-old daughter. Two men dead. One a retaliation for another gang killing, the other “collateral damage,” as the alleged shooter called it.

Senseless violence has been a part of our world since the fall. That is not an excuse, nor even an explanation. And it sure as hell doesn’t help those who lost loved ones in Aurora, Colorado or lost a husband and father inside a Tulsa Best Buy this week. All I can say is love is the answer to any and all questions. Not my love or your love. God’s love. And his love is unlike our love. We think of love as being something to make us happy or make us feel good inside. God’s love is totally other than what we have ever encountered. His love for this world is so beyond what we can imagine, there is no way to even begin describing it. And when we do try to put his love in a picture frame and say “There it is”, we always leave out much of who Love Is.

Love Is. God Is Love. Therefore, Love Is. When we encounter hate and terror and destruction of lives, it is hard to reconcile it all with a simple “God is love,” but there is nothing more than that.

[yframe url=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6vR-TQ7n68′%5D

Dan Jepsen: Do some interpretations of Genesis 1 deny creation ex nihilo?

One Day, Moshe Mikanovsky

Note from CM: This is part two of a three-part series by Pastor Dan on Genesis 1. You can read part one HERE.

* * *

Do Some Interpretations of Genesis 1 Deny Creation ex Nihilo?
by Daniel Jepsen

As I have tried to argue in a previous post, creation ex nihilo is in many ways the fundamental doctrine about God. It is more than the bare assertion that He made all things out of nothing. Rightly understood, it also teaches:

  • The universe is good, but not ultimate.
  • He exists in a way that nothing else does.
  • He transcends the universe and every element of the universe.
  • And He is therefore completely holy and completely sovereign.

I view this as the basis for all true theology, and the consistent teaching of scripture.

So one of the questions troubling me is the question of whether some interpretations of Genesis are consistent with this doctrine or not. In my opinion, coherence with creation ex nihilo is a necessary condition for an interpretation of Genesis one to be accepted as valid.

It may be helpful at this point to list (in no particular order) of some of the most common ways that Genesis 1 has been interpreted by Jews and Christians over the centuries. This list is not complete, but helps to clarify the issues.

1. The first way to understand it I call the rabbinic interpretation, because it was the favorite of many of the medieval rabbis. This is to understand 1:1 as a general statement of God’s creation of everything, and the rest of the chapter as his recreation of the land of Palestine for his people Israel. So when it speaks of “the earth”, this viewpoint translates that as “the land”, that is the promised land, which is a possible meaning of the word. This is sometimes called the Historical Land Interpretation.

2. A second way to understand whole chapter as describing in scientific terms the historical sequence of creation, and understanding the “days” as solar days of 24 hours. This interpretation will be called the YEC interpretation (Young Earth Creationism).

3. A third way to understand this is to again view the entire chapter as a scientific description of the historical process of creation, but to understand the “days” not as 24 hour time periods, but as events or epochs or long periods of time. So the text gives a scientific description of creation, but without dates. Supporters of this view will point out that the word for “day” [yom in Hebrew], is used two other ways in this passage: as the part of the day when sun shines (in verses 5 and 15), and as an event in 2:4. I will use OEC (Old Earth Creationism) to describe this (though some prefer the term day/age view)

4. The fourth way is to understand the days to describe the re-creation of the world, after some sort of defacing of it. So, 1:1 would describe the original creation, whereas 1:2 would describe it in its ruined state, and the rest of the chapter describes its re-creation. This is sometimes called the gap theory.

5. A fifth way is to understand Genesis one is to view 1:1 as relating the fact of creation (as in the Rabbinic view) while the rest of the chapter is a theological (not scientific) re-construction of that creation. In other words, this view holds that verse 2 through the end of the chapter are a theological interpretation of creation, using the concept of a “creation week” as a literary framework. I call this the temple view, since the main theological point it makes about creation is that it is to be viewed as God’s temple, the place that both shows His glory and serves as His throne (others call it the Framework view). See my analysis of this view here.

