Thank God for Heretics

I’ll be the first to admit that it can be difficult to find things to be thankful for sometimes. In the middle of difficult or confusing periods of life, being told to count one’s blessings can be met with the question, “What blessings?” Other times, things to be thankful for can come from unexpected places. With that said, let’s cut to the chase: given that some readers may already know my feelings on heresy and heretics, one may wonder why I thank God for heretics. A brief anecdote will explain why that’s the case, and I’ll even throw in a brief thought about thankfulness and patience.

Oh the Things We Debate

Thanks both to where I went to college and the company I keep, I end up connected to lots of ministers on social media, and there are few times where I’m made more aware of that than when I check Facebook. Every time I log on, i find new invites to like a page and see posts from blogs, not unlike this one, as well as posts from various minsters about videos they’ve put up. Honestly, most of the content becomes a blur unless I specifically know the person. However, I distinctly recall seeing a post one minister made that caught my eye. This particular minister made a video discussing whether or not it was acceptable to sing during the Lord’s Supper. In and of itself, that question has never really interested me; quite frankly, I feel no great need to sing during the Lord’s Supper, nor do I feel the need to harshly rebuke anyone who does. The comments are on this minister’s post made it plain to me, however, that mine was not the only opinion on the matter. Long, protracted arguments, references to Greek, accusations of liberalism and legalism, and all the hallmarks of a good donnybrook were on display for any interested onlooker to see.

Now, I want to go ahead and make a few things plain: I don’t at all intend to come across like I’m mocking the guy who made the aforementioned post, or anyone who argued about it. I do think the argument is quite silly, but otherwise perfectly good and intelligent people can chase silly rabbits, so I don’t wish to pass judgment here. In fact, I’m confident that everything said came from a good and genuine place. However, as I was reading the argument unfold, one thought kept coming back to the forefront of my mind.

“This is the kind of thing people argue about when they don’t have an actual problem to solve.”

George Isn’t Taking Retirement Too Well

There’s a humorous twist on an old tale, first brought to my attention by Douglas Murray. Perhaps you’ve heard of Saint George the Dragon Slayer. If not, you can pretty immediately figure out the gist: a brave hero kills the dragon and saves the princess. While the George of history was a martyr who very likely slew no dragons, his legend is foundational both to many tales of gallantry and an all too real problem. Imagine for a moment that the legend of George is true and that he wasn’t martyred. Assume he was able to retire to a quiet villa, venerated by the people around him for his brave deeds. Think about the toll that would bear on a man: after all, where do you go after killing a dragon? How do you build on that? What could you possibly do to kill time after that? One can very easily imagine his being quite bored, and people who get bored during retirement either find something to do with all their newfound free time or they go back to work. The problem becomes obvious quickly: if the dragon’s dead, what kind of work does a dragon slayer do? Menial labor is simply beneath him! Instead, restlessness gives way to something else entirely, that being either the desperate need find and kill more dragons, real, exaggerated, or outright imagined.

Sometimes, I fear that this is what happens in Christian circles. We’ve had centuries of fighting battles of all sorts and finally got to a place where we more or less had things figured out. We figured out where we stood on who Jesus is, the nature of the Trinity, questions about justification, and all sorts of other vitally important. Setting aside for a moment the need to always go back to the sources and make sure we’re on the right track, we have a temptation in Christendom that a newer religion may not possess, that being the temptation to look or dragons to kill, even if we have to invent them in the process.

Heretics and Heresy

I want to make clear what I mean by a heretic. A heretic isn’t just someone I disagree with or someone who I think is wrong on some issue or another. Borrowing from Alister McGrath, a heretic is a person who holds a view that is so directly antithetical to a central tenet of the Christian faith that by adopting that view, they have fundamentally altered their faith in such a way that it no longer can rightly be called Christian. Heresy isn’t just wrong or indicative of a differing view. Heresy is toxic to the Christian faith, coursing through its system and destroying it from the inside. As the title of this essay suggests and the above heading outright states, I thank God for heretics, despite my intense disagreement with them and that might be puzzling. Why would I be grateful for heretics and heresy? A few reasons come to mind that I’ll list and briefly expound on:

• Heresy requires us to focus on the core components of the faith. Petty arguments fall by the wayside when heresy begins to take hold.

• Heresy requires us not just to figure out what we stand against but what we stand for. Even more, heresy requires us to clearly and beautifully define and explain the truth of the Christian faith.

• Heresy provides an opportunity for the best and brightest to create a lasting and fruitful impact for generations to come.

Patience and Gratitude

Perhaps most importantly, heresy creates an opportunity to cultivate patience and gratitude. Dealing with heresy graciously and effectively requires time and effort, the kind of which makes us more patient by sheer necessity if nothing else. Heresy also reveals wise and faithful believers from all walks of life, people we should always seek to emulate and be grateful for. As such, while I find heresy repugnant, I can’t help but be grateful for it. I can only imagine how dull church history would be were it not for the likes of Arius, Marcion, and their ilk. Heresy is, of course, a grave matter and yet, despite the gravity the term brings, I do believe the church is better for its struggles against heresy, and for that, along so many other factors, I can honestly say that I thank God for heretics.

The Credibility Conundrum and the Myth of Neutrality

Credibility is a complicated and precious thing. Calling one’s credibility into question can be an effective debate tactic and a devastating insult, often at the same time. It can’t be precisely measured in units, but it’s a staple of discourse. Classes on research and writing dedicate time to determining if a source is credible, and teachers may provide lists of publishers and the like that typically produce credible material. It’s no surprise then, that credibility is occasionally emphasized so heavily by Christians. “Think about your witness,” or any variation thereof is Christianese for, “This could affect your credibility.”

