Earth & Altar

The clergy at All Saints Anglican -- primarily Fr. Sean McDermott, with yours truly in an assisting role -- have launched a website, Earth & Altar, dedicated to "Catholic Ressourcement for Anglicans." It is specifically intended as corporate formation for the Anglican Province of America, but we hope and expect it will be useful for others as well.

In particular, we've organized the site around parish resources related to Liturgy, Education, Spiritual Direction, and Community. For example, we have essays detailing our parish's Sacred Music and Arts Camp (aka "SMAC," aka our version of VBS), our parish Agape meal, how we do youth and adult education, etc. -- as well as links to resources related to the seven sacraments and other liturgical services. We also link to useful podcasts and blogs, and we are maintaining our own occasional blog as well.

For a helpful introduction, you can listen to and read about the plenary talks given at our diocesan synod by Fr. Sean and me here.

So far, I've contributed a paper on youth ministry at All Saints and written a few short blog posts including one that briefly reflects on the one-year lectionary (with a link to a podcast that goes more in-depth).

Most recently, I wrote an essay that considers avenues of fruitful theological reflection on sexuality beyond the old same-sex-marriage debate. Here's the introduction:

Is there any fruitful ground left for theological debate around sexuality? The answer at first seems a definitive "no." The denominational landscape of American Christianity has been rent asunder in the past half-century, most fundamentally over questions related to same-sex marriage — and rent so definitively that no common ground exists any longer. The warring camps, it seems, share no spaces or institutions in which — or even over which — to argue. Perhaps such ground never really existed anyway. The breakup of jurisdictions and denominations happened more through open power struggles than genuine intellectual dispute. These power struggles continue in some quarters, of course, but the theological question of same-sex marriage — specifically, whether or not the biblical vision of marriage can be modified to include the institution called "same-sex marriage" — seems rather played out. Continuing Anglicans in particular may be tempted to think that affirming the impossibility of same-sex marriage — and women’s ordination — sufficiently clarifies our theology of sexuality. 

As I read Wesley Hill's thoughtful review of Paul Griffiths's latest book, Christian Flesh, however, I was reminded of the various under-explored questions beyond the tired same-sex marriage debate. That debate has arguably obscured the distinctions and boundaries between sexual and non-sexual forms of human intimacy — for instance, the intimacy of a parent and child, between siblings, and among friends. Further, partisans on both sides have typically failed to think deeply enough about the nature of regeneration and redemption in relation to all forms of human sexuality.

Read the rest here.

Just a final note: I posted the essay under the category of "Clery Education," though I do think the questions considered are potentially meaningful for any theologically informed Christian.

Sermon for Trinity X

This past Sunday I preached and celebrated a Deacon's Mass (a Mass of the Presanctified Gifts) at St. Philip's Anglican Church in Blacksburg, covering for the inimitable Fr. Wade Miller. The sermon texts were 1 Corinthians 12:1f, and Luke 19:41f.

The text for the sermon comes from the epistle:

“There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all.”

St. Paul wrote 1 Corinthians to sort out serious problems in the church at Corinth, problems involving both moral scandal and bad theology. We learn in chapter 7 that the Corinthians had written St. Paul to ask him some questions, but in chapter 11 St. Paul also lets it slip that he has additional sources who have been informing him about the church’s scandals. Our epistle text, then, may be a response to a direct question from Corinth or to things St. Paul’s been hearing from other sources, but in either case, it is clear that the Corinthians are misusing their spiritual gifts.

The problem is not, however, the absence of gifts. Interestingly, St. Paul nowhere doubts the validity of the Corinthians’ spiritual gifts — he affirms them as genuine instantiations of the Holy Spirit’s work. Indeed, the church at Corinth seems full of spiritual gifts and power — but these gifts are being used not for the good of the Church but for self-aggrandizement, and they have created a culture of ingratitude and envy. It is chillingly ironic that spiritual gifts from God become the occasion for the primal Satanic sin of pride — but this is precisely what St. Paul means when he warns in 1 Corinthians 13 that, without love, prophecy becomes a noisy gong and mountain-moving faith amounts to nothing.

St. Paul reminds these Corinthians that, in an ultimate sense, no Christian is an individual but is rather a member of a Body, animated by a single Spirit, and defined by love. And, as our Collect and Gospel texts indicate, we learn to live this reality out in our lives by becoming, individually and corporately, a house of prayer.

Let’s turn to the Epistle text:

“Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I do not want you to be ignorant.”

There’s an important nuance to the Greek here that gets lost in translation. The noun “gifts” is not actually present in the Greek. The word used is an adjectival noun, pneumatikon, which is literally “spiritual things.” It is not until verse four that St. Paul shifts from pneumatikon (“spiritual things”) to charismata, “gifts.” The root word of charismata is charis — which means grace. With this shift, St. Paul subtly reminds them that these “spiritual things,” which have become for them sources of pride and envy, are not their possession by right or by merit but by grace, as a gift. God’s gifts are only rightly enjoyed when the credit and glory that they bring passes through the recipient to the Divine Source of the gift.

St. Paul also reminds the Corinthians that spirituality per se is not enough, because not all spirits are of God. The Corinthians had been plenty “spiritual” before their conversion:

“You know that you were Gentiles, carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led. Therefore I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God calls Jesus accursed, and no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.”

Being “carried away” in idolatry is probably a reference to ecstatic experiences in pagan worship. Those spiritual experiences may have been quite real, but they were not of God — and the test is whether a spiritual experience conforms to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. And, whereas in paganism a variety of spiritual experiences would have indicated a diversity of gods, St. Paul notes that the spiritual gifts of God, however diverse, all stem from one Spirit, one Triune God:

“There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all.”

Christian gifts, ministries, and activities communicate the grace of God to a dying world. In turn, Christians must constantly point the world back to Jesus Christ. In this way, we act as images and icons of Jesus, channels through which God both acts and receives glory and honor.

The Corinthians’s spiritual gifts were real, but they seized the praise stemming from these gifts for themselves. They became not icons of Christ but living idols. And as each Corinthian claimed the Creator’s glory for himself, the unity and complementarity of the Spirit’s work was obscured, and envy arose. Instead of working for the good of the whole and for the glory of God, the Corinthians sought their own glory and poisoned their community. Obviously, this is directly contrary to the very purpose of spiritual gifts!

