Here’s what I mean by that: it seems to me that Christopher wants to embrace Science as a fully-competent competing source of authority with, for example, the Bible. And in that, he wants to be able to use Science to do the same kinds of things that the Bible can and should do for us – for example, to tell us who caused the creation of the universe, and whether it was a miracle or not. What’s not clear from BioLogos is whether this same skepticism about the Creation miracle will be applied to the Resurrection miracle – and whether they can tell us what will become of this faith once we have decided what to do about that.

So on the one hand, I am certain that someone can come up with a version of the Bible and what it is “really” telling us, that BioLogos, and by extension Christopher, would find wholly-acceptable which passes the academic sniff test. But on the other hand, I think what will be left will not be worth putting on – certainly not as something for which it is worth dying over.

See: that’s the actual problem – BioLogos wants something which they can accept as they are today, in the world they have defined, which doesn’t upset the apple cart or, frankly, make them suffer very much. Because you might have to suffer a little, for example, if as a professor of philosophy, you have to figure out how to teach Descartes when you know for a fact that Jesus Christ left an empty tomb to prove He is both Lord and Christ. Descartes’’ “Cogito Ego Sum” looks somewhat infantile when the actual great “I AM” is the one who defines all things, including the boundaries of life and death and right and wrong – and you might have to say something when it comes up in a survey of Western Thought.

You might also have to put it out there that, for example, man is not a product of adaptations and changes over a geological expanse of time – that whatever we think we see in the geological record, God made man for an explicit purpose, and that purpose is (just to be a broken record here) make perfectly clear by the fact that Jesus Christ left an empty tomb to prove He is both Lord and Christ. Even the ones who might say that it’s actually a gesture of extraordinarily-high Calvinism to attribute God’s providence to natural selection that finally winds up with Chris Benson and Frank Turk fussing over the meaning of the phrase “there was evening and there was morning, the [x] day” have to admit: that’s such a far-fetched abandonment of the intention of the Genesis text and all the derivative thgeological statements made in the rest of the Bible from that text that, even if it is actually what happened, it puts our ability to actually receive the Bible as anything but a massive fiction – however ethically or morally true – into question.

So what to do? I mean: I’m an advocate for reading the Bible literately, and in such a way that we treat it like the greatest single anthology of literature ever composed. Do we have any advice which we should invest some kind of epistemological seriousness in, or do we have to sort of grope around until we either fall into the right answer or the proverbial pit of despair?

Personally, I’m an optimist – I think we don’t have to grope around at all. The reason for my optimism, frankly, is that Jesus Christ left an empty tomb to prove He is both Lord and Christ. I mean: that is actually the reason to be optimistic about this stuff – that there really is a God, and whether you think there’s sin in the world or not (those voting “not” probably need to get out more), He took a really clear action to send Jesus into the world, to have him personally correct the people who were waiting for him, and then to have him die on a cross in abject humiliation and then, 3 days latter in accordance with Scripture, and as a fulfillment of prophecy, emerge from the grave as the first of many siblings who will, in fact, be glorified with Him in the final account.

Think about that: the key matter of the Christian faith which ought to substantiate the rest — the Jobs, the Noahs, the Abrahams, the Davids, the Adams – is a matter of historical fact. It’s not going to be replicated, so Science is utterly useless in telling us about it – just like, for example, the creation of all things. Let’s assume for one second that Science really can tell us how much and how long and which kind at the moment of Creation: it cannot tell us “what for”.

And that, to be blunt, is the point.

When Science begins to encroach on the ontological and metaphysical description of the world, my response is simply this: “when you can fully explain Jesus Christ, who left an empty tomb to prove He is both Lord and Christ, you can then continue in your journey to enlightenment.”

That’s the actual stain-fighting power in the universe, dear reader: that’s the actual place at which the human race can find the solution which makes the everything come out at the end with the pleasing aroma God intends to bring to this world. He’s going to bring us beauty for our ashes, and an oil of gladness for our mourning. He’s going to bring us clean wedding garments. And get this: it’s never going to be newer, or improved upon – especially by people who think that the cause of the stain isn’t very tenable and that the story which tells us these things is, at best, surreal.

The “what for” of all things is wrapped up in Jesus Christ, who left an empty tomb to prove He is both Lord and Christ. Every action we take which makes this fact less cogent, or less meaningful, or, God help, us less real and historical and human and tangible is to our fault, not to our credit. No matter what it smells like to those who, frankly, are dying.

So you know: Pack a lunch.

And before you read a single word of this post, I require of you that you read this post, by me, regarding this essential conflict involved in talking about this topic. If you do not read that post, and you want to reproach me about my post here, I will simply ignore you. You can’t know why unless you read that other link.

Back in 2000, the Jewish World Review published a categorically-brilliant essay by Sam Schulman called “Gay Marriage: fin de linge” in which Mr. Schulman simply and dispassionately dismantled the argument that sexual appetites are the basis for anything but self satisfaction. That essay, sadly, is a dead link, I am certain, that because of its force, JWR received plenty of hate mail and threats.

However, in 2003, Mr. Schulman rolled up his sleeves again and published this essay, called “Gay Marriage — and Marriage” which leap-frogged even the span of his previous essay and made what must be called the definitive secular case against gay marriage. It’s is a shame that this essay is not more widely-known in Christian circles because it would greatly reform out engagement on this topic. You should read it simply to be an informed person. (here’s the PDF for those of you so inclined to read that instead)

I bring it up because on 04 August, 2010, U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker ruled that the California’s Proposition 8 ballot initiative denying marriage rights to same-sex couples was unconstitutional. His reasoning culminated in this statement:

Proposition 8 fails to advance any rational basis in singling out gay men and lesbians for denial of a marriage license. Indeed, the evidence shows Proposition 8 does nothing more than enshrine in the California Constitution the notion that opposite- sex couples are superior to same-sex couples. Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.

REMEDIES: Plaintiffs have demonstrated by overwhelming evidence that Proposition 8 violates their due process and equal protection rights and that they will continue to suffer these constitutional violations until state officials cease enforcement of Proposition 6 8. California is able to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, as it has already issued 18,000 marriage licenses to same-sex couples and has not suffered any demonstrated harm as a result, see FF 64-66; moreover, California officials have chosen not to defend Proposition 8 in these proceedings.

Because Proposition 8 is unconstitutional under both the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses, the court orders entry of judgment permanently enjoining its enforcement; prohibiting the official defendants from applying or enforcing Proposition 8 and directing the official defendants that all persons under their control or supervision shall not apply or enforce Proposition 8. The clerk is DIRECTED to enter judgment without bond in favor of plaintiffs and plaintiff-intervenors and against defendants and defendant-intervenors pursuant to FRCP 58.

