Revisions Vol. 4 Issue 2, Spring 2008

RevisionsA Journal of Christian Perspective vol IV, issue 2, spring 2008

The Pursuit of Happiness

Revisions / spRing 20082

RevisionsA Journal of Christian Perspective

EDITOR-IN-CHIEFRichard Lopez ‘09

EXECUTIVE EDITORJoung Park ‘08

MANAGING EDITORLi Deng ‘10

COPY EDITORChenxin Jiang ‘09

ASSISTANT PUBLISHERSBecker Polverini ‘10

Angela Shan ‘10

FICTION & ARTS EDITORNicole Fegeas ‘10

EDITORS EMERITI The Rev. David H. Kim

John Montague Andrew Matthews ‘06David Matthews ‘05

Matthew Nickoloff ‘04

CONTRIBUTORSBrian Brown ‘07David Chen ‘05

Ephraim Chen ‘09The Rev. Matthew Connally

David Kwabi ‘10Elliot Joohan LeeJinju Pottenger ‘10

J.D. Walters ‘09

Opinions expressed in articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the editors or of Manna Christian Fellowship. Manna is a 501(c)(3)

corporation. Copyright, 2008.

The printing of this journal is made possible by gifts from friends and alumni and by a grant from

the Intercollegiate Studies Institute.

Revisions, c/o Manna Christian FellowshipPO Box 577, Princeton, NJ 08542

[email protected]

You run your thumb across your fingertips. There is so much clamminess that you wipe the moisture quickly on the underside of your pant leg. You then glance at the desk where the secretary is sitting. Luckily she didn’t see your last minute, less-than-refined cleaning gesture. All of sudden you hear your name called, and you nervously stand up and hurry toward the interview room.

Fast forward six months later. It’s 10 o’clock on a Friday night, and you still haven’t left the office. This week has been particularly onerous, and now you more than two and a half hours late to your date with _____. You slam your fist on your desk and curse loudly. No one else is there. Your phone begins to ring; it’s _____. You pick it up, and she tells you that she won’t stand for your broken promises time and again. She screams that “it’s over,” and that she never wants to see you again. You throw the phone across the room, and break down. Your face is in your hands, and now your fingertips are moist with tears of disappointment, denial, and fury. You thought you had everything, and now it’s going to take precious time and effort to restore yourself, get back what you lost, and regain your happiness.

Fast forward twelve years later. You leave the bar with this intriguing woman, and she invites you to her flat (at that moment you slip your ring off your finger). You know it’s wrong, but you go anyway. After a night spent with her, you return to the office the following morning—late. You are already late to the investors’ press conference that started an hour ago. You stumble into the room only to be met with shifty glances. You rush up to the podium to give the third quarter report on the company, but everyone already knows the news will not be positive. You conclude quickly, and leave the room as hastily as you came in. Later that day you meet with the other executives, and they inform you that you should resign as quickly as possible. You break down again, but hold back the tears. Once again, you thought you had everything, and now you’re wondering what it will take (again) to restore yourself and regain your happiness.

* * * In our hyper-consumerist, postmodern landscape, one cannot help but ask some of the

most pressing questions of our shared human existence: what truly endures through our lives? What changes? Why are we so quick to move from one thing to another—all the while hoping that there will be someone or something that will fulfill our deepest needs and desires?

In this issue of Revisions, we hope to shed a bit of light on these questions, showing that the things most people consider as viable candidates for fulfilling their deepest longings often do not suffice in the end. Not only that, but these things will leave people with an even greater hunger than before. So what gives? Or rather, what will it take to satisfy our pursuit? The dream job? The big house? The perfect husband or wife? Here we say that it is Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd, who will lead us into pastures of fulfillment that were previously unfathomable.

But of course, there would be no desperate pursuit of happiness without the reality sadness, suffering, and death. Is it right that our lives should be so focused on the former question that we ignore the meaning of the latter in our lives? Perhaps we need a deeper understanding of sadness, suffering, and death in order to understand what it is that we’re really running from and what it is that we’re running after. In this issue of Revisions, we hope to challenge readers to consider the value of pain and how pain, as well as joy and happiness, fits into an understanding of the world that has the death and resurrection of Christ at its core. For if the telos is Christ Himself, “from Whom are all things and through Whom we exist” (1 Corinthians 8:6), then the whole of our lives, including our desires, our happiness, and our sufferings, must ultimately point back to Him.

From the Editors’ Desk...

The Mission of RevisionsRevisions is an ecumenical journal of Christian thought committed to the process of “faith in search of understanding.” Through re-visioning the world in light of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we hope to invigorate the intellectual possibility of a worldview centered on the Gospel, both at Princeton University and in the world at large. In developing and articulating distinctively Christian perspectives on the whole of life, we seek to revive the rich Christian tradition of vibrant intellectual engagement with and critical reflection on the social, cultural, philosophical, political, and scientific issues facing a pluralistic university community.

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ContentsThe Pursuit of Happiness

The Race.....................................................................................................4

Brian Brown

Finances for the Kingdom.......................................................................5

Joung Park

The Pursuit of Suffering.........................................................................7

David D. Chen

Why Do We Have To Die?.....................................................................9

The Rev. Matthew Connally

Smiling Depression Away......................................................................11

David Kwabi

Features

Social Justice Reconsidered..................................................................13

John Montague

The Historical Reliability of the Gospels........................................17

J.D. Walters

A Philosophical Inquiry Into Holiness.............................................19

Elliot Joohan Lee

Has the Church Replaced Israel?........................................................21

Ephraim Chen

Art/photography credits: Front Cover, Richard Lopez; Pages 7, 9, 11, 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, Debry Chang; Back Cover, Kaitlyn Hay; Unless other-wise noted, images are taken from public-domain online databases.

Fiction, Poetry, & Reviewsb

24 Oh Death Where Is Your Victory? Jinju Pottenger

26 He Moves

Richard Lopez

28 Synthesia

Nicole Fegeas

29 Book Review: Letter to a Christian Nation

Becker Polverini


Brian Brown

The Race

But happiness may be pursued only by a race for whom happiness means something, for whom life must have a

purpose.

IN YOUR MIND’S EYE, SEE A STRANGE AND WON-derful race of beings. The race has been made in the like-ness of its maker, reflecting in its simultaneous unity and

diversity countless truths about him who gave it life. It has been made for the enjoyment of its maker, reflecting his joy in sus-taining life by its joy in living as he has taught it to live. It has been made for the use of its maker, projecting to the heavenly beings his might and greatness. It is a great sword in the hand of its swordsmith, of finest craftsmanship and most powerful purpose.

Note the effects of the creation of a race with such sig-nificance. It is given governorship over the world it inhabits, and given the charge to live and to govern in accordance with this significance. With the command to do comes the ability to obey, and the race is given this ability as its birthright. Even as the race turns to evil, as the image is sullied, as the full joy of living for its maker is superseded by a hopeless attempt to live for itself, as the greatness of the maker is defied by its denial of his sovereignty, still it cannot shake its birthright. Though the image is tarnished, it is not destroyed. Though the joy is tainted, it is not removed. Though the projection is dimmed, the outline remains. And the responsibilities of the created remain, and with them the tools to carry them out.

Examine these tools with which the maker arms his cre-ations to carry out their purpose. He creates the race in his im-age, and with this great responsibility he breathes life into the race. To interfere with this without his permission would be to hinder the race’s ability to image him. He obliges it to live rightly, and with this he gives liberty. To prevent it from liv-ing rightly or to force it to live wrongly would be a crime, not against it, but against him. But the third tool is what truly sets the race upon its task—the pursuit of happiness.

Glimpse the significance of such a tool. Life may be lived by a race not crafted in its maker’s image. Liberty may be pos-sessed by such a race in a meaningless way. But happiness may be pursued only by a race for whom happiness means some-thing, for whom life must have a purpose. Any race may expe-rience happy feelings, in the sense that a dog may enjoy being stroked. But the dog does not fulfill its potential as a dog by being stroked, nor does the race fulfill its potential as a race by self-titillation. Even the most justified happy feelings are only the byproduct of something more substantive and more lasting—something which is worth pursuing, not as a means to an end, but as an end in itself. This is happiness; the best end

known to the race; a reality in which the race uses its tools for their intended purposes, thus becoming more and more what it was designed to be. In short, this elusive object of pursuit is an abundant life, a life which gives untold joy to both the image and the imaged by the brilliant reflection of the latter’s perfec-tion across every dimension of existence.

Understand the missing piece to this race’s story. The abun-dant life itself is not granted as a tool or even as a promised end, but only the pursuit of it. While the made images the maker, it has not the full greatness of the maker, nor in its sullied form does it have the ability to replicate his perfection. Only the swordsmith can take the bent sword and remake it to his will. Only he can give it the wholeness to do what it was made to do, and only he can perform the final act of transformation that turns the useless, dull metal into something bright and purpose-ful. Yet still the swordsmith calls the sword to be a sword. Still the maker calls the race to participate in what seems the unwin-nable challenge—not to win alone, but to acknowledge, by a faith lived, its desire to let him hammer it back into shape, into part of his victory. He calls the race to pursue happiness, for in the creation’s fullest life is realized its fullest purpose: the glory of the creator.

Know this end, that for which the race was created. It be-longs to him who purposed the race for it, as its pursuit belongs to the race. The race has begun, but it is not yet finished. f

Brian Brown graduated from Princeton University in 2007 with a degree in political theory, and is now a Fellow at the John Jay Institute for Faith, Society and Law.


THE RUNNING JOKE AT PRINCETON IS THAT “Princeton students party at the Street and go work at The Street,” the latter street referring, of course, to

Wall Street. Princeton University, as well as other Ivy League schools, is often depicted as a training ground for future invest-ment bankers. And the statistics seem to confirm this imagery: according to the most recent graduation surveys, almost forty percent of Princeton students employed after graduation worked in the finance industry, with this group comprising almost fif-teen percent of each graduating class.1 In light of the finance industry’s recent growth in size and importance, as well as the negative reputation it has sometimes acquired, Christians must be ever more diligent in examining the field of finance through the lens of the Gospel.

As we proceed with a Christian analysis of the fi-nance industry, it would be good to consider the words of famous Christian abolitionist William Wilberforce, “We do the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way.” What Wilberforce means here is that as Christians, we cannot separate our objectives from the method by which we achieve them; in other words, in Christianity, the end never justifies the means. That having been said, in this essay we will be examining the proper goals and method of Christian finance separately for sake of clarity. Nevertheless, we must always keep in mind that the objective and the methodology of being a Christian in the finance industry do not exist independently, but are inextricably intertwined.The Lord’s Work

Too many times at Princeton, working in finance is conflated with making gobs of money. As a result, students value finance jobs not because of their intrinsic worth, but only as a means of making money, establishing contacts, and building experience. This view holds both for non-Christians who view finance as a fast track to prosperity and prestige, but also for many earnest Christians in finance, who believe that their primary function is to provide funding for the church and the materially destitute. In a sense, these Christians view themselves as being little more

than piggy banks of the church.While it is certainly true that people working in finance

should give generously in proportion to their wealth, Christians in finance can glorify God in many more ways than just by fill-ing His coffers. After all, if God is truly omnipotent, He does not need our money. We do not glorify God by giving things to Him, but rather by living in accordance with His will.

One such way of directly glorifying God through finance is by imitating God’s creativity. In Genesis, God instructs Adam to “be fruitful and increase in number” (Genesis 1:27, NIV). While it may be taking the passage out of context, God desires men to multiply not only their progeny, but also everything they own, including their financial resources. Man, being created in

the image of God (the imago Dei), has the tendency to emulate God’s own multi-plicative powers in creating this universe. This desire to mirror the divine, to become like God, is a holy desire that God intended man to exercise within certain pa-rameters.2

Of course, because we are not God, we cannot cre-ate ex nihilo like He does, fashioning something out of nothing. Rather, we always start with an initial quantity of resources which we then

manipulate so as to add value to it. Our multiplicative work re-sults in our end product having more value than the sum of what we started with.

Examples of such work in finance might include the mon-ey manager who increases the value of the investors’ funds by investing in undervalued stocks, or the investment banker who raises money for a company by underwriting its IPO so that the company can then use the raised capital to create greater value for the company than the cost of that capital. Another example would be the portfolio advisor who combines different invest-ment assets to compile a composite portfolio providing higher return and lower risk than portfolios of each component asset would have provided.