“But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all.”

It is probably best not to try to read too much into the particular list of gifts which follow. In different places in this and other of his epistles, St. Paul varies his lists of spiritual gifts. They appear to be illustrative rather than exhaustive or systematically outlined. St. Paul’s focus in our text is not on the particular gifts themselves but rather the unity of one Spirit animating all of them. The remainder of 1 Corinthians 12 beyond our text describes the Church as Christ’s own Body, with each member of that Body providing a different function; with all functions harmonious, organic, and symbiotic; each crucial to the health and well-being of the whole Body. Every spiritual gift proceeds from “one and the same Spirit” at the Spirit’s discretion and “for the profit of all.”

That the Corinthians were able so to misuse the gifts the Spirit that they became occasions for destructive pride and envy is startling. Something like this Corinthian dynamic seems to be what our Lord had in mind when, in Matthew 7 (verses 21-23, ESV), he warned: “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”

The antidote for this poisonous and apparently damnable pride is loving attention to the Body of Christ rather than selfish pursuit of our own ends. Our Gospel text teaches us how to do this.

Just as the Corinthians manipulated spiritual gifts for selfish ends, in our Gospel text we find that the Temple — God’s dwelling place with man — has become a “den of thieves.” Literally speaking, Jesus was decrying the profiteering that debased the sacrificial system in his day. But we know something Jesus’ original audience did not. The dwelling place of God with man was no longer the Temple complex in which Jesus stood but rather the very body of Jesus himself (see John 2:21). Moreover, as St. Paul explains throughout 1 Corinthians, Christ has consecrated the Church as his mystical Body, and by extension the very body of every Christian becomes at baptism a temple of the Holy Ghost (1 Cor. 6:19).

The Church fathers, therefore, rightly drew profound and sweeping theological conclusions from Jesus’ cleansing of the Temple. Indeed, the pairing of today’s Epistle and Gospel texts, which dates back to the fourth-century Lectionary of St. Jerome, was predicated on making this connection between the Temple of Luke’s Gospel and the Temple that is the Body of Christ. We must ensure that our Body — the Church corporate and each of our lives individually — does not become a den of thieves. We do so by making our Body instead a house of prayer.

Living prayerfully is the solution. St. John of Damascus defined prayer as the lifting up of the mind to God. This is exactly what the celebrant asks the people to do in the Sursum Corda: “Lift up your hearts.” “We live them up unto the Lord.” This is harder than it sounds. It requires not merely effort but also training and formation. First and foremost, this happens Eucharistically, as we feed on Christ’s sacramental Body and are thereby more fully united to his mystical Body. The common prayer of our liturgy — particularly Holy Communion and the Daily Office — teaches us how to pray as members of a Body. Even when I pray alone in my room, I pray to our Father and not my Father. Holy Eucharist and the Daily Office should be the basic building blocks of every house of prayer, but as we grow in spiritual discipline we should add contemplative, personal prayer, which helps us understand how our membership in Christ relates to each of our particular situations and circumstances.

In these ways, we learn how to consecrate our whole selves to Christ’s service, to bring all our gifts into right relation with our membership in Christ, and to live a filled life of humble love and ceaseless prayer.

“There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all.”

Teaching American History, Trusting Jesus

This is a "final reflections" email I sent to all my students after the conclusion of the semester. I know at least three (out of 65) actually read it, so I'll call that a teaching victory.

All,

This is the time of year I reflect on my teaching and think about, you know, the stuff I wish I'd done differently. So I'm gonna do that, and you're gonna read it. (Just kidding. You can go ahead and click that little trash can icon up there if you'd like.)

My major concerns always have to do with whether I've really upheld goodness, truth, and beauty for you to pursue. I'm not sure.

And part of the problem is that I simultaneously believe three things that are at least in tension with each other and may in fact be mutually exclusive:

1. The "American experiment in self-government" is rooted in some fundamentally good, true, and beautiful insights that are worth preserving and upholding.
2. Slavery and other forms of exploitation are inextricably interwoven into American history, such that it is hard to argue that there is any part of American history that hasn't been in some way affected.
3. And then a third, sort of out-there one: the Western liberal (using the term broadly) Enlightenment-based ideal of a value-neutral, religious-commitment-free space (on which the American experiment is based) is a lie. There are no religiously neutral spaces; the secular state is not a neutral arbiter of religion but is itself a combatant (and a dominantly successful one) in religious conflict. (See the attached argument from William Cavanaugh--come for the invigorating take on the falsely named "Wars of Religion"; stick around for the part where he compares American government to a mafia protection racket.)

My overriding conviction always is that the Church -- which, as St. Paul repeatedly says, is the Body of Christ -- is the one community that should "relativize" all others. That is, all other loves find their rightful place and expression as they are brought into relation with Jesus Christ. Apart from Jesus, all loves inevitably become disordered, distorted, and destructive. Anything you pursue to give your lives meaning, purpose, and happiness apart from Jesus will eventually crumble into ash.

So your duty as Americans is indeed to love your country, just as you should love your family and friends. The problem is never -- could never be -- too much love. But it can be disordered love. Or it can be hatred or selfishness falsely masked as love. (That's why "love is love" can only mean something if you know what "love" actually is...) So your overriding duty is to find what loving America looks like when it's brought into relation with the fundamental commandment to love Jesus.

And I should say that bringing things into relation with Jesus is not a matter of hard things becoming easy. The whole "God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life" line is true, so long as we remember that that "wonderful plan" might look quite a bit different than the wonderful plan we have for our own lives. Ten of the twelve disciples were martyred, after all.

The Christian life is cross-shaped. Jesus invites you into a real death to self, but it's through that dying to self that you find life -- and that, actually, you find yourself. The Collect for the Monday of Holy Week puts it well:

And that's the promise. You will suffer in this life, one way or another. Walking in the way of the cross means uniting your sufferings to Christ, who will never leave you nor forsake you (Heb. 13:5), so that when you suffer, you do so with hope and even, dare I say, joy (1 Thes. 4:13-18).

Best,

Fr. Perkins

Christ reigns from the tree

[I'll be preaching this brief homily for Morning Prayer this Good Friday in about twenty minutes.]


“Jesus, therefore, knowing all things that should come upon him, went forth, and said unto them, Whom seek ye? They answered him, Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus saith unto them, I am he.”