IT IS SO ORDERED. (again: the PDF)

Of special interest to me in the ruling is this paragraph on page 12 of the ruling, under the heading, “WHETHER ANY EVIDENCE SUPPORTS CALIFORNIA’S REFUSAL TO RECONGIZE MARRIAGE BETWEEN TWO PEOPLE BECAUSE OF THEIR SEX”:

All four plaintiffs testified that they wished to marry their partners, and all four gave similar reasons. Zarrillo wishes to marry Katami because marriage has a “special meaning” that would alter their relationships with family and others. Zarrillo described daily struggles that arise because he is unable to marry Katami or refer to Katami as his husband. Tr 84:1-17. Zarrillo described an instance when he and Katami went to a bank to open a joint account, and “it was certainly an awkward situation walking to the bank and saying, ‘My partner and I want to open a joint bank account,’ and hearing, you know, ‘Is it a business account? A partnership?’ It would just be a lot easier to describe the situation —— might not make it less awkward for those individuals, but it would make it —— crystalize it more by being able to say * * * ‘My husband and I are here to open a bank account.’” Id. To Katami, marriage to Zarrillo would solidify their relationship and provide them the foundation they seek to raise a family together, explaining that for them, “the timeline has always been marriage first, before family.” Tr 89:17-18.

Isn’t it interesting that the judge can see with no uncertainty that marriage has “special meaning” and not merely some kind of “general meaning”? It’s actually a little horrifying because the judge actually grasps a central issue to the matter by also recognizing the “timeline” for “family” — something Sam Schulman makes into a well-rounded rational case (completely absent of religion) against making marriage into “a variety of other goods and values with which it is regularly associated by its defenders and its aspirants alike … love and monogamous sex and establishing a home, fidelity, childbearing and childrearing, stability, inheritance, tax breaks, and all the rest.”

So what exactly is going on here? Listen: I have made this case before when Newsweek thought they had put this question to bed. This is not a question of whether or not there is equal protection under the law, but in fact a question of whether or not those advocating for the ambiguation of the definition of marriage really wanted what they say they want.

Seriously: look at the example they bring to court. Can Zarrillo and Katami really not get a joint bank account? Really? Oh wait — somehow they are ashamed to get a joint bank account. Oh no — that can’t be it because they believe they are doing nothing wrong. What is at stake here is that they want to enforce their moral choices on other people to justify their own behavior. They phrase their quandary as an opportunity they themselves are denied, when in fact they are seeking to change the way other people see them.

I wanted to say what Mr. Schulman says in my own words, but I simply cannot find a way to improve it. He says plainly:

The question addresses a class of human phenomena that can be described in sentences but nonetheless cannot be. However much I might wish to, I cannot be a father to a pebble–I cannot be a brother to a puppy–I cannot make my horse my consul. Just so, I cannot, and should not be able to, marry a man. If I want to be a brother to a puppy, are you abridging my rights by not permitting it? I may say what I please; saying it does not mean that it can be.

And to say what must be said, also from Schulman:

Marriage, to say it for the last time, is what connects us with our nature and with our animal origins, with how all of us, heterosexual and homosexual alike, came to be. It exists not because of custom, or because of a conspiracy (whether patriarchal or matriarchal), but because, through marriage, the world exists. Marriage is how we are connected backward in time, through the generations, to our Creator (or, if you insist, to the primal soup), and forward to the future beyond the scope of our own lifespan. It is, to say the least, bigger than two hearts beating as one.

This ruling is simply and abjectly unrelated to this truth — even though it clearly and categorically recognizes it.

May God have mercy on the judge who has ruled this way, on those who are rejoicing in that judge’s lack of wisdom, and on all of us who have, frankly, contributed greatly to these events.

Hence: the Sunday school lesson I sat through a while ago.

We’re reading the Gospel of Mark together in class (it was an adult married class, for the invasively curious), and we had just completed chapter 2 and just begun chapter 3. And Chapter 3 opens like this:

Again [Jesus] entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And [the Pharisees] watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him. And he said to the man with the withered hand, “Come here.” And he said to them, “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?” But they were silent. And he looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.” He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.

The stuff in brackets, btw, are things I stuck in for clarity – I replaced the pronouns with the right antecedents. But here we are in Mark 3, and the question seems to be this: will Jesus do work on the Sabbath?

See – in Chapter 2, we have 4 incidents in which the Pharisees have very pointed questions to and for Jesus about what’s going on here. In Mark 2:1-12, Jesus heals the paralytic who was lowered through the roof to him to circumvent the large crowd, and He uses the words, “your sins are forgiven,” and the Pharisees ask Him how that cannot be blasphemy. In Mark 2:15-17, Jesus is accused of eating with sinners and tax collectors – and the Pharisees want to know how that’s not breaking the ritual cleanliness rules. In Mark 2:18-22, the disciples do not fast, and the Pharisees want to why they don’t obey the religious customs. And finally in Mark 2:23-27, the disciples are picking the heads of wheat on the Sabbath, and the Pharisees want to know why they are breaking the Sabbath law – why do they work on the Sabbath?

These religious guys seem to be full of questions – and from their perspective, they are good questions. They don’t want anyone committing blasphemy; they don’t want anyone being unclean; they don’t want anyone taking the tradition of Moses lightly; they don’t want anyone violating God’s law. On the surface, these seem to be good reason to be worked up – even if Jesus seems to give good answers to their questions.

But what’s really stunning here is what happens in the Synagogue. In Mark 3, Jesus comes in, and the man with the withered hand is there, and Jesus asks the Pharisees, “I’ve heard all your questions about the Law – what’s it say about healing on the Sabbath? Do we do good on the Sabbath, or should we do evil? Should we save a man’s life, or should we kill?”

And notice something: Jesus is angry with these guys and he’s got grief over their hearts which would rather that he not heal this man, or that he be condemned for doing so. That is: he’s both angry and sad over their sin.

Now, why is that? Is he crazy? Is he having some kind of schizophrenic episode? How can Jesus be both angry and sad at the hard hearts of these men?

I think it has something to do with love, my dear readers.

Let’s think about this together, first by finishing the story here. The first thing to realize is that the Pharisees have no answer for Jesus, even though Jesus has answers for their apparently-tough questions. Now, why do they have no answers? Are they speechless? Is the question very hard? I suggest that the question is not very hard at all – it’s a somewhat rudimentary bit of moral reasoning even from the standpoint of the Torah and the Tanach. Of course the Scripture does not forbid man from doing good and showing mercy, even on the Sabbath; they in fact demand that one break the law against work to save a man when he is in danger.