In all these different scenarios within finance, the work in-

Because we are not God, we cannot create ex nihilo like He does, fash-ioning something out of nothing. We always start with an initial quan-

tity of resources which we then manipulate so as to add value to it.

Joung Park

Finances for the Kingdom


other important things that God requires, such as participating in a local church or exercising spiritual disciplines.

Of course, there are always ways to fit spiritual disciplines around a busy work schedule, and the finance work itself is glo-rifying to God. However, to truly do finance in the Lord’s way, the Christian in finance must find ways to connect to God in these other important aspects of the faith despite the demands of work. Just as a vine disconnected from the branch cannot pro-duce fruit, Christians who cease communicating with God and the church community cannot do the Lord’s work.

Christians must recognize that many finance jobs require long hours, and make wise judgments about whether they can work those long hours and still devote enough time outside of work to God. If the Christian determines that his work will de-bilitate his spiritual walk despite his best efforts to be flexible with his schedule, then the appropriate course of action would be to decline the job and find another finance position offering more flexible hours, or even a job in another industry.

One final factor in doing work in the Lord’s way is to treat people, both within work and outside of work, in a godly man-ner. Because many finance companies exhibit a cut-throat cor-porate culture, it becomes easy, and perhaps even encouraged by the companies themselves, to objectify people in terms of what they can give you. People at work become little more than potential sources of cash flow or promotion, and their intrinsic worth as human beings made in the image of God is thereby trampled to the ground. Even worse, this habit of objectifying people may expand outside of work, resulting in self-centered individuals who only give to those who have something to offer in return.

However, as Christians who do finance in the Lord’s way, we must actively resist such tendencies and treat people as peo-ple. We must never grasp so tightly to our jobs and successes that we become blind to the intrinsic worth of our colleagues, clients, and superiors. And outside of work, we must generously give, while also remaining humble, realizing that our job and our wealth are not our own, but have been entrusted to us temporar-ily through the grace of God. Our calling as Christians working in finance is a deep but subtle one: to imitate and revel in the Di-vine, all the while maintaining a godly relation to money, time, and people. Only then can we truly say, “We do the Lord’s work in the Lord’s way.” f

Joung Park ‘08 is a philosophy major from Dallas, TX.

1 Data taken from Princeton Career Services survey from 2003 to 2007 http://web.princeton.edu/sites/career/Employers/Recruiting/survey_report.html2 For more on this concept of being holy by becoming like God, reference Elliot Joo Han Lee’s article “A Philosophical Inquiry into Holiness” (Spring 2008 issue of Revisions). This article is available at www.revisionsonline.org.

volves creating more out of less, and is thereby a celebration of God’s own creative work. Indeed, all work is, in a way, concerned with creating an end product that is more than the sum of its parts, whether it is cooking, where one transforms raw ingredients into a nourishing meal, or athletics, where one must coordinate dis-parate appendages to achieve a single, coherent goal. Working in finance proves to be no exception.

In addition to doing creative work, one can also glorify God in finance by continuing to be a student of the subject. The study of finance, when done with the right mindset, can be an extremely uplifting experience. Just like it is with the natural sciences, there are various laws and principles that guide the allocation, growth, and flow of money. Many of these laws, such as the Black-Scholes equation or the discounted cash flow model of stock valuations, are quite ingenious, and merits study and contemplation for their own sake by those who are gifted in finance. And while the fact that we can even comprehend the laws of nature governing our universe is marvelous to behold (and also a very good proof of God’s existence), it is equally glorifying to God for us to explore the intricacies He has built even into such “human” constructs as financial markets.

Too many times, finance at Princeton is reduced merely to something one studies in order to attract lucrative job offers. But for the Christian student, studying finance should be exciting and glorifying to God in its own right. As for those who are already working within finance, their duty as Christians should be to par-ticipate in God’s multiplicative work in increasing the financial resources entrusted to them, and to continue studying and appre-ciating the principles of finance, realizing them as ultimately be-ing a reflection of the divine. The Lord’s Way

While the objective of Christian finance in exercising the imago Dei and reflecting on divine principles is certainly noble, it must be coupled with the correct methodology in order to truly be glorifying to God. The Lord’s work, whether in finance or any other field, is not a categorical mandate to be undertaken in all situations and at all costs. Rather, we must undertake the Lord’s work only when we can do it in the Lord’s way; otherwise, it is not the Lord’s work after all.

One important aspect of working in finance in the Lord’s way is to maintain one’s allegiance to the Lord, and not to money. The expression “Money can’t buy you happiness” may be hackneyed, but in an industry whose objective and medium is money, values can easily be skewed despite even the best intentions. Our man-agement and multiplication of money is not an end in itself, but is only instrumentally good because it is in accordance with God’s will for mankind, as explained in the previous section. Ascrib-ing any type of intrinsic or primary goodness to our financial ac-tivities can only create a slippery slope leading towards extreme forms of Prosperity Gospels, which emphasize the material bless-ings of God more than the Blesser Himself.

Another potentially negative effect of working in finance for Christians is the work’s demand on time. Many finance jobs, especially entry level jobs (which applies to most college gradu-ates) require their workers to spend abnormally long hours at the office. Workers are expected to arrive early, check out late, and work even on Saturdays and Sundays. As a result, many Chris-tians working in finance come home exhausted and lack time for

David D. Chen

Toni Morrison once said that humans react to fear by naming it. But in the end, a name is not much.

The Pursuit of Suffering

anxious to check my e-mail. By that week Sonia had been doing much better and was simply waiting for a bone marrow trans-plant donor. Her family hadn’t been able to match but, by some miracle, had been able to get her story published on the front page of a big South Korean newspaper asking people to test for matching. Her picture in that article was the only one I saw taken of her during that time and it did not show the smiling, radiant friend I had known.

The seventy-third e-mail on the subject, received only a few days later, carried the heading, “Bad News.” The seventy-seventh e-mail was entitled, “Memorial Gathering for Sonia K. Lee ‘06.”

All these events took place nearly half a year ago and yet I still find myself dwelling on them. Friends I talked to in medical school or in church—those whom I had expected to understand my struggle and accompany me through it—said that such a fixation on death and suffering was unhealthy and perhaps even pathologic: “It’s over now; she’s in a better place,” “Everything’s going to be alright,” “Life just goes on.” I couldn’t understand why words like those hurt. They were true, but I resisted them fiercely and was even irritated and angered by them. “There is no purpose behind death,” one friend simply replied, “We just say things like that to make ourselves feel better.”

On hearing that, my ambiguous sentiments and tensions re-vealed themselves for what they were: fear. Crippling, disabling, and terrifying fear. Speaking at graduation, Toni Morrison once said that humans react to fear by naming it, attempting to feel as if we have some understanding and therefore some control over

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I WATCHED THE GRAINY, BLOCKY VIDEO IN SIL-ence. My friend was singing “Landslide” and I felt a certain tautness in my eyebrows and a peculiar heaviness in the cor-

ners of my mouth. By now it had become a familiar feeling, this physical expression of sorrow.

Can the child within my heart rise aboveCan I sail through the changing ocean tidesCan I handle the seasons of my life?1

Sonia Lee ‘06, whose mellow and resonant voice was cap-tured in that video passed away last year. For most of us at Man-na Christian Fellowship, her passing became our first encounter with the death of a friend. In many ways, it challenged my most deeply held convictions about the way the world works. I came to medical school with the growing conviction that my calling was to deal with death and suffering on the professional level, but this experience—so unexpected, tragic, and terrifyingly per-sonal—cast everything under a different pall.

Sonia had acute myeloid leukemia. The onset was rapid and completely unexpected by friends and family alike. I can still remember the dread of the moment I first found out: a string of e-mails with the titles “Urgent prayer for Sonia…” waiting qui-etly in my inbox. Sonia and I had been good friends during our undergraduate years but had fallen out of touch since my gradu-ation two years prior and I had not heard much from her since then, which made the suddenness and ferocity of the disease all the more shocking. A full year in medical school did nothing to prepare me for the daily anxiety of opening my e-mail in antici-pation of an update from the family on her condition. I still have all those e-mails: seventy-seven messages with headings rang-ing from “A positive turn for Sonia!” to “Sonia—Chemotherapy day 3” and “Emergency request for platelets.”

I received those updates nearly every day for several months, tracking her progress through the end of the summer and into the beginning of the school year. It was a trying time for our community of mutual college friends. We prayed together, planned gifts for her together, and waited together every day for those e-mails with hope and fear.

I remember the tightness in my gut during our first medi-cal lecture on leukemia, trying to suppress my emotional con-fusion as the professor raced through hundreds of slides. I re-member listening to the complaints of classmates about how “overwhelming” the lecture was and nodding my agreement as I headed over to a computer cluster, dizzy and ambivalent and

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name for the Son of God who came ruined sinners to reclaim.” Paul, in describing suffering as the loss of things he once con-sidered profitable, wrote with paradoxical conviction and mysti-cism, “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Philippians 3:10-11).

I write about death because it represents one extreme in our human experiences with suffering and, for better or for worse, reveals the raw power of our reactions to pain. It exposes our tendencies to sentimentalize it, to avoid it, to explain it away, to do everything except embrace it. We may refuse to acknowledge suffering but in doing so we eliminate an opportunity to experi-ence the true and piercing presence of God. If we cannot experi-ence pain, how can we understand the comfort of healing? If we do not understand death, how can we comprehend the victory of resurrection? And so, while we ought not to idolize suffering or intentionally inflict it, we cannot ignore its centrality in our journeys toward the divine.

The last post of Sonia’s weblog is a quote from the movie, You’ve Got Mail: “Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life. Well, valuable, but small. And sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven’t been brave?” In the smallness and shortness of our mortality, do we dare to embrace every moment of it? Do I have the bravery to love each painful and pleasurable instance so bitterly intermingled in its brief course?

I cannot help but wonder if somewhere beyond the pall the gravity which I thought was lost has simply become a part of something greater, something that draws me to it a little more closely and tugs at my soul a little more sharply. Perhaps all the moments that are torn from this life are really just being trans-ported, in the twinkling of an eye, to a place where the weight of the world becomes the weight of Glory and everything I thought I lost will be found in even greater measure than before.

If there is one reflex in my soul stronger than all the rest, it is the longing for that day.

“Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed - in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immor-tality, then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’

‘Where, O death, is your victory?Where, O death, is your sting?’” (1 Corinthians 15:51-55) f

David Chen ’05 is currently a medical student at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

1 Fleetwood Mac, “Landslide,” The Dance, 1997.2 Nouwen, Henri. Turning My Mourning Into Dancing: Finding Hope in Hard Times (Nashville: W Publishing Group, 2001), 17-18.

it. We name our diseases and our disorders and our bogeymen. We name our failures and our enemies and the secret longings of our hearts. But in the end, a name is all we have. A name is not much.

I named my fear The Gravity of a Moment. For me, the death of a friend is the lost opportunity to sing in harmony, to shout at, to laugh with, to cry on each other. It is shocking in its finality and irreversibly strips my future moments of something precious, the weight of which I cannot measure. How many more moments will lose gravity and appear a little thinner and gaunt? Will I ever realize the magnitude of what has been—and will continue to be—lost?

Shortly after the death, a close friend of Sonia’s told me, “I don’t understand why people didn’t want to come to the fu-neral or the memorial service … maybe they didn’t feel ready, but somehow it feels like they’re just trying to move on. At the funeral, her parents told me, ‘Don’t forget her,’ but I feel like that’s what we’re doing … forgetting and moving on.” When I heard that I felt guilty because, deep down inside, I wanted to move on too but simply couldn’t. I wanted to find a tidy closure and a proper perspective from which to define the experience. I didn’t want to forget, but I didn’t want the remembering to be so painful either.