With that said, I worry that credibility can be a white whale that, once found and caught, quickly becomes, in some respects, worse than an albatross around the neck. Mixing of the metaphors aside, my concerns about credibility wrongly emphasized center around a singular principle with multiple applications, one that I’ll explain after some key disclaimers:

• None of my concerns about credibility should be taken to mean that we should neglect loving our neighbors and acting with integrity.

• My concerns center around overemphasizing credibility and making it an overriding concern. I intend to close this piece with some diagnostic questions to ask when evaluating how much we value credibility.

• This isn’t directed at anyone in particular (especially not who you have in mind). I’m aware of a post that’s been shared regarding credibility and has even been shared by Chris, my esteemed friend and colleague on this blog, but this is very much a matter of my thinking on the issue for a while. If I ever want to call you (yes, you, dear reader) out, you won’t have to speculate about it.

Credibility and Neutrality

To me, the key issue for Christians with reference to credibility centers around what can be called the myth of neutrality. Most basically, the myth of neutrality refers to the notion that nobody is neutral with reference to God and his rule over the universe. This notion is especially popular amongst people who adopt a presuppositional approach to apologetics, but I believe it has validity even apart from that school of thought. I affirm that neutrality is a myth in this regard because I believe that the Bible teaches that mankind is dead in sin (Ephesians 2) and that people, apart from Christ, hate God (Romans 1:30). Jesus himself teaches that people love darkness rather than light and actively avoid the light so their sins can remain hidden (John 3:19–20). Simply put, those outside of Christ want him to stay far away. This is not to say that all non-Christians everywhere are as rabidly anti-Christian as possible, of course, but rather that it shouldn’t surprise us when non-Christians resist and even resent the Christian message or its implications.

The myth of neutrality is important because it’s a prevalent myth. Apart from misanthropes and persons with specific neuroses, we tend not to think of ourselves or others as taking sides in grand spiritual conflicts, much less the wrong side. Yet, outside of Christ we are described as enemies of God (Romans 5:10) and Jesus offers two difficult dictums: “Whoever is not with me is against me,” (Matthew 12:30) and “Whoever is not against us is for us.” (Mark 9:40) Much can be said about those passages, especially the latter, but what’s beyond dispute is that Jesus doesn’t leave a neutral option on the table.

Three Ways Non-Neutrality Affects Credibility

Knowing that no one is neutral has implications for how we consider credibility. In particular, three pitfalls come to mind:

“You’re not supposed to fight back.”

During World War 1, the German military objected to the use of shotguns by the US military and threatened to execute soldiers captured with them. During the same war, German soldiers fielded flamethrowers and triangle bayonets, which made their complaint dubious at best. Avoiding getting bogged down in the politics of war, the German military would’ve complained about any weapon, provided that it worked, and the reason for that is simple: the Germans weren’t neutral. They wanted to win, and removing your opponent’s ability to fight back is often key to winning. Applied to the present question, sometimes, the problem isn’t that you lack credibility. The problem is that you’re engaging someone that doesn’t want you to “fight back” in the first place. This is especially true for hot-button issues.

“You have nothing that I want and much that I don’t.”

Years ago in a class on contemporary issues in church life and operation, my professor asked my classmates and I to each come up with lists of ways to bring in younger demographics. I’d love to say that we all had profound suggestions about community outreach and the like, but that was hardly the case. While I’m sure that good suggestions were made and escaped my memory, what I do remember is that creature comforts were a common theme. Granted, I have nothing against such things, but an obvious problem resents itself. Coffee and donuts don’t make people who hate God suddenly reassess their feelings. More relevant to the discussion at hand, credibility can only go so far in taking a person from being dead in sin to being alive in Christ. A person who wants nothing to do with Christ won’t be won over to him so simply.

”If not now, when?”

Often, the idea of credibility is presented in terms of immediate use versus long-term planning and prioritization. “Don’t waste your credibility now, use it when it counts.” There is wisdom to this sentiment, certainly. There is value in picking your battles wisely and choosing the right hills to die on at the right time. However, there are two questions that come to mind, one of which has already been plainly stated. If now (or immediately) isn’t the time to use one’s credibility, when should one do so? Is there some indeterminate point at which one’s credibility accrues interest sufficient to bring to bear? Further, if an issue isn’t worth spending credibility on now, would it be later? Obviously, we can, and should, prioritize both how and when we approach an issue, but I worry that, if we’re not careful, “not yet” can become “never.”

Have I Made Credibility an Idol?

If it’s possible to underemphasize our credibility or recklessly undermine it, it’s equally possible to overemphasize or idolize the same. As such, we should take care that our understandable concerns about credibility don’t override other equal or greater concerns. I find a few key questions helpful here:

• When an issue or question arises, how do I approach it? Do I focus on framing a response in a palatable way first and foremost rather than my response being Christlike and true?

• In an argument or discussion, do I nuance myself to death? In other words, do I make so many clarifications and distinctions that my point gets lost in the mix? (Note that this is distinct from struggling with clarity and organization or not being sure where you fall on an issue)

• Especially regarding evangelism, where do I believe the power lies? Do I, based on what I say and do, believe that I’m the one who changes a person’s heart, or do I believe that God is the one who changes hearts and minds?