But why did the Pharisees not simply say that – why not admit that they were wrong? It’s because they had hard hearts – and we can see exactly how hard they were. “The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against him, how to destroy him.” Think about that: not only would they not admit that the Torah demands that they even break the rules of work to save a man’s life, they began planning immediately – that is, on the Sabbath — to destroy Jesus.

Doesn’t that seem a little strange? They have had the extraordinary concern for why others are breaking the Sabbath law, but when they are shown that they are not really concerned about the actual law or the actual spirit of that set of laws, they do not admit they are wrong: they plot to “destroy” the one who has pointed this out to them, and to everyone.

See: these Pharisees would affirm that God loves them – individually, and as sons of Abraham, brothers in the family of Israel. But what kind of love are they affirming? What kind of love is it that wants to put some aspect of authority or scrupulous appearance ahead of the real welfare of others? If we take this passage seriously, I think it’s not the kind of love that wants to make sure it offers sufficient condemnation to those who make mistakes: I think it is the kind of love which seeks to remedy the mistakes of others and not look out for their welfare.

Now look: before you start the internet rumor that Frank has gone soft and is preaching a social gospel or I’ve joined DailyKos or some stupid thing like that, here’s where I’m going with this. What is the Christian definition of “the real welfare of others”?

Yes: it involves meeting needs. Yes: it involves giving a glass of water to the thirsty, and caring for the prisoner, and doing for the widows and orphans in their time of need. But it does it with the Gospel plainly in sight. Not the systematic theology of Robert Reymond clearly in sight, and you can’t get the next cup of soup until you can pass a test on chapter 2; not even the denominational-equivalent of the confession clearly in sight; but the Gospel.

The Gospel! Listen: sinful men are dying, and they can’t hear the Gospel because we are afraid that we are going to mistakenly tell them that God is going to do something for them that He is not going to do. In the meantime, CBN is making prophecies for them, TBN is telling them God wants to make them rich and happy, and the Mormons and Oprah are telling them that they can makes gods of themselves. They are not afraid to come out with a draft statement, or steer people is a direction that might need some work in the long run. In the face of that, let’s not write off a guy like Francis Chan or take him to the principle’s office because he forgot to mention the Lamb’s book of Life or to use the words “Glory of God” when he said that angels have to cover their eyes in front of God when they are shouting out “Holy! Holy! Holy!” before Him. In a 15-minute evangelism video.

What if, rather than worry about whether someone else is eating a head of wheat on the Sabbath – gosh! A head of wheat?! – we stood with them as they told men who are perishing that there is a savior from their sin and the punishment it deserves?!

Christ died for our sin, in accordance with the Scripture. Think about this:

Isa 53:4Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted. 
5But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed. 
6All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned every one to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

You know me better than now to ask, “cent, have you gone universalist?” You know to whom specifically the “us” in 1Cor 15:3 refers. But think about this: the prophet was not afraid to say that the sins of all are laid upon Christ even if not all will be spared the final wrath of judgment. Can we not find some place in our hearts and in our actual interactions with people to stop worrying about whether they are keeping the right fast and instead do something about that withered hand they have?

Dude: lost people need to hear the message that wrath is coming but that love will conquer wrath. Lost people – such ones as we once were. You can worry about the elect when they come! You an make them into Christian soldiers when they come! First they have to hear the message that Christ died for our sins, and was raised from the dead to prove He has both the authority to judge and the ability to save. But how are they to call on him they don’t believe? And how are they to believe in him if they’ve never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? Because the Bible tells us not, “Man, you have to get all the jots and tittles right before you go out and tell people about Jesus,” but “How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!”

God will be glorified when we get our biases and stumbling blocks out of the way of the Gospel. Frankly, God is going to be glorified if we do not get out of the way, only we won’t be getting the “beautiful foot”: we’ll be getting the other foot, the one under which the enemies of God will be. Get beautiful feet instead. Put some shoeleather on the Gospel rather than another coat of polish.

You. The guy who doesn’t know any lost people. Yes, you.

My friends at the infamous blog Triablogue have done exactly this for the English-speaking Christian community by digitally publishing & distributing for free a response to the most recent volley from the likes of John Loftus, Ed Babinski and their likely crew of internet “New Atheists”. The atheist book is The Christian Delusion (a title which looks suspiciously familiar, as if it apes another more famous and more formidable book), and the Triablogguers have aptly named their rejoinder the Atheist Delisuion.

Peter Pike has this to say about the work of his fellow bloggers:

Each chapter of The Christian Delusion is thoroughly debunked by Hay’s philosophical and theological acumen, Engwer’s encyclopedic knowledge of history, Chan’s medical training, and/or Manata’s philosophical prowess. Contrary to the tactic The Christian Delusion used—to attack the weakest arguments put forth in the name of Christianity—the authors of The Infidel Delusion dismantled the strongest arguments atheists had to offer. Indeed, if there truly are “few works as effective” as The Christian Delusion, as Parsons claimed, then Triablogue shows atheism to be in a sad state indeed.

You can download your own copy here, and make a weekend out of it.

You can thank the Calvinists later.

I’ve been away for a while — work and other commitments have limited by blogging overall, and sadly my availability for Evangel has been one of the victims of that. I stopped by yesterday (Friday, 17 July 2010) to see what’s going on here, and I found Christopher Benson’s piece “Postmodernism 101“, which included what Christopher called “my bibliography for all pomo-curious Christians.” It was an interesting mix of titles (I admit: I have not read all of them).

It came up that Phil Johnson, my friend and benefactor, has written an intro to postmodernism as well — a 20-paged paper titled, You Can’t Handle the Truth: Addressing the Tolerance of Postmodernism, which is classic Phil. He cuts to the chase in the second paragraph of this transcription by saying this:

I’ll tell you plainly: I’m convinced that postmodernism is inherently incompatible with biblical Christianity. In fact, the most essential elements of the postmodernist perspective are hostile to the fundamental truth-claims of Scripture, and for that reason, I would argue that a postmodernist mind-set involves some positively sinful ways of thinking.

Now, after that, you have to imagine that Phil either needs to substantiate his conclusion in the following 19 pages, or he will merely rant. It’s an easy read covering a field which does not have many books which are easy to read, and I commend it to you, the reader, to discover for yourself what Phil does there.

Christopher says blankly about this paper:

Phil Johnson’s position on postmodernism is a conversation-stopper, and not unlike Christians who contend that the great atheists (Nietzsche, Marx, Freud) are a waste of time. To read them, we are told, is to be corrupted. I think there are promises and perils with atheism and postmodernism. Our charge is to exercise loving discernment.