Henri Nouwen once wrote:

We tend, however, to divide our past into good things to remember with gratitude and painful things to accept or forget. This way of thinking, which at first glance seems quite natural, prevents us from allowing our whole past to be the source from which we live our future. It locks us into a self-involved focus on our gain or comfort. It becomes a way to categorize, and in a way, control. Such an outlook becomes another attempt to avoid facing our suffering. Once we accept this divi-sion, we develop a mentality in which we hope to collect more good memories than bad memories, more things to be glad about than things to be resentful about, more things to celebrate than to complain about. Gratitude in its deepest sense means to live life as a gift to be received thankfully. And true gratitude em-braces all of life: the good and the bad, the joyful and the painful, the holy and the not-so-holy. We do this because we become aware of God’s life, God’s presence in the middle of all that happens. Is this possible in a society where joy and sorrow remain radically separated? Where comfort is something we not only expect, but are told to demand? Advertise-ments tell us that we cannot experience joy in the midst of sadness. “Buy this,” they say, “do that, go there, and you will have a moment of happiness during which you will forget your sorrow.” But is it not possible to em-brace with gratitude all of our life and not just the good things we like to remember?2

Suffering is and must remain an integral part of our human experience. It cannot simply be a byline in our pursuit of hap-piness, for if we fail to embrace suffering, we fail to embrace Christ himself. As Philip Bliss wrote, “Man of sorrows! What a


one, it has no basis in reality, such as the fact that one fifth of the planet consumes one percent of its goods while another fifth consumes 86 percent.2 That is to say, this answer has only ever worked for the wealthy. It is the opium of the elite.

But more to the point is a deeper problem: this view doesn’t actually make any sense. No matter how you look at it, no matter how much science one tries to rest it on, saying that death is a natural part of life is about as coherent as saying that black is a natural part of white.

Are we just going to pretend it makes sense?A Game of Make-Believe?

The scientific community is still divided over whether the inevitability of death through aging is deliberate or not. Many argue that aging is a defect, an unavoidable, adverse side ef-fect of life. But a growing number of biologists think that aging

is designed by nature (which was Darwin’s stance) and programmed into our genes.

Regardless, neither of these answers would necessarily help resolve our dilemma, for we still have nothing that lasts and have no reason not to make it our high-est ambition seize simply seize the day. Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.

If it is indeed the case that death is a natural part of life, then the fact is that life would have no lasting meaning. We can only pretend it has purpose—whether through religion or philosophy or

politics—but it’s all about as substantial as a Hollywood movie. So grab a box of popcorn and have another drink, for all is tem-poral. What meant something yesterday means nothing today. And for those who are suffering, they are just terribly unlucky.

I again saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift and the battle is not to the warriors, and neither is bread to the wise nor wealth to the discerning nor favor to men of ability; for time and chance overtake them all. Moreover, man does not know his time: like fish caught in a treacherous net and birds trapped in a snare, so the sons of men are ensnared at an evil time

IF THERE IS AN ANSWER FOR ANYTHING, IF WE ARE going to view any meaning at all in the world, any hope or beauty or brilliance; if we are going to find fulfillment, if we

are not just hoping to be among the lucky and the strong; if there is a reason for living, then there must also be a reason for dying. We have to believe that growing old is not any more random than being born. We have to know that there is a purpose for the inevitability of fading away.

Otherwise, we will only live for today. If there is no reason for death, if our existence will someday just arbitrarily cease, then we will simply have to make the best of it while we can—to work hard, play hard, and offer no excuses for slowing down; to seek, as Henry David Thoreau put it, “to live deep and suck out the marrow of life.”

And for those who can’t do that—the three billion or so who scrape by on two dollars a day—well, they lose out.

And behold I saw the tears of the oppressed and they had no one to comfort them; and on the side of their oppressors there was power, but they had no one to comfort them. So I congratulated the dead who are already dead more than the living who are still living. But better off than both of them is the one who has never existed, who has never seen the evil ac-tivity that is done under the sun (Ecclesiastes 4:1-3).

That’s not good. Well maybe we should simply strive to make sure that as many people as possible can…live for today. Perhaps we should accept that it is up to us to make things better for all in the fleeting time that we have. And so perhaps we have to be relentlessly zealous for the truth: Death is just a natural part of life.

This answer certainly has a cryptic, Zen-like coolness to it. One generation can depart to make room for the next while pass-ing on the wisdom and wealth gained in the grand and glorious circle of life. Even a child can grasp that!

Nevertheless this answer also has some huge problems. For


If it is indeed the case that death is a natural part of life, then the fact is that life would have no lasting meaning.

The Rev. Matthew Connally

Why Do We Have To Die?


is death…” (Romans 6:23). But that death is not natural. It is a grievous outrage.

The Bible also says that Jesus died so that we might live. For the joy of seeing the redeemed enter into His rest, He chose to lay down His life and pay the price for our sin. “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23), He gave us freedom to choose, so that death is not a threat to us, but rather an option.

God gives us a long time to think about this choice between living and dying, between trusting in our own wisdom and trust-ing in the Author of Life, between seeking worldly gain and seeking God Himself. Thoreau found all this terribly distaste-ful and contrary to sucking out the marrow of life. “For most men, it appears to me, are in a strange uncertainty about it,” he wrote, explaining what living deep does not entail, “whether it is of the devil or of God, and have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to glorify God and enjoy him forever.”3

Most of us can hope to have about seventy years to ponder which we will choose…

[B]efore the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no delight in them”; before the sun and the light, the moon and the stars are darkened, and clouds return after the rain; in the day that the watchmen of the house tremble, and mighty men stoop, the grinding ones stand idle because they are few, and those who look through windows grow dim; and the doors on the street are shut as the sound of the grinding mill is low, and one will arise at the sound of the bird, and all the daughters of song will sing softly. Furthermore, men are afraid of a high place and of terrors on the road; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags himself along, and the caper-berry is ineffective. For man goes to his eternal home while mourners go about in the street. Remember Him before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed, the pitcher by the well is shattered and the wheel at the cistern is crushed; then the dust will return to the earth as it was, and the spirit will return to God who gave it. “Vanity of vanities,” says the Preacher, “all is vanity!” (Ecclesiastes 12:1-9 ). f

The Rev. Matt Connally is the English pastor of Princeton Christian Church. He received his M.Div from Trinity Evan-gelical Divinity School.

1 World Bank Report, 2004.2 So that command might support the scientific view that growing old and dying is in fact programmed into our genes. Or perhaps it is more appropriate to say that the scientific evidence points to the Bible’s teaching.3 Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. (p. 118).

when it suddenly falls on them (Ecclesiastes 9:11-12).

On the one hand, we can just acknowledge that if death is the natural end of things, if this life is all there is, then it is all terribly unfair, unjust, and thus utterly and completely futile.

On the other hand, that assessment is, paradoxically, a meaningful assessment. That is to say, it depends completely upon the belief that there is in fact a transcendent standard of justice. After all, the context of unfairness is fairness and the context of meaninglessness is meaning. We can’t see injustice in the world unless we believe there is a source of justice—a source that reigned before we were born and that will continue to reign after we die.

And so the search for a rational explanation of death is inex-tricably linked to the search for a rational explanation of justice. We have very good reason to believe that both can be found, and that it is not just a game of play-pretend.The Beliefs that Make Up Our World

First, we have very good reason to believe that death is not a natural part of life.

Why? The converse simply does not make any sense. And if science has taught us anything at all over the past 2000 years it has taught us to expect life to make sense. It has taught us to have faith that no matter where we look in nature we will discov-er rational, creative explanations, such as “Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared”. Whether we look through a telescope or through a microscope or just take a walk in the woods, we find such breathtakingly beautiful communication everywhere—just waiting to be perceived, translated (such as into English, Chinese, HTML, etc.), and used. It is precise, el-egant, and as objective as a chunk of granite. Yet if we declared that death is a natural part of life, in doing so we would render life itself devoid of any objective meaning.

Second, if human history has revealed anything at all, it has revealed that words such as justice, fairness, and truth simply cannot be removed from our vocabulary, for they have as much influence on us as does gravity. And unless a person is unabash-edly self-righteous he will have to admit that we are no more the authors of justice than Albert Einstein was the author of rela-tivity. Words like “justice” and “fairness” as well as sentences like “E = MC2” all had meaning before we were born and will continue to have meaning after we die.

So why do we know all this? Why is it a non-negotiable fea-ture of life that we will find meaning everywhere? “The eternal mystery of the universe,” said Einstein, “is that it is comprehen-sible.”

Another way to consider the mystery is simply to ask: Who authored all these explanations? If we are not the rational, cre-ative authors of all the explanations that we find in nature, then who is? Likewise, if we are not the authors of freedom and jus-tice, if we do in fact hold these truths to be self-evident, then who is that Self?Dealing Justly and Reasonably with Death

The Bible says that death is inextricably linked with jus-tice. It is a righteous consequence of our desire to judge good and evil—to, in effect, usurp the Creator and be self-righteous (Genesis 3:1-5). In response, to maintain justice, God com-manded that every living thing must die.2 “For the wages of sin


YOU AROUSE US SO THAT PRAISING YOU MAY bring us joy, because you have made us and drawn us to yourself, and our heart is unquiet until it rests in you.

-Saint Augustine1

The expectation that, somehow, people living in poverty should be able to tap into vast reservoirs of ‘human spirit’ and overcome their tears is hard to deal with. It is a rather desper-ate hope: that though the West cannot bear to watch the poor wallow and wail, it can at least take consolation in poverty’s exclusive, non-intuitive ability to unearth some surreal joie de vivre in its victims—that special kind which materializes only when the odds are stacked so dizzyingly high.

But does it? Of course, with such an issue, there are layers of complexity any way one considers it. From a sociological standpoint, sadness is probably the most well-worn association with hardship, and there is no need belaboring why. Yet, on its own extreme poverty could inspire a brand of optimism: if things are this bad, they can only get better. And then there is the environment. The Happy Planet Index (HPI), which considers “the ecological efficiency with which human well-being is de-livered,” reports that given the effects of pollution and climate change, Nigerian citizens (HPI 31.1) are happier than Ameri-cans (HPI 28.8) 2. Now, if one’s well-being were correlated only with their bank account balance, this would not be the case.

It is a typically human thing to look to the physical for what truly lies in the spiritual. A few people might hope that some-how, by some bizarre property in the calculus of pleasure, the poor can derive satisfaction from their state. At the same time, these same people strive towards riches in order to gain that selfsame contentment. The truth is that true and lasting happi-ness—joy—cannot come from the vacillatory, material distrac-tions of the world. Rather than burden himself with returning to those things, which give temporary pleasure, the Christian depends on that particular person who is himself the Giver of eternal Joy, and whose Word endures forever.

A life lived in surrender to Jesus Christ is one of joy for many reasons. First of all, joy comes from salvation. Far from a delicate, bubbly emotionalism, it is a rooted joy, confident in the God “in whom there is no shadow of turning”3 and strength-ened through trials. This is possible because salvation involves being “transformed by the renewing of [one’s] mind” (Romans 12:12) in Christ. As such, it is more than crying a little over guilt or forsaking bad habits. In the words of A.W. Pink, it is no

simple reformation, but precisely “the result of a supernatural operation of God” that is “radical, revolutionary, [and] lasting.”4 It produces joy because the Christian can see, in hindsight, what a wretch he was (and is!), yet still knows that Christ loves him, and has pardoned his sins on the cross of Calvary.

It is true that the allure of riches is self-perpetuating—more money begets desire for more money. In a sense, one can hardly pursue wealth, without getting their feet wet in material-ism. The apostle James encapsulates this truth with a series of apocalyptic descriptions of wealth:

Come now, you rich, weep and howl for your miseries that are coming upon you! Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and sil-ver are corroded, and their corrosion will be a wit-

True and lasting happiness cannot come from the vacillatory, material distractions of the world. Rather than things, the Christian depends on

that particular person who is himself the Giver of eternal Joy.

David Kwabi

Smiling Depression Away


1 Maria Boulding, trans., The Confessions of Saint Augustine ( New York: Vintage, 1997).2 Statistics found at http://www.happyplanetindex.org 3 Lyrics from Thomas Chrisholm, “Great is Thy Faithfulness.”4 Arthur W. Pink, The Sovereignty of God (Aylesbury: Banner, 1928), 79.5 C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain (New York: Touchstone, 1962), 74.6 Agur ben Jakeh is known as the compiler of the proverbs found in Proverbs 30.

ness against you and will eat your flesh like fire (James 5:1-2).

In describing wealth in such hyperbolic terms, he does not offer an indictment of luxury per sé. Rather, from his descrip-tion, we are able to see the contrast between the visible bril-liance of external self-aggrandizement and the invisible spiri-tual canker it produces; and that when one is in free fall towards money, he is also in free fall away from God. Nor should we seek poverty as an antidote, or even think it so.