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This morning’s second lesson is packed with Old Testament allusions. We begin with Jesus crossing “over the brook Cedron.” This is the same river that King David crossed when he fled from his son Absalom’s rebellion in 2 Samuel (15:23). In fact the word translated as “brook” is a specific word for a river that only flowed during winter (the rainy season in Israel), and it’s precisely the same term used in the Greek translation of the account of David’s flight. In that Old Testament story, meanwhile, David’s close advisor Ahithophel betrays him and then eventually hangs himself — one of only two characters in the Bible to do so, the other being Judas Iscariot.

 The account of David’s flight is poignant: “David went up the ascent of the Mount of Olives, weeping as he went, with his head covered and walking barefoot; and all the people who were with him covered their heads and went up, weeping as they went” (2 Sam. 15:30, NRSV). Likewise, our Lord enters into the Garden of Gethsemane, which was an olive grove (Whitacre 425), where, the other Gospels tell us, he endured great agony as he anticipated his impending death (Luke 22:44; Matthew 26:38; Mark 14:34). It is there that he asked his disciples to pray one hour with him, there that they all failed. And it is that grievous hour in that garden that some of you even now reenact as you seek to enter into the suffering of our Lord in some small way.

John refers to this place of watching simply as “a garden.” He gives the same name to “the place where [Jesus] was crucified” and buried (19:41). Mary of Bethany will even mistake him for the gardener (20:15) — as indeed he is, the New Adam whose death reverses the curse wrought by the first gardener’s fall (1 Cor 15:22; Rom 5:14-18).

This morning’s first lesson provides us with another Old Testament foreshadowing of Christ. The Isaac who is nearly sacrificed and metaphorically brought back from the dead becomes the Christ, who truly dies and then becomes the “firstborn from the dead” (Col 1:18). Indeed, Jesus acts as both Abraham and Isaac, for he willingly offers himself up in obedience to God.

The account of David’s flight from Absalom arouses pity because in it David has become so pitiful — a sad, broken-down old man who must be roused to his own defense by his allies. And Absalom’s rebellion is implicitly presented as the consequence of David’s own sordid history of lust, murder, and parental neglect.


Evening Prayer today will emphasize that Jesus, by contrast, is an innocent sufferer whose suffering expunges the guilt of others. But as our reading from John makes clear, Jesus is not a passive or helpless victim.

Having eluded his opponents’ previous attempts to apprehend him before the appointed hour, Jesus now dictates when, where, and how he will be taken. His enemies come in full military force, but it is Jesus and not they who control the scene. He comes forth and interrogates them: “Whom seek ye?”

They answer “Jesus of Nazareth.” He responds, “I am he.” That last word, “he,” is grammatically implied but unstated in the Greek, so what Jesus has actually said is simply, “I AM.” This declaration of the divine name literally knocks the armed band clean over. They are, it seems, so rattled that Jesus has to prompt them again to say who they’re looking for, and they dumbly repeat the same name. Jesus then orders them — it is an imperative — to let his disciples go. Here and throughout his interactions with Pilate, the superficial powers of this world are belittled and diminished in the presence of true omnipotence.

Good Friday is tragic. Jesus’ death is the result of sin, and as Fr. Glenn recently reminded us, sin is no happy fault. It is grievous. The grim spectacle of our Lord upon the cross should fill us with deep sorrow for our sins which placed him there. And yet, throughout St. John’s Gospel, the cross is Christ’s glorification. The great Anglican theologian E. L. Mascall writes that in his obedience, Christ’s “divine dignity is not diminished but manifested; when he stands before Pilate, it is he, not Pilate, that is the judge; when he is nailed to the Cross, he is reigning from the tree.” As we grieve, therefore, let us also worship and adore our king, for whom the cross is at once torment and triumph.

“Jesus saith unto them, I am he.”

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Sermon for Epiphany II

Last week I preached the sermon for Epiphany II on the beginning of St. Mark's Gospel, climaxing with Jesus' baptism by John. The baptism introduces us to Jesus in Mark, and in this way sets the tone for his entire ministry.

The Eastern Fathers reflect at length upon Christ’s baptism as a potent symbol of the Incarnation in all its paradoxical majesty and mystery. An Orthodox hymn for Epiphany notes that in Jesus’s baptism we see “The River of Joy… baptized in the stream” (The Festal Menaion, 295). The One through whom all water was made and in which all things subsist is himself submerged in muddy Jordan. How can this be?... 

Christ’s baptism is a particular act of humility. St. Matthew’s Gospel dwells on the inversion of Jesus being baptized by John. “I have need to be baptized of thee,” John protests, “and comest thou to me?” (Matt. 3:14). St. Mark’s compact account draws attention not so much to the incongruity between John and Jesus but rather to the startling nature of John’s baptism. John preached “the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins,” and it is this baptism to which Jesus submits, despite having no sins to remit. Thus, in his first act in Mark’s Gospel, Christ explicitly identifies himself with sinners. Later Jesus will describe his impending Passion as “the cup that I drink” and “the baptism with which I am baptized” (Mark 10:38-39, ESV). From the outset, he expresses a freely chosen solidarity with sinners, and this identification of the Sinless Christ with sinful humanity comes to its awful and glorious climax on the cross.

Christ's baptism also inaugurates sacramental baptism, and so it reveals not only who Christ is -- but also who we are:

...we should never forget that, in being baptized into Christ’s death, we are also, as St. Paul tells us, “risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead” (Col. 2:12). We share in his death and in his resurrection, and we indeed partake of his divine life (2 Pet. 1:4). 

At every baptism, the heavens are rent, the Spirit descends, and the voice of God speaks: 

“Thou art my beloved child, in whom I am well pleased.”

You can read (or hear) the whole thing.

Jesus' Baptism, Liturgical Language

A (lightly modified) excerpt from my Sent folder (head nod to Alan Jacobs): 

 In light of my sermon this Sunday, I'm looking at Orthodox liturgy for Epiphany (from The Festal Menaion translated by Kallistos Ware and Mother Mary) and its reflections on Jesus' baptism. Fascinating stuff:

"Make ready, O river Jordan: for behold, Christ our God draws near to be baptized by John, that He may crush with His divinity the invisible heads of the dragons in thy waters."