In closing, I want to make a very brief comment on a passage that periodically gets brought up regarding credibility. “Make yourself an example of good works with integrity and dignity in your teaching. Your message is to be sound beyond reproach, so that any opponent will be ashamed, because he doesn’t have anything bad to say about us.” (Titus 2:7–8, CSB) Obviously, I lack the ability and desire to disagree with Paul here. Christians ought to be bastions of integrity and soundness in how we conduct ourselves. With that said, we should also know that no amount of personal integrity will change a heart of stone to flesh, nor will it keep a person determined to hate God from doing exactly that. Your credibility, as important as it is, is not the most important thing you bring to the table. Instead, the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and everything it entails, is.

A New Birth

“And ah for a man to arise in me, That the man I am may cease to be!”- Tennyson, “Maud.”
Whatever one may think of Tennyson or his work, I love the lines above. Though “Maud,” is a strange and frankly sad tale, I enjoy it and the cry for a new man to arise within resonates with me, even if it’s for different reasons than Tennyson envisioned. Everyone has, at some point, been confronted with their own inadequacy or shortcomings and desired to be better than they presently are. Self-help has become a booming industry with its various players vying to help you be the best that you can be. Typically, the strategy proposed can fall into one of two broad schools, those being the, “You’re great just the way you are, with minor adjustments,” or the, “total makeover now,” schools. Different approaches appeal different people and I don’t want to browbeat anyone, but I also want to get right to the chase. Never mind more cynical criticisms for now, but neither school can ever truly fix a person. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure plenty of people of have found them helpful, but two flaws present themselves:

• Both schools misdiagnose the problem and the minor adjustment school misjudges the depth.

• Both schools fail to acknowledge what is needed.

A Nighttime Meeting

In John 3, Nicodemus meets Jesus at night and is presented with a startling truth: “You must be born again.” Puzzled, he asks, “How? Do I somehow enter the womb again?” There’s something humorous to that, but, of course, on some level, Nicodemus is being serious. After all, he sought Jesus out and acknowledges that he’s the real deal. We might think that what he says is silly, but Nicodemus wants to make sense of what has just been set in front of himself.

Here, we see Jesus present our most pressing need and the solution to that need. “Unless someone is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” implies both a need (or at least desire) to see the kingdom and what is needed to meet that need. But his language further into the chapter leads us to a deeper understanding. “Water and spirit,” bring us back to Ezekiel 36, where God promises many things, including, cleansing, a new heart, and a new spirit.

Promises With Implications

When we stop and read Ezekiel 36, what God promises should give us pause. His promise to clean Israel implies that they’re dirty. The promise of a new heart implies a defect (at best) with the old one, and the same is true of a new spirit. We see similar language in Paul. “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!” (Eph 2:4, CSB) “And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.” (1 Cor 6:11, CSB)

The dead are made alive. Those stained with various types of sin are cleansed. The most pressing need is met, decisively so.

New Life

When I think on new birth and being made new in general, I think of Romans 6: 4–5. “Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in the likeness of his death, we will certainly also be in the likeness of his resurrection.” My deadness was taken away, replaced with life given to me on the basis of Christ’s own life and work. I can know that in Christ, I am made new. When I remember Tennyson’s cry for a new man to arise, I can confidently think, “A new man has arisen from the grave of baptism, with a new life freely given out of the death of Christ.” My lack of poetic aptitude aside, I don’t have to ponder minor adjustments or seek out a new role model. Instead, I can rest, knowing that in Christ, I’m made new in a way that surpasses anything the world can offer.

Two Sides to the Question of Masks

The question of masks is still is a matter of intense debate, with the focus being less on the actual efficacy of masks at this point and more the propriety of government mandates surrounding them. Tensions seem to run pretty high, with no shortage of ridicule on either side. As such, I wanted to present two different but connected sides and hopefully foster some understanding between people on both sides willing to give each other a fair shake.

A General Concession

Immediately, we should recognize that, all things considered, it’s a good thing to wear a mask. I don’t claim expertise on the matter, but wearing a mask, while a small thing, can help a great deal as far as protecting others in particular, which matters when being an asymptomatic carrier is possible. I wear a mask anywhere that I’m asked to do so, including my workplace. I don’t mind to, and generally, I think that some people get overly activated about wearing a mask. As a rule, I especially think that Christians should at least strongly consider doing so as a matter of loving our neighbors and acting responsibly.

What About the State?

Even if we recognize that masks are a good thing, naturally the question of state responses comes up. My stance is likely unsurprising, but i want to plainly state it. I don’t believe that it’s any government’s role, whether it be local, state or federal, to require masks or to levy penalties against people for choosing not to do so. The reason for this is simple: anything the state requires you to do is something that, eventually, it will use force against you for not doing. My test for this sort of thing is similarly simple: ask yourself the following, “Is this issue so important to me that I would be willing to resort to violence or force over it?” If you find yourself unwilling to use force to get something done, then one has to ask why a law or other ordinance should be passed because, again, the government’s power to enforce rules lies ultimately in the fact of its monopoly on violence. As such, we should be extremely cautious about laws and the like regarding wearing masks, even if we would wear a mask if it weren’t required of us. The general populace doesn’t need governing bodies to inform its sense of self-preservation and, of course, responsibility for one’s self is a major priority, even before we consider the implications of the state using force to get people to wear masks.

What About Private Companies and Persons?