Really? This is a fantastic piece of news — because it frames Phil as a book-hating fundie (alleviating him of the effort of reading all those books he reads, and alleviating the reader of the responsibility to listen to Phil).

This week, Phil underwent back surgery and is in a lot of pain. So in lieu of his response, I’ll fill in for a few pages to attempt to offer Christopher a course correction.

First is this, as I said in the comments of Christopher’s post: unless Christopher thinks that new Christians with weak faith should read the books he listed unassisted, even if they have little or no access to decent (let alone robust) Christian discipleship, he’s not as far away from Phil’s position as he would like to frame himself. Listen: there’s a massive gap between “loving discernment” and “blanket endorsement”, and Chris has definitely crossed into the latter category — by essentially demeaning someone who is willing to rigorously point out the non-negotiable distinctions between postmodernism and Christian faith. In Chris’s view, one is a “conversation-stopper” if one thinks that postmodern philosophy and reasoning is hostile to the truth claims of scripture.

I think Christopher is being another kind of conversation stopper, and I can substantiate that with two points.

Number 1: notice that Christopher dismisses Phil’s paper rather than respond to it. 20 pages of text get dismissed with less than 50 words, and he moves on. No sense engaging: Phil is the one who has stopped the conversation — by telling us extensively what he thinks. He must hate books.

Number 2: consider this diagram:

This is my own invention for the sake of this conversation — I hope using pictures doesn’t subvert the use of words to make a point. The Green area is “GENERAL REVELATION” — that is, it’s the world of rote objects which frankly we share with non-believers. We have that in common with them, and this is a key issue which, sadly, Christopher would not credit to Phil.

The question for us as believers — and by “believers” I mean “people who believe something about ‘GENERAL REVELATION’ which includes calling Jesus ‘Christ’ and not ‘dead guy we can’t find and who maybe didn’t really exist’” — is “what explanation of ‘GENERAL REVELATION’ do we accept?”

See: historically — since at least Paul and Jesus, but maybe as far back as Moses or maybe even Abel and Adam — those with faith in the God of Abraham, the God who spoke creation into being, believe that God’s word trumps our explanations of how the world works. That’s the Yellow are in the diagram: God’s explanation of all things is “SPECIAL REVELATION”, which we receive from Him, and the things we see are therefore informed by him.

But there are competing explanations — for example, the Serpent said, “Hath God really said?” (He didn’t speak KJV, btw: he lisped like the snake that he is). Cain was jealous and slew Abel — because of course that solves his problem that he presented an unacceptable sacrifice to God. Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery and lied to their father about it. The Book of Judges stands as a monument to what people do when they do what is right in their own eyes. King Saul is a proud heir to that tradition.

I mention it to point out what I have cleverly charted as the Gray area in the diagram — an area of assertions for the sake of this discussion have called “atheist assertions” to keep the question of po-modernity at bey for a moment to make this point. In the “Gray” area, certainly: they have encountered the world we live in, and undoubtedly something they say about it will be true. If there’s nothing they say about the world which is true, they’re just babbling idiots and we really can dismiss them. If they can’t get the color of the sky right, or the idea that the world is full of suffering right, or the fact that there are other people in the world right, etc., there’s no basis for discussion.

The problem is not the Gray area that turns up in the domain of “GENERAL REVELATION”: it’s the Gray area that turns up apart from “GENERAL REVELATION” and is contrary to the Yellow area — that is, it says something that the Yellow area does not. The problem that Christopher has is dealing honestly rather than “charitably” with this problem.

In “charity” — that is, charity to post-modernism — Christopher says that the postmoderns are “all too true all too much of the time.” What he ignores is that this is to their condemnation, not to their credit. Perhaps a review of Romans 1 & 2 is in order, but this post is already too long. What incriminates the non-believer is that he really does have all he needs to see the attributes and decrees of God insofar as they convict mortal man of sin.

What Phil is concerned about — and what we should all be concerned about — is the Gray area which sticks out like a sore thumb which are the actual distinctives of the movement. They are not in congruence or agreement with the distinctives of Christian thought and faith — and we should be clear-throated about pointing this out.

Do we agree with all people some of the time? Of course we do — we’re human, and the world is a real place which God made for all people, where it rains not he just and the unjust. We have some things existential in common. What we cannot do, however, is seek to make the antithetical aspects of human interpretations of any set of doctrines — be they postmodern, postcritical, baptist, pentecostal, presbyterian or Catholic — somehow compatible with the faith.

Christopher’s endorsement of these books whitewashes this problem with an abject lack of interest for those who are not yet prepared to use discern for themselves the difference between common human experience and God’s revelation as a regulating truth. His dismissal of Phil’s attempt to point out this key issue is not charitable in the least, and I think he should at least revise his remarks to better frame his objections — if not apologize outright for being flat-out wrong.

[1] The DVD I am about to review was provided by Zondervan explicitly and only if I promised to review it. That promise was secured because when I watched the video teaser they sent me to see if I was interested, I told them that I would be glad to watch the video, but that I couldn’t promise I’d review it – and my reason for that was simple: I hate writing reviews that are wholly-negative. I know none of you here at Evangel believe that, but the truth is that I think there are plenty of good things – especially in the Gospel – to write about, and that panning someone’s product is a drain on my time. So I told the publicist I work with at Z that if I didn’t like it I probably wouldn’t review it. He said the only way to get a copy was to promise to review it, so here we are.

[2] I am not a fan of Zondervan’s offerings to the marketplace of spirituality as a whole. They offer some winners like Richard Abanes, Jay Adams, Evangel’s own Gene Fant, The Habermas brothers, two books by John MacArthur, and a few others if you rifle through their stable of talent. But sadly they are also the ones who prop up the liberal end of the spectrum and undergird the “self-actualization” end of the evangelical (small-“e” intended) spectrum, and they do so with gusto. It seems to be their favorite thing to publish. So I tend to hold Zondervan’s offerings in general at arm’s length.

(An important note here: Zondervan also publishes a dump-truck full of fiction titles intended for the Christian book marketplace – one assumes because it is a cash cow. The state of Christian fiction should be the subject of a future year of blogging in every blog venue I have, but suffice it to say today that it’s not their fiction I actually have a serious beef with: it’s Zondervan’s non-fiction and allegedly-serious forays into spiritual/pastor advice)

[3] The easiest way to garner an unenthusiastic response from me in any situation is to place some other value ahead of truth. This sounds like a fundamentalist saw horse, but I think I mean something different by it than the classic fundamentalist would. Recently I had a chance to discuss this at work with a colleague, and when given the chance to elaborate, I said this:

Honesty is not just the ability to tell the truth, but to receive it as a means to improve my own performance and contributions. Being blunt with others is not honesty: treating the truth with respect, and changing when one is wrong, is actual honesty.