Prominent among the many lessons we can learn from Job is the one that poverty can also lead us away from God. When Satan came to God with the proposition to test Job by afflicting him with poverty, he was well aware that a rejection of God was likely: “But now, stretch Your hand and touch all that [Job] has, and he will surely curse You to Your face” (Job 1:11). The use of ‘surely’ was neither wishful thinking, nor empty boasting. In fact, it was founded on the very nature of fallen man, whose spirit had become subject to, and in fact, dependent on its own pride, ambition and security for self-fulfillment and identifica-tion5. This is obvious enough from observation. Achievement always seems to be the first port of call after an introduction: first, who you are, then what you have done. And were Job not truly “blameless and upright” (Job 1:1), his wealth would have been exposed as nothing more than the spiritual equivalent of pain medication, not God’s blessings.

So what do poverty and riches have to do with achiev-ing happiness? Not much, really. In fact, like Agur6, we should seek neither.

Give me neither poverty nor richesFeed me with the food allotted to me;Lest I be full and deny You,And say, “Who is the Lord?”Or lest I be poor and steal,And profane the name of God (Proverbs 30: 8-9).

Genuine happiness cannot come from the physical; there are no levers to pull or buttons to press. Neither can poverty nor riches bring us closer; while they may promise it, they are in fact the very things that could draw us farther away. Joy comes with knowledge of, and surrender to God. And there is a pleasure in knowledge. In a world of postmodernist confu-sion about issues of identity, Socrates’ charge, “know thyself,” has as much power to unsettle the mind now, as it did then. Yet, true self-knowledge comes only when one knows more than himself, and escapes the vicious circularity of autonomous divination; when one knows the God who created him, and his purpose in the world. Like the prodigal son who rejoiced upon returning to his father, we, too, shall rejoice when we fall down before our Creator, and discover that “the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking, but of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17). f

David Kwabi ‘10 is majoring in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. He is from Peki Dzogbati, Ghana.


[W]e have confused American values with Christian values. I believe our Christian vision has been clouded by the mists of

partisanship and blinded by the veil of self-interest.

John Montague

Social Justice Reconsidered

I WRITE TO DISAGREE WITH JONATHAN HWANG’S article “God’s Justice in the Social Sphere” because I think it understates the importance of Christian “social justice.”1 I

believe that justice for the poor is an essential biblical command and that it is indeed associated with eliminating inequality and redistributing wealth. This justice is also intimately connected to the worship of God and the spread of His gospel.

God cares about justice for the poor, and Jesus makes this point as lucidly as possible: He identifies Himself with them in Matthew 25. This unnerving story about the sheep and the goats once defined the values of the church, leading early Christians to a radical generosity and love for the poor.2 Today, few American Christians hear the same call regarding our wealth. I think we have confused American values with Christian values. I believe our Christian vision has been clouded by the mists of partisanship and blinded by the veil of self-interest.

To help us reconsider these issues, I ask a series of questions about the links between poverty, wealth, and justice from a biblical standpoint: What does the Bible really say about justice? About property? Wealth? The poor? How do we respond? The thoughts that follow are not exhaustive; I encourage readers to refer to the Bible itself. Indeed, I believe there is no more radically transformative text on these subjects. 1. What is a biblical view of property?

The system of property laws God gave the Israelites was revolutionary. In fact, it remains so radical that we would consider it “un-American.” These laws were designed to limit the accumulation of wealth. Every seven years, all debts were to be cancelled (Deuteronomy 15:1-11). In the same year, all slaves were to be freed (Exodus 21:2-11). Not only were the slaves to be freed, but they were also to be supplied liberally by their former masters (Deuteronomy 15:13-14). Finally, after every seventh seventh year (i.e., every fiftieth year), all property was to be returned to the family that had originally owned it; this year was the Year of Jubilee (Leviticus 25:8-55). God took these laws seriously: the prophet Jeremiah would later condemn the Israelites for disobeying them (Jeremiah 34:8-22). These property laws were to be a constant reminder that the Israelites’ prosperity was a gift of God and not a fruit of their own labor (Deuteronomy 8:17-18).

The Israelite property system set God’s people apart from the surrounding nations, which were feudal societies characterized by highly concentrated wealth in the hands of a few.3 In contrast, God’s laws set up a system more “progressive” than even many

modern socialists would endorse. I do not contend that the Old Testament laws should

be applied today; Christ did not come to establish a political system. However, I do think we need to recognize that our understanding of property comes not as much from the Bible as from our culture. 2. How should we view our wealth?

God specifically limited the Israelites’ accumulation of property, and he would condemn American acquisitiveness (as in Isaiah 5:8-10). In addition to the property laws outlined above, God put other restrictions on the Israelites’ ability to amass wealth. He limited the work week to six days; every seventh day was to be a day of rest for the Israelites and their servants (Exodus 23:12). The Israelites were prohibited from reaping to the edges of their fields or going over their vineyards twice; the excess was not to be squeezed out of each acre but was rather to be left for the poor (Leviticus 19:9-10). Finally, God forbade the charging of interest on loans (Exodus 22:25-27; Leviticus 25:35-37; Deuteronomy 23:19-20). The Israelites were to work hard, but God wanted them to retain a perspective on their work and their possessions, and he was especially concerned that their quest for wealth would never overreach their concern for the poor.

The Bible condemns hoarding wealth. In response to a dispute over an inheritance, Jesus tells the parable of the rich fool. In the story, a rich man plans ahead for himself, building barns to store his grain and then saying to himself, in a very American fashion, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry” (Luke 12:19). But God calls the man a fool: the man dies and has no time to enjoy his wealth. Jesus warns, “This is how it will be with anyone who stores up things for himself but is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:21).

James echoes Jesus’ condemnation, juxtaposing the self-interested greed of the rich with their unconcerned oppression of the poor. He writes vividly:

Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workmen who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence (James 5:3-5).


12:1-8). Most of us would consider these offerings exorbitant and even beyond reason, yet Jesus praises both of these women. In contrast, we are more like the rich people at the temple, putting in a little out of our wealth while holding back more for ourselves. 3. What is justice?

Biblical justice is more than Nozickian voluntary exchanges; it is an active mission to bring God’s blessings into the lives of all, especially the poor. God commands through the prophet Isaiah: “Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow” (Isaiah 1:17). In contrast, God identifies injustice with disregard or ignorance of the interests of the poor and the oppressed. In Isaiah 58, the prophet distinguishes the false righteousness and insincere repentance of Israel with what God considers to be true fasting: “Yet on the day of your fasting, you do as you please and exploit all your workers” (58:2). Isaiah goes on to catalog true fasting, which is: “to loose the chains of injustice;” “to set the oppressed free and break every yoke;” “to share your food with the hungry;” “to provide the poor wanderer with shelter;” and “when you see the naked, to clothe him.” God repeatedly judged Israel because its words were hollow and its poor oppressed; the nation did not act righteously (e.g., Ezekiel 22:29 and Amos 5:11).

These rich people have not paid their workers a fair wage; instead, they have hoarded their wealth for themselves, providing a life of excess and ease for their families. But God hears the cries of the laborers; our God is a God of justice for the poor.

Most Americans are implicated by James’ exhortations; we live lives of luxury and much of our money is spent on self-indulgences. We do not need most of the clothes we have, much of the space we live in is unused, and we spend thousands of dollars on entertainment. Likewise, we fail to provide fair wages: most of the goods we buy are made in far away places by workers about whom we know nothing. Many of these laborers are, in fact, employed in “sweatshops” where they face unsafe working conditions, are paid less than the legal local minimum wage, and are often abused and harassed.4

Jesus’ call is more radical than we would like to believe. In Luke, Christ commands his disciples to seek first his kingdom, reassuring them: “Do not be afraid, little flock, for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions and give to the poor” (Luke 12:32-33). Luke and Mark tell us the story of an impoverished widow who came to the temple and put everything she had into the offering (Mark 12:41-44 and Luke 21:1-4). All of the Gospels recount how a woman anointed Jesus with a jar of perfume worth an entire year’s wages (see John

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Although I want to point out that the Bible does not endorse the American system of capitalism, my primary concern is with the responsibilities of Christians and the church. After all, the kingdom of God is not a political kingdom. Instead, I ask: what should our attitude be toward the poor? In order to answer this question, I want to look at how the earliest Christians understood their mission to the poor.

Paul writes in Galatians, perhaps the earliest New Testament book, that when the other apostles agreed that he would be a missionary to the Gentiles “[a]ll they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do” (Galatians 2:10). From the beginning, the spread of the church was intimately connected with two things: evangelism and charity for the poor.

Luke tells us that in the early church, Christians held things in common, selling their possessions and giving to others as they had need (Acts 3:44-45). Writings from the Christian apologist Tertullian and detractors such as Lucian confirm that such practices were indeed common and continued into the second century. Lucian wrote that the Christians “despise all things indiscriminately and consider them common property.”7 Indeed, many of the early church fathers considered private property a root of discord and often preached against acquisitiveness.8

The fourth-century bishop Basil labeled anyone who kept his possessions instead of giving to the poor a “robber and a thief.” He preached, “If only one would take as much as he requires to satisfy his immediate needs, and leave the rest to others who equally need it, no one would be rich – and no one would be poor.” Basil established an expansive welfare center in Caesarea, which cared for the needs of the poor and the sick. He was especially adamant that the rich had a duty to promote social justice. Other Christians set up similar social programs, providing jobs for the unskilled and food for those who could not work at all. The church’s care for the poor was “unique in antiquity” and “an attempt was made to achieve a relative balance between rich and poor.”9

These efforts and the genuine care that Christians showed to the unfortunate were instrumental in the spread of the Gospel. Sociologist and historian Rodney Stark writes:

The truly revolutionary aspect of Christianity lay in moral imperatives such as ‘Love one’s neighbor as oneself,’ ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,’ ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive,’ and ‘When you did it to the least of my brethren, you did it unto me.’ These were not just slogans. Members did nurse the sick, even during epidemics; they did support orphans, widows, the elderly, and the poor; they did concern themselves with the lot of slaves. In short, Christians created ‘a miniature welfare state in an empire which for the most part lacked social services.’10

The Christians’ social ministry was so influential that even the Roman emperor Julian II noted it. In opposing the spread of Christianity during the fourth century, Julian encouraged pagan priests to expand their philanthropy, noting that Christians had

God identifies justice and righteousness with true concern for the needy: “The righteous care about justice for the poor, but the wicked have no such concern” (Proverbs 29:7). In the New Testament, God blessed the Roman centurion Cornelius because he was “devout and God-fearing; he gave generously to those in need and prayed to God regularly” (Acts 10:2). Cornelius’s salvation came by grace but it came because he had a heart for the poor and a heart for God, two priorities that are intertwined throughout the testaments. The epistles of both James and John tell us that saving faith will manifest its authenticity in generosity to the poor (James 2:14-17; 1 John 3:17). To God, devoutness and righteousness necessarily translate to justice for the needy, and this justice is connected to a radical generosity.4. Why are there poor people?

God does not want there to be poor people living among us. In fact, he told the Israelites, “[T]here should be no poor among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you” (Deuteronomy 15:4). The reason there should be no poor was not because God would suddenly end poverty by a miraculous distribution of wealth but rather because God had commanded his people to give of their great riches. God acknowledged that poverty would never be eradicated; this fact would provide endless opportunities for God’s people to display their generosity and share God’s blessings: “There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land” (Deuteronomy 15:11; see also John 12:8). Poverty will continue until the consummation of God’s kingdom.

The Bible warns that being a sluggard will lead to poverty (Proverbs 6:10-11), but it does not say that all poverty is caused by laziness. In fact, it teaches just the opposite: “The race is not to the swift … nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant … time and chance happen to them all” (Ecclesiastes 9:11).

The truth of this observation has rarely been better captured than in the words of Warren Buffett, one of the richest “self-made” Americans of our time. Buffett’s unparalleled investment acumen earned him billions, but he has humbly noted, “If you stick me down in the middle of Bangladesh or Peru, you’ll find out how much this talent is going to produce in the wrong kind of soil.”5 Buffett recognizes that his wealth is due to his peculiar place of birth and its inherent opportunities – time and chance happen to all.6 God tells us that our wealth is entirely a gift; it is not earned and it is not ours (Deuteronomy 8:17-18).

