“Liberals” vs “the Left” (Cultural Marxism)

Here is a phenomenon that we will want to watch.

It’s becoming more and more evident that there is a difference between mere “liberals” and “the Left”. It is “the Left” that has created and espouses a thing that I’ll call “cultural Marxism” – a political view that perceives “equality” as its highest good, and which works with relentless fervor to implement policies that effect its own interpretation of “equality”.

On the other hand, there is a growing number of “cultural liberals” – those who probably don’t believe in God, nor do they have any value for Christian morality. These folks think that they genuinely want to work toward a better, fairer future, and they have unwittingly bought into the agenda of “the Left” but they don’t quite “toe the line”.

There is a growing number of these folks who see the disjunction between “the Left”’s agenda and their own liberal beliefs. Bret Weinstein (in the video below) is one of these. A genuinely-persuaded liberal, he nevertheless got caught up in what he calls the “black supremacy” evidenced by the “Day of Absence” requirement at Evergreen College.

Weinstein, is a former professor at Evergreen (social studies, I think), who was ostracized and later forced out for not toeing the line. He tells his story in this video, and more tellingly, he articulates the agenda and methodology of “the Left”. This is a bit long, but I highly recommend it as a good diagnosis of what we are dealing with, from a cultural perspective.

Songbird John

John McCain is often treated as sacrosanct by civilian pundits. Here's the opinion of a retired top general:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3FTlym9gn3w

Happy Mother's Day

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMKexuS9esc

Illeism

According to traditional attribution, at least two (Matthew, John) and arguably three (plus Mark) of the four Gospels were written by eyewitnesses. (I'd say Mark was probably a partial eyewitness.) Yet all four Gospels were written in the third-person, which is often taken to be evidence that they were not by eyewitnesses. John is a partial exception: at a few strategic points in the account, the narrator explicitly identifies himself as a participant. 

Yet there's a literary convention in ancient historiography where an authorial observer adopts the voice of a third-person narrator even when–or especially when–describing events of which he has firsthand knowledge. The technical term for this historiographical convention is illeism. 

Therefore, the use of third-person narration carries no presumption that it wasn't written by an eyewitness. Illeism has certain motivations (see below). 

Hecataeus of Miletus (ca. 550-476 BC) begins his work by identifying himself in the third person…Herodotus (484-425) also conveys his representation of history in the third person…Mole writes that "the effect is double: the naming suggests that Herodotus himself will be in an important figure in his History (as indeed he is); the use of the third person suggests objectivity and detachment.

Thudycides (ca. 460-398 BC) begins his work The Peloponnesian War with the third-person self-reference…Thucydides also presents himself in the third person in order to present himself as a character within the history in which he was a participant…Grant writes that Thucydides "seeks to emphasize his objectivity by writing of himself in the third person, like Julius Caesar". 

Xenophon (ca 430-350 BC), a student of Socrates, records in the Anabasis his march with the Ten Thousand as they travel into and back from Persia in an effort to aid Cyrus. Like Thucydides he refers to himself in the third person when referring to his own participation in events.

In the Hellenistic period, Polybius (ca. 200-118 BC) prefers the use of the third person for self-reference when describing events in which he is a participant. Campbell notes that "as with Thucydides, the effect of narrating Polybius's participation in events in the third person is to distance the author/actor from the narrator and, in so doing, to increase the sense of historical objectivity". 

Julius Caesar (100-44 BC) refers to himself in the third person throughout his work Gallic War…Josephus (AD 37 to ca. 100), in War of the Jews, presents himself as a participant in the historical events conveyed by referring to himself in the third person. R. Elledge, Use of the Third Person for Self-Reference by Jesus and Yahweh: A Study of Illeism in the Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Texts and Its Implications (T&T Clark 2017), 17-21. 

Twin paradox

According to time dilation, as I understand it, stationary clocks run faster than clocks moving near the speed of light. That's illustrated by the clock paradox and the twin paradox. If an astronaut rides a rocket to a distant planet, traveling near the speed of light, then returns, he will be younger than his identical earthbound twin. Indeed, centuries may have passed on earth. However, that's not quite accurate since the return trip reverses direction. 

Time dilation is thought to disprove Newtonian absolute time. However, that depends in part on how we define time. As I understand it, time dilation means a physical process operates at a faster rate in a stationary system than a system moving near the speed of light. So the astronaut on the rocket ages more slowly. But is the rate of a physical process equivalent to time itself? Speeding up a process isn't equivalent to speeding up time, is it? For instance, some humans live longer than others because they seem to be aging more slowly. At 110, their physical condition is similar to an octogenarian. But that's not due to time slowing down in their bodies. 