Private companies and persons are a different matter entirely. I happily honor requests to wear a mask from any business I go to, be it a store, restaurant, or even a barbershop. If I went to a friend’s house and they asked me to wear a mask, I’d do so without thinking twice about it. As i referenced earlier, my own workplace requires masks and I wear one, which is made easier by the fact that one is provided for me. It might be puzzling that I’m adamantly against the state requiring masks and also entirely in favor of companies and the like requiring them if they so choose. However, there’s a very simple reason for this. I believe that your property is just that: your property. You can, within reason, set any rules that you like on your own property and, if for nothing else but courtesy, I should respect those rules. Even at a very basic level, Christians can find here a simple application of the Golden Rule: because we expect people to treat our homes and property with respect, we ought to do the same for others.

A Bad Analogy

In keeping with the prevalence of ridicule, a comparison is sometimes floated that’s intended to take the notion of personal responsibility to an extreme. The image of a restaurant where personal responsibility is the top priority is put forward, with examples of health and safety protocols being flouted because, after all, we want to respect the autonomy, intelligence, and responsibility of the workers and the customer. A few applications can be made, with varying degrees of validity, especially regarding how our choices impact others and I think those are worth considering. There is, however, one glaring flaw with the analogy: you never have to set foot in the restaurant, and you certainly don’t have to stay long enough to get food poisoning. No restaurant, no matter how large or successful, can require people to eat there and they certainly can’t send armed personnel out to force you to dine. Such a restaurant wouldn’t last, even if you set aside health inspectors shutting the place down. A restaurant most famous for its employees’ abject refusal to practice hygiene would be out of business within a month, and rightfully so. The state, on the other hand, has no such limitations. Because of the monopoly on violence, the state can require attendance, participation, and payment for anything its animating members wish. This is why, fundamentally, the analogy is bad: intentionally or otherwise, it, misses a fundamental difference between the state and private entities.

Some Closing Recommendations

In closing, I want to offer a few basic suggestions for navigating this discussion that can also apply elsewhere.

• Be gracious and assume the best of one another. Not everyone that wants you to wear a mask is an authoritarian who has forgotten the proper role of the state, as difficult as that is to believe sometimes for people like me. Likewise, not everyone who is skeptical of masks is an irredeemably selfish person who craves the death of every grandparent on the face of the earth.

• Speak clearly, be willing/able to define your terms and request the same of others. Speaking from experience, so many arguments can be solved by asking, “Can you explain what you mean by that?” It’s frustrating to argue when one side or the other is missing key information.

• Leave ridicule behind. Never mind that it’s rarely necessary, you’re probably not very good at it anyway, and I don’t say that to ridicule you, dear reader. Often, when we employ ridicule, we’re not being as clever as we think and we’re almost certainly not as funny.

• Above all, keep your motives in check. If we’re not careful, and I use we intentionally here, we can focus more on winning the argument rather than winning the person. As Chris Voss might say it, we can focus so much on getting to “you’re right,” that we fail to get to, “that’s right,” meaning that we’ve won the argument rather than actually changing a person’s mind.

The pandemic has been a confusing and trying time. I’ve seen people from all over the spectrum of opinion interact with each other. Sometimes this has been done well and been, if nothing else, interesting to watch unfold. Other times have been interesting to watch for the same reason a train wreck is captivating. My hope, dear reader, is that this essay willy help you approach this specific aspect of pandemic discussions in a more even-handed way. Wherever you fall on the issue, stay safe and God bless you.

A Word About the “Reformation Project”

Homosexuality and related issues continue to be a major point of contention across Christendom. Mainline Protestantism has largely embraced homosexuals, while evangelicals and the Roman Catholic Church have struggled with how exactly to respond, especially as homosexuals have gained more and more mainstream acceptance. Books have been written, lectures delivered, and debates waged, all of which has done little to actually alter course or delay much of anything. I’m not so much interested in the political aspects of the debate, but rather the theological.

It’s hardly surprising that when a major social issue arises to heightened public conscience, responses arise from every corner of Christendom. One example of that is the Reformation Project, founded by one Matthew Vines. Dedicated to furthering the acceptance of LGBTQ community into Christendom broadly speaking, this organization has been around for a few years, and Vines has been in dialogue about these issues since he authored God and the Gay Christian and delivered a speech on the case for Christians affirming same sex attraction in 2012. Periodically, articles from the Reformation Project make their rounds and I’ve even been asked about this article. With all that said, I want to briefly respond to the good, the bad, and the obvious in this article and in the debate generally.

What We Can Agree On

The church should be a group of people among whom anyone can feel safe and loved. This should be a top priority for anyone who values Jesus’ affirmation of the second greatest commandment. (Matt 22:39) I can appreciate this emphasis, even with the key exceptions I take to Vines and others in this debate. Further, I believe it to be a net positive to have this debate, because it requires the church at large to discern not only what it is against, but what it is for. Christians will have to develop and articulate a holistic, healthy, and Biblical view of human sexuality, a subject that has sometimes been neglected.

Some Areas of Concern

With the positives stated, I have a methodological concern and a theological concern. The methodological concern could be entirely a question of intended audiences, but I do think it’s noteworthy that the article is very light in its citation of scholarly sources, especially when discussing the meaning of Greek terms (a reference is made to a monograph by Dale Martin, with a link to the relevant chapter, as well as an article on the history of using the word “homosexual” in translations, and a YouTube link to a discussion on the matter, but little else).

I recognize that blogs and the like written at popular level often don’t provide footnotes or the like, and some may disagree with me, but I find it troubling when a writer makes a research based claim without showing where they did their research, especially with reference to the meanings of words in foreign and dead languages. The reason for this is simple: intentionally or otherwise, not providing these citations removes the ability of the reader to go back to the sources you used and verify the information you cited. Even if a person lacks the training to read in another language, a citation both shows where you got your information and allows for accountability in making a claim. This is not to say that I think that Vines, or anyone else in this debate, is engaged in deception or the like, but to make the point that given the availability of well researched lexicons and other sources, people who purport to write with any level of authority on this subject should cite their sources, especially in settings where doing so is fairly easy. Even a title and page number would be sufficient in this context, I think.