We must not be quick to condemn those who are poor; we should concern ourselves not with the imagined sins of others but rather with the sin of our own hearts that causes us to judge and prevents us from loving our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 7:3). When we view poverty as a judgment on those who are poor, we are like Jesus’ followers who asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). Jesus responds that neither the man nor his parents sinned but rather that his blindness was “so that the work of God might be displayed in his life” (John 9:3). In the same way, poverty exists so that the work of God—through the church—might be seen (Matthew 5:16). 5. What is the church’s mission to the poor?


“Chinese companies routinely shortchange their employees on wages, withhold health benefits and expose their workers to dangerous machinery and harmful chemicals, like lead, cadmium and mercury”); Dexter Roberts et al., “Secrets, Lies, and Sweatshops,” Businessweek, November 27, 2006, 50 ff. (“[I]n China many factories have just gotten better at concealing abuses. Internal industry documents reviewed by BusinessWeek reveal that numerous Chinese factories keep double sets of books to fool auditors and distribute scripts for employees to recite if they are questioned”).5 Quoted in Peter Singer, “What Should a Billionaire Give – and What Should You?” New York Times Magazine, December 17, 2006.6 The phenomenon of social capital has been more systematically studied by Nobel laureate Herbert Simon, who estimated that at least 90 percent of what wealthy Americans earn can be attributed entirely to social capital (i.e., the laws, education systems, etc. that make wealth-earning possible). In other words, rich Americans cannot take credit for their wealth and should not condemn those who have not had equal opportunities or luck. Simon even avers, “On moral grounds, we could argue for a flat income tax of 90 percent.” Ibid.7 Robert M. Grant, Early Christianity and Society (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1977), 101, 131. For Tertullian’s observations, see David Ayerst and A.S.T. Fisher (eds.), Records of Christianity, Vol. 1 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1971), 104-105.8 Martin Hengel, Property and Riches in the Early Church, trans. John Bowden (London: SCM Press Ltd., 1974), 1.9 Ibid., 2-3, 81, 43, 65.10 Rodney Stark, Cities of God (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2006), 30-31.11 Ayerst and Fisher, 179, 181.12 Blomberg, 249; Mark Labberton, The Dangerous Act of Worship (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 139.13 Jesus even went so far as to declare that it was easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 19:24). This is a hard saying; in fact, it was so uncomfortable for Christians in later centuries that they invented a “camel gate” in Jerusalem through which they said a camel could only pass on its knees, even though no evidence for such a gate exists. Grant, 97.

“gained ascendancy” because they “relieve both their own poor and ours.”11 The generosity of the early Christians was radical, and it was an incredibly effective means of displaying the love of Christ.

In contrast, Christians today are indistinct from the rest of American culture. Far from being characterized by their generosity, American Christians give away less than 3 percent of their income.12 What has happened? Perhaps more importantly, what would happen if Christians again became seized by the power of the Gospel and recognized the hollowness of their pursuit of material gain? What if Christians offered this wealth to God?

Generosity and care for the poor set the early church apart from the surrounding culture; Christians were noticed because of their love of neighbor. What would happen if we practiced the same generosity today?Conclusion: How is this generosity possible?

Christ’s teaching is unambiguous: it is impossible to serve both God and money (Matthew 6:24).13 The nature of being a servant to something (God or money) means that our efforts and our hearts are tied to that thing. We are possessed by it. Fortunately, Jesus came to break the chains of our slavery. The only way we will ever be able to show generous love to our neighbors is if we first give ourselves to God. This giving will result in a radical revaluation of everything we used to hold dear. With Paul, we will be able to say, “I count it all loss!” (see Philippians 3:7). Instead, we will proclaim our desire only for the “surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ” (Philippians 3:8). When this happens—and it will, if we are truly set free by Christ—the idea of giving to the poor and seeking justice for the oppressed will become more desirable to us than our wealth or possessions.

Christ’s message is not one of righteousness by works. The rich man could not have achieved salvation simply by giving up all his possessions. Jesus’ object was to demonstrate that the man had not actually followed all the commandments: had he truly loved the Lord with all of his heart, he would have joyfully sacrificed his wealth to follow Christ. In truth, the man’s possessions were his god. Non-Christians would not be unreasonable if they questioned whether Christians actually believe what they proclaim. If we did, we would stop pampering ourselves and instead take up our crosses and follow Christ. Until we heed this commandment, we should question the veracity of our own belief. What is holding us back? f

John Montague served on staff with Manna Christian Fellowship from 2003 to 2007. He is currently a student at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law.

1 Jonathan Hwang, “God’s Justice in the Social Sphere,” Revisions, Fall 2007, 8-10.2 Rodney Stark, The Rise of Christianity (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1996), 87.3 Craig L. Blomberg, Neither Poverty nor Riches: A Biblical Theology of Possessions (Nottingham, England: Apollos, 1999), 40.4 See, for instance, David Barboza, “Reform Stalls in Chinese Factories,” The New York Times, January 5, 2008 (labor groups report


I think the portrait of the historical Jesus found in the canonical Gospels gives us a fairly accurate picture of the man and forms

a sound basis for the faith of a critically thinking Christian.

IN THIS ARTICLE I WANT TO SKETCH AN OUTLINE (but no more) of why I think the portrait of the histori-cal Jesus found in the canonical Gospels gives us a fairly

accurate picture of the man and forms a sound basis for the faith of a critically thinking Christian. Theologian David Ford succinctly summarizes the issues that are at stake here: If the story of Jesus Christ as Son of God is considered to indi-cate who God is, then the testimonies to Jesus need to be reli-able.

There have always, right from the start, been disputes over what might be considered ‘reliable’. The mainstream position has never been that every detail of the biblical records need to be precisely accurate...Rather, the emphasis has been on trusting the stories to give a testimony good enough to know Jesus and what he did and suffered, and to relate to him. That reliance on testimony is the crucial issue as regards the reality of Jesus...Testimony can be cross-exam-ined and then trusted, partly trusted, or distrusted. Christian-ity is a faith which trusts in the reliability of certain witnesses...the only reasonable way for Christian theology is to face the need for cross-examination and argue the case for trusting the main message of the witnesses.1

It is important to stress that this does not imply defending Gospel reliability in the teeth of the evidence, just because the Christian faith “requires” it. Rather, if Christian faith is to be a viable option, a good intellectually rigorous case must be found. Some scholars dismiss any attempt to defend an orthodox inter-pretation of Christian origins as ‘apologetics’, implying that this approach inevitably produces a distorted and biased reading of the evidence. As an a priori stance, this is nonsense. All schol-ars engage in apologetics, for the theses they feel that they can reasonably defend against objections, even if their colleagues disagree with them, sometimes violently. There is absolutely no reason why a thesis upholding religious views should be dismissed without a fair hearing on the scholarly front. And in many cases, the right to this hearing has been earned by religious scholars through painstaking, careful, rigorous work, whether

that of Dunn, Bauckham or Wright in New Testament studies or Swinburne, Plantinga and Alston in philosophy of religion.

It is my view that such a case can be made for the reliability of the Gospels. By reliability I mean that the Gospels record the words and deeds of Jesus more or less as he spoke and did them (how much more or how much less is, of course, contingent on the focus of the individual evangelist and the development of the Jesus tradition prior to the writing of the Gospel). This does not mean I necessarily hold to inerrancy or deny that any legendary features have “crept into” the accounts, or that certain features of the structure and wording are the result of the literary interest of the evangelist. But I believe that the general outline of the life

and ministry of Jesus was basi-cally as the canonical Gospels record them. These ancient doc-uments give an accurate picture of the teaching of Jesus, as well as his wondrous deeds. Though I will not directly deal with the issue of the Resurrection, an implication of general Gospel reliability is that we must take seriously the possibility that Je-sus was, in fact, God’s anointed Son, and as such a likely ‘candi-date’ to be raised to glory.

So why should we take the Gospels seriously as history?

1) Several scholars have mounted a convincing argument that the Gospels are best viewed as representatives of the genre of Greco-Roman biography. At the very least this means that they purported to record the life story of an actually existing person. It does not guarantee that they (the evangelists) were successful, however. Certain ancient biographies were notoriously unreli-able. But it does refute skeptical theories according to which the Gospels were deliberate pieces of fiction designed to serve certain ideological functions within the early Christian move-ment.2

2) A detailed comparison of where the Gospels align in their information about Jesus and when they diverge reveals that, contrary to the claims of some skeptics that the evangelists were wildly creative in their telling of the Jesus story, the successive

J.D. Walters

The Historical Reliability of the Gospels


What if he was actually doing what he said he was doing? There are several potential defeaters to an argument like that above: most of the events recorded in the Gospels cannot be independently verified, i.e. outside of Christian sources. Skep-tics often argue that the amount of accurate historical and ar-cheological detail found in the Gospels and Acts is better ex-plained as the verisimilitude characteristic of good fiction. Throughout history there have been many messianic figures (such as Sabbatai Sevi8) whose life stories were expanded and embellished out of all proportion by their ecstatic follow-ers, often within their own lifetimes. Finally, the mere fact that the Gospels record miraculous events is a stumbling block for many scholars, immersed in the skeptical socio-cultural en-vironment of the modern (or even postmodern) academy.9 I don’t think that these defeaters are damaging enough to the overall argument to create intellectual problems for the critically thinking believer. At most they suggest that it is impossible to “prove” that the Gospels are reliable. But I definitely think that the above considerations make it quite likely that the Gospels are reliable, and in the words of that old song (“Give me that old time religion”), it’s good enough for me. f

J.D. Walters ’09 is a religion major and also is pursuing a certificate in neuroscience.

1 David F. Ford, Theology: a very short introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 44-452 Cf. David Aune, The New Testament in its Literary Environment (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1987); Richard Burridge, What Are the Gospels? A Comparison with Greco-Roman Biography (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 2004)3 James D.G. Dunn, Jesus Remembered (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 2003), 210-2494 Cf. Craig S. Keener, A commentary on the Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans, 1999)5 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991)6 See Dale C. Allison, Jesus of Nazareth: Millenarian Prophet (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1998)7 C.H. Dodd, The Founder of Christianity (New York: Macmillan, 1970)8 On whom see Gershom Scholem, Sabbatai Sevi: the mystical Messiah (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973); as for his relevance to New Testament studies see also Gregory Boyd and Paul Rhodes Eddy, The Jesus Legend (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2007), 154-1569 Cf. Colin Brown, Miracles and the Critical Mind (Exeter, Devon: Paternoster Press, 1984)

stages of the transmission of the Jesus tradition were remarkably conservative.3 The hard literary evidence shows that, if (as most scholars believe and I accept) Matthew and Luke used material from the Gospel of Mark, they were generally very cautious, careful editors and actually rank among the most accurate biog-raphers of the ancient world judging only by their use of sourc-es.4 The Gospel of John is a special case, but Richard Bauckham argues that the writer of this Gospel was an eyewitness who felt that he was qualified to interpret the Jesus tradition in the way that he did. The four canonical Gospels still resemble each other more than any other biographies in the ancient world.

3) Eugene Lemcio in an influential book, The Past of Jesus in the Gospels,5 argues that the evangelists were very conscious of separating the time and ministry of Jesus from that of the post-Easter Christian communities. They did not invent sto-ries and teaching to meet the needs of their communities, but rather tried to tell the story of Jesus “for its own sake”. Related to this is the observation that many of the most pressing is-sues confronted by the early Church are not dealt with in the Gospels, such as whether new converts should be circumcised. Also relevant is the often-made observation that the Gospels record much “embarrassing” material surrounding the life and teaching of Jesus, such as his apparently erroneous predictions of the soon-coming end of the world (e.g. Matthew 24:34). The argument is that the disciples would not have recorded these sayings unless they really did come from Jesus himself.

4) The basic account of Jesus’ life in the Gospels is histori-cally plausible: his actions and words, though in some re-spects unique, in others are what we would expect of a charismatic prophet/teacher in 1st Century Palestine.6

5) Skeptics often argue that the “fit” between Old Testament prophecies and the events of Jesus’ life is not all that precise, and in some cases is downright embarrassing (such as when Matthew has Jesus ride both a colt and the foal of an ass, be-cause of a possible misunderstanding of Zechariah 9:9). This means that the “argument from fulfilled prophecy” fails. I agree, but paradoxically I think that this actually supports the reliability of the Gospels. I call this the argument from the “un-likely use of Scripture”. The very fact that the fit of prophecy to event is not precise implies that the evangelists were strug-gling to find messianic confirmation of Jesus’ actual life in the Old Testament, but because they were committed to recording events as they happened they could not alter the event itself, rather they had to perform some exegetical gymnastics to find an appropriate prophecy. Behind the evangelists’ unique inter-pretation of Old Testament scripture rests the life of a real per-son.7 If they were just making up the story of Jesus they could have made a much more impressive fit of prophecy to event.