This will come back to roost in this review, but keep in mind that I think that truthfulness in this sense is the highest virtue when dealing with others.

So Zondervan has produced a series of DVDs called the Q Society Room — 4 DVDs based on the content and ideas found at Q: Ideas that create a better world.

And we can say that with a straight face because there’s not a political agenda here. When the site boasts content from a spectrum as broad as Os Guiness, Chuck Colson, Rick Warren, Chris Seay and Jim Wallis, there is a sort of balance involved. It’s not completely balanced – it certainly skews to the liberal edge of the table – but there’s a certain sobriety to the imbalance that you can at least respect the fact that they have tried to reach across the aisle, so to speak, to find the places where the wings of the intellectual household can agree. There is something admirable in that (cf. my disclaimer #3) because there is not merely disagreement among the members of the household in question: there is some agreement, some commonality.

And in that, the Zondervan has partnered with the folks at “Q” to produce these video discussion guides.

The disc they sent me was “The Whole Gospel”, which features some brief conversations with some folks I would call minor contributors to the larger discussion of faith and practice; these conversations are merely intros to videos by larger luminaries like Tim Keel and Chuck Colson. And the point of the disc itself is simply to get a conversation started on the topics in question – to start people thinking about what they really mean when they say certain things – or when they fail to really think about what it means when they say certain things.

So that’s all at least not bad: these are nearly-balanced conversation-starters, and they have the intention of starting conversations about faith and the real world.

And I watched the videos and was intrigued because I think that the basic conservative Protestant view of the church as a consequence of the Gospel needs some reform – and that’s what these videos were talking about, to a greater or lesser degree: reforming the real life of the church, ostensibly because it ought to be a necessary consequence of the Gospel.

Tim Keel sort of owned me in his talk until we got to this part, right at the end of his 30-minute video:

Now, let’s think about this: if we completely and utterly concede that “Jesus has a compelling answer to that question” of how to live (I would concede the point utterly and without a single qualification), is that actually the point of the Gospel? Is that actually the mode of evangelism – especially as defined by the New Testament?

Here’s the crazy thing: Keel’s presentation of the greater narrative of the Bible is the previous 28+ minutes of the video (which I truncated for fair use reasons; you can find it at qideas.org and download it if you want to register as a user there for free) I thought was about the best literate exposition of the whole Bible in 30 minutes that I had ever heard. But somehow, right there at the end, rather than grasping that the Exodus narrative (for example) is about God doing something for Israel it cannot do for itself, Keel abandons almost all of his good exegetical work to make a point which is transplanted from his cultural context rather than actually present and active in the text before someone in the 21st century in middle-class America looks at what Moses has written down.

So again, to my bias #3, this is a crisis of truthfulness: is Tim Keel being right-mindedly truthful – somehow more truthful than the Evangelism Explosion straw-man he sets up from a generation ago? If Keel being formed by the content of the text in a way that his counter-example is not – or is he simply hiding his own deep and serious mistake behind the mistake of his Sunday School teachers from 30 years ago?

This brings me back to Bias #2: Zondervan’s failure to actually engage the church as a whole as if there are actual solutions to the quandaries we face, or if we have to invent or adopt solutions from the culture in order to meet our intellectual and spiritual needs. Zondervan is masterful at seeking out and speaking to the broadest possible audience: the problem is that when it gets the seats in the arena full, it delivers something they could have found anywhere – and says that this is what the church can or ought to say to the passers-by.

What’s at stake in the conversations Zondervan and “Q ideas” have opened up here is not whether you personally can reason out your own solutions to the issues raised here – because you can. You do every day – as does every person with an IQ above 75. What is actually at stake is whether or not we have heard God’s solution to the problem of our culture, taking it in as true and real, and therefore do the things which are necessary after it like change our own ways of thinking about the problems for the sake of honesty.

In that, I think the content of the “Q Society Room” discs leave a lot to be desired. They are not adequate teaching tools. They do not provide the fully-orbed solutions the Gospel actually provides – which is an irony given the title “the Whole Gospel” on the disc I received. My opinion is that the conversations starting here are not new, and are not especially insightful, and do not offer the ultimate hope of the Gospel in a clear way.

As I close up here, let’s think about that issue in this way: if we were talking about the Oprah Winfrey Show, or a series on PBS, I have a suspicion that we all could agree that this kind of conversation would be significantly more helpful than the standard fare which includes Joseph Campbell, Marcus Borg and John Spong. But we’re talking about resources that churches ought to be using to educate their members and guide the spiritual formation of their flocks. This sort of ambiguous approach doesn’t really accomplish that, and leaves people to find their own way home after leading them out into a busy foreign city. It would serve both Zondervan and qideas.org to get closer to a fully-orbed orthodoxy than they are right now if their real objectives are to serve the local church and the church at large.

That brings me to my biggest concern about Hunter’s argument: The “faithful presence” he advocates most likely will result in Christians remaining silent in the face of injustice and suffering. Instead of seeking the welfare of the city in which God has placed us, we are indifferent to its decay and that decay’s impact on the life of our neighbors.

This isn’t a logical necessity: Faithful presence doesn’t per se require silence and indifference. But I’m hard-pressed to come up with an historical example of quietism and commitment to fighting injustice going together. And it is insensitive to the social and cultural context in which Christians are called to live out their faithfulness.

Now, re-read that a couple of times before you go forward here because it’s a more than a little absurd.

Let me explain and disclaim something first: If anyone reads into this post as a denunciation of Chuck Colson, well, that’s what happens on the internet: people have to find something to complain about. For the record, Chuck Colson does good political work for the sake of our country. He finds things that really matter in our society and our world and wants people to do something about them and not just sit on their hands, and I admire that. He is also plainly a believer in Jesus Christ, even if his public proclamations which involve theological categories usually make me more than a little itchy.

However, I am not a fan of Colson when all things are said and done, and the reason is in the very next paragraph of his CT essay:

In his Christianity Today interview, Hunter said, “When Christians turn to law, public policy, and politics as the last resort, they have essentially given up on a desire to persuade their opponents. They want the patronage of the state and its coercive power to rule the day.” I doubt he would have said that to Dr. Martin Luther King or to William Wilberforce when they waged long and heroic battles against injustice.

In the first place, this is not an argument: this is a supposition – and, I think, a bad one. Comparing Wilberforce and King in this way is a randy and enthusiastic mixing of serious distinctions.