Mind you, this doesn't mean Newton was right, because it goes to the nature of time. What is absolute time? Is time a property of a physical (or mental) process, or is a physical (or mental) process a property of time? Is time a principle independent of the things it conditions? Is time a general principle, which physical (or mental) processes exemplify? 

Can we tell? Can timebound observers assume a detached perspective to discern what time is really like, apart from its affect on us? We're so conditioned by time that it's hard to describe time directly. 

That's an issue in science generally. We use the five senses to perceive the physical world. But the senses filter the world. So there's a conundrum: we can't sense the world without the filter, but the filter screens out certain features while tinting other features. The question then is whether we can reconstruct what the world is really like from reflections and refractions. 

Take a pond. I can see the sky mirrored in the pond. I can see reflected trees and shadows overhanging the pond. Normally, I can compare the reflection to viewing the sky and trees directly. But what if my knowledge of the world was confined to the reflection? Can I reconstruct what the world is really like from the fluid mirror? That distorts reality. Ripples. The color of sunlight. And there's a more subtle change because a mirror-image reverses chirality. 

Years ago I was standing on a dock at night, looking at the moonlight on the water. It wasn't just generic moonlight. If you look closely, the image of the moon is reflected on the water. Repeated images of the moon. Wave action breaks it up, scattering the beams. 

If you couldn't look straight at the moon, if all you had to go by was the reflection, you'd see many moons. How would you do physics or astronomy from that viewpoint? Could you infer that one large moon was produced all these little snapshots of itself? Can we infer an unfiltered view of the world from our filtered input? Can we filter out the filter without going blind? Can we separate the information from the filtering effect without losing key information?

"Why you can't use logic to prove God"

I'm going to comment on this post:

http://brianhuffling.com/2018/05/01/from-whence-does-logic-come-and-why-you-cant-use-it-to-prove-god/

There is much talk about logic today. It is obviously used significantly in discussions with philosophers and mathematicians. It has also been a tool of some (particularly presuppositional) apologists to argue for God. They insist that atheists cannot account for logic since it is immaterial and universal. Since logic undeniably exists, then something else immaterial and “universal” must also exist to account for it, namely God. 

There's a lot more to the argument than: since universal, immaterial logic undeniably exists, then something else immaterial and “universal” must also exist to account for it, namely God. 

This understanding of logic is taught as if it is some ephemeral abstract notion or set of principles of reason that “exists” only in the mind with no basis in physical reality. 

The position is that logic primarily or fundamentally subsists in the infinite and timeless mind of God. God's mind is the exemplar. Logic has its "basis" in God's mind. However, math and logic are exemplified in time and space. 

That is, according to this argumentation physical reality cannot account for the principles of logic. Nothing could be further from the truth. The principles of logic, such as the principles of identity, excluded middle, and non-contradiction are not just principles of rationality. They are principles of being. Let’s look to see what they are and why they must be grounded in reality and not thought.

It's important to distinguish between divine and human thought. The position is not that logic is reducible to human psychology. It's not intuitionism (e.g. Brouwer). God's thought and God's being are conterminous. 

Yes, you could say logic is grounded in "being", but not just any kind of being will do. Physical existence won't suffice. 

The law of identity states that something is identical with itself. If a thing is “A” then it is “A”. If something is a tree, then it is a tree. This seems rather mundane and uninformative; however, try imagining reality if this were not the case. The principle of excluded middle says that something is either “A” or “non-A”. It is either a tree or a non-tree. There is no middle ground (the middle ground is excluded). The law of non-contradiction says something can’t both be “A” and “not-A” at the same time in the same sense. That is, it can’t be a tree and a non-tree simultaneously.

That confuses logic with concrete exemplifications (or property instances) of abstract objects. A tree approximates the law of identity. Ideally, logical and mathematical truths map onto static, timeless relations or objects with discrete boundaries. 

But physical objects undergo continuous incremental change. Physical objects have fuzzy boundaries in space and time. They have degrees of solidity. They exchange atoms with the surrounding environment. They blend into each other. So that comparison is counterproductive. There's never an exact match between a tree and the law of identity. 

We get our understanding of these principles from the world around us. They are not just principles of thought, but of being. The law of non-contradiction is not just that a statement can’t be both true and false. The law of non-contradiction is that something in existence can’t be and not be simultaneously in the same way. In other words, a tree can’t be a tree and not a tree at the same time in the same sense. These laws are thus grounded in being and abstracted via our knowing process. We have experience of reality and then induce said principles of being and know that they apply to all thought and experience…While these laws are undeniable and are self-evident, the source of our knowledge of them is still physical reality. 