6) Last but not least, we have several explicit statements, most notably by the author of Luke-Acts, that they are giv-ing us an orderly account. Too often it is assumed that Luke is just engaging in propaganda or rhetoric when he tells us that he recorded the events of Jesus’ life “just as they were hand-ed down from those who were eyewitnesses...” (Luke 1:1).


GIVEN THE CENTRALITY OF ETHICS IN the Chris-tian life, there is no doubt that personal holiness is the main goal that all Christians should work toward. None-

theless, there is wide spread confusion about what this holiness amounts to: like any other popular slogan of modern Christian-ity, our talk of holiness is surrounded by such confusion that will not allow for any authentic light to shine through.

In this inquiry, we will attempt to derive an adequate con-ception of holiness by exploring two usual and distinct under-standings of holiness as having some kind of proximity to God. The first conception of holiness comes from having nearness-by-likeness to God, while the second comes from having nearness-by-relation to God. Nearness-by-likeness indicates an at-tributive or actual similarity to God. It refers to acting like God in the moral domain, e.g. acting in a just and temperate manner. Nearness-by-relation is nearness to God in our re-lationship, e.g. having faith, hope, and love.

Perhaps recalling the fol-lowing experience will help. There is a strange, shared ex-perience of Christians to feel somehow closer to God the moment after sinning. While there is no doubt that we are most like God in acting right and fending off carnal desires, the moments after sinning devel-ops in us an inkling that our previous state was possibly tainted by pride. Therefore, we feel, the state after sinning is in some unexplainable sense closer to God than when we acted right.1 The following article is an exploration of whether this inkling has any basis in truth, and it is to this issue that we now turn.

There is a current divide in Christian theology regarding the moral circumstance of the world after the fall. The debate is between whether our choices are always between good and bad, or if there are situations in which our choices are between bad and worse. To put the point more bluntly: the question is “Do we sometimes have to choose between a heinous sin and a more heinous sin?” In this essay, I take it as a granted assump-tion of the Reformed worldview that there exist choices between

bad and worse, and this premise has to be largely assumed for the sake of the question at hand. Yet, this assumption is not un-founded, because even the most cursory look at many accounts of the Holocaust can present us with examples of irrefutable and irreducible moral dilemmas, e.g. situations where one had no choice but to lie to save lives.

This belief in the existence of irresolvable moral dilem-mas also follows from taking seriously the Christian premise that the world experienced a total fall. If there was a fall that completely perverted all aspect of creation, what we get is not just an insight into how the world is now by contingency; rather, we end up with the essence of the world after the fall, or how

the world after the fall nec-essarily had to be like. It is in this fallen world that Jesus walked on. Mountains might have moved and seas dried (these are mere contingen-cies), but the fallen essence of this world did not change. Here, we grasp the grim logical implication that Jesus faced the same bad/worse dilemma as us and he chose one of them. 2 Therefore, if it is through the actual similar-ity of nearness-by-likeness that we attain holiness, Jesus must have sinned.

A recapitulated outline of the argument goes as follows: Since the world prohibited Jesus from acting good, Jesus must have sinned. To sin is to be dislike God in nearness-by-likeness, and therefore Jesus was not completely holy. This argument is valid but the conclusion is conspicuously absurd. Such an absurd conclusion, when the argument is valid, necessitates a false premise. Now, we have already assumed that Jesus could not have acted good all of the time because he faced moral dilemmas. So the faulty premise must be our claim that to sin is to be dislike God in nearness-by-likeness, rather than by nearness-by-relation. Our theological conviction that Jesus did not sin and that he was completely holy gives us no option but to choose the nearness-by-relation in this two-part disjunction. Jesus was perfectly holy because, although he did not fully attain nearness-by-likeness to God, he was able

This duty given to us is to be completely saturated by our relation with God becoming the means by which we do all

things.

Elliot Joohan Lee

A Philosophical Inquiry Into Holiness


if our vision now is blurred, and love that follows Christ unto death for “when Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.” f Elliot Joohan Lee ‘08 is majoring in philosophy at the Univer-sity of Texas at Austin. He is from Dallas, TX.

1 I am not asserting here an ontological antinomy between nearness-by-likeness and nearness-by-relation; I am merely observing that very often such a dilemma is found in the Christian life.2 Jesus had to choose from one of them since the choices will exhaus-tively divide the domain of all possible options that Jesus could take. Choosing to not choose anything would be another choice in such case and a sinful one at that. Another objection that might occur is the response that Jesus was omnipotent so that he could have made a right choice despite the situation. Can God make a triangular square? Logi-cal impossibilities are also impossible for God. 3 Hence a recapitulation of my blunt question, “Do we sometimes have to choose between a heinous sin and a more heinous sin?” is needed. Under the presumption of the second premise, Jesus did not sin.4 A possible charge that could be made against my argument is that the central term “holiness” is equivocally employed. I maintain that holiness predicated to Jesus or the human being chiefly consists in our nearness-by-relation, while holiness predicated to God means both nearness-in-likeness and nearness-by-relation. I don’t know exactly how this problem is to be solved. I admit, in a sense, the two terms are the same, but also different. To choose two labels because of their differences is to betray their sameness and choosing one label due to their sameness is to betray their differences. But notice that a similar problem also arises for other non-moral attributes of God and Jesus, e.g. their omniscience and omnipotence. The Christian tradition seems to emphasize their sameness over difference because the reason for their sameness is really more important.5 What I have in mind here is the function of nearness-by-relationship terms to work as adverbs that modify our actions that belong to the realm of nearness-by-likeness. We are not just to mend brokenness or warn of the coming judgment, but also to do so with faith, hope, and love. Considerations of these adverbial qualifications on the question of “how should we live?” seem like the proper beginning of specifically Christian ethics.

to fully attain nearness-by-relation to God.3

This conclusion reveals one central ramification and caution for our understanding of holiness and our moral life as a whole. The ramification is that what we should chiefly aim at in this world is our nearness-by-relation to God because it is thereby that Jesus attained perfect holiness. To concern ourselves first with nearness-by-relation before nearness-by-likeness is the be-ginning of an ethics of dependency. On this earth at least, perfect nearness-by-likeness to God is impossible. Our hope and life as creatures living in the fallen world is to be modeled after Christ, who achieved perfect holiness despite working under the same, inherent limitations of the fallen world.4 Opaquely, this is just a reaffirmation of the Reformed doctrines—relation over likeness as the reason for justification before God.

However, the primacy of nearness to God by relation should not make us downplay our nearness-by-likeness to God in any sense because the holiness of the Father in the trinity consists of both nearness-by-likeness and nearness-by-relation. God does not face the logical impossibility of achieving perfect nearness-by-likeness in a fallen world, unlike his Son or us human be-ings, and therefore it is reasonable to suppose that he has full capacity in both—God acts and is perfectly like God and God’s relationship within the trinity is perfectly godly. While the chief method of Christ in attaining holiness is to be also our method of attaining holiness in this fallen world, we should not lose sight of the ultimate goal of being completely like God in the moral domain.

Now, going back to the observation that started this inquiry, a careful application of our conclusion yields practical insights on the contested relationship between nearness-by-likeness and nearness-by-relation. Realism casts only pessimistic light on the current state of the church. It seems that the church is divided amongst two major groups and one very insignificant minority. The first group is of people who are just unholy. Due to the lack of emphasis on the matters of ethics and intellect in the modern church, we no longer focus on our nearness-by-likeness while not even recognizing this as a problem due to our lack of under-standing. But a more severe problem is those who try to oppose this lack of nearness-by-likeness by being marginally nearer to God in likeness when they are farther away from those “unholy” people in their nearness-by-relation to God. I strongly suspect their faith, hope, and love is directed not towards God, but to-wards themselves, as they primarily have faith and hope in their nearness-by-likeness to God.

There is only a minority of blessed people who submit themselves completely at the mercy of God in dealing with the lack of nearness-by-likeness of the church. Whatever nearness-by-likeness they might have achieved, they will only credit God since God is the initiator of their relationship and thus, their only source of both nearness-by-likeness and nearness-by-relation. It is the call of these Christians to step outside the vicious circum-stance in church that only allows two possible, wrong stances—the unholy and those who proudly condemn the unholy—and speak against both these stances as essentially “converse-holi-ness.” And, emphatically, this duty given to us is to be com-pletely saturated by our relation with God becoming the means by which we do all things:5 having faith that God will work his way, hope that God will someday make ends meet while even


AFTER THE TIME OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH, A set of beliefs commonly called replacement theology, or supersessionism, began to develop among Christians

regarding the nature of the Church’s relationship to Israel. In an attempt to reconcile Christian teachings with Greek philosophy, Origen of Alexandria (A.D. 185-254) introduced an allegorical interpretation of Scripture—as opposed to a literal, grammat-ical-historical system—to theologians that led them to regard Old Testament (OT) prophecies and promises to natural Israel as applying to the Church instead.1 Along these lines, in his A.D. c. 410 book The City of God, Augustine of Hippo began to claim a spiritual, rather than literal, manifestation of the biblically prophesied reign of Christ on Earth with the Church inheriting Israel’s promised kingdom,2 thus arguing that God was finished with Israel and had replaced them with the Church.3 Hence re-placement theology holds that the Church has, in essence, re-placed the physical Israel of the Bible from God’s perspective. As a result, replacement theologians would say, there is no more continued need to look to Israel to appreciate the work of God on Earth—the Christian Church is the “true Israel” and the sole instrument for glorifying God among the nations now. The inva-lidity of this standpoint is not just established through a straight-forward interpretation of Scripture but even by the lessons of secular history as well. Most importantly, an insensitivity or apathy towards the importance of the nation of Israel and the physical descendants of Abraham weakens the impact that the promises of God in His Word should have on all believers, and leads one to overlook the truly monumental, macro-historical unfolding of God’s redemption plan for the world.

The replacement theology outlook is simply untenable, and its ramifications demonstrate its own error.4 If the Church has replaced physical Israel, then it would be the continuation of the Israel concept, that is, only the Church would be the collec-tive whole of God’s people in the present, as Israel was in the past. To be precise, Christians (Gentiles and Messianic Jews who have accepted Jesus as Messiah) would make up the “true Israel” in God’s eyes now, to the exclusion of Jews who do not recognize Yeshua as the Son of God. However, if you apply this dogma to the parts of the New Testament (NT) addressing the Church, the text actually becomes nonsensical. For example, the apostle Paul described how it was possible for him to boast in the flesh in Philippians 3:5, saying he was “circumcised on the eighth day, of the nation of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews…” (NASB). Why would Paul mention

being part of “the nation of Israel” in the middle of a list of dis-tinctly Jewish characteristics, especially if the Church is Israel and is not supposed to be defined by these Jewish traits? The text only makes sense if the term “the nation of Israel” refers to physical Israel. Consider the letter to the Romans: “Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for the Israelites is that they may be saved” (Romans 10:1, NIV). The Church simply cannot be equated to Israel: if “Israelites” are members of Israel, and the Church is Israel, then these “Israelites” are believers in Christ—why do they need to be saved?

Christ Himself made sure to distinguish the Israelites from the peoples around them. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” he told a Canaanite woman (Matthew 15:24, NASB). Prior to that, He instructed his disciples, “Do not go in the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter any city of the Samaritans; but rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (Matthew 10:5b, 6). The Lord Jesus certainly did not turn away acts of faith from Gentiles during His ministry, but He was aware of His primary role as the promised Messiah for the Israelites. And the Messiah did not “correct” His disciples by telling them that the Church was replacing the nation of Israel when they asked Him, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6-8) He instead instructed them to not guess at timelines but to focus on the coming Holy Spirit. Yeshua, or Jesus in Hebrew, never considered His earthly kins-men displaced or disenfranchised—He expected them to be in His presence during His future kingdom reign and said, “Truly I say to you, that you who have followed Me, in the regeneration when the Son of Man will sit on His glorious throne, you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel” (Matthew 19:28b, emphases added).