I have no idea what that really means -- the footnoted reference to Ps. 73:13 proves less than illuminating** -- but it's pretty cool. I sense a Marvel adaptation.

But anyway, in the Preface there's this explanation of the language of their translation, which fits what Martin Thornton says about liturgical language (perspicacious but elevated is the ideal, which, he says, makes Elizabethan English perhaps the perfect liturgical form):

So far as the general style of our translation is concerned, after much experimenting we decided to take as our model the language of the Authorized Version... This, we realize, is a controversial decision. Many of our readers will probably feel that, if the liturgical texts are to come alive for people today, they must be rendered in a more contemporary idiom. To this it must be answered that the Greek used in the canons and hymns that are here translated was never a 'contemporary' or 'spoken' language. The Byzantine hymnographers wrote in a liturgical style that was consciously 'artificial', even though it was never intentionally obscure or unintelligible. As we see it, the language of the Authorized Version is best adapted to convey the spirit of the original liturgical Greek.... For three centuries and more the Authorized Version, and along with it the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, have provided the words with which English-speaking peoples throughout the world have addressed God; and these two books have become a part not only of our literary but of our spiritual inheritance...

Fr. Mark

**Turns out the reference is to Ps. 74:14-15 (in the 1928 Psalter; in the ESV it's 74:13-14): "Thou didst divide the sea through thy power; thou brakest the heads of the dragons in the waters. Thou smotest the heads of leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat for the people of the wilderness."

Double cool.

Advent IV Sermon: On Heaven

Today I preached for Advent IV -- on heaven, heavenly citizenship, and the bodily resurrection:

This heavenly citizenship — which is ours through membership in Christ’s Body, the Church — makes us a “peculiar people” (1 Peter 2:9, KJV). Every rival loyalty must be submitted to the surpassing reality of our incorporation into Christ (Gal. 3:28-29; 1 Cor. 12:13). But this relativizing of other loyalties does not mean their diminishment — quite the opposite! 

We love Jesus not by loving others less but precisely through loving them rightly. Saints Paul and Peter make it abundantly and repeatedly clear that loving your spouse, your children, and your parents, so far from being in conflict with heavenly citizenship, are in the fact the very ways in which we love Jesus. Romans 13 and 1 Peter 3 affirm that part of being a good Christian is being a good earthly citizen. These other loyalties are relativized not by being diminished but by being brought into right relation with our ultimate identity as members of the Church. 

Problems arise not when our love for family or country becomes too great but when our love is disordered. And in this fallen world, these other entities — family, country — can and inevitably will at times demand that they be your primary loyalty, that all things be made subject to them rather than to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Read (or listen to) the whole thing.

"The way of all flesh had crossed paths with the Word made flesh."

Fr. Glenn's sermon yesterday on the widow of Nain was beautiful and powerful. It is worth your time.

Luke makes a point of telling us that this death involved an only-begotten son. The mother was a widow who was now childless. She had no family left and she had become an “orphaned parent.” This passage bristles with emotion. Many people in the town shared in the widow’s grief as they gathered around her in mourning. Such mourning was seen as an act of love by one’s neighbors. This is the sad scene that greeted Jesus as he enters the little village. 

...what is absent from this account is the ever present, ever critical, Pharisee. But for the original audience, his touching of the bier was probably enough to bring back the contrast between Jesus’ love for people and the self-righteousness of those who had nothing to offer but the Law. The righteousness of God is not attained in its pursuit, holiness does not glory in itself — but rather as we follow Jesus in his love for others, the righteousness of God overcomes us.

Read the whole thing.

"Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps."

[I am preaching this brief homily today, Good Friday, on the Second Lesson for Evening Prayer.]

“Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps.”

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The crucifixion of our Lord on Good Friday frees us from sin and death. When we are “baptized into his death,” as St. Paul says (Romans 6:3), we are transformed in our very being. His death accomplishes our regeneration, but it also provides an example for us to follow when we suffer unjustly in our own lives. In our second lesson today, St. Peter pulls together both effects of the cross: we are transferred from death to life, and we are given an example to follow.

The latter half of our text is explicitly directed to slaves—more specifically, household servants—but there are textual indications that St. Peter intended his advice to apply to all Christians as servants in the household of God. St. Peter calls upon these slaves—who, in context, seem to have pagan masters—to endure unjust suffering patiently, a teaching that was no doubt hard to swallow. But for St. Peter, patiently enduring is not about abstract morality but is, rather, part and parcel of a Christian’s obligation to imitate Jesus. Our text dramatically shifts from the mundane, grim particulars of the Christian slave's daily life to the transcendent reality of Christ's suffering. Why is the Christian slave—and, by implication, every Christian—called to endure unjust suffering? “Because,” St. Peter writes, “Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps.” As St. Augustine comments, “Christ taught you to suffer, and he did so by suffering himself.”

In the last few verses of our text, St. Peter draws heavily from the famous “suffering servant” passage of Isaiah 52-53, which is our first lesson today. As God’s suffering servant, Jesus “did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth.” Despite this, he in “his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree.” Note the tangible fleshiness of Jesus' sacrificial suffering—the cross is not simply an abstract spiritual battle between good and evil. It is physical, bodily torture. The language of “the tree” draws us back to the Old Testament. We learn in Deuteronomy that a man hanged on a tree for a crime “is cursed by God” (Deut. 21:21-23). The innocent sufferer Jesus is killed like a common criminal under a divine curse.

This profound theological reality undergirds St. Peter’s difficult instruction for day-to-day life. The household servants to whom he writes may be suffering unjustly, but they are, in a larger sense, not innocent of sin. The implication is clear: if he who was in the fullest sense innocent responded in this way, you who are not ought also so to do. “When he was reviled, [he] reviled not again; when he suffered, he threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously.” Amidst the reviling of persecutors, Jesus' gaze was ever heavenward. This too should be our response to suffering.

At the end of our text, St. Peter points out that Jesus’ death is more than just a good example for us to follow—because his death is what transforms us. Unlike the suffering of saints and martyrs, Jesus’ death is what actually enables us to follow his example. Christ died “that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness.” In this particular passage, St. Peter is less concerned with the eternal status of our salvation than he is with the earthly practicalities of right living before God. As one translation puts it, Jesus “bore our wrongdoings” so that “we, having abandoned wrongdoing, might live for doing what is right” (Elliott, Anchor Bible, 523).