He operates with an epistemology according to which all knowledge of universals is based on a psychological process of abstraction from particulars. 

Now, I have no problem with sense knowledge or induction. Yes, we often generalize on the basis of samples. Fine. 

But that can't be the basis of knowledge all the way down. You can't derive a concept of numbers from observing physical objects, for unless you already have numerical concepts to work with, you can't group physical objects numerically. Numbering objects requires a numerical preconception. 

You can't bootstrap logical or mathematical knowledge from sensory perception. You can't group five apples by number unless you recognize that they comprise five apples, and you're not going to arrive at that classification by staring at some apples with a blank slate mind. 

It takes knowledge to learn. It takes some prior knowledge to acquire additional knowledge. An initially empty mind has no frame of reference to evaluate sensory input. The mind of the percipient must have a logical structure which enables it to organize or reorganize sensory input. An inbuilt classification-system. 

Another way we know the laws of logic is that they are undeniable. One cannot deny something like the law of non-contradiction without using it. If one attempted to do this, he would be forced into saying that his position is true and not false, and that the opposite opinion would be false and not true. We don’t argue from more foundational principles to arrive at these principles of logic. They are first principles of thought and being. The are first because they are foundational and self-evident. They can’t be denied. Further, they don’t require, nor could they require, antecedent proof. Such proof would have to use the laws of logic.

But necessary truths of logic can't derive from contingent truths of the physical world. In many respects, the physical world might have been different. Causation is a weaker principle than logical entailment.  

Physical reality is known directly and is evident to our senses. 

Actually, physical reality is known indirectly. Physical reality is mediated to the mind via sensory perception. A process of encoded and decoded information. 

Note I said “evident” not “self-evident.” Propositions are self-evident when we know their meaning. “Bachelors are unmarried men” is a self-evident proposition because as soon as we know the meaning of the terms and the proposition as a whole, we know it is true. 

But that's different from logic. That's stipulative. True by definition. 

However, things are evident to our senses. I do not need an argument that there is a tree outside of my window. I simply see it. Thus, things are evident and the laws of logic are self-evident and undeniable. (I realize I am skipping over a veritable wonderland of skepticism and rationalism which I have no desire to deal with here. I simply don’t think I need to “justify” the existence of something I just ran my car into. If someone honestly doubts the existence of external reality, I would submit that his problem is not philosophical but psychological and he needs to seek medical treatment immediately.)

That confounds the metaphysics of math and logic with the psychology of sensory perception. 

Of course, such principles can be applied to thoughts and propositions that don’t say things about reality. Logic can be applied to fictitious beings and propositions that say something like, “All monsters live in London.” However, such fictitious beings and propositions are still based in being—that is, things that exist extra-mentally. While a fictitious being doesn’t exist in reality (by definition), we get the concepts of things like monsters from reality. In other words, following the great empirical maxim, “All knowledge is grounded in reality,” we don’t have any new ideas, even of fictitious monsters, that are not tethered to or grounded in reality.

i) Fictions, hypotheticals, and counterfactuals have their source in God's power and imagination. Something is ultimately possible because God can enact that scenario. And God's infinite imagination is the repository of all concepts. God has created rational agents with some knowledge and power. 

ii) I'd add that fictions are ideas, and therefore have a discrete identity lacking in physical objections. 

This is why the presuppositional argument for the existence of God from logic fails. A common argument from them is that atheists cannot account for logic. Logic is immaterial and universal, they say, and as such, atheists can’t account for anything that is immaterial and universal. But if what I am arguing for is true, the presuppositionalist’s argument is not successful. This is because atheists can account for logic, because logic is grounded in reality and being. Yes, God is being as such, and as “being” the laws of logic are tethered to God. (God is God, God cannot be non-God, etc.) That is, in a sense they are antecedently grounded in God because they would be the case even if the physical realm did not exist.

But that means an atheist can't account for the laws of logic inasmuch as these are essentially independent of the physical world. To be sure, some atheists are Platonic realists, but that's different from Brian's paradigm. Moreover, Platonic realism is arguably ad hoc. 

Another important note is that the laws of logic are not really immaterial. Sure the abstracted propositional form of being such as “A tree can’t be a tree and not a tree simultaneously” can be immaterial. But if logic is not merely a rational enterprise and is a second order based on the first order of physical reality, then the basis for logic is not immaterial. 