The second issue, the theological one, is an apparent disconnect between the Old Testament and the New in the eyes of advocates of LGBTQ lifestyles. Particularly, in debates that I’ve watched between James White and LGBTQ advocates, there is a heavy emphasis on the New Testament. In some cases, it’s because the debate’s thesis centers on the New Testament and that’s fair enough. In others, it seems like one stays in the Old Testament only long enough to discuss Leviticus 18 and then makes a beeline to Jesus. I recognize that some find James White distasteful, and I can understand that, but set that aside for the moment and consider the scope of the question at hand. To ask, “What does God say about homosexuality,” and then ignore roughly 2/3 of what has been divinely inspired is puzzling, especially for LGBTQ advocates who claim to otherwise be historically orthodox Christians. Further, the rush to Jesus in the New Testament ignores another key point of historic orthodoxy: Jesus is God the Son and therefore, existed and acted as God in the Old Testament. I don’t mean this in the sense of “finding Christ in the Old Testament,” but rather as a fundamental point about Jesus. If he is in fact God the Son, equal to and one with the Father, then he was God in the Old Testament as well, meaning that the Old Testament is still remarkably relevant for understand issues today, even when one accounts for distinctions between the cultic and moral aspects of Mosaic Law. Further, given that Jesus frequently quotes the Old Testament, I suspect that if one were to ask him about homosexuality, his answer would begin with, “Have you not read?”

Response to Key Claims

With all of that said, there are a few key claims that merit a response. Firstly, to note that “homosexual” doesn’t appear in English Bibles until the 20th century, as well as noting the use of terms implying pederasty in other translations, while factually correct, is a non sequitur when discussing what the terms originally meant. Obviously, a term that wasn’t coined until the middle of the 19th century in German and the late 19th century in English (as claimed here) isn’t going to be present in translation before then and will require mainstreaming before use in later translations. Further, such a claim, even if totally factually accurate, misunderstands the authority of the Bible. Aside from KJV onlyists, Christians do not locate ultimate authority in translations, but in the texts as they were originally written. This is why many Christians have such an intense interest in text criticism and why knowledge of Greek and Hebrew is (or at least was) highly prized as a skill for teachers and preachers to have. Translations are trustworthy representatives of God’s authority when they accurately represent what God originally said.

As to the claims regarding the meaning of the specific terms, arsenokoitai and malakoi (transliterated here for convenience), there is some history of debate, that is itself too lengthy to fully develop here. That said, a few key points can be noted here:

• I believe it to be fully consistent with good lexicography to understand arsenokoites to mean, merely, a homosexual or more precisely, a man who has sex with men. BDAG, 135 is especially helpful on the subject noting the range of use, as well as some of the key literature on the debate around the terms meaning. Further helpful, albeit brief, entries include BrillDAG, 590, and LSJ, 247. The entry found in NIDNTTE, v.1, p. 405–8 is also helpful, especially because it references key articles and a monograph.

• The term malakoi, I think, is similarly settled, meaning soft primarily and having, amongst other meanings, the contextually derived meaning of effeminate when applied to men. See especially, NIDNTTE, v. 3, p. 217 and BDAG, 613.

• To argue that Paul is actually drawing on Greco-Roman styles such as the vice list or actually addressing issues such as exploitation both fails to adequately account for Paul, for all his contact with the Greco-Roman world, being distinctly Jewish in his thinking and framing and his reliance on the Old Testament (see especially Thiselton’s NIGTC volume on 1 Corinthians, 440-52 for an excellent and, I think, even-handed discussion that both covers many of the aforementioned aspects and cites a variety of sources for further research).

Some Final Recommendations

In summary, I find the arguments presented by the Reformation Project unsatisfactory, as you may have guessed. With that said, I don’t want to bash Vines and his colleagues, or anyone else for that matter. What I do want to do, however, is urge you, dear reader, to continue your own research and reading, and come to your own conclusions. I’ve cited several things here, including links where possible, and I encourage you to roll your sleeves up and do your homework. Some reference materials are expensive and you may not be able to just buy them, but university libraries often have many of these sources (or can get them in some way) and you may know someone who actually owns their own copy. Whatever the case may be, you don’t have to trust me. You can do this kind of research yourself and you can even learn Greek and Hebrew if you have the time to commit to it. You can also watch debates on the matter. Sean McDowell and Matthew Vines have debated this very issue and you can watch that debate for free. My point is, dear reader, there is an embarrassment of riches to work with, and I believe that anyone who wishes can dive in and mine those riches.

Hope for the Fatherless

Father’s Day was yesterday and for many, that brings a great deal of emotion. Some spend time with their dad, even if it’s just a long phone call. Others visit a grave with flowers or attend to a similar ritual. Many are blessed with fond memories of the man that raised them, even if that man has long since passed from this life. Not everyone is so fortunate. Some hear, “father” or “dad” and recoil. It may be because their dad was a truly vile person. Perhaps it wasn’t that he was evil or malicious but rather that he had to be loved from a distance. Whatever the case may be, not everyone has the blessing of having a father in their life that they feel genuine affection for. This creates a unique challenge for the Christian faith, in no small part because as Christians, we call out to God, “Abba, Father!”

From Above or Below?

