Anti-theology: How’s it working for you?

If you’re the sort of person who groans inwardly whenever I write yet another one of these theology articles, you’re likely anti-theology: You consider theology to be useless speculation about who God is, and about how salvation works, and you wish Christians would just stop it with all the guesswork. Get to the practical stuff!

Which practical stuff? Depends on the Christian.

• We got the sort who thinks Christianity is meant to soothe people. Agitated because you’re not sure God loves you?—relax; he does. Agitated because of some deficiency you think you have?—relax; God’ll fix that or cure you. Agitated because you’re not sure you’re going to heaven?—relax; you are. Agitated because the world is crap?—relax; Jesus is returning.
• We got the sort who thinks Christianity’s primary job is to denounce sin. Loudly. Angrily. Because we gotta warn sinners away from hellfire! We gotta tell them hell is real, and they’re going there unless they repent! If we don’t do something about the sin, God’s gonna smite America with tornadoes and atmospheric rivers and plague and critical race theory! I forget which of the horseman that was, but it’s one of them.
• We got the sort who thinks Christianity is meant to make us blessed and highly favored, and wealthy. Who thinks we learn the secrets of prayer, God will answer every request with yes and amen, and we’ll get everything we ever wished for, like Aladdin’s genie but with infinite wishes. Pity nobody seems to know the secrets of prayer but Pastor, whom God gave the mansion and the Gulfstream jets. Maybe if we give him money he’ll clue us in.
• We got the sort who covet power, and heard the Holy Spirit grants supernatural gifts to Christians, so they want some. How do we activate these gifts? How can we become prophets, or faith-healers, or do mighty miracles? How can we get a revival started in our churches, and use it to boost our attendance, boost donations, and finally afford some of the things our churches have always wanted to buy? Let’s get a swimming pool!—we can use it for baptisms and youth group pool parties!
• We got the sort who thinks Christianity is meant to take over our country like its Founders always intended, and the reason they go to church is to network with fellow party members. Shh, don’t tell the IRS that’s what we’re really up to. And don’t tell the FBI, lest they find the stash of guns in the basement. If the guns make you anxious, don’t be!—they’re for the End Times.
• We got the sort who wants to know which current events are actually part of the End Times. They want our preachers to start interpreting the news this way. They wanna know whether the rapture’s coming, and how soon. They wanna know who the Beast is. (But don’t you dare tell ’em it’s Donald Trump. It’s not. Though yeah, he frequently acts beastlike.)
• And we got the sort who just wants to be left alone. They just wanna go to church, sing nice songs, hear nice sermons, take holy communion, and be under no obligations whatsoever to do anything further. Don’t have to donate money; rich people can fund the church without ’em. Don’t have to share Jesus with their neighbors; they can mass-mail flyers. Don’t have to change their lives at all. Salvation’s a free gift, after all.

And so forth. I used to attend a church which regularly held self-improvement classes of all sorts: How to improve your marriage. How to handle your finances better. How to rein in your out-of-control kids. (More spanking, apparently.) How to deal with the Jehovah’s Witnesses when they came to your door. All these classes were supposedly based on “biblical principles”… and yeah, some of these principles were acquired in some very iffy ways. But people really appreciated these classes. Self-help books are really popular with just about everyone, y’know… and whenever you Christianize them, Christians just love them.

So yeah, many a Christian would much rather have that than theology. Certainly much rather I blog about that than theology.

But how do you know I’m even giving you good advice? How do you know I’m not just taking the same old philosophy you find among pagans, slapping Christian labels all over it, and pretending it’s biblical? You know, like Christian counselors who paste Christian stickers over Freudian psychology of the self, and tell people the id body, ego soul, and superego spirit are how God actually created us to think. Or like when John Eldredge took the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement, added a bunch of bible stories and verses, and tells men it’s right and biblical to indulge their fleshly human impulses to be sexist and bossy… and kinda toxic.

How do you know I’m not just leading you utterly astray with my “proper Christian worldview”?

Didja guess I was gonna answer “Theology”? Goody!

Fruitless theology.

If Christian theology doesn’t produce good fruit, it’s either worthless or wrong.