God's rationality is not a second-order exercise based on God's first-order being. That's a false dichotomy. God's mind and God's being are both first-order realities, which underlie physical reality. 

Our abstractions of the principles are mental, such as numbers, but many, if not most, philosophers do not think that numbers are real. 

That's an illicit argument from authority. Moreover, it's not coincidental that mathematicians like Quine, Gödel, and Penrose subscribe to mathematical realism. 

They like logical principles are abstracted from the real world. The number 2 does not exist. But I can say there are two trees. The two-ness is simply the addition of one more tree than the first. Math then is like logic in that the numbers are abstracted from the material world and then one can perform mental operations. But these numbers do not exist (unless one holds an extreme Platonic view). And as such, the atheist can account for logic by its foundation in sensible objects—just like he can account for numbers. Thus, the presuppositional argument for logic is going to reduce to some cosmological argument that says the universe needs a grounding in something other than itself.

If Big Ben strikes three o'clock, what do I actually hear? Do I hear three tones? No. I only hear a succession of discrete tones. I hear one tone, followed by another tone, followed by another tone. My mind apprehends three tones. That's not given in the raw stimulus, but requires an act of intellectual recognition. The mind isn't just a passive recipient of auditory input, but makes a contribution by its ability to classify the auditory input using innate mathematical categories. 

Compare a human percipient to a canine percipient. Both hear the same sounds, but only the human has the additional understanding to discern the numerical significance of the tonal sequence. A dog doesn't register "three o'clock". It lacks the intelligence to group particulars. There must be something prior in the mind to interpret what was heard as three of something.   

Annotated Pentateuch

Recently I got into an impromptu debate with a Muslim apologist. I've reformatted the exchange to improve the flow of argument:

Yusuf

Would you be keen on discussing the reliability and authenticity of the OT? 

Hays

Kenneth Kitchen's On the Reliability of the Old Testament (Eerdmans 2003) is a standard monograph. Good place to start. In addition, conservative commentaries on the Pentateuch discuss particulars. Another good resource is Richard Hess, The Old Testament: A Historical, Theological, and Critical Introduction (Baker 2016).

Yusuf

Do you still subscribe to Moses being the author of the Pentateuch?

Hays

Aside from occasional scribal updating, yes, it's Mosaic.

Christianity unhitched

I watched the whole sermon by Andy Stanley:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pShxFTNRCWI

He means well, but well-meaning people can do kinds of damage that wicked people can't. 

Andy Stanley was raised and trained in Dispensationalism. Internecine fights over Dispensationalism (classical, progressive) are his default frame of reference. It's a very provincial outlook. Compare that to writers like Gordon Wenham and Christopher Wright on OT ethics and piety. 

One problem is equivocation, where he oscillates between the OT and the law of Moses, as if they're interchangeable. But there's a difference between the Mosaic law, OT history, the Psalter, Prophets, and Wisdom literature. The Mosaic law isn't the whole package.  

Christians disagree on how the old covenant is fulfilled in the new covenant. Their disagreement is the basis for some divergent theological traditions or denominations. Lutherans and Anabaptists see more discontinuity, Confessional Presbyterians see more continuity. You have variations within the same tradition. The LBCF sees more continuity while Don Carson and Stephen Wellum see more discontinuity, yet that's an intramural Baptist debate. 

So that's a perennial debate. But that's a separate issue from the OT in general. There's a difference between unhitching the Christian faith from the Mosaic law and unhitching the Christian faith from "the Jewish scriptures". Stanley does a bait-n-switch. Even if we grant his Dispensational view of the Mosaic law, that doesn't mean we can unhitch the new covenant from the OT generally. 

He makes the ridiculous claim that Pauline sexual immorality is independent of the OT, even though Rom 1 is based on Gen 1-2 while 1 Cor 6:9/1 Tim 1:10 reaffirm Lev 18:20. 

Andy says Christianity is about an event (the Resurrection), but that's grossly simplistic. The NT interprets the person and work of Christ through the lens of the OT. 

And it's not the Resurrection alone that vindicates Jesus. He must also be the fulfillment of OT messianism. 

And even at the level of events, the Resurrection is not the only crucial event in the mission of Christ. What about the Incarnation, miracles of Jesus, and the return of Christ? 

Andy appeals to the image of God, but of course that's an OT category! 

Andy says that in the OT, God was playing by the rules of the kingdoms of this world. Really? The OT is aggressively countercultural in relation to ancient Near Eastern social mores. 