There is a debate in theology that centers around the direction in which theology moves. Do we do theology upward or downward? Put another way, do we start with man and work our way up or do we start with God and work our way down? Different answers have been given, including cleverly phrased, “Well it depends,” statements. I don’t want to descend into a debate on that matter specifically here, but I do want to make a clear and, I think, key assertion: our idea of fatherhood has to start with God and work it’s way down to our parents. This is because if we do otherwise, we can end up with muddled or confused ideas about who God is or what fathers are supposed to be.

God as Father

Its no surprise that Christians view God as Father. “I/webelieve in one God, the Father,” is the beginning of the earliest creeds and the language of fatherhood is abundant in the Bible. Jesus refers to God as Father and himself as Son even as he declares himself one with God. God describes himself as a father to Israel and Solomon even compares God to a father who disciplines his children out of love.

While we can grant that God is wholly unique and as such earthly fathers, even at their best, can only ever be analogous to the Father, we see the traits that make good fathers abundantly in the Father. Love, kindness, a sense of justice and fairness tempered with a love for mercy, strength (physical or otherwise) and so many other traits are put on display by God, all of which we seek in our fathers here on earth and herein is the rub. If we look at our earthly fathers and assume that God must be like them, we may imagine a petty deity riddled with the worst of man’s flaws. We may think of one who turns his nose up at our best efforts or even swears and raises his fist at us for bothering him. What we find when we look at God to define fatherhood for us is far more welcoming and certainly less intimidating.

Hope for the Fatherless

Today, you may find yourself fatherless, be it literally or metaphorically. If that’s the case, know that there is hope. Your father is, in many respects, irreplaceable. There is the quite obvious fact that no one else could sire you, at least not without your ending up being meaningfully different. At a similar level of apparentness is that the influence that your father, biological or otherwise, had on you is difficult to replicate. This can be devastating for those whose fathers dropped, or spiked, the ball. If that is the case, take heart. Your father is not the Father, neither archetypically nor theologically. While your wounds are legitimate and require time and care to heal, what requires little time at all is to throw yourself into the arms of a loving Father who has tended to your most pressing needs.

Hope for Fathers

You may instead find today that you, as a father, feel like a failure. Maybe you rake yourself over the coals over some mistake from when your children were young. Perhaps you look with regret on the time you could have spent with your family and spent elsewhere. Whatever the case may be, don’t look to yourself. Look instead to your Father, who is perfect in every way that you find yourself lacking, and more. Look to the Son, who lived and died not just for you but also for your children. Rely on the Spirit who is poured out so that you can live up to the high calling of father out of a strength that surpasses your own. You may fail your children from time to time. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit will never fail you or those you love. Instead of trying to live up a standard you will never reach, rest for a moment knowing that even your greatest needs have been met and point your children to the same Father that surpasses all others.

Things Are Getting Better

I can be a bit of a pessimist at times. If I let myself, I can fall down a pit of what if’s, assumptions, and catastrophizing. I suspect that I’m not the only one prone to such things but recently, I really got hung up on a particular thought:

“Things really are getting better, aren’t they?”

It’s easy to dismiss that right now, I get it. We’re arguably more aware of racial injustice and systemic abuses of power than ever. We’re (hopefully) towards the end of a global pandemic, with some speculation about a second wave. A presidential election is a few months away and the two primary choices are, frankly speaking, lacking. The list could go on and on.

I’m not suggesting that there aren’t serious issues that people are dealing with, both personally and societally. Nor am I trying to say, “Look at how good things are, stop complaining.” Instead, I want to hang my proverbial hat on something that has really wowed me every time I’ve stopped to think about it.

A Few Years Make a Big Difference

I have a brother who’s six years older than I am. By itself, that fact is pretty insignificant. Sixyears is roughly 22% of my current lifespan, and I’m sure you can find a great deal of things that lasted for six years. However, aside from the obvious age difference between me and my brother, there’s something else that’s incredibly significant about the time between the time of my brother’s birth and the time of my own.

The USSR dissolved in 1991, a year and a few months before I was born. Between the time my brother was born and the time I was born, an empire built on millions of corpses collapsed. When my brother was born, many assumed that the USSR would be a major power for decades to come and serious geopolitical threat. When I was born, many of those same people likely argued that the coming collapse was obvious to anyone looking for the signs. All that to say, the shape of the world literally changed for the better and by the time it was, historically speaking, right around the corner, few, if any, saw it coming.

The Difference Between Being Owned and Being Free

A more immediately relevant example is that of slavery in the United States. In 1859, I’m sure that some scoffed at the idea of the abolition of non-punitive slavery in the US. Many were pushing for abolition or otherwise working to free slaves, but I suspect few would imagine that their efforts would come to fruition so soon and at the end of a bloody and brutal war. This is important to note. Sometimes, history moves and develops in such a way that its best turns arise out of pain and suffering, sometimes even on an international scale. This isn’t a justification of war or an attempt to make it seem praiseworthy, but rather a recognition that one can never be sure what challenges and difficulties lie between the here and now of our present crises and the future wherein these crises are resolved. Again, by the time that abolition or even the advances of the Civil Rights movement were coming to fruition, few if any, saw it coming and everyone involved had to wade through dark and deep water to get where they were going.

All Will Be Well

One of my favorite media personalities today, despite our various differences, often says, “We are winning. We will win. All will be well.” His optimism is contagious and, I think well founded. You may say, “Sam, look around you. Black people are killed indiscriminately. Police officers often abuse their power. China is a human rights nightmare. Our politicians are barely trustworthy and sometimes the news isn’t any better.” Those things are all true, but let me offer a few points to consider.