Felt I’d better not bury the lede. Because, sad to say, Christian theologians too often go the fruitless route. And that’s why so many Christians dismiss theology as irrelevant, as nothing but a bunch of philosophers trying to reduce the Christian life to a bunch of navel-gazing theories which have no practical use. In the hands of fleshly Christians, that’s precisely what it becomes.

I was reminded of this recently, ’cause I read a dialogue between two Christians debating politics. (If you really wanna suck all the Jesus out of Christianity, watch Christians debate politics sometime. Better yet, don’t.) These guys didn’t just condemn one another’s beliefs; they condemned one another. Full-on ad hominem attacks. Both accusing one another of being depraved, selfish individuals; the conservative claiming the liberal only wanted the freedom to sin, and the liberal accusing the conservative of lacking God’s love for humanity. As conservatives and liberals usually do.

I wrote on this same subject years ago for another blog; at the time it was a debate between a Calvinist and a Catholic. Again, personal attacks instead of substance. Both of them felt they were right, and it justified them punching away at one another.

It’s typical depraved human nature. But it drags Christianity, and Christian theology, through the mud.

“Mortal sins”: Sins which send you to hell?

1 John 5.15-17 KJV

15And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. 16If any man see his brother sin a sin which is not unto death, he shall ask, and he shall give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: I do not say that he shall pray for it. 17All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death.

This passage has managed to confuse an awful lot of Christians. What’s John mean by ἁμαρτάνουσιν πρὸς θάνατον/amartánusin pros thánaton, “sinning unto death”? Or “a sin not unto death”?

Both Paul and James wrote that sin causes death. “The wages of sin is death” Ro 6.23 and “sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” Jm 1.15 and all that. They weren’t just speaking of those sins which obviously cause death, like murder and suicide and abortion; nor those sins which indirectly but still kinda obviously cause death, like gluttony or addictions or other lapses of self-control. Popular Christian thinking is all our sins contribute to the decay, and eventual end, of our lives. Sin is a cancer which eats away at our lives until they finally but inevitably end. And even if we resist temptation—even if we could be as sinless as Christ Jesus—sin is so toxic other people’s sins will kill us, same as they did Jesus.

But when Christians read John’s passage about sinning to death (KJV “sin unto death”) what we tend to think of is the Roman Catholic idea of a peccatum mortale, mortal sin—a sin which is so offensive to God, committing it is same as apostasy: We effectively just told God “I’m not following Jesus; I prefer hell.”

Now, Catholics believe—same as most Evangelicals, including me—God can and does forgive all. If you commit a mortal sin, you don’t have to end up in hell; you can repent. So do! Murder may be a mortal sin, but Moses murdered an Egyptian slaveowner, David murdered Uriah, and Paul probably murdered Christians before he became one; all of ’em repented. (Well, maybe Moses repented. Bible doesn’t say.) But if you never repent—if you murdered someone, and if you could redo everything, would totally murder ’em again—Catholics are entirely sure you’re going to hell. Because a real Christian would realize they were wrong, feel sorry for it, and be repentant.

How do Catholics determine what’s a mortal sin, and what’s a non-mortal (i.e. easily forgivable, dismissible, venial sin)? Usually it’s by degree. If popular Christian culture considers it especially bad, and enough Catholic leaders and theologians have denounced it as something that’d particularly get in the way of our relationship with God—if it’s a serious violation of his will—it’d be a mortal sin. It’s not that venial sins don’t degrade our relationship with God, especially when we continually commit ’em. But mortal sins are figured to have effectively broken it off immediately.

You want a list? Most people who ask me about this want a list. Here ya go.