The application is about people who've lost faith because they can't embrace OT historicity, OT miracles, the Genesis creation account, or value system/worldview depicted in the OT. 

But the NT can't be true unless the OT is true. Jesus, the apostles, NT evangelists, and/or NT authors constantly appeal to OT validation. If the OT is mistaken, they were mistaken in their assessment of the OT. 

I think Andy is personally spooked by historical, scientific, and moral objections to the OT, so he wants to unhitch that from his own faith. But they're logically and theologically inseparable. Take it or leave it. 

Yes, some folks will lose their faith while others will be turned off. That's tragic, but truth is divisive. Individual apostasy is a necessary winnowing effect to preserve the church from institutional apostasy. 

The Moral Psychology of Depravity and the Difficulty of Living in the Kingdom

https://www.jamesagibson.com/2018/03/30/the-moral-psychology-of-depravity-and-the-difficulty-of-living-in-the-kingdom/

Modesty

i) On Facebook I read a comment thread about swimwear. Some Christians think beachgoers should revert to Victorian swimwear. That raises some tricky issues regarding modesty. 

ii) Hopefully it's possible to strike a balance in-between nude beaches and burkas. Some of the Christian commenters had a position that's very similar to Muslim sensibilities regarding modesty. But surely we need to do better than that.

iii) Questions of modesty raise the sorites paradox. Because modesty ranges along a continuum, it isn't possible to draw an absolute line. It's a matter of degree. And ethics in general confronts us with borderline cases. In situations like this, our intuitions are firmer at the extremes. 

Unless you take an absolutist position (e.g. burkas), the question of where to draw the line is a challenge for both sides, the stricter as well as the more permissive. Changes of degree in either direction. 

iv) Modesty is culturebound. But that doesn't necessarily mean it's completely arbitrary. Many cultures are morally decedent, so the fact that scruples regarding modesty are culturebound doesn't entail that there can't be any right or wrong. That's a special case of moral relativism based on cultural relativism. But Christians reject that inference.

v) Conversely, social mores regarding modesty are often arbitrary. For instance, National Geographic style nudity was acceptable at the same time Playboy was pornographic. Images of native nudity in the jungle was uncontroversial, while images of nude white women were pornographic. 

And there's the long history of the nude in western art. Is that pornographic? Probably an issue on which Christians disagree. The artistic nude ranges along the same continuum as pornography, but do they overlap? 

vi) Much of this is bound up with the notion of "lust". A problem is that many Christians simply plug their popular notion of lust into biblical prohibitions. But that's not exegesis. That's beginning with an extrabiblical definition, which a reader plugs into the text of Scripture. 

vii) Is there something wrong with a teenager boy on the beach who admires the body of a teenage girl on the beach, or vice versa? Or is that healthy and innocuous? 

viii) Feminist sociologists often frame the debate in terms of the "objectification" of female bodies or treating women as "sexual objects". 

I rarely if ever see the same criticism in reverse. Is it wrong for a female viewer to objectify a handsome man? Do men feel demeaned if women view them as "sexual objects"?

ix) If we mean sexual "objectification" in a reductionistic sense where that's the only thing we care about in the opposite sex, then that's wrong. But it's hard to see how sex appeal as one component of the overall male/female dynamic is intrinsically wrong. 

x) In addition, examples of sexual "objectification" typically fixate on particular body parts, but that's arbitrarily restrictive. For instance, some women have beautiful eyes (e.g. Maureen O'Hara, Elizabeth Taylor). If I admire their eyes, that's "objectification", but is it sinful or degrading to admire their eyes? 

For that matter, it's my impression that many women admired the eyes of Paul Newman. By the same token, here's a woman describing Omar Shariff: "And there, in the flesh, were those eyes: warm, dark, liquid". Are they guilty of degrading sexual objectification? 

Some women have gorgeous hair. Is it misogynistic to admire their hair? Some women have a beautiful complexion. Anything can be objectified. 

xi) Sexual objectification is usually cast in visual terms, but some men and women find voices sexy. Consider women who relish the sound of operatic tenors (e.g. Corelli, Carreras, Pavarotti). Or men who relish the sound of operatic sopranos (e.g. Sutherland, Caballé, Price, Ponselle, Milanov).  

I can't speak for women, but it's my impression that women find men with deep voices sexy. Isn't that "objectification"? Is so, is that sinful? 

xii) Fact is, humans like to "objectify" beautiful things, such as flowers, sunsets, seascapes, mountain ranges, &c. Sexual objectification is just a special case of that general phenomena. 

