Prepare Yourself For Canon Discussions

Over the past several days, I've been responding to Cameron Bertuzzi's recent videos about issues related to the New Testament canon. I responded to him on Facebook and on Triablogue here and here. These issues come up frequently, not just in the context of Roman Catholicism, but also in other contexts, like Bart Ehrman's recent comments in response to Wes Huff. But few people are well prepared to address these topics. That needs to change.

A good place for starting to prepare yourself for future discussions is an article I wrote in 2009 about the evidence for the acceptance of our 27-book New Testament canon before the time of Athanasius' Festal Letter 39 in 367. Read Athanasius' letter. Read the other sources involved, especially Origen's seventh homily on Joshua. Think through the issues. Prepare yourself for future discussions, and speak up. If you don't like how these things have been handled so far, and you shouldn't like it, one thing to do is to make better use of your own responsibilities and opportunities.

The Choice To Be Irreligious

Late last year, I saw Matthew Continetti link a study by Gallup showing a decline in American religiosity. I didn't comment on it at the time, because I had other posts planned.

The article just linked refers to a "17-point drop in the percentage of U.S. adults who say religion is an important part of their daily life — from 66% in 2015 to 49% today". And you'd expect many of those 49% to be saying that religion is important to them without living like it, so the situation is even worse in that sense. I've cited many other such statistics over the years that reflect poorly on some large percentage of Americans, often a majority or large majority. See here, for example. The country is as secular and trivial as it is primarily because that's what most Americans want. Don't try to shift the blame.

The Practicality Of Theology And Justification In Particular

It's often suggested that matters like theology and apologetics don't have much practical value. What significance do they have in everyday life? They aren't pragmatic enough to deserve much time or attention. And the doctrine of justification is often singled out for that sort of commentary. Supposedly, arguments about justification, between Protestants and Catholics and in other contexts, don't matter much, are a waste of time, and so on.

Notice how the soteriological issues I addressed in my last post provide evidence to the contrary. For example, whether you're forgiven by God and have peace with him immediately (2 Corinthians 6:2), as soon as you come to faith, or when you're baptized six months later is significant. Similarly, the issue of the efficacy of deathbed repentance is of major importance. Much the same can be said of other soteriological issues.

Ironically, the sort of pragmatism advocated by the people I referred to in my opening paragraph is very unpragmatic. It causes a lot of significant problems in people's lives.

Majoring On The Minors And Minoring On The Majors

Given how you behave in school, in the workplace, among relatives, on the internet, and in other contexts, how much reason do people have to think you're significantly different than the secular, trivial culture around you? You claim to object to how corrupt the culture is. Should you fit in as well as you do with the mainstream of the culture in school, among your relatives, on Twitter, on Facebook, and in other contexts?

I would not with swift wingèd zeal
On the world's errands go,
And labor up the heav'nly hill
With weary feet and slow.
(Thomas Gill, "Lord, In The Fullness Of My Might")

The First Commandment, The Beginning Of Wisdom

Above all other relationships and priorities:

"So take diligent heed to yourselves to love the Lord your God." (Joshua 23:11)

"What do people value in life?...From analyzing people’s answers, it is clear that one source of meaning is predominant: family. In 14 of the 17 advanced economies surveyed, more mention their family as a source of meaning in their lives than any other factor….Outside of the U.S., religion is never one of the top 10 sources of meaning cited – and no more than 5% of any non-American public mention it. In the U.S., however, 15% mention religion or God as a source of meaning, making it the fifth most mentioned topic….Evangelical Protestants in the U.S. are much more likely than mainline Protestants to mention faith as a source of meaning – 34% vs. 13%, respectively." (Pew Research Center)

"He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." (Matthew 10:37)

"We love, because he first loved us." (1 John 4:19)

Following The Chain Of Joy

"Now, if you love what He made, what must He be who made it? If the world is beautiful, what must be the Author of the world?" (unknown source, in Mary Magdeleine Mueller, trans., St. Caesarius: Sermons, Volume I [1-80] [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2004], Sermon 21:5, p. 110)