• APOSTASY, obviously. Quitting Jesus definitely won’t get you into his kingdom.
• ADULTERY. Not as the Old Testament describes it, i.e. sex with women outside your patriarchal fiefdom, whereas any non-relatives within your fiefdom are fair game. Nope, Catholics define this as any non-marital unchastity. Which includes divorce, homosexuality, incest, masturbation, polyamory, porn, prostitution, and rape.
• ANGER, ENVY AND HATRED. Particularly to a degree where people take harmful action, like terrorism.
• BLASPHEMY, by which they mean disrespecting God, not just slander against God. So this’d include using God’s name as a profanity, sacrilege, and skipping Mass.
• CHEATING AND FRAUD. Unless we’re talking harmless frauds like pranks, this refers to anything which harms others, like unfair bets, stuff which endangers others’ lives, injustice, lying, perjury, unfair wages, unjust prices, or oppressive interest rates.
• HERESY. Teaching other than, or sowing doubts in, what Christians oughta believe. This includes encouraging people to defy church leadership, church splits, idolatry, simony, sorcery, and trying to be simultaneously Catholic and another religion. Catholics also include Freemasonry—in part ’cause Masons have historically been anti-Catholic, and in part ’cause Masonic rituals like to dabble in pagan, magic, and Muslim iconography, which creeps Catholics out.
• MURDER of various sorts; anything which intentionally kills another person. This’d include abortion, euthanasia, and suicide. Catholics also include contraception.
• SUBORNATION, i.e. getting someone to sin for you, or otherwise encouraging another person’s sins and vices. Likewise gossip, scandal-mongering, or other such things which nudge others the wrong way.

All these things are forbidden, or implied to be forbidden, in the scriptures. You notice many of ’em are taken from the Ten Commandments. So, Catholic or not, we should resist any temptation to slide into ’em.

Meeting Jesus on the Emmaus road.

Luke 24.13-27.

Jesus’s resurrection happened the day after Passover. The Law required every able-bodied Israeli to go to Jerusalem for Passover and celebrate it there. Dt 16.16 That done, they could all go home, and that seems to be what two of Jesus’s students were doing in the Emmaus Road story: Going home. Passover was over, Jesus was (as far as they knew) dead, and while they heard from the women he was alive, they didn’t know what to do with this information… and it didn’t matter; they had stuff to do at home. So they were going home.

Emmaus is probably Emmaus Nicopolis. A number of Christians insist it can’t be, because Luke says Emmaus was 60 stadia from Jerusalem (i.e. 7 miles, 11km), and Emmaus Nicopolis is 161 stadia (15½ miles, 25km) away. Never mind Luke describes Emmaus as ἀπέχουσαν/apéhusan, “far off,” and 7 miles is not far off; you could run that in an hour.

Me, I think it’s far more likely some overzealous bible copyist incorrectly wrote ἑξήκοντα/exíkonta, “sixty,” instead of ἑκατὸν ἑξήκοντα/ekatón exíkonta, “hundred sixty,” and that error snuck into all our bibles. None of the other archaeological discoveries 60 stadia away from Jerusalem have been satisfactory. Meanwhile Christians for centuries have been claiming Emmaus Nicopolis is the place. Ancient Christians even built a church there over St. Cleopas’s house, which was still standing in Eusebius Pamphili’s time. (He was the bishop of Caesarea, Judea, from 314 to 339. He knew the area.) It’s not unreasonable to figure these guys could cover 161 stadia (i.e. 15½ miles, 25km) in a spring afternoon. That’s a five-hour walk… and, as it’ll come up later, a two-hour run.

I mentioned Cleopas ’cause Luke identifies Cleopas as one of the students in this story. Κλεόπας/Kleópas is a Greek name, the male equivalent of Cleopatra, meaning “glory to the father,” or in a Jew’s case “glory to the Father.” Eusebius identifies him as Jesus’s uncle, the brother of Joseph, and the father of Jesus’s cousin Simon, who later became the head of the Jerusalem church after Jesus’s brother James was killed. Since the Emmaus Road story ends with the statement, “The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon,” Lk 24.34 KJV it may very well be that the other student in this story is this Simon—namely Jesus’s cousin Simon. Hey, they both lived in Emmaus.

So it’s kinda cool that Jesus’s uncle and cousin were both following him, and it makes sense that they’d be among the first people he appeared to. Let’s get to the first part of the story.

Luke 24.13-27 KWL

13 Look, two of the students, on the same day,

are going to a far-off village whose name is Emmaús,

60 stadia [7 miles, 11 km] from Jerusalem.

14 The students are talking with one another

about all the things which just happened.

15 It happens, during their animated conversation,

Jesus himself comes near, going with them.

16 The students’ eyesight isn’t strong;

they don’t know it’s Jesus.