Christ’s suffering on Good Friday gives us an example to follow—and it empowers us to follow him. 

 As the beautiful Collect for the Monday before Easter puts it,

“ALMIGHTY God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified; Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”

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"Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest"

[I preached this short homily last year on the First Lesson for Morning Prayer on Good Friday--the difficult story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22.]

“And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering.”

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This story is rich with layers of meaning and symbol. Abraham provides us with a model of great faith. As one commenter notes, his faithful response has enabled many to accept the “incomprehensible, unendurable and contradictory and to reflect upon it” (Clemens Thoma). In this story we also find a prefiguration of Jesus as the sacrificial lamb, sacrificed for us on Good Friday. And as the writer of Hebrews notes, Isaac is figuratively brought back from the dead—a foreshadowing of Easter Sunday. On Good Friday our primary focus will rightly be on the sacrificial suffering of Jesus and on our own penitential and sorrowful response. But in light of this passage I would like to reflect briefly on one other symbolic layer of the story—Abraham as the father sacrificing his “only son.”

At first glance, the description of Isaac seems an error—Abraham had in fact two sons, Isaac and Ishmael. In the translation of Hebrew scholar Robert Alter, God tells Abraham, “Take, pray, your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac.”

Alter comments, “The Hebrew syntactic chain [the order of the words] is exquisitely forged to carry a dramatic burden, and the sundry attempts of English translators from the King James Version to the present to rearrange it are misguided.” Alter then quotes from a medieval rabbi’s imaginative rendering of the scene: God says, ‘ “Your son.” [Abraham] said to Him, “I have two sons.” [God] said to him, “Your only one.” [Abraham] said, “This one is an only one to his mother and this one is an only one to his mother.” He said to him, “Whom you love.” He said to him, “I love both of them.” He said to him, “Isaac.” ’

Your son, your only one, whom you love, Isaac. These brief phrases reveal the unbearable weight of “God’s terrible imperative” to sacrifice his beloved son, the child of the promise.

God’s incomprehensible demand reminds me of the parable of the wicked tenants from Mark 12. In that parable, a distant landlord sends a servant to collect rent from tenants who instead beat the poor man. Jesus says, “And he sent another, and him they killed. And so with many others: some they beat, and some they killed. He had still one other, a beloved son. Finally he sent him to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’ ” Guess what: they don’t. I remember reading that not too long ago and immediately thinking, “What a very stupid landlord!” Of course, a moment’s reflection reveals that the landlord symbolizes God our Father who sent his Son into the world to be killed. So too does Abraham in our story prefigure the Father who will not withhold his Son.

What are we to make of this God, our Father?

Romans 8 gives us an answer. “What shall we then say to these things?… He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things? … Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

As we consider the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, as we reflect on our sins for which he suffered and on our own terrible need for this Savior, let us also reflect upon the immeasurable love of the Father.

“He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things.”

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Sermon for Advent II

Yesterday I preached my Advent II sermon--on the nature and sources of true hope, how suffering relates to hope, and the Bible. Yes, it was wide-ranging.

Of course, faith and love are at the heart of what it means to be a Christian—but hope? Does life in Christ mean having a perpetually optimistic, temperamentally upbeat take on life? Does it mean remembering that “every cloud has a silver lining”? Always “making the best of a bad situation”? Making lemonade “when life gives you lemons”? 

Now, these very American sayings aren’t all bad. They can be helpful when we lose perspective amidst the minor setbacks and frustrations of everyday life. In those cases, there’s nothing wrong with saying, “It isn’t as bad as all that, is it?” But these little pieces of sound but limited advice have essentially nothing to do with the theological virtue of hope. 

When, in fact, it is that bad—when real tragedy strikes—(saying,) “look on the bright side” amounts to a denial of reality. And denying reality is not a theological virtue. To the contrary, denial is one short step from despair, hope’s opposite. 

[...] 

This hope in no way denies or reduces the reality of suffering. It does not seek to “balance out,” much less eliminate, suffering. Rather, through hope our suffering is incorporated into the life story of Jesus. Just as the scars of Jesus were not erased in the resurrection, this incorporation does not wipe away the tragedies in our lives. Yet we will find them somehow transformed, healed, and redeemed in Jesus. And just as Jesus wept over the death of his friend Lazarus moments before raising him from the dead, our right understanding of reality and our full anticipation of the triumph of life over death does not eliminate mourning. The promise that Jesus will wipe away every tear is eschatological—it is a distinctly future event. That future is sure. Our task, then, is to live with a right understanding of present reality in anticipation of future triumph. To live hopefully means knowing that death is not the end, that the apparent power of the forces of darkness is an illusion, that our victory is sure.

You can read the whole thing here.

Christian love: easy for me to say

A good friend responded to my recent faculty devotion with a brief email saying, succinctly and correctly, "easy for you to say." Naturally I responded at length. Part of my response is below, lightly edited.

I'm more and more convinced of the deeply fallacious nature of our culture's tendency to resort to "easy for you to say"--i.e. to shift attention away from the validity of the claim made and instead focus on whether the person relaying the claim has the right to say it based on their personal situatedness and experience. And in this case, "relaying the claim" is the right phrase, since the claim isn't mine but rather that of Jesus and that of St. Paul, both of whom exchanged privilege for suffering and death.

Do I have their cred (divine and apostolic, respectively)? Of course not. And I am personally much more able to identify with the St. Peter in the courtyard of Caiaphas and especially the apostles fishing out on the sea (who denied the claim of Jesus indirectly--by avoidance and redirection rather than outright rejection) than with the St. Peter who was carried "wither thou wouldest not" at the end of his life. I can more identify with the three disciples snoozing in the Garden of Gethsemane than with their Lord's "not my will but thine be done" on the cross. The demands of Christian love weren't easy for Jesus, and they weren't easy for the apostles.

But what's our job as Christians, if not to present to each other the demands of Jesus? If not to challenge each other to grow in holiness no matter the circumstances? Grace doesn't exist to underwrite or excuse our laziness and complacence. It does not even exist to make us feel better about ourselves as sinners. It exists to transform us "from one degree of glory to another," to raise us from death to life, to fashion us into the hands and feet of Jesus in the world. And, if we let it do its work, it surely will change how we understand ourselves--not as the sinners we once were, but as saints participating in the divine life.