At the conclusion of Romans 9-11, a section of the epistle that addresses the past, present and future status of physical Is-rael in the presence of the Christian Church, we find a definitive dismissal of the notion that the Church replaces physical Israel and a resounding affirmation that Israel’s present condition of spiritual exile and darkness is temporary:

I say then, God has not rejected His people, has He? May it never be! For I too am an Israelite, a descen-dant of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected His people whom He foreknew… I say then, they did not stumble so as to fall, did they? May it never be! But by their transgression salvation has

God’s faithfulness to Israel’s restoration demonstrates his salvation plan for all mankind.

Ephraim Chen

Has the Church Replaced Israel?


Spirit of grace and of supplication, so that they will look on Me whom they have pierced; and they will mourn for Him, as one mourns for an only son, and they weep bitterly over Him like the bitter weeping over a firstborn” (Zechariah 12:10). Israel’s restoration would also serve to glorify God: “For I will take you from the nations, gather you from all the lands and bring you into your own land…Then the nations that are left around about you will know that I, the Lord, have rebuilt the ruined places and planted that which was desolate…” (Ezekiel 36:24,36a). There are simply too many OT prophecies concerning God’s future regeneration of Israel for us to review.

Why is God determined to restore the fortunes of the chil-dren of Israel? Ezekiel 36:16-38 tells us that it will bring glory to God, Who acts for His holy name. In addition, God shows unmatchable faithfulness towards His people: “Thus says the Lord, Who gives the sun for light by day and the fixed order of the moon and the stars for light by night, Who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar; the Lord of hosts is His name: ‘If this fixed order departs from before Me,’ declares the Lord, ‘then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before Me forever.’ Thus says the Lord, ‘If the heavens above can be mea-sured and the foundations of the earth searched out below, then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel for all that they have done…’” (Jeremiah 31:35-37). God intends to fulfill the un-conditional (Genesis 12:1-4; 15:7-21) and everlasting (Genesis 13:15; 17:7,8) Abrahamic Covenant, with which He promised Abraham descendants (Genesis 13:15,16), land (Genesis 17:8), a nation (Genesis 12:2), blessings and protection (Genesis 12:3), and communion with God (Genesis 17:7).

This generation has been blessed with the privilege to see God already beginning this regeneration and gather the descen-dants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob back to the Promised Land. Against all odds, after 2,000 years of non-existence and Diaspo-ra, the nation of Israel was recreated in May 1948—an unprec-edented historical act of restoration after so long a time period.

The continued affection God has for the Jewish people is not without great implications for Christians even though some deem it at best peripheral to and at worst averting us from our walk with Christ. On the contrary, these truths have been stored and preserved for us in His Word—how can we say that God does not care that we know of His faithfulness towards people whom He foreknew? We can derive great encouragement and further wonder for our God when we see history unfold itself ex-actly as God said it would. Furthermore, a belief in replacement theology raises questions about our salvation as members of the Church. If these nullifications of scores of Scripture passages did occur, how can we as Christians rely on the promise of salva-tion from Christ? Would not the unilateral promises of God then depend on our behavior and not on His Word, as it did for Israel? Our God is not so fickle and human as to break promises and faithfulness because of our human rebelliousness. Praise God, for His faithfulness to His chosen people of old is everlasting. Though they did not follow after the Lord in the past and are be-ing disciplined by Him in the present, the future will present the marvelous, deeply passionate love God has for the descendants of Abraham as he will restore their fortunes and again show them and the world that the Lord is their God, ultimately resulting in their weeping and repentance at the Second Coming of Christ

come to the Gentiles, to make them jealous. (Romans 11:1, 2a, 11, NASB)

“His people” here must refer to the physical descendants of Abraham, for why would anyone wonder if the Church was re-jected by God? To the question of whether God’s current admon-ishment of Israel was permanent, Paul answered “may it never be”—the strongest form of negation in the original Greek.5 In fact, Christians should be in humble awareness of the fact that, upon seeing the general Jewish rejection of His Son, God ex-tended general salvation to the Gentiles—a concept described as a “mystery” in Colossians 1:26-27 (very little foreshadowing of Gentile salvation was given in the Old Testament) to which Paul, as the apostle to the Gentiles (Ephesians 3:8, I Timothy 2:7), devoted his ministry. This extension of salvation to the Gentiles was supposed to actually attract the Jews back to the Lord God as they witnessed the blessings bestowed upon the Church.

As opposed to its being forever rejected by God with its covenant promises taken away, Israel will actually experience a miraculous restoration and demonstration of the Lord’s com-passion, all according to the word of God they—and we—re-ceived. Supersessionists, thinking that the Jewish people are just like any other ethnic or religious group on Earth now, feel that no future or divine hope exists for the Jews apart from ac-cepting Christ and entering the Church. Indeed, it is true that “there is salvation in no one else” but Jesus Christ of Nazarene, as Peter insisted to the high priest, elders and scribes of Israel (Acts 4:12)—Jews and Gentiles alike ultimately must depend on Messiah for salvation (Romans 10:12,13). However, the Bible never claims that God sequestered His promises to the Israelites, which would all be for the benefit of their realization of millen-nia of spiritual blindness.

Much of the Lord’s redemptive plan for His chosen people has yet to come to pass. The Old Testament is full of prophecies about the eventual restoration of Israel by the Lord’s hand. The prophet Isaiah foretold a recovery from the Jewish worldwide dispersion: “Then it will happen on that day that the Lord will again recover the second time with His hand the remnant of His people…and He will lift up a standard for the nations and as-semble the banished ones of Israel, and will gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth” (Isaiah 11:11a,12). “I will strengthen the house of Judah,” the Lord says through Zechariah. “And I will save the house of Joseph, and I will bring them back, because I have had compassion on them; and they will be as though I had not rejected them, for I am the Lord their God and I will answer them (Zechariah 10:6). Jeremiah record-ed that someday the Israelites will not dwindle anymore: “Thus says the Lord, ‘Behold, I will restore the fortunes of the tents of Jacob and have compassion on his dwelling places…From them will proceed thanksgiving and the voice of those who celebrate; and I will multiply them and they will not be diminished; I will also honor them and they will not be insignificant’” (Jeremiah 30:18a,19). Surely the Lord intends for His chosen people of old to witness His love for them once again, see Jesus their Sav-ior, and sobbingly repent of their errors; for in the last days, when the nations of the earth fight against Israel at Jerusalem, the Lord will destroy all of Israel’s enemies, and He will “pour on the house of David and on the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the


the original tree and planted ourselves in its place! We should not be “uninformed of this mystery” (Rom 11:25), and when we do begin to appreciate the majesty of God’s sovereignty, love and wisdom, we can only react as the apostle Paul does with complete awestricken wonder for the Lord GOD’s dominion over history and the salvation of the world: “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and unfathomable His ways!” (Rom 11:33) f

Ephraim Chen ‘09 is majoring in Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering. He is from New York.

1 Lindsey, Hal. The Road to Holocaust. New York: Bantam Books; 1990.2 Torres, Alan. “Replacement Theology”. The Biblicist. http://www.biblicist.org/bible/ replace.shtml. 21 February 2008.3 Levitt, Zola. The Trouble with Christians, the Trouble with Jews. Zola Levitt Ministries, Inc., Dallas, TX, 1996.4 Wagner, Clarence H. “The Error of Replacement Theology”. http://www.therefinersfire.org/ replacement_theology.htm. 21 February 2008.5 The MacArthur Study Bible, New American Standard Bible. Thomas Nelson, Inc; 2006.

as the Israelites finally embrace the Messiah they once rejected. God’s plan for the Church differs greatly from that of Israel’s—while Israel will see earthly restoration, while still enduring the wrath of God for disobeying Him and rejecting Messiah, the Church has been ordained to escape the coming wrath. “For God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,” as Paul wrote (I Thessalonians 5:9). Christians do not have the history with the Lord that the Israelites do, being ignorant of the salvation of God in ancient times. And now we are under grace, having never been under the Law, and therefore not having to suffer the consequences of disobeying the Mosaic Covenant, as Paul stresses for us:

We who are still alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words (I Thessalonians 4:15b-18).

The blessed hope of all believers and the people of Israel is the coming of the Messiah Yeshua. Maranatha, come Lord Jesus!

In the end, what the Bible tells us is not a message of exclu-sion but inclusion—it is unity, not replacement! To the Israel-ites, the physical seed of Abraham, belong “the adoption as sons, and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from is the Christ according to the flesh…” (Romans 9:4b,5a). And yet Paul also writes, “And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants, heirs according to promise” (Gala-tians 3:7b-9). Gentiles have been graciously extended this gift of promise, joining with the blessings of faith that God started with Israel, not usurping them away from the Jewish people!

Paul offers a compelling warning against Christian arro-gance due to our present glory, reminding us that we Gentile Christians are wild olive branches that have been grafted into a pure, natural olive tree:

If the first piece of dough is holy, the lump is also; and if the root is holy, the branches are too. But if some of the branches were broken off, and you, being a wild ol-ive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree, do not be arrogant toward the branches; but if you are arrogant, remember that it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.” Quite right, they were broken off for their unbelief, but you stand by your faith. Do not be conceited, but fear; for if God did not spare the natural branches, He will not spare you, either (Romans 11:16-21).

This passage should remind us that we have not uprooted


You never really know what [Death] is. I know there are suicide bars and murder rallies and abortion clubs, but that really doesn’t prepare you for the moment that you’re staring right into Death’s cold eyes

and he’s smiling at you because he knows you’re never going to escape.

I don’t think I ever really expected things to get this far. I mean, sure everyone talks about death, and everyone faces it at one point, but it’s really not real until the pikes are coming in at you and you’re staring at them, afraid to open your mouth and scream because then they will think that you’re unwilling and your family won’t get the money…

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I close my eyes, careful not to shut them tightly, careful to hide any signs of fear. I must be willing, I chant in my head, I must be willing. I allow the image of my family to swing up before my eyes, and for a moment, I am truly relaxed – I am willing to let these pikes twist into me, I am willing to let the blood poor out, I am willing to endure the pain and agony just to get them out of this filth and poverty that we all live in. That I lived in.

I open my eyes, and I can hear the crowd chanting, screaming, cheering, laughing. They point at me, strung up between two trees with the pikes coming closer and closer with every heaving breath I take. It almost reminds me a story I read somewhere. A man would bend two great trees down and tie the hands of a person to the one tree, and then tie the same guy’s legs to the other tree, and then…

I don’t want to think about it, but I can’t let the image leave. I picture the body parts flying apart, and know that I would never be able to go into that willingly, even though the money reward for that is tremendous. It would get my family into the upper middle class, but I couldn’t do it willingly. If I don’t go to my death willingly, then it doesn’t work.

I think about the bloodiest, most awful, most painful death I can, trying to distract myself while the pikes inch closer. I know most people would think starving to death or being beaten to death would be the worst, but it’s not. I’ve been beaten and starving all fifteen years of my life, and I know the pikes are much much worse.

Crucifixion pops into my mind. I don’t know anyone who

has tried that death – I don’t think anyone could be crucified willingly. They used to kill people by crucifixion way long ago, you know. I shudder, closing my eyes again.

I had to test myself with different levels of pain to see how far I was willing to go, and I passed out about halfway through the machine’s scale. Crucifixion had been several notches above the level of pain that I was willing to die at.

The scientists know how this whole thing works. They figured out how to do this thing. How to let me die for someone else. It has something to do with blood, but I’m not sure. All I heard was money and I knew I would do it.

I’m not doing this for myself, though. How pointless would that be? I’m going to be stabbed to death – the more painful the death, the more life they can get out of your blood. The machine’s scale pointed to death by stabbing, and the crowd likes pikes, so I chose them. But it’s for my family. Because I love them. I don’t want my little brother to grow up like me, surrounded by abuse and drugs and an obsession with death and no way out. Sure, I know money doesn’t solve all your problems. But with the money that the girl’s dad is giving to us – it’ll give them enough to get into lower middle class. It’ll be enough to give them a choice of where to live. They can leave. They’ll have more options.

Someone screams my name, and startled, I open my eyes to see the glistening ends of the pikes only five lengths away. They’re coming closer, oh God, oh Death, oh somebody…

My family. My family. My family.