• We have an unprecedented capacity to expose injustice, abuse, and dishonesty. To paraphrase a quote I’ve never quite been able to nail down a source for: “If you have a smartphone, you have a microphone and camera. You can be a journalist.”

• There is a growing refusal to accept business as usual.

• Your ability to find and connect with people who care about the same causes as you do is growing everyday.

• Building off the first point, information has never been easier to find and catalogue, and it’s never been easier, at least in theory, to preserve.

If you say there are major issues that we have to contend with, I’ll agree with you. What I won’t agree with you on is the notion that we should meet those challenges with despair. Instead, we should look forward, knowing that there will be a time where our crises will be memories, even if they end up being painful at times. Obviously, for Christians, we have the promise that all things will be made right when Christ returns and that is a good and beautiful hope that we have. However, even now, I believe that we can look out at the world and genuinely say, “One way or another, all will be well.”

Stop Looking Backward

Nostalgia is a liar. In the face of current difficulty, we look back to the past and think, “Things were so much better then.” Sometimes, there’s merit to that: you may look fondly on a time before the loss of a friend or loved one, a time when you were still employed, or any number of things that you can more or less objectively say are better than your current situation. Politics is a different story. In the wake of riots, protests, and the struggle to address racial issues and police violence, on top of a pandemic and all its issues, there’s been a tendency to reminisce. Former presidents, George W. Bush and Barack Obama have both made public statements about the murder of George Floyd, and rightly so. It’s a travesty and I hope that Floyd’s death will be a catalyst for long lasting change in policing, especially with regard to accountability and use of force. Even if I were to comb through their statements and find something to disagree with, it wouldn’t take away from the central fact that Floyd, and so many others, should still be alive today.

What puzzled me is how people reacted. Bush and Obama were met with much praise for their words, with claims made, even anecdotally, to the tune of, “I miss having a president,” and “We need a real leader.” The reason why I found this all so puzzling will probably make some people mad, but let’s go ahead and get some disclaimers out of the way:

• This isn’t a defense of Donald Trump. Every criticism leveled against previous leaders here applies to him.

• This isn’t meant to take away from conversations around race and police brutality. I can be outraged about multiple things simultaneously and so can you.

• This is not meant as a, “You don’t actually care” piece. It’s more a “I wish you’d consider this as well,” piece.

All Is Forgiven Once You’re Gone

I wasn’t exactly a politically astute kid, shockingly enough (and I’m barely politically literate now, but that’s beside the point). One thing I do remember is that every kid I knew hated George W. Bush. He was the single stupidest, vilest, and most incompetent person to ever hold the office. Granted, most of us probably couldn’t articulate why, but we didn’t exactly care either. For us, it was largely the result of some press coverage and a lot of SNL spoofs and zingers. It wasn’t just SNL either. Patton Oswalt, on his Werewolves and Lollipops album, (which I can’t recommend now because Oswalt is quite vulgar), referred to Bush and Cheney as draft dodgers and compared their alleged wrongdoings to the Dukes of Hazzard. During his presidency, one could even find discussions on whether or not he could in fact be tried as a war criminal. Now? Bush is essentially thought of as a bumbling, well-intentioned goofball who’s taken an interest in painting.

Obama is a different case, mainly because he famously claimed that he didn’t have an embarrassing scandal during his presidency and also because of the “controversy” about his tan suit (hold that thought). The right typically despises Obama, with Ben Shapiro, for example, publishing an entire book purporting to lay out a criminal case against his administration. Obamagate is still a live discussion, depending on who you ask, and committees are taking actions of various sorts with reference to that even now. I rarely expect much to come of such affairs, but what I do expect to continue is the gradual cooling of rhetoric around the 44th president of the United States.

I say all of that to say, we’re remarkably willing to forget a great deal once someone’s out of office. It’s hardly a malicious or vile thing, to be clear. When a role as significant as that of the President changed hands, it’s understandable that things get lost in the shuffle. However, there’s something that, I think, is too great an issue to ignore and is, in some ways, connected to what is in front of us right now.

Civilian Casualties

The United States has been, on and off, involved in the Middle East for decades. Be it efforts to fund the mujahideen in Afghanistan, the Gulf War, the Iraq War, take your pick. “We’ve” been over there for a while and there doesn’t actually seem to be a plan to leave anytime soon (that I’m aware of at least). One can argue about the necessity of such actions and the wisdom of maintaining a military presence. One could even dispute whether or not, after a certain point, “we’ve” created more problems than have actually been solved. While I’d disagree with many on these issues, I can at least envision an argument made in good faith that isn’t just the functional equivalent of rabidly screaming “Deus Vult!”

What I can’t quite envision good faith defenses of is the fact that by 2012, roughly 15% of people killed in drone strikes were non-combatants. This implicates both Bush and Obama in the deaths of hundreds of Middle Eastern civilians. Democrats and Republicans both would hem and haw about the outrage de jour while people were being killed on the other side of the Atlantic. By the end of his presidency, Obama had ordered over 500 strikes, killing civilians and militants alike: missiles can’t check their targets, after all. Think back to the tan suit. The source of the controversy was apparently that such was far too casual a choice for announcing plans to ramp up military action in Syria. What kind of insanity has to take hold of someone for them to fixate on the color of a man’s jacket while he’s detailing his intention to continue a series of campaigns that have left death and destruction in their wake?