I've long been convinced that Christian leaders (especially priests and pastors, but sometimes also bosses) are almost always wrong to temper their sermons/instructions with "I'm the chief of sinners" or "I really struggle with this myself." What's the point of that stuff? I know it's intended to reflect humility and authenticity, but isn't it basically selfish--to avoid coming across as judgy/preachy?--but what's the purpose of Christian leadership if not to judge rightly and preach truly! And what's the outcome of those disclaimers? Doesn't it just soften the instructions?--as though Jesus never really meant all that stuff in the Sermon of the Mount, as though he was really just exaggerating for effect.

Of course we need wisdom, prudence, and compassion as we call each other to holiness--but (a) there is never a good time to accommodate sin, though there are plenty of times in which a word of correction will only increase sin (so, again, prudence is necessary) and (b) there are simply no circumstances in which the call to love is suspended or abrogated.

Anyone who says otherwise is preaching a different gospel than the gospel of Christ.

An apostasy that is nearly invisible

When I gave a faculty devotion this past Tuesday on self-sacrifice, I did not then realize that it would be but a pale imitation of Fr. Glenn's beautiful and profound sermon this past Sunday meditating on the final passage of the Gospel According to St. John. The Gospel closes with a fishing trip by seven apostles--a return to the vocation from which Jesus had called them--and then an odd and poignant meal these apostles share with Jesus on the beach.

(In a previous faculty devotion, I reflected on the recurrent centrality of food in the resurrection narratives.)

From Fr. Glenn's sermon:

There is an apostasy that draws no attentions to itself because it is so practical. There is an apostasy that is nearly invisible because it hides out in the open spaces of a man’s or woman’s life. Jesus had promised to make them fishers of men and they, after all this, settled for their old way of life. Is that all there is to it? The destiny of all mankind, of all creation, is in the hands of these few men, and what is their posture toward the Pearl of Great Price? Here is an apostasy that so practical, so obviously essential to life, so self-evident and necessary that it will go unnoticed except when it is brought into the presence Christ and his searching, all-demanding claim upon your life just as it was experienced on the beach that morning as seven Apostles ate breakfast with Jesus. Such is the searching, all-demanding eucharistic presence of Christ that comes to us in worship and in perfect judgment. 

... 

"Peter do you love me more than these?" I do not for a moment think there is any reason, textually or morally, to think that Jesus was asking Peter whether or not he, Peter, loved him, Jesus, more than any of the other disciples loved him. Not at all. I think our Lord may well have gestured toward the practical gear and hardware of their practical life: their fishing boats, the ropes, the well-tied nets, the gear and tackle, the fresh fire-coal, the strange, speckled, dappled trout. Do you love me more than these? Do you love me more than the practical? Do you love me more than what others say is feasible, than what they say is real life — do you love me more than this ready-made, ready-at-hand way of getting through? Do you love me more than your life?

Read the whole thing.

St. Paul, Slavery, and Love

What follows is a devotion given to the faculty this morning, in which I gave a provisional/tentative reading of St. Paul's instructions about slavery and their relationship to the biblical picture of love. I would certainly love any feedback or criticism!

I want to talk this morning about St. Paul and the institution of slavery. As an American history teacher, I think often about the Bible and its relationship to slavery, but today it’s especially relevant, since Titus 2 was appointed as a reading in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP). I saw that, and then I saw that today’s blessing in Seeking God’s Face (a shared faculty devotion) comes from the Sermon on the Mount--and I think St. Paul’s instructions to the enslaved are intimately connected to Jesus’ instructions to the persecuted.

 St. Paul on slavery might seem to be odd devotional material, but I think the apostle provides great (though certainly troubling) insight into what it means to love on a day-to-day basis.

Epiphany II

Fr. Glenn's sermon this past Sunday was beautiful. Here's the conclusion.

We know Jesus’ parable about the sower going forth to sow the Word of God, and we know that when the seed fell upon good ground, an open heart, it brought forth more fruit than anybody including his disciples could have ever imagined. But we also know — most importantly of all — that for the seed that is sown to burst into life, it must first die and be buried. And we know that because Jesus said so in the very week he would give his life up for the life of the whole world, and the Apostle John recorded it for us in the 12th chapter of his Gospel: 

“And there were certain Greeks (note these are Gentile converts) among them that came up to worship at the feast: The same came therefore to Philip, which was of Bethsaida of Galilee, and desired him, saying, Sir, we would see Jesus. Philip cometh and telleth Andrew: and again Andrew and Philip tell Jesus. And Jesus answered them, saying, The hour is come, that the Son of man should be glorified. Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone: but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” -John 12:20-25 

In less than 48 hours from that moment, Jesus was nailed to the Cross. Jesus is the Seed of Abraham, and Jesus’ glory is his death, and his garden tomb is the ground from which he rose, and his rising has brought forth the fruit of everlasting life just as we will sing on Easter Sunday morning: 

Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him.Christ is risen from the dead,and become the first fruits of them that slept.For since by man came death,by man came also the resurrection of the dead.For as in Adam all die,even so in Christ shall all be made alive.

Read the whole thing here.

Reigning as Christ

I gave the following as a faculty devotion. It's been edited for posting here.

“As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame”
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.
I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

What we do is consistent with who we are. Each creature does what he is--acts outwardly what he is inwardly. And who we are, Hopkins says--if we are that just man of grace (that man justified, or made just, by grace)--is Christ.

So who are we? Christ. And what does Christ do? Well, he reigns.

Judging prophetic claims about history

"Good to be in the right church and on the right side of history."

I read that in all of its intense and righteous self-satisfaction, and I thought of Mrs. Turpin from Flannery O'Connor's "Revelation":

To help anybody out that needed it was her philosophy of life. She never spared herself when she found somebody in need, whether they were white or black, trash or decent. And of all she had to be thankful for, she was most thankful that this was so. If Jesus had said, "You can be high society and have all the money you want and be thin and svelte-like, but you can't be a good woman with it," she would have had to say, "Well don't make me that then. Make me a good woman and it don’t matter what else, how fat or how ugly or how poor!" Her heart rose. He had not made her a nigger or white-trash or ugly! He had made her herself and given her a little of everything. Jesus, thank you! she said. Thank you thank you! Whenever she counted her blessings she felt as buoyant as if she weighed one hundred and twenty five pounds instead of one hundred and eighty.