Aesthetically, we're selective. We take things out of context. We single out appealing elements. Nothing necessarily wrong with that. 

xiii) A common argument is that since fornication is wrong, kissing is wrong because they lie on the same continuum. That relocates the fight from premarital sex to danger zones that might lead to fornication. The need to avoid gratuitous temptation. There's a legitimate issue there, but that's a prudential judgment about behavior that's not intrinsically wrong, but risky, as a potential pathway to actual immorality.  

xiv) One reason for modesty is that immodesty is distracting. There are situations in which it's okay to be distracted by beauty (e.g. in a park, at the beach). But we need to avoid an oversexualized culture in which viewers are constantly bombarded with sensual stimuli. We need to be able to think about other things. We need to avoid a social climate where the human imagination is sexually obsessed. The media promotes a culture that's all about sex all the time. 

Should battered wives divorce their husbands?

Many evangelicals believe there are only two grounds for divorce: adultery and desertion. That creates a dilemma in cases like domestic abuse, which those two categories don't cover. Some evangelicals try to create an opening for divorce in that situation by stretching the categories. But that gerrymanders the categories. 

A compromise is to propose separation rather than divorce. But that's a makeshift solution because you end up with a situation that isn't marriage and isn't divorce. Because the battered wife remains married, she's not free to remarry. So she's bound by the restrictions of marriage without the benefits.

I'd add that husbands can also be battered. That isn't taken seriously because men can overpower a physically abusive wife. However, they can't exercise that advantage in practice since they'd be charged with domestic abuse, even if they acted in self-defense.

One solution is to make allowance for the possibility that Scriptural grounds for divorce don't attempt to contemplate every conceivable situation. Jesus wasn't asked about a husband splashing acid in her face. 

We'd consider other potential justifications for divorce based on general biblical principles. Of course, that makes it harder to draw a line. 

Depending on the topic, Jesus criticizes the religious leaders for being too lax or too strict. But one general principle Jesus has taught us is to think about the underlying rationale for a biblical command or prohibition, as well as higher duties that temporarily override lower duties, in case of conflict. 

Self-murder

Let's combine two traditional arguments:

i) Premeditated unjustifiable homicide is murder

ii) Murder ought to be a capital offense

i) Suicide is premeditated unjustifiable self-homicide

ii) Suicide is self-murder

iii) Suicide ought to be a capital offense

The penalty for attempted suicide or conspiracy to commit suicide should be execution. People who try to kill themselves deserve to be killed.

That's a reductio ad absurdum for a traditional argument against suicide. A dilemma. 

The appeal of the self-murder argument is that it's simple. But sometimes simple arguments are simplistic.

The "self-murder" objection should be retired. There are better arguments against suicide. 

The Reliability of the Book of Acts: A Conversation with Dr. Craig Keener

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ms23z1XNorA

Emergency inspiration

16 “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. 17 Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to courts and flog you in their synagogues, 18 and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles. 19 When they deliver you over, do not be anxious how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour. 20 For it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you. 21 Brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death, 22 and you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. 23 When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes (Mt 10:16-23). 

“But be on your guard. For they will deliver you over to councils, and you will be beaten in synagogues, and you will stand before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them. 10 And the gospel must first be proclaimed to all nations. 11 And when they bring you to trial and deliver you over, do not be anxious beforehand what you are to say, but say whatever is given you in that hour, for it is not you who speak, but the Holy Spirit. 12 And brother will deliver brother over to death, and the father his child, and children will rise against parents and have them put to death. 13 And you will be hated by all for my name's sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved (Mk 13:9-13). 

12 But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name's sake. 13 This will be your opportunity to bear witness. 14 Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer, 15 for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict. 16 You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. 17 You will be hated by all for my name's sake (Lk 21:12-17). 

The cessationist/continuationist debate usually revolves around Acts 2 and 1 Cor 12-14. But the above-mentioned promise is a neglected text. The immediate context in which this originates concerns disciples whom Jesus has deputized to evangelize Palestine during his public ministry. However, Jesus anticipates scenarios that look ahead to wider persecution in the Roman Empire. The prospect facing Christian missionaries and martyrs. In that respect, the disciples are representatives of what some subsequent Christians will face. Maintaining a Christian witness under extreme duress. Presumably, the original audience for the Synoptics could already see their own impending situation in that threatening description and prediction. And the principle, if valid back then, would seem to be equally germane to analogous circumstances throughout the course of church history.

