How does the Holy Spirit spark and build faith?

God is the one who brings rebel humans back to himself. How does he do this? Is it by academia, intellectualism, and fine sounding arguments? Proofs and statistics?

You can't prove that God is alive, or that Jesus is God by history, archeology, or science. You CAN see that the Bible's Jesus/God is viable, possible. That's encouraging in itself, that Jesus, God With Us, is certain to have lived, gained a following, taught and was reported to perform miracles, was crucified and appeared to his disciples. If any of these were sure to be false, Christianity wouldn't be a viable intellectual option.

But all that stuff is definitely true, and so Jesus' true resurrection, the reality of his miracles, and his divinity are all possible. But it's not an open and shut case.

Indeed, I have observed in life, and read in the Bible, that true faith in the living God, King Jesus, is sparked and built upon four foundations:

1. Transformed communities and lives. The New Testament testifies about the way relationship with Jesus changes lives, and changes community. People realize who the true God is and turn away from idols/worshipping themselves. People live pure lives and become unselfish. People love each other and cross barriers to do it. Communities function and build each other up. They help the poor and foster healthy relationships. This is reviewed over and over in Acts and is what Paul emphasizes in his letters as well.

2. Signs and wonders. Jesus does frickin' sweet stuff to demonstrate his authority. He raises the dead, gives sight to the blind, and animates paralyzed limbs. This is big-time in the Gospels and Acts.

3. Power over sin and demons. Jesus works in us to take away sins that oppress us and that we can't beat ourselves. It doesn't make me better than other people but it does make me better off than I was before. In addition, demons who terrorize and possess people are helpless and weak when Jesus confronts them.

4. God coming through on his promises. God promised Abraham he would bless him, make him in a great nation, give them land, bless all nations through him. He make Israel his chosen nation and gave them land. He promised King David of Israel he would always have a descendant on the throne. Indeed, the prophets, once Israel and Judah were exiled, emphasized more than anything this future Davidic Kingdom that would go on forever. And in Jesus, God fulfilled these promises. Jesus promised his kingship would spread slowly and cover the whole earth. Despite the marginalized hands (fishermen, women, etc.) he left his kingdom in, his promise is coming true.

If you're skeptical about #2 and #3, I might suggest that we are in a unique position as modern Westerners: we're entire nations of self-worshippers. Throughout most of history 99% of people have understood their weakness and fragility and have turned to God or false gods worshipping idols. We see this as silly because we think we control our own destiny, worshiping ourselves. These self-worshipers are found in the Bible too, but they're mostly kings. But most Americans struggle constantly with self-worship! Considering this difference between us and most cultures, I would caution against arrogant skepticism in this area. I dare to suggest that God isn't keen on demonstrating with signs and wonders to self-worshipers, nor are demons particularly concerned about us.

Most importantly, we come to #1, transformed lives and communities. If you are a Christian looking to reach others, ask God to transform you (or show you how he has) and look for a transformed community. If you are a Christian struggling with doubt, I wouldn't be surprised if you're disenchanted by your own sin or a dead community. If you are a non-Christian and don't see lives and communities that have the power of King Jesus in them, I am very sorry that the weakness of man has failed you. I pray that God shows you a community filled with his power soon, as it is here that the Gospel is demonstrated in power.

What is the Gospel? It is the message about our world: A world that should be good is bad all the way through, from nature to nations to families down to my own arrogance and self-worship. Meant for life dependent on God but turning towards ourselves instead, we live warped, twisted lives collapsing on themselves. God arrived personally to reintroduce himself. His name was Jesus, and he is King. He's not a normal kind of king, as instead of conquering right off, he suffered and died, demonstrating his love and making amends for our sin. He rose from the dead to announce his new kingdom of love and life with God again. How to get into the kingdom? Recognize the truth of this message, choose to believe it and Jesus welcomes you in to live forever with him.

Adventures in News Headlines

The latest: "Georgetown University Hid Religious Symbols at White House Request"

Apparently, when the President speaks somewhere, the White House's policy is to put up blue curtains and U.S. flags to make the podium area look as generic as possible. In this case, Obama was speaking at Georgetown Univesity, which is Catholic, so there were some religious symbols up very high, higher than the curtains go. So they covered those with some blue cloth, just like everything else.