Mrs. Turpin's fate was to be set upon and, ultimately, set right by the ultimately-not-ironically-named Mary Grace. In absolutely no way do I wish Mary Grace's violence upon the author of those words, but I am always taken aback by the exaggerated sense of rightness in such proclamations.

 A long time ago I thought that claims about right and wrong sides to history were essentially about "a progressive view of history, whereby the superior moral standing of later generations exposes the errors of the past."* I still think that's true, but what stands out to me now is the way that a progressive vision of history functions essentially as an article of faith, entirely and wholly apart from any connection to lived history. I'm interested, in other words, in the religious zealotry that underlies progressive history.

In my last post on "Hope in historical unpredictability," I pointed out that those who make claims about sides to history "aren't making 'historical' claims, in the sense that they can be proven or supported with reference to past history. Whether the proclaimers recognize it or not, such assertions are fundamentally prophetic. That is, they are making a claim about the purposes and intentions of the author of history."

In that post, I more or less implied that statements about the right or wrong side of history should be simply ignored entirely. But that's not particularly charitable, nor am I sure it's prudent.

If, as I suggested, they are not historical claims, then they cannot be investigated and then either confirmed or falsified via the study of history. So, then, how can we evaluate them?

The answer, I humbly suggest, is to evaluate them as what they are: prophetic claims. The speaker of such claims is, essentially, claiming to be a mouthpiece for the author of history. And as I concluded my last post, "the author of history either does not exist or he is God Almighty."

It's worth noting here that prophecy in Scripture is not really about mystically predicting the future. It's about speaking God's truth, which needn't but may sometimes involve proclamations of future judgment. But in either case, the prophet speaks for God.

How, then, would you respond if someone claimed to be speaking on behalf of God?

If you do not buy into prophetic claims in general--perhaps you are an atheist or agnostic or deist or what have you, or perhaps instead you are simply a Christian who thinks prophecy ceased after the New Testament--then you can simply disregard claims about sides to history altogether. You should grant them no more credence or meaning than you assign to your average sign-waving apocalypticist shouting on a street corner.

Things are more complicated if you do not dismiss all prophetic claims out of hand.

In his essay on "Historicism," C.S. Lewis implies that a prophetic claim about history should come "with supporting evidence by way of sanctity and miracles"--and suggests that he is not capable of judging in such an instance. Presumably, Lewis saw that as the job of the Church. That is pretty much what I think--that prophetic claims ought ultimately to be judged by the Church.**

But there are places where the Church has already spoken--where Scripture is resoundingly clear, or where ecumenical councils have made relevant statements, or where the common prayer and practice of the Church make a conclusion unavoidable. And we know, as I've said before, how the story ends.

So, I'd humbly suggest, if someone's claiming that the author of history is saying something in contradiction to what we know to be true about God or what we know to be true about the end of the story, then we can safely reject it as nonsense.

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*At the time I noted another possibility: Perhaps the man who was shouting about the wrong side of history wasn't really a believer in History as Progress. "Perhaps," I wrote, "he fancies himself a hardened realist. He's merely stating that victors get first dibs at writing history textbooks, and he intends to win. He intends, in other words, to sit in the chair, become the power that be is? and say what's what." He's saying, in other words,  that you'll be on the wrong side of history because I'm going to make sure you lose, and then I'll write the history of your defeat. I wrote that with my tongue firmly planted in cheek, but now I'm not so sure that's an implausible reading. In fact I think it's likely that faith in History as Progress goes hand-in-hand with the desire to demonize, defeat, and annihilate the Enemies of Progress.
**In response to this post, Daniel Silliman has rightly pointed out that the two options I've outlined do not fairly cover the possible responses to prophetic claims. He's absolutely correct, and I did not mean to suggest that wholesale dismissal and "the church should judge" are the only possible responses. Many evangelicals, for example, might respond that each individual should judge by Scripture and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. I merely want to say that claims about the sides of history should be weighed in the same manner as you would judge religious claims--however you do so. My primary targets--to drop the whole indirect pretense real quick--are those who think religious claims are fine as privately held beliefs but have no place in the public square, yet also bludgeon their political opponents with "wrong side of history" language.

Broiled Fish and Resurrected Bodies

I gave the following as a faculty devotion. It's been slightly edited for posting here. Many of the thoughts stem from E.L. Mascall's Christ, the Christian, and the Church, "Early Traditions and the Origins of Chrsitianity" by N.T. Wright, and Fr. Glenn's recent sermons.

READING: Luke 24:36-43

As they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them, and said to them, “Peace to you!” But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And he said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Touch me, and see. For a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate before them.

The newspaper headline would be: “Resurrected Christ appears in crowded room, eats broiled fish.”

I find the fish particularly interesting, because it fits in with a series of events in Jesus' ministry connected to food and drink. Think of the turning of the water into wine, feedings of thousands, the Last Supper.

Food is a particularly recurrent feature of the resurrected Jesus. Earlier in Luke 24—just before the account we read—St. Luke tells us of Christ's appearance on the road to Emmaus, during which he breaks bread with the two followers of Christ. On Thursday Sarah will give us a no-doubt brilliant exegesis of Jesus' post-fishing breakfast with some disciples. And here, of course, here we have Jesus snacking on some broiled fish. It says he “ate it before them,” which paints an odd picture to me—Jesus chowing down on fish, everyone staring at him, mouths probably still agape.

These food details interest me, and not just because I like food. Growing up, I interpreted the appearances of Christ between his resurrection and ascension as primarily about proof that he was in fact raised from the dead. That's obviously a huge part of these stories. It wasn't until much later that I started thinking about those appearances in light of the promised and yet-to-come resurrection of the dead.

History and the Exodus

In the past year or so I've become increasingly interested in the historicity of the Old Testament. I have long been thinking about the role of story in the life of the Church more generally, but my interest in the particular nature of Old Testament stories has grown more recently. One question I'm often thinking and rethinking is that of the relationship between those stories and history. Should, more specifically, the Old Testament's historical reliability affect--whether adversely or positively--the Christian's confidence in Holy Scripture? How should the Christian react to claims about the historicity of the Old Testament?