If so, then this is a promise for a type of emergency inspiration. Not a promise to Christians in general, but only under the specific and exigent circumstances in view. 

Babylon Bee

https://www.weeklystandard.com/mark-hemingway/the-sharp-sting-of-the-babylon-bee

Lost in Space

It's been very instructive to sit on the sidelines, watching the church of Rome self-destruct. The Francis pontificate is the immediate catalyst, but it's like a tree that suffers from heart rot. It's blown over in a windstorm, but while that's sudden, what made it vulnerable is years of internal decay.

Symptomatic is the sacrilegious (by Catholic standards) Met costume show. To get the flavor of the event:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o1VDjW399Xc

What's striking is not the event itself, but how the Cardinal Archbishop of New York inaugurated the event while the Sistine Chapel choir performed. 

We're witnessing an identity crisis in the Catholic church, from the top down. An institution so lacking in self-respect that top-level clerics play buffoons to the tune of the secular progressives. It scandalizes the laity. Scandalizes the faithful. 

It's ironic to see idealistic, greenhorn converts to Rome who fervently embrace a theological paradigm that the hierarchy of their adopted denomination no longer takes seriously. Catholic leaders no longer know what Catholicism stands for. I suppose Cardinal Nolan, having seen the fate of Cardinal Burke, just wants to keep his job.  

Why did John-Paul II and Benedict XVI let things get so out of hand? Why didn't they crack down? Why did they appoint known modernists to policy positions? 

I suspect one reason is that it's easier to maintain the illusion of power if you refrain from making empty threats. Due to the crippling shortage of nuns and priests, even center-right popes don't have nearly enough loyal scabs to replace the gays and modernists if they go on strike. And most of the remaining laity are doctrinally indifferent. 

In fairness, this has a counterpart among evangelical elites, who are just as out-of-touch with the laity, just as seduced by the siren song of the chattering class. But Evangelicals don't suffer from the same dilemma. We can replace our titular leaders. They answer to us, we don't answer to them. But lay Catholics are at the mercy of a topdown polity. When popes, cardinals, and bishops lose a sense of inner direction, the faithful must follow their lead into oblivion. 

Like a dove

The accounts of Christ's baptism, reported in all four Gospels (Mt 3:13–17; Mk 1:9–11; Lk 3:21–23; Jn 1:29-33), record how the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus like a dove. If you were there, what would you see?

Perhaps that's the Shekinah. In Scripture, the Shekinah seems to be protean. Sometimes resembling a dust devil or fire devil (the "pillar of cloud/fire"). Sometimes more like a wall of fire (Exod 14:19-20). Sometimes like an electrical storm (Ezk 1). 

Maybe in this case the Shekinah assumes an avian shape, but still clearly supernatural. Incandescent or translucent. 

The bright morning star

28 Do not be amazed at this, for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear His voice 29 and come out — those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of judgment (Jn 5:28-29).

As I've said on other occasions, when reading the Bible I think it's a good exercise to see it through the eye of a movie director. If you were filming the Bible, how would you envision these descriptions? Take the resurrection of the just. 

Here's one way I imagine the scene. Jesus returns in the Shekinah (Acts 1:9-11; Ezk 1:4-28). He hovers in the lower atmosphere. As the globe rotates, he appears over the horizon, like the morning star (Rev 22:16; 2:28; cf. Isa 14:12; Num 24:17). As light from the Cytherean Shekinah flashes across cemeteries, with graves facing east, towards the Christic morning star, bodies of the saints rematerialize in their tombs ("a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them," Ezk 37:7-8). Their bodies are then reanimated as the Spirit reunites body and soul ("and the breath came into them," Ezk 37:10). Then tombs open and they emerge ("and they lived and stood on their feet," Ezk 37:10). 

While the Cytherean Shekinah repeatedly dawns over the rotating horizon, row after row of cemeteries, from east to west, in sidereal succession, will stir to life ("Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy! For your dew is a dew of light, and the earth will give birth to the dead," Isa 26:19). Those who sleep in the dust will awake (Dan 12:2)–in the twinkling of an eye (1 Cor 15:51-52). Myriads of recreated, rejuvenated saints, facing the Cytherean Shekinah, gazing at the Christic morning star. 

Of course, not everyone is formally buried. Scripture uses graves and graveyards as a synecdoche for the dead generally. Although some of the imagery might be figurative, the oracle in Jn 5:28-29 foreshadows Jesus raising Lazarus. That's a foretaste of an eschatological scene. 

Why Is There Evil in the World (and So Much of It?)