There was a misunderstanding, with people accusing Georgetown of "going secular." So I guess this story is intended to clarify that the "cover-up" was at the White House's request.

But doesn't this headline mislead even more? It implies that Obama, whom some Christians actually believe is the anti-Christ, forced a religious institution to hide its religious symbols. Actually, what Obama did is ask them to hide everything distinctive about Georgetown University so that the President could appear on a generic blue background.

The Historical Jesus and His Seminar

I believe the Bible and take it at its word for all matters of theology, faith, and Christian religion. If the message of the Bible (and along with it the events the message is taken from) is not 100% inspired and true, then Christianity is of little value.).

That said, even though I will always rely on the New Testament itself (and an educated understanding of the culture it arises from) for information and explanation about Jesus' life, I still enjoy reading up on "historical Jesus" studies. It's fun to see what people think. It's not something a Christian should bother with unless they're curious, since the New Testament, not academic theories, is our authority on Jesus' life. But the historical Jesus world of academia can be fun for Christians who are interested in understanding the historical method.

A great introductory text on this topic is Jesus As a Figure in History, which I am currently re-reading and will review on this site sometime soon. In the meantime, though, I need to get some annoyances about the Jesus Seminar off my chest.

The Jesus Seminar is a group of about 75 Biblical scholars who, over the course of a few years, met together and systematically reviewed every one of Jesus' sayings and deeds and voted using degrees of certainty on whether or not the sayings/deeds were authentic. They have kept a high profile in the media and have begun to sketch out their take on Jesus' life. They accept about 20% of the Gospels as authentic and characterize Jesus as an irreverent hippie who throws out catchy sayings and had no interest in building followers, starting a revolution, or talking about religion or the end of the world.

The Seminar is not diverse in that it does not cover the range of scholarly views about the historical Jesus very evenly. Also, the entire idea of voting on who Jesus was is an intellectual disgrace. Do your scholarly work, develop a hypothesis, and dialogue; we don't need a majority vote to prove anything. Besides this, their system of voting is arbitrary and makes no use at all of sound statistical theory.

I have three huge gripes against the Jesus Seminar and anyone who studies the historical Jesus similarly:

(1) To propose without hard evidence that the authors of the synoptic gospels made stuff up is self-righteous and arrogant. These authors were much closer to the situation than us, had much more information than we have, and were part of a religion that held truth as a high value.

It is arrogant and self-righteous to contend that Mark and Luke were too affected by their subjectivity to tell the truth and that it is our job as modern scholars to discover the real truth. That is to claim the Gospel writers as subjective and ourselves as objective. But the Seminar's subjectivity is proven by the fact that their presentation of Jesus happens to be a fun-loving and harmless hippie who would fit right in in the modern Western world.

Some argue that it is anachronistic to say Mark or Luke would only want to write what really happened, but this is going too far. The Gospel writers DID care what really happened; they just understood that events needed to be selected and explained, and they didn't have the same sense of exactness and precision that we do. They did not fake objectivity, but did seek to communicate actual events. Note Luke's own claim to heavy research and his and John's assurances that their Gospels are true. Also note the careful way that Luke and Matthew use Mark and Q as sources, never changing the events in earnest; only tiny details are changed.

(2) The Jesus Seminar takes legitimate historical tools, such as dissimilarity (authenticity correlating with difference from its author's perspective), oral repeatability (authenticity correlating with how easily non-readers could have memorized it), and multiple attestation (more authentic material comes from more sources) and tears them away from true historical inquiry by using them like a divining rod, beating each saying/deed over the head with them individually to see if they stand, and then quickly forming a conclusion.

These historical tools must be used in a synthesizing manner, looking at the whole situation and connecting Jesus with the world of Christianity, Judaism, and Rome. This is real science, not crudely using the historical tools as a litmus test on each saying/deed. The very nature of their work, deciding on each deed/saying individually, is nonsense.