They’re coming closer…

I try to dig my feet into the dirt, to pull away from the pikes, but I have no traction and so slip back into my old position. My vision is blurred—are they tears?—and I can’t see anything —I’m glad...

Jinju Pottenger

Oh Death Where Is Your Victory?


A hand grips my chin and pulls it up. Another hand roughly brushes across my face, and suddenly I can see again – I’m staring right into the eyes of the girl. She stares at me, and then leans in and kisses me.

I let her. She might get her father to not pay my family if I fight her now. Besides, I’m poor, and she’s rich so it’s not like she respects what I want anyway. I have no say in the matter, or in any matter other than the manner of my death, and even that is influenced by the girl’s father, who wants a scene to please the crowd.

“I could get you out of here,” she whispers, leaning close to my face. “You don’t have to die.”

I can see the blue veins through her white, slender wrist. They told me that she was going to die, and nobody wanted to die the way needed in order to get this girl enough life to keep living. Only I was desperate enough, and now, I wonder if I’m still so desperate. She could get me out of here…

But her pale glowing eyes only speak of her lust. She wants control, she wants power. She hates the fact that she owes her life to me, that I am dying for her. Death is one thing that she’ll never have power over, and she hates me because I am proving that someone has got to die. You can’t ever cheat Death. It’ll always get its quota in the end.

“The pikes are coming!” someone shouts, and the girl suddenly jumps to the side showing me that the pikes are only a length away, they’re going to kill me, they’re…

“I could stop them!” she yells to me, but her glistening eyes tell a different story. If I do get my life back, it won’t be worth living.

Like I said before, you never really know about Death. You never really know what it is. I know there are suicide bars and murder rallies and abortion clubs, but that really doesn’t prepare you for the moment that you’re staring right into Death’s cold eyes and he’s smiling at you because he knows you’re never going to escape.

I don’t think there is an escape. But maybe I’m wrong, maybe that escape from Death does exist. Maybe there is an escape for all of us, and not just for the rich. Someone who could die the most painful death possible so his blood would be enough for everyone to get out of Death.

But there’s always a price. And right now, I’m that price for one rich girl. f

Jinju Pottenger ‘10 is from Hellertown, PA. She is majoring in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.


Richard Lopez

He MovesHome, love remembered. But fallenness spins loose, with news of a mind u n d o n e.

Hope for new bodies keep me going—reflections on these past two years,swirling with giddy anticipation of what’s to come...—but pause: grace before, grace now, He wants to bless He withholds in discipline. Wait for Him, be joyful in the waiting, give thanks.

He is Love.He is Lover.

He has a future before His eyes—your eyes will behold it, but probably not now…not yet. Hold hold fast, don’t fall. Don’t wait for him or her or this or thatGo to Him. Yes. Stop and go…move, more quickly now. He is there, waiting in quiet power.

Enter in: guilty sweat, incriminating lips—all in.

But He does not move. He does not flinch at your mess. Hands come on your shoulders. He prays for you. The touch is soft, but the whisper deafening. You can’t make out the groanings. You begin to shake, but it’s not scary.

Peace rushes in and covers you; a haunting stillness comes because the blood has screamed and has been spent—the blood acted so you could now breathe and be still.

But sometimes it only takes a small turn, vanishing the quiet; everything else then rushes in and crowds your eyes. They tell you something different—you lend them your heart like a whore.

26 Revisions / spRing 2008


You believe them, you like what you hear, keep it that way.

No more suffering here. We want to stay in, holding to what we now taste. It’s only natural.

Shove it.

I make peace because I see the results.I’m reliable. I don’t need to think about you anymore.

We have knowledge that saves. This gnosis is sufficient—I am agnostic because I can be, I fall out of knowledge from you.

You are not real like she is. I can make her my own.

You can’t do that to me. Submission? I submit to myself…the Lamb shudders in His dwelling…but He moves not, not to anger; He waits; the price has been paid…

…waiting never got me anywhere. Whenever I waited I got hurt. I move to save, to keep, to control.

NO.

He moves to save, to keep, to love, He moves in love, He remains Love. He is Love. He is Lover.


Nicole Fegeas

Synesthesia

I hear His voice in green,the green of the seedling,baby-skinned and pearled with April dew,the green of grandfather spiresstill touched with verdant flush,the green of autumn’s last leafnot yet sunk beneath brown’s shroud.

I hear His voice in pink,the pink of day’s first breathbirthed from night’s womb,a cry of rose, orange, gold, and lightsinging through the windowsof a waking world.

I hear His voice in blue,the blue of the horizon,shadows of angel wingsgliding softly over the earth,the blue of rain,rain that falls upon my face,upon my cheekas I think of crimson.

For I hear His voice in crimson too,the crimson of the courtesancourting my humanity, my mortality,her veil woven of my mind,of the flame that I twirlabout my ashen fingertips,the crimson of the Fruitthat never touched His lips.

Still, His lips speak,speak through His crimson—the one upon His hands,the one upon His feet.The one that should have been mine.

28Revisions / spRing 200828


SAM HARRIS’ LETTER TO A CHRISTIAN NATION, A national bestseller in a growing genre of books seeking to debunk Christianity, is boring. It is boring, not because I

disagree with its basic premise, but because it did not make me question my faith. Harris’ lack of logical argumentation leaves nothing to be feared, no essentials of doctrine to be questioned; at most, it can be seen as a hodgepodge of provocative, ad hom-inem attacks.

The great thinker Voltaire once said, “I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: ‘O Lord, make my enemies ridiculous.’ And God granted it.” After 119 pages of polemic, I felt, like Voltaire, the urge to thank God for giving proof of His existence by answering my prayer as well. In brief, Harris fails to accomplish what many philosophers before him have attempted: a logical and sensible approach for debunking the Christian faith.

After an attempt to establish a common ground applying to all Christian sects, Harris’ first claim is to define a system for evaluating the benefits of an ethical system. The criteria he de-fends is one in which questions of morality are reduced to ques-tions of happiness versus suffering. “Questions of morality are questions about happiness and suffering … To the degree that our actions can affect the experience of other creatures positively or negatively, questions of morality apply.” With his definition of ethics in place, Harris’ attempts to claim that Christians are no more than peddlers of suffering. As the atrocities committed in the name of Christianity are numerous, Harris uses these to attempt to show that the Bible has clearly failed to improve the net happiness of human beings.

His most condemning argument, given his system of ethics, is that Christians “are almost never geared toward the relief of human suffering.” Harris means to attack the position of some Christian ethicists who argue that stem cell research, and the destruction of embryos to procure stem cells, is unethical. In regards to stem cell research, Christians should disregard stem cells as only a collection of 150 cells and should express more concern for killing a fly, which has 100,000 cells in its brain. However, this argument is hardly defensible because it is en-tirely based on materialism. For the Christian, this approach to evaluating something like stem cell research is easily discarded because God has endowed humans with a unique place in the Universe as his chosen children. The anthropocentrism of the Bible provides a much better system of ethics, because all human beings can be viewed as equals and simultaneously as the animal

God designated to “fill the earth and subdue it.” Christians have encouraged alternative means for collecting stem cells which have been found to be just as effica-cious, and without the need of a fertilized embryo.2 Christians not only struggled for ethical science and development, but also the de-fense of a staunchly more logical system of differentiation between “life” and “not life.” Moreover, reducing a human being down to issues of materialism results in situations that seem counter-eth-ical to intuition; the multitude of ethical problems with utilitarianism undermine Harris’ position as well.

In continuation, as a response to some of the negative feed-back he received for his previous book, The End of Faith, Har-ris advocates why “atheists” exist as more productive and law-abiding members of society than the religious. Harris defines the term “atheist” as a person “claiming to ‘never doubt the exis-tence of God’ ” and who demands that the religious “present evi-dence for his existence—and ... benevolence.”3 Moreover, Har-ris states that nations like Canada, Sweden, Norway and Iceland have high rates of “atheism” among its populace, and, also, high rates of socioeconomic development and prosperity. “I know of no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too desirous of evidence in support of their core beliefs.”4 While Harris first claims that “atheists” are simply those who ask those who believe in God to “present evidence for his existence,” it would be incredibly easy to ask those who are atheist to present evidence for his non-existence. At best, both sides must concede that the only position of belief that requires absolutely no faith or hypothesizing is uncompromising agnosti-cism. In his response to theism effecting a decrease in develop-ment, he too admits the lack of causal evidence between religion and social development: “Leaving aside the issue of cause and effect, however, these statistics prove that theism is compatible with the basic aspirations of a civil society.”5

Taking issue with the idea of God as good, Harris mirrors the arguments of existentialist thinkers before him, like Camus and Sartre, who see the suffering of others as a sign of God’s

Book Review of Letter to a Christian Nation

Becker Polverini

Memo to a Misinformed Atheist



to announce the death of God in a way that each generation can understand ...”11 At the end of the discourse, the reader, if Chris-tian, is bored; if atheist, reaffirmed; and if agnostic, probably bored. This book is nothing new to be feared. f

Becker Polverini ‘10 is a computer science major from Huntington Beach, CA.

1 Ibid., 82 Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research: “Cloned Stem Cells Prove Identical To Fertilized Stem Cells.” (ScienceDaily, 2008).3 Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation (New York: Vintage, 2006), 51.4 Ibid., 43.5 Ibid., 456 Ibid., 557 Scripture reference taken from ESV8 Sam Harris, Letter to a Christian Nation (New York: Vintage, 2006). 63.9 Ibid., 8710 Ibid., 6511 Ibid., 91

non-existence or imperfection. With both believers and infants in their cribs drowning as the flood waters rose during Hurricane Katrina, all should see that God “is either impotent or evil.”6 While the question of theodicy and the origin of evil is one of the oldest questions in the Christian faith, Harris does little to at-tack the Christian response that God is perfectly good and evil is a product of sin in the world. Instead, he preempts the response that “God cannot be judged by human standards of morality” by saying that “human standards of morality are precisely what [Christians] use to establish God’s goodness in the first place.” Normally, this argument would be correct; however, Judeo-Christian theology is unique in the sense that we define God as goodness itself. As the psalmist says in Psalm 16:2, “I say to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; I have no good thing apart from you.’ ”7 We do not need a standard by which to establish his goodness. For the Christian faith, the opposite is true: God is the standard by which we establish the goodness of all things. With this defi-nition of “goodness,” then the issue of theodicy no longer should concern the Christian: If God is “good,” then the atrocities and evil that exist in the world can be seen as a product of things that are not from God.

As Harris tries to solidify his argument that atheism is the most logical worldview, he criticizes the U.S. National Acad-emy of Sciences (NAS) statement about the clash between sci-ence and religion. The report, which claims “whether God exists or not is a question about which science is neutral,” is an ex-ample of science under the yoke of religious pressure. Accord-ing to Harris, the U.S. government’s research is nothing more than locked in a cycle of “perpetual fear of losing public funds,” so the NAS may have merely been “expressing raw terror of the taxpaying mob.”8 Not only does this representation of the government represent pure speculation, but it also belittles the powerful role scientists who are religious can play in helping to heal the less than ideal relationship that the two share in the 21st

century. In the end, Harris’ conclusion is as follows: “One of the

greatest challenges facing civilization in the twenty-first cen-tury is for human beings to learn to speak about their deepest personal concerns—about ethics, spiritual experience, and the inevitability of human suffering—in ways that are not flagrantly irrational.”9 Letter to a Christian Nation fails to logically show why atheism is more reasonable than agnosticism or faith. As good, logical citizens, in an ideal world we would all settle on agnosticism because of the glaring lack of evidence in both camps. As science cannot respond to these “limit questions,” questions of things that existed before nature itself, the best we can hope for us something beyond logic itself to solve the dispute, or settle with neutrality. This omission in his work is never encountered with anything beyond the passing claim that science is “an honest appraisal of the evidence.”10 At its most brilliant, it is a collection of poorly constructed analogies and a patchwork of logical syllogism that, more often than not, re-sults in reductio ad absurdum somewhere else. The arguments he applies to Christians are often reapplied to atheists with little logical extension.

In the last lines of his work, he states his motive: “This let-ter is the product of failure—the failure of the many brilliant attacks upon religion that preceded it, the failure of our schools


Documents

Revisions Vol. 4 Issue 2, Spring 2008