For example, with all due respect to Dr. King, he did not share the theological presuppositions of Wilberforce. Wilberforce’s spiritiual mentor throughout his most rigorous political battles was John Newton – who is well known as a staunch confessional Anglican. More to the point, Wilburforce was convinced that while laws may restrain the evil-doer, societal change was only truly possible through conversion in faith which would cause men to resist radical causes and revolution. Dr. King, however, was first and foremost a populist in politics, and saw the appeal of democratic socialism if he was not in fact a socialist. His view of government as a coercive and frankly authoritative voice in society came before his commitments to the second birth and evangelism as tools of reforming men and therefore their societies.

And it is in this where Colson makes his critical error in this discussion, and in what is ultimately the debate over what the church is and what it is meant to do in and for the world.

In Colson’s view, evangelism is in the best case a partner with social activism – which is certainly Dr. King’s view, but not so much Wilburforce’s view. But Hunter’s critique of this is summed up in his book thus:

To the extent that collective identity rooted in resentment has been cultivated and then nurtured through a message of negotiation toward “the other,” many of the most prominent Christian leaders and organizations in America have fashioned an identity and witness for the church that is, to say the least, antithetical to its highest calling. … The tragedy is that in the name of resisting the internal deterioration of faith and the corruption of the world around them, many Christians – and Christian conservatives most significantly – unwittingly embrace some of the most corrosive aspects of the cultural disintegration they decry.

Colson does not address this in the least, and continues down the same path he has been on for decades: marrying the church to a political social agenda which, in the end, is not a partner with the mission of the church but a much later consequence of the mission of the church.

Now: here’s what I sat down to post before all of that necessary preamble – it is utterly faithless (but, to be clear, not necessarily damnable) to say what Colson says in criticism of Hunter’s point. For Colson to say that “the ‘faithful presence’ [Hunter] advocates most likely will result in Christians remaining silent in the face of injustice and suffering” demands that the reader interpret 3 things which, I think, are indefensible coming from a person who says Jesus has died for our sins and is raised from the dead to be both our Lord and Christ:

[1] It assumes that somehow “faithful presence” is itself a passive ethic. Let me use a radical example to explain why this is absolutely indefensible: there are no places in the world where there are Mennonite or Amish communities where the community is not greatly impacted for the better and the presence of those living the radical solution is not obvious and active to those not in the radical solution. There are certainly faults among the Amish and the Mennonites – they are human, after all, and not caricatures or demigods. But the historical example of these communities speak so loudly and boldly against the “do nothing” conclusion Colson offers that one has to wonder if he’s serious about challenging the position Hunter is offering.

[2] It ignores the value of evangelism in Colson’s core ministries. Listen: when Colson is at his best, he has established a parachurch platform for local churches to draw resources from in order to convert the lost in prison and turn them away from their sin and their path of present corruption and eternal damnation. At his best, Colson has his arms around the lost for the sake of the Gospel, and a heart for people who otherwise are going to hell. But his criticism here completely neglects that the foundation of the great wins his ministry has produced in these prisons is primarily to make of men something new in Christ, and not to teach them more law so that they have more rules to follow. Colson’s solution for men in prison is a faithful presence for them from those who believe in Christ.

[3] It makes the church far subordinate to the parachurch, which is an inversion of the Bible’s economy and polity of the world. That statement deserves a week’s worth of 10-page blog posts, but I will settle for saying this: when the day comes that we as Christian have made our local churches into museums for the Gospel where it is displayed but never taken down into the street to save a lost person, and we call that a “faithful presence,” we will not be good and faithful servants: we will be Pharisees of the highest order, sons of Benjamin, taught by the greatest of teaches, who count all that as silver and gold rather than filthy rags in comparison to Christ and his work for those who are lost rebels. However, then, we define “the work” or “the presence”, let it never be in such a way that our first objective is ever obscured by our other concerns for other human beings. We are right to want to save people physically from danger, but the greatest danger to them are their unrepentant souls – something you cannot legislate away.

Hunter’s challenge to we who call ourselves Christian is this: our engagement is first to save the souls of our enemies, and therein save their bodies and their homes and their properties. If we seek to first save men’s bodies and their homes and their property, we will never get to their souls.

1. The point is obvious, and it’s been said before, but to see it in this high production value should make you at least be happy that the point is also going mainstream.

2. The stunning irony of this video is that it comes from North Point Media — which is a function of North Point Church, Andy Stanley’s church. It’s a church foundational to the “Catalyst” network of churches which, if you ask me, are among the ones getting poked at in the video.

3. It’s Friday. Sunday’s coming.

See: Jared and I sort of met because we both started blogging at Evangel, and I think we weren’t supposed to like each other. He’s a Boar’s Head Tavern guy; I’m obviously a PyroManiac. He’s not really one of the “YRR” crowd even though he has some friends there, and somehow I am – even though I prolly don’t really have any friends there except Zach Bartels and Tad Thompson, may a blessing be upon them. And my guilt trip has come from the fact that Jared’s book deserves a good review, and I haven;t had time to make one. Until now.

I think Jared actually “gets” it. He’s not a theology wonk, and he doesn’t memorize the Puritans or anything like that, but as a pastor he gets it that people need Jesus, only Jesus, and what Jesus has done because that’s the only real hope in the world.

You could do a lot worse than to wake up one day and find out that Jared was your pastor.

So in that context, Jared’s people at LifeWay sent me Abide, and I was supposed to review it. It comes in a box, and in the box is a workbook and two discs. To be totally forthright in this review, I could not get the video DVD to work, so maybe there’s some content on there that ought to make me rend Jared limb from limb. I’ll leave that to someone else to discover; you can feel free to put your content-substantiated criticism of the DVD in the comments.

Abide is not a Bible study. Sorry LifeWay – there’s no way to frame this as a book which is first and foremost, as someone someplace has said, what God hath said. This is a book which is a lot about what Jared says. I’m not sure that Jared would say that exactly about this work, but here’s what he does say about it in his one-page intro:

I hope you’ll find this book not just practicval helps for your spiritual disciplines, but the games-changing proclamation of the good news. That good news is even that in your setbacks and struggles, God is at work in you according to his good pleasure.

So in Jared’s view, somehow this book is about the Gospel. And that’s what you gotta like about him: Jared is a guy who thinks the Gospel is the main thing – but take note: he doesn’t think it’s the only thing.