Historical tools such as dissimilarity are more useful from a "top-down" approach. That is, starting with the big picture and working down to the details. The tools should be investigating, in order, "How does early Christianity fit at the beginning of Christianity," "How was Christianity sparked in 1st-century Palestine," "How does Christianity fit among Judaism, Hellenization, and Rome," "How do the apostles and early church leaders make sense in the early church," and finally, then, how does Jesus help explain all of this? Each succeeding queston should rely heavily on the questions that come before. Instead, the Seminar looks at each saying/deed without regard with what must be explained, and thus bastardize the historical tools from serious historical inquiry.

(3) Despite their poor use of historical tools, the Seminar's work could still be very useful. Thanks to them, we know with great certainty that Jesus did say lots of counter-cultural things, that he did travel from town to town, that he did die on the cross, etc. This would be a great way to start a barebones framework of what any analysis of Jesus MUST include.

The key, though, is that this framework is INCOMPLETE. If you rely on sayings being easily remembered and being different from what the early church thought as criteria for what is authentic, then you are by default going to get a Jesus without mission or theology. That's fine IF YOU REALIZE THE PICTURE IS ONLY A VERY INCOMPLETE SKETCH AND THAT MUCH MORE ABOUT JESUS IS TO BE DISCOVERED. It leaves the historical Jesus as a shell of the real Jesus, and that is ok if you confirm that it is only a shell.

However, the Jesus Seminar's leaders and others like them regularly neglect to note that their Jesus is a shell of the true Jesus, and so they put forth an Zombie Jesus (i.e. a mumbling, oversimplified shell of the real thing). Zombie Jesus is by the very nature of their criteria oversimplified but they put him out there as the real thing anyway. Just because, because of the limits of their tools, they cannot verify Jesus' theology and mission DOES NOT MEAN HE DIDN'T HAVE THEOLOGY OR MISSION. This is a serious logical error and makes much of their work useless drivel.

I wrote this blog post because at 5 a.m. this morning I woke up and couldn't stop thinking about this stuff. And the very nature of my thoughts--that I would need a highly intellectual discussion to reassure my own faith--brought about doubt in my own faith, because it shouldn't need to be so academic. I fought through the doubt and made sense of the situation while lying there half-awake.

In the meantime, I realized that Western culture itself helped this doubt along... 99% of the world's cultures believed in gods almost universally, and a message like Christianity is powerful to them. Only our culture is so philosophically arrogant that we think we should stop believing in gods before carefully investigating and even "trying on" the other 99% of earth's worldviews.

Christianity, then, the vast majority of the time, is neither advanced nor believed by virtue of academia. Instead, it rests on the power of God, often in three ways: the power of the Christian worldview to explain life; the power of signs, wonders, and transformed lives and communities; and the power over sin and demons that Christ offers.

Christianity is the true God's revelation about himself. It is historical and is real, yes, but we get too entangled with untying a knot that we can't totally untie (ancient historical reconstruction). For faith purposes, all we need to see is that true Christianity is historically VIABLE, not that it is an academic certainty. I get lost in this tangle too often.

It makes me wonder: How can I make myself more available to the living God and to see his power at work in the world around me? Move to a different country? Simplify my life? Become a missionary? Just be more honest? Something small and subtle?

Thoughts?

Easter in Context: Jesus as a Political Figure

Is Jesus political?

I'm not asking whether Jesus a conservative or liberal. Considering the large cultural gap between us and first-century Palestine, the answer to that question requires you to translate our political/economic circumstances over 2,000 years and 10,000 miles, which, depending on your ideologies, can lead you to many different conclusions.

What I am asking is, back in the day, as a Jewish man in Galilee, a subject of the Roman Empire, was Jesus a political figure? What I've heard from many fellow Christians is that Jesus was NOT political, and that misconceptions of him in his day, from the general population (who wanted to crown him king) and from the Roman government (who wanted to snuff out all political competition) allowed a small group of Jewish leaders to have him crucified because he offended their religious sensibilities. I have been told that Jesus' kingdom was SPIRITUAL, not political.

The Bible disagrees. Jesus was an entirely political figure. The common evangelical perception of Jesus as a spiritual leader who accidentally got mixed up in political business so he could die for our sins is false. That doesn't negate the other beliefs evangelicals have about Jesus, which are still true. Jesus did die for our sins. He is God. He was both priest and prophet. He is alive today and we can know him personally. But Biblically, all of these components of Jesus' identity are best understood in the context of the Davidic king who came to take over the government and rule this world forever. Indeed, Christianity is most accurately described as a failed first-century Palestinian political movement.