17 Jesus tells them, “What are these words

you throw to one another as you’re walking?”

The students stand still, gloomy-looking.

18 In reply, one of the students, named Cleopas,

tells Jesus, “You alone visit Jerusalem,

and don’t know what happens in it these days?”

19 Jesus tells them, “What happened?”

The students tell him the events about Jesus the Nazarene.

How he’s a man—a prophet—

of mighty work and word before God and all the people.

20 How Jesus is betrayed to our head priests and rulers,

is sentenced to death, and they crucify him.

21 “And we were expecting that he’s Israel’s coming redeemer…

but regardless, it’s the third day after these things happened.

22 But certain women among us are confusing us:

Going to the sepulcher in the morning

23 and not finding Jesus’s body,

they come back speaking of seeing an angelic vision;

they say he’s alive.

24 Some who are with us, go to the sepulcher,

and find it’s just as the women say,

but we don’t see him.”

25 Jesus tells them, “Oh, you dummies.

Slow in your heart to trust all the prophets who speak.

26 Don’t these things have to be suffered by Messiah

to enter into his glory?”

27 And beginning with Moses and all the prophets,

Jesus expounds for them everything written about himself.

The first 12 apostles.

The word apostle means “one who’s been sent out.” We Christians use it to refer to anyone whom Jesus has sent to do something.

Really, anything. If Jesus sends you to Peets to go get him a coffee, that is—no foolin’—being his apostle. Now, once you’re done, are you still an apostle? Well, that’s debatable… and usually debated vigorously by all the people whom Jesus sent on one mission or another, who now include “apostle” among their titles, and even make it part of their screen names on social media. (He’s not just “Maximilián Bernardi” on Facebook; he’s “Apostle Maximilián Bernardi.” As far as Facebook knows, his full first name is “Apostle Maximilián.” Imagine if gas station attendants did this. But I digress.)

I know; some churches insist the only apostles are the 12 guys Jesus designated when he walked the earth—with a special exception made for Paul, ’cause Jesus appeared to him special. I’d point out Jesus still appears to people special, and can therefore send any one of us to do anything he chooses. So yeah, he still makes apostles. But the first 12 guys are special, ’cause they’re the guys Jesus used to start his church.

As for why he picked ’em, we have to read this bit first, which makes it kinda obvious:

Mark 3.7-12 NET

7 Then Jesus went away with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him. And from Judea, 8 Jerusalem, Idumea, beyond the Jordan River, and around Tyre and Sidon a great multitude came to him when they heard about the things he had done. 9 Because of the crowd, he told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him so the crowd would not press toward him. 10 For he had healed many, so that all who were afflicted with diseases pressed toward him in order to touch him. 11 And whenever the unclean spirits saw him, they fell down before him and cried out, “You are the Son of God.” 12 But he sternly ordered them not to make him known.

For those who can’t see the obvious: Jesus was busy. This was a massive ministry he had undertaken. And though he’s Jesus, he’s still just one man; he needed help! He needed apprentices. So he picked 12 of his best students.

Mark 3.13-15 NET

13 Now Jesus went up the mountain and called for those he wanted, and they came to him. 14 He appointed twelve so that they would be with him and he could send them to preach 15 and to have authority to cast out demons.

Matthew makes it sound like these were his only students, and maybe they were at the time.

Matthew 10.1 NET

Jesus called his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits so they could cast them out and heal every kind of disease and sickness.

But Luke indicates they were among his students.

Luke 6.12-13 NET

12 Now it was during this time that Jesus went out to the mountain to pray, and he spent all night in prayer to God. 13 When morning came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles…

 

Luke 9.1-2 NET

1 After Jesus called the twelve together, he gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.

Jesus chose students to do this, and all his apostles—including present-day apostles—are still his students. Still gotta learn from the Master. But what makes ’em apostles is Jesus designated and sent them to do stuff.

Namely the very same things Jesus did. The same things the crowds were swarming Jesus to get: Cure diseases, drive out their demons, and tell ’em about God’s kingdom. Whenever someone barged into Jesus’s lessons because they had a sick relative, the idea was an apostle could handle it, and our Lord didn’t need to be interrupted unless this problem was simply too great for the apprentice to handle. Where previously Jesus went from town to town with the gospel, he could now send six teams to do the very same thing. (And later, 35 teams.)