The Benefits Of Studying The Resurrection

"For he who has learnt to study innumerable [truths] concerning the resurrection, how should he fear death? How should he shudder any more?" (John Chrysostom, Homilies On Hebrews 4:6)

It's often suggested that religion doesn't have much practical value. It doesn't come in contact with everyday life enough, it's too abstract, what it addresses has too little significance, concerns like food and money are more interesting, etc. The degree to which people hold such views varies, but even many professing Christians believe such things to some extent. You can see it in their time management, for example, in that they spend an inordinately large amount of their time on secular and trivial activities, just like the surrounding culture.

But Easter provides some examples, among many others, of how wrong that sort of mindset is. Nothing is as pragmatic as God, and the issues most closely associated with him, often referred to as "religion", are important accordingly. Death is a major illustration of that fact. If you can't find practicality in overcoming death, something's wrong with you. If you care about yourself, you should care about your death. If you care about your family, you should care about their death. And so on. We can go on to think of other subjects along the same lines. Just as we want to plan for a business trip we're making or an upcoming vacation, how much more should we want to learn about the afterlife and plan for it? We should keep such issues in mind as we think about the Easter season and religious topics more broadly.

How Lovable God Is

"For anyone who does not love [God] shows clearly that he does not know how lovable he is, that he has not learned to taste and see how gentle and sweet the Lord is, when he does not strive to be pleasing in his sight by continual exertion." (Bede, David Hurst, trans., Bede The Venerable: Commentary On The Seven Catholic Epistles [Kalamazoo, Michigan: Cistercian Publications, 1985], 168-69; comments on 1 John 2:5-6)

Is baptismal regeneration a significant problem only if baptism is a work?

Baptism is a work, for reasons I've discussed elsewhere, like here. But even if it weren't a work, there would still be many reasons to consider baptismal regeneration problematic and in more than a minor way. See here for an overview of a double-digit number of problems with viewing baptism as a means of justification. Here and here are a couple of posts in which I discuss some of the bad fruit of baptismal regeneration, bad fruit that I think is significant and doesn't require viewing baptism as a work.

People often frame things in terms of whether including baptism with faith as a means of justification constitutes a false gospel. (It does, but that's not what I'm addressing here.) They'll often cite Galatians 1:8-9 in particular. But this isn't an all-or-nothing situation. Baptismal regeneration wouldn't have to be maximally bad in order to be bad or to be bad to more than a small extent. We recognize that in other contexts. If a church leader has some moral problems in his life, we don't dismiss those problems as insignificant just because they aren't maximally bad. It's remarkable how many people will acknowledge that baptismal regeneration is false, yet will act as though it should be of little concern if it doesn't rise to the level of Galatians 1. There's a large gray area between something being of little concern and something rising to the level of the anathema of Galatians.

What's the significance of something like baptismal regeneration or the perpetual virginity of Mary?

I've been posting a lot on both subjects lately, but people often dismiss such issues as insignificant. A recent post I wrote about baptismal regeneration focused on one of the reasons why that issue is important. And I linked another post that discusses thirteen problems with baptismal regeneration, which provides other reasons for considering the subject significant.

Another reason for thinking more highly of these issues is how they're connected to other topics. Whatever significance the perpetual virginity of Mary has when considered in isolation, it takes on more importance when you consider how it has implications for claims about church infallibility, papal authority, the nature of extrabiblical tradition, and so on. Similarly, something like whether Mary was assumed to heaven doesn't have a lot of significance in isolation, but it becomes more significant when it's attached to other things, like papal infallibility and the infallibility of one institution or another.

There's also the issue of Biblical precedent. Many of the arguments used to underestimate the significance of baptismal regeneration could also have been used to underestimate the significance of adding circumcision as a means of justification, for example. Yet, the apostles treated the adding of circumcision as a major issue. (They also applied that reasoning more broadly, since they refer at times to the broader subject of adding "works", "conditions", etc. They didn't think circumcision was the only thing that couldn't be added.) As I've argued elsewhere, Peter probably was criticizing the concept of baptismal regeneration in 1 Peter 3, which is why he framed things so similarly to how Josephus did when addressing that sort of misconception of baptism in the context of John the Baptist.