Religious vs. Political

A patch of fog we must see past is the unique way that Western culture sees religious belief. As Westerners, we compartmentalize our religions, not allowing them to affect any other part of our lives. This has good results (separation of church and state) and bad results (knowing someone for ten years without knowing what they believe). The important thing, though, is realizing that first-century Near Eastern people did not think like this at all.

In Jesus' culture, religious and political ideologies were inseparable, and virtually any religious belief would have political connotations. There were state gods, and pledging allegiance to those gods mean you were loyal to your nation. Winning wars meant your god was strong. Losing meant your god was weak. Indeed, from an ancient Near Eastern perspective, the gods, not humans, were the prime movers and causes of major world events, including the rise and fall of empires.

Judaism was no different. Read the book of Kings and you'll see what I mean. The messages of prophets were principally to KINGS, about how they ruled and what kinds of religions they set up. They are evaluated and rise and fall based on God's will. Our God (known to Israelites as YHWH to distinguish him from other gods) was Israel's best general and, in the best of times, their true king.

Not surprisingly, then, when Jerusalem was conquered and most of the population was killed or carried off to Babylon, this led to doubt in YHWH. Is God weak? Is He dead? The compilers of the Old Testament believed He let Israel split and fall because she had not followed Him. But the prophets whose books they compiled also spoke of a bright and glorious future, when a Davidic King, possibly God himself, would personally take over and become king of Israel, ruling the whole world forever and bringing all peoples under his authority. So the people looked forward to this event while living under the foot of the Roman Empire.

The King arrives

In the middle of all this, Jesus appears, and methodically, progressively reveals himself as that coming king. That's not all he does, of course. He also clarifies the law, demonstrates himself as YHWH's representative with powerful signs and wonders, and demonstrates priestly authority by disrupting the temple. But mostly he reveals himself as the guy who has come to take over the government and rule Isreal--and earth--forever. These were the cultural expectations, and Jesus planned on delivering on them.

That's why he so intentionally echos the prophet Zachariah as he enters Jerusalem. Zachariah wrote, "Rejoice greatly, O Daughter of Zion! Shout, Daughter of Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey." Episodes like Jesus' entrance to the City of David on a donkey are not accidents; they were done on purpose to make a statement. You can't blame the people for praising him as their king in that moment; that's just the message he was trying to send!

The majority of Jesus' teachings are also about the physical kingdom he is bringing. When he's not teaching about the law, or prayer or forgiveness, he's teaching what his kingdom is like. The teachings don't describe a typical earthly kingdom, but they do still describe one. He says that the kingdom will not come by force immediately (and indeed, he is not assembling an army). He says that the kingdom will be inclusive, including Gentiles, sinners, etc. The main requirement will be humility before God. He teaches about how valuable the kingdom will be, and how it will last forever. He teaches a LOT about how there will be an in between time, when he will be gone for awhile before returning in glory. And, finally, he teaches that he will have to suffer in coming into this political power (this point is never understood by anyone he tells). All of these themes speak about the real monarchy Jesus planned to bring to earth.

Indeed, it is only because Jesus was so SUBTLE about his future political kingship that he wasn't arrested and killed by the Romans earlier. He intended to have it all go down in Jerusalem, and that's what happened. If he would have spoken more plainly at all times, Roman authorities may have crucified him then and there, in Galilee or on the way to Jerusalem. Why put up with a would-be king?

Explanatory power

Thinking through the Gospels in this context makes sense of a lot more of the story, and makes it clear this is the context that the Gospel authors intended. It explains the Bible more coherently than saying Jesus brought only a spiritual kingdom. Take the Pharisees as an example. The conventional evangelical perspective on the Pharisees and Jewish leaders is that thought they were perfect and were arrogant. Then Jesus called them out on it and they didn't like that, so they had him arrested and executed. This was the perspective I held as recently as a couple weeks ago. Yet does it make very much sense?