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Dawn of the dead

51 And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split. 52 The tombs also were opened. And many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised, 53 and coming out of the tombs after his resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many (Mt 27:51-53).

This is a much-mocked text which I've discussed before, but I'd like to make some additional observations. 

1. What exactly is the objection to this incident? In my experience, off the top of my head: 

i) It's only reported in one Gospel

ii) It's weird

iii) Triggers popular associations with the Hollywood zombie genre

iv) If it happened, why isn't the incident more widely reported?

v) What happened to the raised saints? 

2. At what point did this text become ridiculous or incredible? Historically, did Christians find this text incredible or ridiculous? Let's take a comparison:

i) Traditionally, in Christian cemeteries, corpses and coffins are buried pointing east. From what I've read, that's based on belief that Jesus will come from the east (Mt 24:27; cf. Isa 63:1; Zech 14:4). When he returns, the dead will be facing him. They will rise out of their graves, in his direction. 

My immediate point is not to assess folk theology, but to note that traditional Christian burial customs reflect the same basic outlook as Mt 27:51-53. Historically, Christians didn't find that absurd or unbelievable. That, in itself, doesn't make it true, but it's not as if the alleged absurdity of the account was the default impression of most readers or believers. 

ii) By the same token, it's interesting to consult the historical witness of patristic expositions. Apollinaris says:

It is plain that they have died again, having risen from the dead in order to be a sign. For it was not possible for only some of the firstborn from the dead to be raised to the life of the age to come, but the remainder [must be raised] in the same manner. Manlio Simonetti, ed. Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture: Matthew 14-28 (IVP 2002), 297. 

While Jerome says:

Just as the dead Lazarus was resurrected, so also many bodies of the saints were resurrected. Thus they showed the Lord rising again. And yet, though the tombs were opened, they were not resurrected before the Lord was resurrected. thus he was the firstborn of the resurrection from the dead. Now we should understand the holy city in which they were seen when they were being resurrected either as the heavenly Jerusalem, or this earthly one which was previously holy. 321. Thomas. P. Scheck, trans. Commentary on Matthew (CUA 2014), 321. 

Theophylact says:

And those who were dead in sins arose and entered the Holy City, the heavenly Jerusalem, and appeared to the many who were walking the broad road [leading to perdition]. By appearing to them, they became an exemplary model of a good life and of repentance. For if one sees a man who was formerly deadened by many passions now changed and ascending to the holy heavenly City, he imitates that man in every way, and himself repents. These things have been explained in a rather elaborate manner; but you, O reader, understand that the raising of the dead which occurred at the Lord’s crucifixion, also revealed the freeing of the souls in hades. Those who arose at that time were seen by many, lest the event appear to have been only an apparition. They arose as a sign from God, and it is evident that they again died. Some say that after Christ’s resurrection, these arose and have not yet died; but I do not know if this should be accepted.

My point is not to evaluate their interpretation, but to document how ancient or medieval Christians took it seriously. Other examples include Matthew Henry and John Gill. My purpose is not to recommend their commentaries but to document how Christians in the past weren't embarrassed by this episode. 

3. In his commentary, Evans takes the position that this pericope is a scribal interpolation. Craig. A. Evans, Matthew (Cambrige 2012), 466-68. For those who regard the scene as inherently legendary, that explanation salvages the historicity of Matthew. But to my knowledge there's no text-critical evidence whatsoever that this passage is a scribal interpolation. If that's the case, it's hard to explain the uniformity of the MS tradition. How could a scribe add that to the original Gospel without generating diversity in the record of transmission? How did his interpolation win out, leaving no alternatives in the extant MSS? 

4. Raising the widow's son is only recorded in Lk 7. Raising Lazarus is only recorded in Jn 11. So the fact that the incident under review is only reported in Matthew isn't suspicious compared to analogous accounts. If you're going to be skeptical, you need to be consistently skeptical. 

5. Bart Ehrman likes to harp on high rates of illiteracy in the 1C Roman Empire. But in that case, how many witnesses to this event would be in a position to commit their testimony to writing? And even if they did, how many witnesses would be in a position to publish their testimony? It's not like they could contact a reporter at The Jerusalem Post. At best, their testimony would circulate orally.   

6. Another question is how widespread sightings there were. That depends on many variables. How many saints were raised? What was the population of 1C Jerusalem? How many witnesses in relation to how many saints? How many people would be in a position to recognize the former decedents? Are we talking about a sprinkling of saints dispersed in the general population density of the city? How noticeable would that be?