What’s more disturbing to me is that we’ve yet to reject such action. Trump has taken up the mantle well, and while reception has been mixed, as one would expect, one moment haunts me. After ordering a strike into Syria, the response of one Fareed Zakaria was to say that “Donald Trump became President of the United States.” Set aside arguments about the strike itself and the ins and outs of why it was or wasn’t necessary and think about that. The moment, at least in Zakaria’s eyes, that Trump became president wasn’t when he pushed for one policy or another. It wasn’t a speech, or anything like that. For some, the moment that Donald Trump really stepped into the role of President was when he directed military munitions against a foreign body without the authorization of Congress. This praise wasn’t an isolated incident either. While I think it’s safe to say that many have given up on the notion of Congress asserting the fact that declaring war is strictly within its power, not that of the executive branch, I don’t think this should be overlooked. Trump is criticized, usually rightly so, for a variety of things. He’s vulgar, rude, arguably inept, accused of colluding with a foreign power, the list goes on. Yet, for some reason, it’s rarely brought up that he is also killing civilians by the same means his predecessors used. It gets brought up in think pieces, articles, and the like, which is good. However, you’ll have to forgive me if I think that Trump will face a second impeachment for literally anything else before he, or his predecessors, are taken to task for killing brown people overseas with missiles.

Why Does This Matter?

The obvious reason that this matters is twofold. The first is that murder is morally wrong, but there is also another layer. Christians have long disagreed about the question of pacifism. What I don’t think we can disagree about is warmongering. In the Psalms, David calls for rescues from evil men, the kind who, amongst other vices, “stir up wars all day long.” (Psalm 140:2, CSB, see also, Proverbs 6:12–15). In Proverbs, Solomon identifies seven traits of wicked men that God hates: two of those are the killing of the innocent and the stirring up of strife among brothers (Proverbs 6:16–19). I think it’s fair to note that the immediate referent is personal strife and the act of murdering an innocent person directly, but we can hardly ignore the principles at play: those who shed innocent blood and seek to keep violent conflict alive and well bring misery in their wake and beckon God’s wrath to hunt them down.

As to our present crisis and unrest: consider the following: why would a person who can remain calloused and indifferent about hundreds of civilian deaths suddenly become genuinely overwhelmed with a need to grieve the death of one, five, even a hundred civilians? Violence, death, and unrest in the Middle East is a story that is arguably over a thousand years old and the political class of the United States has enthusiastically taken turns involving themselves in it. Why then, are we surprised when politicians especially are so nonchalant about a history of death and persecution only a handful of centuries old? I can’t imagine a person unbothered by explosives snuffing out brown lives being overly concerned about a knee crushing a black life.

I don’t say this to imply that all politicians, without exception, are cold and unfeeling, feigning interest in people’s suffering only for political gain. However, consider this: police brutality isn’t a new issue. Politicians have had time to think about and propose legislation, express concern, and make things happen, both federally and at the state and local levels. By the same token, politicians have had time and opportunity to stop military action in the Middle East and insist on adopting a policy of, for example, taking every pain to only engage in “just wars” after the theorizing of Aquinas. What solution exactly fits each situation can be argued in good faith. What I think is beyond argument, at this point at least, is that more than enough time has passed such that those elected to propose and execute laws, as well as those appointed to interpret them, are out of excuses, at least with reference to time and opportunity. I leave them to formulate their excuses and you to decide their sufficiency or lack thereof.

Why Shouldn’t We Look “Backward?”

I never want to imply that we shouldn’t grieve the unjust death of African Americans and demand justice. I look at the protests going on during this time and am glad to see people uniting around a refusal to allow the state to exert itself so callously. I’m thrilled at the thought that this moment could lead to major reforms and even a complete overhaul of policing in the United States. However, this is tempered by my irritation at nostalgia, as scarce as it is comparatively. When someone says, “This wouldn’t happen under x,” or, “We need a leader like y,” I sigh. More commonly, when one political figure or major party is blamed over another, I shake my head because I want to scream, “Any of them would kill you if they thought they had a good reason!” You may think that’s an overstatement, but remember, when civilians are killed overseas, it gets chalked up to “collateral damage,” or “the price of war.” There are only so many steps between “unacceptable losses” and “acceptable losses” for people primarily concerned with political power.

This is hardly a screed from an enlightened centrist either. My solution to “both sides are bad” isn’t to put forward someone from either side that I happen to like. Rather, I propose that we change direction entirely. Dear reader, stop looking backward. Stop looking backward in time for assurance that the leaders then were so much better. You don’t miss them, you miss a time when a problem wasn’t bearing down on you (and that’s not a slight against you). Stop looking backward to Washington D.C. for help from career politicians. They don’t care about you beyond your ability to keep voting for them. We should look in two directions for help in this time.

A New Direction

Look to Christ, your savior and Lord over all things, not because a prayer and Bible verse will make everything go away, but because the most pressing issues have been addressed in Him and He has promised to make all things new. Look to Christ because He shows us a new way of living and loving our neighbors as ourselves. Look to Christ because apart from him, any effort to address our problems will ultimately fail.

Secondly, look forward. Our path out of senseless violence and death both at home and abroad is ahead of us instead of behind. Instead of insisting on the same pat solutions, look forward and imagine something different. Look forward for new friends and alliances, beyond the boundaries of what the old will insist is even possible. Old wisdom, tested and tried by time, shouldn’t be discarded out of hand, but looked at in a new light. Let new wisdom put itself to the test and prove its worth as well. Embrace the scrapes and scuffs picked up from every misstep along the way as a record of having the courage to try something new. Whatever you do, keep moving and looking forward, fixing your eyes on Christ along the way.

Eyes forward and Christward, dear reader.