And an issue doesn't need to have maximal significance in order to have some. I do a lot of work on Christmas issues. There's some value to knowing whether Jesus had siblings, the nature of his relationships with those siblings, and so forth. Though those aren't foundational issues or highly significant in some other way, they do have some significance. It's the type of information people often look into when studying the background of any historical figure, writing biographies, etc. It's information that tells you something about how the person's character was shaped, what experiences he had in life, how reliable certain people are (like siblings) as witnesses of his life, and so on.

I'm not trying to be exhaustive. These are just some examples of reasons why these issues are important.

Slouching Toward The Minimal

"And I recall times of them wanting to do something I disapproved of. They would ask, 'What's wrong with it?' With this text in my mind, I would say, 'Don't ask about your music, your movies, your parties, your habits, 'What's wrong with it?' Ask instead, 'Does it help me run the race? Does it help me to run with all my focus and energy and love for Jesus? Does it help me to be the best Christ-exalting marathon runner I can be?'' Don't set your sights on the minimal standard of avoiding cheating. Set your sights on the maximal standard: 'How can I be the most devoted, Christ-exalting runner possible?' So, the main point of this text is this: Run! Get rid of all the sins that you can. Get rid of all the weights and hindrances that you can. Take hold of the marathon of your life, and don't just set the pitifully low standard that asks, 'What's against the rules?' But rather: 'How can I train, and eat, and think, and dress to be the best runner possible? How can I live my life and finish my course with maximal, Christ-exalting faith and sacrificial love?'" (John Piper)

How Close, And Yet How Far Apart, Were The Worlds Of The Familiar And The Extraordinary

Guy Playfair wrote about an occasion when he was inside the Hodgsons' house while investigating the Enfield Poltergeist. He's contrasting the paranormal events inside the house to what was going on with the people walking by outside, who were focused on other things:

"It was late afternoon, and commuters were going home from the station, snatches of their conversation drifting through the window. Once again I was reminded of how close, and yet how far apart, were the worlds of the familiar and the extraordinary." (This House Is Haunted [United States: White Crow Books, 2011], 50)

Little Things Filling Up Little Souls

"The reason that is so is because the human soul was made to see Christ, to know Christ, to love Christ, to enjoy Christ, and to be enlarged by the greatness of the glory of Christ. Without this, our souls shrink. And little souls make little lusts have great power. The soul, as it were, contracts or expands to encompass the magnitude or minuteness of its treasure. The human soul was made to see and savor the glory of Christ. Nothing else is big enough to enlarge the soul as God intended and make little lusts lose their power....Inside and outside the church, modern culture is drowning in a sea of triviality, pettiness, banality, and silliness....Therefore, the deepest cure to our pitiful addictions is to be staggered by the infinite, everlasting, unchanging, all-satisfying glory of Christ." (John Piper)

Doing Something Imperfectly

"[My book] has weaknesses, but there are times when it is better to do something imperfectly than to do nothing perfectly. Mistakes can be corrected, but it is hard to overcome trivialization." (Craig Atwood, The Theology Of The Czech Brethren From Hus To Comenius [University Park, Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009], xix)

That God Is So Belittled

"Why is it that people can become emotionally and morally indignant over poverty and exploitation and prejudice and the injustice of man against man and yet feel little or no remorse or indignation that God is so belittled? It's because of sin. That is what sin is. Sin is esteeming and valuing and honoring and enjoying man and his creations above God. So even our man-centered anger at the hurt of sin is part of sin. God is marginal in human life." (John Piper)

A Patristic Belief Isn't A Patristic Priority

I've often discussed examples of how critics of Protestantism, such as Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox, disagree with the church fathers and other pre-Reformation sources on various issues. See here for a collection of many examples. Something else to keep in mind is how often critics of Protestantism agree with certain pre-Reformation sources about a particular issue, yet disagree with their assessment of the issue's significance. The fact that a church father believed in the perpetual virginity of Mary, for example, doesn't mean he thought the issue has the significance assigned to it by modern proponents of the doctrine. See the examples discussed here and here.