Let's "try on" the political context instead: The Pharisees are upper-class Jews looking forward to the redemption of Israel, and throwing off the yoke of Roman oppression. Their "passive-aggressive" strategy for revolution is to emphasize their distinctiveness as YHWH's nation by observing YHWH's law very closely. Those who separate themselves as true Israelites from the mainstream culture via the law will be recognized as the true Israelites by the eventual coming King, and will be in a great position when he arrives.

So the Pharisees were looking forward to God coming to rule as much as any Jewish group. On many theological points, Jesus agrees with them: they both believe that the law is very important and that our bodies will one day be resurrected. Their problem with Jesus is the kingdom he's claiming to bring. The Pharisees are wealthy; Jesus prefers the poor. They're law-abiding; Jesus hangs out with sinners and emphasizes humility. They're Jewish; Jesus proclaims that being Jewish isn't a prerequisite to getting into the kingdom. Jesus is gaining popularity and is moving towards Jerusalem to make his move. If he was assembling only a spiritual kingdom, they couldn't have cared less, but there is no such thing as "just a spiritual kingdom" in that worldview. It's no surprise they begin to plot his death!

Jesus' arrest is also better explained in a political context. The council wanted to arrest him during the day, but the crowds were so expectant for him to reign as king that they might riot if the seized him. Therefore, they need to arrest him at night, hidden from the crowds. Since they had no idea where he slept at night, they bribed Judas to take them to Jesus' late-night hide-out spot. That way, the mob wouldn't have any say in his arrest, and when they presented him to the mob in the morning, arrested, beaten and defeated, the crowd will realize he was a false king and will turn on him. Whaddya know, that's exactly what happened!

Indeed, he is mocked by Herod, soldiers, the priests, and just about everyone else he comes across. The jig is up and he is proved as a false king; just a failed revolutionary without even a little success in stirring the political plot. The ultimate insult is the sarcastic sign put above his cross: "THE KING OF THE JEWS." At the lowest point in Luke's narrative, even one of the men he is being crucified with mocks him. Ouch!

It is also at this point that the most compelling line of Luke's Gospel is delivered by the other criminal on Jesus' other side: "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." It's a very strange thing to say; after all, Jesus had just been thoroughly exposed as a fake and is dying as the criminal utters the words. This man had insight everyone else lacked at the time, and in fact he would have looked downright stupid had not something happened a couple days later...

Resurrection

In a surprising (but ingeniously foreshadowed) twist to the story, Jesus rises from the dead!! He hasn't been defeated at all! Suddenly, more of his teachings made sense. He had to suffer but defeated death. We will be resurrected and live forever with him in the new kingdom he is bringing. He will go away for a while while we tell all nations about this kingdom and invite them to join it! Then he will come back in glory and power and set up an eternal kingdom on a transformed earth (not the "popular" definition of heaven that we're used to). We will be resurrected with him and live forever in this kingdom because of the great work he has done on the cross! Talk about "good news"!!

And yes, all the other Christian doctrines are there as well. His death was an atonement for our sins, he is a personal God that we can know, and reconciliation to The Living God is a free gift of grace that we could not earn ourselves. But all of these truths exist in the context of the political sense of Jesus' first coming, and the ultimate political authority he will return to take hold of.

Summing up

So Christianity, then, is basically a failed first-century Palestine political stance: We choose to be followers of Jesus who believe is King. It's failed in the sense that the Romans crucified Jesus, but we as Christians believe that the crucifixion was part of the plan, that he was resurrected, that he is gone temporarily, and that he will return to rule forever.

It's a wonderful kingdom that unites its citizens with God and with each other in perfect love and unity. His rule casts out fear and death. It makes amends for our sin. The kingdom starts early in the communities of Christians on earth now, spreading Jesus' love and the good news of his kingdom. It's a real kingdom. I hope you'll join me in citizenship. It's open to everyone, and unlike Roman citizenship, it's free! All we need to do is realize our place before God (a very humble place) and choose to follow Jesus into his kingdom.

Thanks for reading, and if you're in the Columbus area and would like to discuss this further, share your opinion with me or hear the reasons I believe in this outdated political stance, let me know! Happy Easter.