6. A sixth way to understand Genesis one is to view it as a story of God’s creation of the universe using the understanding of cosmology present to the original readers to make the point. In this view, God portrayed creation in this way not to canonize a certain view of cosmology, but used their understanding of cosmology to explain what creation means. For lack of a better term, I will call this the accommodation view, since it sees God accommodating his revelation to the level of those he is communicating to. This could also be called the flexible cosmology view. For brevity and clarities sake, I will not be discussing this view in this post.

I am not going to argue which view is correct here, and any technical analysis of the above is not the main point of this post. My concern, rather, is which of these is consistent with the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. This question will center on the relationship between verse one and the rest of the chapter.

Continue reading “Dan Jepsen: Do some interpretations of Genesis 1 deny creation ex nihilo?”

Sex, Authority/Submission, and Remarkable Insensitivity

Song of Solomon, He Qi

“When we quarrel with the way the world is, we find that the world has ways of getting back at us. In other words, however we try, the sexual act cannot be made into an egalitarian pleasuring party. A man penetrates, conquers, colonizes, plants. a woman receives, surrenders, accepts. This is of course offensive to all egalitarians, and so our culture has rebelled against the concept of authority and submission in marriage. This means that we have sought to suppress the concepts of authority and submission as they relate to the marriage bed.”

Quoted from Doug Wilson, Fidelity
“The Polluted Waters of 50 Shades of Grey, Etc.”

* * *

The latest big dust-up in the evangelical blogosphere took place the other day when Jared Wilson at the Gospel Coalition put up a post about sex. In it, he simply quoted from a book by Doug Wilson to make his point.

And what was his point? If I understand correctly, it was this:

  • God’s design for marriage is that the man is in authority and woman in submission.
  • This applies to the sexual relationship as with every other aspect of marriage.
  • When we reject this divine design, we open ourselves up to all kinds of corruptions and perversions of authority and submission such as bondage and submission games, rape fantasies (men), addiction to romance type novels (women)
  • Such sexual pathologies (evidenced in such current examples as the 50 Shades of Grey craze) reveal that humans have spurned the right way, God’s way, the way of “good, God-honoring, and body-protecting authority and submission between husbands and wives.”

To which I reply, with utmost theological gravity — fiddlesticks.

This has to be one of the most specious, ridiculous arguments I have ever heard. As Scot McKnight posted, the concepts being advanced are “not deserving of the sharp theological eyes of TGC.”  The authors are certainly right that many sexual practices in this fallen world are corrupted and perverted, but to say that they arise out of failing to practice God’s design for authority and submission is begging the question.

When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

“The wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; and likewise also the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does” (1Cor 7:4, NASB)
Even if we were to grant the point that God’s design is for husbands to be the authorities in the home, and women are to submit to their leadership, nowhere, nowhere does Scripture link the sexual relationship to these concepts. From the beginning, Genesis 2:22-25, the sexual relationship is about complete mutuality, about cleaving together, about two becoming one, evidencing that a man and woman are “bone of bone and flesh of flesh.”

The Song of Songs, an entire book of erotic love poetry, bears this out. Those who’ve commented on the TGC post have pointed out that there is no “authority and submission” in Song of Songs, but two people who take turns initiating and responding to the other with passionate sexual feeling.

No clearer statement of this can be found than Paul’s words in 1Corinthians 7:4 — “For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does.”

The Wilsons are simply wrong in stating otherwise.

“What is desirable in a man is his kindness”  (Proverbs 19:22).
However, the other issue Jared Wilson’s post raises is that of insensitivity. The language Doug Wilson used, especially in the offensive paragraph quoted above, is outside the bounds of consideration and kindness. Rachel Held Evans was absolutely right as a woman to find these words not only “inaccurate” but also “degrading and harmful.” Doug Wilson has a habit, apparently, of writing blunt prose with little nuance or concern for “offending” those who disagree with him.

Jared Wilson (and Doug, too) didn’t help their cause by attacking commenters to the post, arguing that they simply needed to learn to read better, and then posting a follow-up suggesting people were simply out to get TGC and looking for a reason to do so.

This morning, I do note that Jared added a “trigger warning” for those who have been hurt by rape or sexual abuse.

That is a start, but in my opinion, correcting the problems with this post go far beyond the need to warn those who may have had extraordinary pain with regard to sexual matters. When you combine bad theology with crass and tactless rhetoric, nothing good can result for anyone.