The fact that a source held a belief doesn't tell you how he prioritized it. We need to keep that distinction in mind. And since Catholics and Orthodox often disagree with patristic priorities (and medieval priorities), they should allow some Protestant disagreement with those sources as well. Given that Protestants make lower claims about the sources in question, we should go further by adding that Protestant disagreements with the priorities of such sources is generally less problematic.

Hallowed Be Your Name

"Only the first petition of the Lord's Prayer is a prayer for an explicit act of the human heart in response to the infinite Treasure of God's holiness: Hallow it. Hallow the holiness of this name. Revere the holiness of this name. Honor, esteem, admire, value, treasure supremely the infinite worth of this name….May the grand, overarching, all-embracing, all-pervasive theme of your life be the magnificence of God — his holiness, his beauty, his worth, his greatness. Pray that God would do this. That's what Jesus is telling us to do. Pray that he would do it. First in you, and then through you, in the lives of others, and among the nations — that his name be hallowed….In eternity, we will hallow the name of God not as a means to anything. Hallowing the name of God is not a means to any greater end. The hallowing of God's name is the end, the final goal, of all things." (John Piper)

Robbing Prebaptismal Faith To Enrich Baptism

There's a lot of talk in some circles about the alleged importance of having a more efficacious view of baptism. Supposedly, it's a problem (often treated as if it's a big problem) that some people aren't assigning more significance to baptism. Typically, that concern is out of proportion to other concerns we ought to have.

Instead Of Dreaming For The Glory Of Christ

"More and more and more, America is a nation given over to play. The industries of play are huge! Houses are built today with entertainment centers. Computers and videos and television and stereo all coordinate to give us ever more stimulating and captivating distractions from the realities of the world. When we need to be dreaming for the glory of Christ about how to spend our lives alleviating ignorance and sickness and misery and lostness, we are becoming more and more addicted to amusement." (John Piper)

Why do people talk about being overburdened by politics, religious controversies, etc.?

It's one thing to be worn out because you've done a lot of work. It's another thing to be worn out because you've done a small amount of work while being out of shape.

When it comes to matters like religion and politics, modern Americans (and whoever else) are clearly in the latter category, not the former. For a large amount of documentation to that effect, see here.

Since Americans have false priorities, they're more concerned about politics than religion. I'll start with politics. One of the most common complaints you hear in political contexts is that people are tired of all of the political ads they see on television during a campaign season. Of course, to see a lot of television ads, you have to be watching a lot of television. And what people are watching is typically highly secular and/or trivial (and often sinful). The reason why political campaigns run so many television ads and do other such things is that they know people spend so much time watching certain television shows, listening to certain radio programs, and so on. And the ads are shallow because the audience is shallow. If you're hundreds of pounds overweight, you might complain that leaning over to pick up something you knocked on the floor is an excessive burden. But whose fault is it that you're so overweight and have been for so long? The fact that leaning over and picking something up wears you out doesn't prove that it's asking too much to expect you to do it. The same people who are irritated by having their television shows interrupted by political ads are also highly ignorant of their nation's history, their nation's political system, political issues, etc., and they're culpable for that ignorance.

The situation is even worse with religion, which is more important than politics and is even more neglected. Pastors, apologists, and others who are interacting with people on religious issues need to study the culture they're interacting with (like with the resources on the page I linked earlier) and make adjustments accordingly. When you hear about how people supposedly are worn out in religious contexts, are tired of all of the arguments about theology, are overburdened by apologetics, and so forth, you need to keep in mind that it's more often than not a matter of people being worn out by doing a small amount of work while they're out of shape. They need to get in better shape and start doing a lot more work, not less of it. Not only does far more work need to be done, but the neglect on the part of the large majority of people is placing too much of a burden on the small minority who are doing too much of the work.