Some people will take this (wrongly) to mean that Jared is off the island; he’s some kind of syncretist or synergist or some other kind of bad man – but they would be wrong. The Gospel has consequences, and those consequences are necessary. For example, the people who might start the war drums up against Jared would all agree, univocally, that one necessary consequence of the Gospel is that it must be proclaimed. It does not make one a papist or a pelagian to admit that because of the facts inherent in 1 Cor 15:1-4, people must be told that Christ died for our sins, etc. Proclamation is a necessary consequence of the Gospel – it is something we must do, or we are not actually what we might otherwise say we are.

Now, what one would think one ought to do is start with the Bible, quote Jesus in some sense about the necessary stuff which are consequences of the Gospel, and viola – Bible Study. That’s how every right-minded reformed writer goes about it: Bible, therefore us.

That’s not what Jared has done here. Instead, Jared has written a series of reflections on the Christian life, and he has asked his readers to think about these things with him – including some relevant small passages of the Bible on these subjects. In that respect, this is a study which is far more devotional than it it strictly didactic.

Now, this is where most people head off the reservation: in their attempts to think about the Christian life, they mostly lecture the reader using their own private biases, and pose questions about the Christian life which take for granted that the Christian life is itself a sort of error-fest.

In contrast, Jared takes the culture we live in and contrasts it with the necessary consequences of the Gospel. Now, in doing this, Jared doesn’t set to prove or defend his short list of Gospel consequences (scripture, prayer, fasting, service, community) – and that will undoubted also draw the ire of some. I also admit that I was very much underwhelmed by the conceit of “rhythms” to describe these things. It smacks of some sort of feng shui, as if these things are not actually necessary but are helpful. To that I say “eh”.

But along side that are statements like, “we read the bible asking ourselves how we might use it rather than how it might use us,” which should convict any good man; regarding prayer, “As busy as we think we are, none of us have as large a burden placed on us as Jesus did;” regarding the church as a community, the plain statement, “suburban churches often reflect and emulate their cultures rather than challenge them.” And Jared’s challenge to you is that you think about this problem seriously – which is to say, as if you really had to do something about it.

A friend of mine has said that too many books talk too much about “ought” and not enough about “is”. I think if Jared’s book has anything to offer at all, it should how the “is” must migrate to the “ought” – not just by the force of a systematic theological view, but because this is who Jesus calls us to be.

It would be wrong of me to say that I think everyone will benefit from this book. I think in fact most people will not benefit from this book – because they don’t know to read well, and they really don’t know how to think through practical theological issues from a pastoral standpoint – that is, from the standpoint that you must speak to people and not just at them.

Abide is not perfect by a long shot. Why Jared lists “fasting” instead of “worship” in his list of spiritual disciplines I cannot guess; why he calls these activities and the means by which we ought to practice them “rhythms” seems either intentionally antagonistic toward the people who might benefit from this book most (that is: those locked up in their properly-systematic boxes), or perhaps ignorant of the baggage that word would have in this use.

But! Jared has done something here you need to try to come to grips with. Even if you read it and disagree with it, it offers the right challenge to your Christian life and offers the right answers. It doesn’t steer you away from the right-minded view of the Gospel and its consequences: it makes you think about why you didn’t do anything about it today.

And any book that will do that is worth reading.

If it is contended that people go to Hell because God elects them to Hell, then I absolutely believe that Calvinism is antithetical to Scripture because the Bible tells that God wants all to be saved, that Jesus died for all people, and that God wills the good, and that Hell is not good.

Well, that’s an interesting perspective.

Let’s make sure we get a couple of things right if this is where the discussion is going:

[1] Some people in the reformed camp would contend double predestination — that God actively elects the salvation of those who are saved and actively predestines the damnation of those who are finally sent to hell. I admit I understand the logic of this and can gravitate this way, but I also am certain that this is not the classic reformed position. It is a later systematic adaptation, and I would put it up for discussion as to whether it’s actually hypercalvinism or not. It may not be, but I’m saying that I can see how it might be. The person from the comments, above, is against double predestination, and I thank him for it.

[2] The classic reformed position is that God elects the saved and simply doesn’t do anything for those not elected from an eternity-past standpoint, offers them the Gospel as a choice in the present, and will condemn those who do not repent and believe on the basis of their works in the final account. The elect are predestined, and those who do not come to faith are condemned for their sin. The WCF says it this way:

God hath appointed a day, wherein he will judge the world in righteousness by Jesus Christ, to whom all power and judgement is given of the Father. In which day, not only the apostate angels shall be judged; but likewise all persons, that have lived upon earth, shall appear before the tribunal of Christ, to give an account of their thoughts, words, and deeds; and to receive according to what they have done in the body, whether good or evil.

The end of God’s appointing this day, is for the manifestation of the glory of his mercy in the eternal salvation of the elect; and of his justice in the damnation of the reprobate, who are wicked and disobedient. For then shall the righteous go into everlasting life, and receive that fulness of joy and refreshing which shall come from the presence of the Lord: but the wicked, who know not God, and obey not the gospel of Jesus Christ, shall be cast into eternal torments, and punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power.

As Christ would have us to be certainly persuaded that there shall be a day of judgement, both to deter all men from sin, and for the greater consolation of the godly in their adversity: so will he have that day unknown to men, that they may shake off all carnal security, and be always watchful, because they know not at what hour the Lord will come; and may be ever prepared to say, Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly. Amen.

And for good measure, the WCF also says this:

By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated unto everlasting life, and others foreordained to everlasting death.

… [To those not elect], God was pleased, according to the unsearchable counsel of his own will, whereby he extendeth or withholdeth mercy as he pleaseth, for the glory of his sovereign power over his creatures, to pass by, and to ordain them to dishonour and wrath for their sin, to the praise of his glorious justice.

The LBCF says it in a different way:

By the decree of God, for the manifestation of his glory, some men and angels are predestinated, or foreordained to eternal life through Jesus Christ, to the praise of his glorious grace; others being left to act in their sin to their just condemnation, to the praise of his glorious justice.

So as we hail down the scorn upon myself and the other calvinists poking about, let’s remember that the idea that some are actually actively predestined to hell in an active way is of somewhat-dubious paternity.

[3] In the final account, God does actually condemn people to hell. This is an inescapable and undeniable fact of Scripture. Jesus’ parable of Lazarus and the rich man spells this out plainly; His warning about the consequences of sin makes it clear in Mark 9. “Well, Turk: those people may be in Hell, but God didn’t send them there,” may come the rejoinder — to which I say, “horse-feathers.”

In Rev 20 is says with no qualifications:

Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them. And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done. Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

There is only one who is seated on the great white throne, and he judges all the dead who are brought before his throne. And by his judgment, they are cast into the lake of fire.

So as one contends for God’s character, contend for all of it — both the love and the wrath. It’s not any kind of shame to say that God wants Justice.