It’s all part of Jesus’s ultimate goal: To multiply himself in every Christian. ’Cause we Christians are to do all the stuff he did, and then some.

The social gospel.

SOCIAL GOSPEL 'soʊ.ʃəl 'gɑs.pəl noun. A Protestant movement which tries to apply uniquely (or superficially) Christian perspectives and ethics to civic problems, particularly through charitable programs or government.

If you asked an American Christian the 1800s what the End Times consisted of, you’d quickly discover these folks held the postmillennialist view: They believed the millennium, the time period in which Jesus personally rules the world, takes place before his second coming.

I know; this is a really hard idea for today’s Christians to wrap their brains around. Jesus returns after the millennium? How’s humanity supposed to have a millennium of peace and love before the Prince of Peace takes over and runs things himself? Have you seen humanity? We’re awful.

Yet that’s what Christians believed. It’s what their churches taught, and they swallowed it whole, same as today’s Christians swallow Darbyism without ever asking, “Waitaminnit, why do their End Times charts have this big ol’ period where God turns off the miracles?” People were used to the idea… and they figured it was up to them to create the millennial kingdom; a thousand-year Reich in which everything would be good and perfect. In 1933 Germany even elected a nationalist chancellor who promised them this very thing; ask them how that worked out for them.

After the world wars, very few Christians continued to believe in postmillennialism. There are exceptions… and sometimes we still sing postmillennialist hymns without realizing it. Check out the lyrics to “We’ve a Story to Tell to the Nations”—my churches used to sing that song well into the 1980s.

But back when that worldview was popular, Christians figured it was our duty to tackle civic problems, fix society, and bring about that millennium. Charles M. Sheldon’s novel In His Steps is a good example of their thinking: Apply the question “What would Jesus do?” to all of society. Then reform society wherever you think it appropriate.

• “If Jesus pastored my church he’d lead it like this.”
• “If Jesus owned my business he’d run it like this.”
• “If Jesus ran for office he’d say this.”
• “If Jesus taught my kids he’d teach them this.”

And so on.

Because these reforms tend to be more forgiving, more equitable, more charitable, more gracious—and more expensive, and create way more rules and laws than your average libertarian appreciates, they tend to get painted with the brush of “liberal.” And to be fair, you’re usually gonna find social-gospel reforms and activities among the Christian Left. (Whereas the Christian Right tends to lean nationalist.)

“I don’t need forgiving.”

So yesterday I wrote about those Christians who can’t stop praying the “forgive me” prayer—and if that’s because they’re anxious about their sins, they need to chill out; God’s forgiven them. Long long ago. He’s got you covered.

Then there are those people, often not Christian… but some of ’em are absolutely sure they’re totally Christian. And these folks think it’s ridiculous to worry whatsoever about their own forgiveness. Because they can’t imagine anything they’ve done which needs forgiving. Not from God; not from anyone. In some cases they’re kinda offended we’d even suggest they need forgiving.

I was talking with a Christian pastor about this phenomenon some years ago, and he just shrugged and said, “Typical human depravity.”

But no it’s not typical. It’s an extreme human behavior. What we have here is a narcissist. Here I refer you to what Psychology Today has to say about ’em:

How do I spot a narcissist?

Narcissism is characterized by a grandiose sense of self-importance, a lack of empathy for others, a need for excessive admiration, and the belief that one is unique and deserving of special treatment. If you encounter someone who consistently exhibits these behaviors, you may be dealing with a highly narcissistic individual.

What’s the difference between narcissism and pathological narcissism?

Pathological narcissism, or narcissistic personality disorder, is rare: It affects an estimated 1 percent of the population, a prevalence that hasn’t changed since clinicians started measuring it. The disorder is suspected when narcissistic traits impair a person’s daily functioning. That dysfunction typically causes friction in relationships due to the pathological narcissist’s lack of empathy. It may also manifest as antagonism, fueled by grandiosity and attention-seeking. In seeing themselves as superior, the pathological narcissist naturally views everyone else as inferior and may be intolerant of disagreement or questioning. “Narcissism.”