That question is far too complicated for any blog post by any writer, and it's obviously beyond my training and intelligence. But I do think there are a couple of workable "ground rules" from which to operate--or, maybe, a couple of pitfalls to avoid.

To begin with, it is important that we acknowledge our own limitations. We have to start by recognizing that many "problems" of biblical reliability are in fact problems of our own making--due not to the text itself but to our own errant interpretations and inevitably incomplete knowledge. It may be the case, for instance, that the apparent conflict between contemporary science on origins and the Book of Genesis has less to do with Scripture per se and more to do with modernist assumptions inherent in fundamentalism.

To take another example, when we expect ancient authors to use numbers in a consistently straightforward way, we may be anachronistically applying contemporary expectations to a foreign context. Ancient authors' use numbers in symbolic or indirect way--even when we cannot quite penetrate or understand the symbolism--should not be seen as inaccuracy or falsehood. This is analogous to, say, criticizing someone for using the phrase "sunrise" when the "objective truth" of the matter is that the earth is spinning rather than the sun rising. In both origins and numbers the same basic concept is at work: rather than attempting to understand a text on its own historical terms, we superimpose our own expectations of how (we assume) numbers ought to work. And when it turns out that the author is using numbers differently than expected, we're likely to accuse them of inaccuracy and unreliability.*

*Of course, I have objections to a whole set of ideas about "objectivity" at work here--namely, the assumption that "perspective" (the human being watching the sun rise) is irrelevant or inaccurate. But that's for another time.

What I mean is that you must try, so far as possible, to judge Scripture on its own terms, rather than imposing your own modern historical or scientific expectations onto it--expectations that might have been absurd, if not completely meaningless, to an ancient audience.  This does not mean, though, that historical unreliability in Scripture would be insignificant to the Christian. This does not mean, to push to the other extreme, that I am comfortable with the progressive move to reduce all of Scripture to "spiritual truths" that persist even if the claim the text makes is false. If you wish to read a text on its own terms, you have to take its claims seriously. The attempt to "spiritualize"--and thereby neutralize--the truth claims of Scripture is no less anachronistic than the most benighted fundamentalist interpretation out there.

It's with this in mind that I've been reading the fascinating conversation developing around a recent essay in Mosaic Magazine disputing the widespread scholarly dismissal of the Exodus story's historicity. Gerry McDermott's blog, The Northampton Seminar, directed me towards the initial essay, which uses two separate approaches to argue for the historical reality--at least to some extent--of the Exodus story. On the one hand, Joshua Berman, professor of Bible at Bar-Ilan University, undercuts the premises and assumptions at play in the dismissal of the Exodus story. He then offers up old and new evidence to support the historicity of both the Hebrew sojourn in Egypt and the subsequent Exodus.

BREAKING: The Bible is not on display at the Louvre

I just started Kurt Eichenwald's endless Newsweek cover piece on "The Bible." (witty subtitle: "So Misunderstood It's a Sin.") In the very first sentence Eichenwald rather amusingly lumps together screaming street-corner preachers with the Religious Right more generally. That sort of category confusion* or overgeneralization is not a promising start, nor does his calling them all "God's frauds" particularly help.

But I don't necessarily have a problem with that kind of polemical style--David Bentley Hart employs it regularly, though with opposite ends in mind. Nor am I writing, this time, to tackle his use of statistics in the fourth paragraph, though incidentally I do have strong doubts that the polls to which he refers really say what he thinks they say.**

No, I'm writing because I find his seventh paragraph flat-out amazing. Don't get lost here, because this point will blow your mind:

No television preacher has ever read the Bible. Neither has any evangelical politician. Neither has the pope. Neither have I. And neither have you. At best, we’ve all read a bad translation—a translation of translations of translations of hand-copied copies of copies of copies of copies, and on and on, hundreds of times.

Woah, I imagine Eichenwald thinking his reader is thinking, you mean The Original Bible is not, like, chilling out at the National Archives next to the Constitution or something?

Follow me here: Eichenwald's first big reveal--the place where he starts setting all those fundie ignoramuses straight--is that there's no original copy of THE BIBLE tucked away in some archive.

This "revelation" will no doubt surprise anyone who believes that, at some point in time, there was a single authoritative copy of (capital-t) The (capital-b) Bible. This theoretical fundie would have to be so ignorant as to think the whole Bible was written down at one time in one language--or, perhaps, that the originally composed versions of the books was preserved over the many centuries of their composition and then all gathered into one place. And that this single manuscript would be the one true "The Bible," and that only word-for-word untranslated copies could be called "The Bible."

There's a religion that believes this of their holy book, but it ain't Christianity.

Now, don't get me wrong. I am quite certain there are Christians who believe such things. There was probably a point where my childhood self had those kinds of assumptions in my head. But aside from young children and the deeply uneducated, does anyone else? Who could he possibly be educating here? Are there any major churches or denominations that believe this? Even the strictest interpretation of Biblical inerrancy would not say anything close to that.

So at the very outset of this voluminous essay, the author reveals that he has no clue what just about every branch of Christianity that has ever existed thinks that the Bible actually is. And that he starts his highly pedantic ambitious project from this fundamental misunderstanding does not lead me to expect much by way of enlightenment from the thousands of words that follow.

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*[Story I'm reminded of: my wife used to work in a place that was fairly hostile to religion. Once when a colleague was going to visit a Christian school, another coworker joked that he should try to avoid getting splashed with holy water. It was a Baptist school.]

**[As in my afore-linked post, I'm not suggesting that Eichenwald is lying about data, but I am skeptical that the polls say what he thinks they say. Quick example: the pollsters determined that evangelicals "accepted he attitudes and beliefs of the Pharisees... more than they accepted the teachings of Jesus." How did they determine this? Did they offer straight-up quotations of particular Pharisees and compare them with ones from Jesus? If so, did they include sufficient context to avoid misunderstandings? That's doubtful, since such context would almost certainly include identification of those Pharisee speakers and probably Jesus too. So, chances are, they summarized. Were those summaries valid and accurate? Have the pollsters kept up with recent scholarship on Second Temple Judaism? Or would their rendering of the Pharisees look more like the still-widespread Reformation-era reading? In other words: can we really use a poll to measure one's familiarity with the teachings of Christ? Doesn't that seem likely to be--at best--reductive? Perhaps even to the point of unrecognizability?... But I digress...]