Apply it liberally to yourself in whatever context you find yourself in. It’s great advice overall on how to interact with people and live as if you believe something (particularly the Bible) is true.

For example, a lot of people are hot for teaching the word because they are “gifted by God” (a phrase which, let me say plainly, I love and hate). What’s the difference between someone who is a “gifted teacher” and someone who is a “pastoral teacher”?

Or what about discernment — a lot of people claim to have “discernment”, to which I say, “bully for you”. What’s the difference between having “discernment” and “a pastoral discernment”?

Now remember: these last two questions are examples of the primary question, which is, “what do we mean when we call something ‘pastoral’?”

This is one of those question which will either lead to a very vigorous 200-comment thread, or it will fizzle because the topic is extraordinarily-mundane. It is, however, at the core of the two books in question.

Let’s see what happens.

If Hunter’s book is a game-changer for your view of church, culture, and politics, this book is the game-changer that, frankly, I wish I had written. Leeman’s book is unbelievably-careful to begin at the beginning or the idea of “church” and end at your front door, challenging you to be what God wants you to be among the other people called out to be the church together.

Both of these books deserve a chapter-by-chapter treatment in order to fully and fairly review them — and there’s no way I’m going to get that done this week. However, you could get a leg up on that endeavor by buying either one and starting to read them for your own edification.

There is not a more important issue for Evangelicals today than the topic(s) covered by this book by Leeman, and from a different approach angle by Hunter. I look forward to leveraging both of them with you in the future here.

The only downside is the cover, which was plainly designed by some enemy of this book who was intent on it never once selling a copy to a human being. If they had wrapped it in plain brown paper it would have been more interesting.

After that, the book is (as the readers of Hunter should expect by now) brilliant and insightful, and you personally should order a copy in spite of the cover and read it so that you can be challenged in some pretty foundational ways when it comes to the way you approach “politics” and “mission” and “evangelism” and “church”.

I’ll post something more meaty next week when I’ve had time to digest a bit, but this book is a strong tonic.

Pilate asked him, “Is this true that you’re ‘King of the Jews’?”

“Those are your words, not mine,” Jesus replied.

Pilate told the high priests and the accompanying crowd, “I find nothing wrong here. He seems harmless enough to me.”

But they were vehement. “He’s stirring up unrest among the people with his teaching, disturbing the peace everywhere, starting in Galilee and now all through Judea. He’s a dangerous man, endangering the peace.”

When Pilate heard that, he asked, “So, he’s a Galilean?” Realizing that he properly came under Herod’s jurisdiction, he passed the buck to Herod, who just happened to be in Jerusalem for a few days.

Herod was delighted when Jesus showed up. He had wanted for a long time to see him, he’d heard so much about him. He hoped to see him do something spectacular. He peppered him with questions. Jesus didn’t answer–not one word. But the high priests and religion scholars were right there, saying their piece, strident and shrill in their accusations.

Mightily offended, Herod turned on Jesus. His soldiers joined in, taunting and jeering. Then they dressed him up in an elaborate king costume and sent him back to Pilate. That day Herod and Pilate became thick as thieves. Always before they had kept their distance.

Then Pilate called in the high priests, rulers, and the others and said, “You brought this man to me as a disturber of the peace. I examined him in front of all of you and found there was nothing to your charge. And neither did Herod, for he has sent him back here with a clean bill of health. It’s clear that he’s done nothing wrong, let alone anything deserving death. I’m going to warn him to watch his step and let him go.”

At that, the crowd went wild: “Kill him! Give us Barabbas!” (Barabbas had been thrown in prison for starting a riot in the city and for murder.) Pilate still wanted to let Jesus go, and so spoke out again.

But they kept shouting back, “Crucify! Crucify him!”

He tried a third time. “But for what crime? I’ve found nothing in him deserving death. I’m going to warn him to watch his step and let him go.”

But they kept at it, a shouting mob, demanding that he be crucified. And finally they shouted him down. Pilate caved in and gave them what they wanted. He released the man thrown in prison for rioting and murder, and gave them Jesus to do whatever they wanted.

As they led him off, they made Simon, a man from Cyrene who happened to be coming in from the countryside, carry the cross behind Jesus. A huge crowd of people followed, along with women weeping and carrying on. At one point Jesus turned to the women and said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, don’t cry for me. Cry for yourselves and for your children. The time is coming when they’ll say, “Lucky the women who never conceived! Lucky the wombs that never gave birth! Lucky the breasts that never gave milk!’ Then they’ll start calling to the mountains, “Fall down on us!’ calling to the hills, “Cover us up!’ If people do these things to a live, green tree, can you imagine what they’ll do with deadwood?”

Two others, both criminals, were taken along with him for execution.

When they got to the place called Skull Hill, they crucified him, along with the criminals, one on his right, the other on his left.

Jesus prayed,

“Father, forgive them; they don’t know what they’re doing.”

Dividing up his clothes, they threw dice for them. The people stood there staring at Jesus, and the ringleaders made faces, taunting, “He saved others. Let’s see him save himself! The Messiah of God–ha! The Chosen–ha!”

The soldiers also came up and poked fun at him, making a game of it. They toasted him with sour wine: “So you’re King of the Jews! Save yourself!”

Printed over him was a sign: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

One of the criminals hanging alongside cursed him: “Some Messiah you are! Save yourself! Save us!”

But the other one made him shut up: “Have you no fear of God? You’re getting the same as him. We deserve this, but not him–he did nothing to deserve this.”

Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom.”

He said, “Don’t worry, I will. Today you will join me in paradise.”

By now it was noon. The whole earth became dark, the darkness lasting three hours– a total blackout. The Temple curtain split right down the middle. Jesus called loudly,

“Father, I place my life in your hands!”

Then he breathed his last. When the centurion there saw what happened, he honored God: “This man was innocent! A good man, and innocent!”

All who had come around as spectators to watch the show, when they saw what actually happened, were overcome with grief and headed home. Those who knew Jesus well, along with the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a respectful distance and kept vigil.

There was a man by the name of Joseph, a member of the Jewish High Council, a man of good heart and good character. He had not gone along with the plans and actions of the council. His hometown was the Jewish village of Arimathea. He lived in alert expectation of the kingdom of God. He went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Taking him down, he wrapped him in a linen shroud and placed him in a tomb chiseled into the rock, a tomb never yet used. It was the day before Sabbath, the Sabbath just about to begin.

The women who had been companions of Jesus from Galilee followed along. They saw the tomb where Jesus’ body was placed. Then they went back to prepare burial spices and perfumes.

They rested quietly on the Sabbath, as commanded.