James F. McGrath

Photo of Woodward Avenue Presbyterian Church from Wikipedia. I should add that the caption on the photo itself is a bit of hyperbole added by me. I have no idea how many worship services this church had while it existed.

Last week, Patheos blogger David Murrow wrote a post entitled “Why traditional churches should stick with traditional worship.” It was apparently shared over 38,000 times on Facebook…so it’s quite possible that you’ve seen the post. In this post, Murrow shares an experience he had worshipping at a small, traditional church. Now, Murrow is a member at Alaska’s largest church, a megachurch; but sometimes he and his wife occasionally worship at a small, traditional church. They enjoy it, and describe it like this:

The richness and rigor of the liturgy is refreshing after years of seeker-sensitive services. It’s an eight-course meal, carefully measured out for us by church fathers – confession, forgiveness, praise, instruction, communion, giving, fellowship and benediction. It’s like a spiritual multivitamin in an easy-to-swallow, hour-long pill.

But one Sunday, they showed up and the church was doing its monthly contemporary worship service. Unfortunately, it didn’t jibe as well with Murrow and his wife:

We arrived to find the pastor without his clerical robe. A projection screen had been lowered in front of the organ pipes. We sang praise choruses instead of hymns, led by a solo guitarist who had trouble keeping the beat. The congregation did not seem to know the songs, so they sang tentatively. On a positive note, the sermon was good as usual, and the pastor skillfully used PowerPoint slides to reinforce his message.

And so, because of this small church in Alaska that struggled to effectively pull of a contemporary service, Murrow suggests that traditional churches should stick with traditional worship. He writes: “…if you offer just one service, stick with what you do best.”

Now, let me start off by saying that I’ve certainly sat through services like Murrow did. A primarily traditional church that had a group of individuals who really wanted to pull off something more contemporary and…well, just didn’t quite make it happen. Maybe it was because they were doing “contemporary music” that was contemporary in the 70s, or the technology just failed over and over again…who knows. So I get where he’s coming from to some degree.

And I know that there are young adults and young families who really do connect with a more traditional form of worship, so I’m not trying to say that you have to try to pull off contemporary or modern worship to bring in young people. But it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize that the way we’re doing church right now isn’t connecting with a vast majority of 20-40 year olds. And I would argue that a lot of that has to do with our worship services.

So when I hear Murrow say “traditional churches should stick with traditional worship,” what I hear is “traditional churches should stick with traditional worship if they’re content with dying a slow death.”

I think, I hope, that the church is going to look vastly different in 50 years. And I think our worship services will look vastly different as well. And I’m not the only one that thinks this. Derek Penwell, in his post “What If the Kids Don’t Want Our Church?” last month, wrote the following:

Because churches with massive overhead invested in things like church buildings, denominational infrastructures, functional church organizational models (think: a baptized version of General Motors’ organizational structure, complete with a board of directors, departments, departmental committees, etc.) are awakening to the fact that the generations that are supposed to be taking the institutional baton are showing very little interest in grabbing for it.

You could try to convince the emerging generations that they ought to value the tools you’ve always used, that they should want to take care of them, that they’re going to need them someday, that they should want to pass them down to their children.

Or, you could complain about the fact that these kids just don’t appreciate what you’ve done for them.

Or, you could suck it up and bless them on their next wild adventure.

I think there will be aspects of traditional worship that will remain in whatever it is that is created in the future. I doubt we’ll throw everything out. But, I’m guessing, and I could be wrong, that worship will look a lot different. And the churches that maintain a stubborn insistence to do things the way they’ve always done things, will probably only be filled with the people who remember how things were done back in the day until they all pass away.

Now, I’m not saying that contemporary worship is the style of worship that we will find filling all of our churches in 50 years either. It probably won’t be either of those, but a mashup of a sort, a form of worship that is more engaging, participatory and enables followers in the way of Jesus to see and understand that their faith has a practical significance in the world.

But it does seem that there are elements of contemporary worship, even if it’s simply the style of music, that connects with young adults today. And if churches are adamant about refusing to try to incorporate those into their worship services, or are told that they should just stick with traditional worship, I think they are missing out on opportunities to create spaces for a younger demographic.

Of course we’re going to fail sometimes. We all do. But to not try, to be content with the status quo, and to just do things the way we’ve always done them…I think that simply places us in a mode of passivity, and of an acceptance of dying a slow death.

Overnight, MOOCs -- with free tuition for all, attracting unprecedented enrollments reaching into the hundreds of thousands, and the involvement of world-class faculty -- have captured the imagination of the press, public and even legislators looking for ways to expand the availability of higher education at minimal cost. 

But thus far little attention has been paid to the quality of MOOCs. Quality in online learning can be defined in many ways: quality of content, quality of design, quality of instructional delivery, and, ultimately, quality of outcomes. On the face of it, the organizing principles of MOOCs are at odds with widely observed best practices in online education, including those advocated by my organization, the Quality Matters Program. Many of the first MOOCs are providing quality of content, but are far behind the curve in providing quality of design, accountable instructional delivery, or sufficient resources to help the vast majority of students achieve a course’s intended learning outcomes.

Previous nontraditional forms of education have been greeted by widespread skepticism and required to prove themselves, over an extended period of time, as worthy alternatives to traditional classroom education. 

In contrast, the early MOOCs appear to have been given a free ride. With Stanford and Harvard professors leading the way, the assumption seems to be that those at the top of the educational pyramid would not only deliver the best content, but also know best how to teach more effectively online than do faculty and staff at lesser institutions. 

This assumed connection between content expertise and a mature grasp of the challenges of online teaching, however, has not been demonstrated in MOOCs.

The first wave of MOOCs (MOOC 1.0) were designed by faculty from elite institutions that, ironically, had largely ignored online learning as an acceptable approach for their own students. They chose to model their MOOCs on successful lecture courses rather than consult the hard-won knowledge of effective strategies for delivering courses in this new medium, as developed at hundreds of two- and four-year colleges and universities over the past 20 years. 

The result is a format that may be effective for the bright self-starter, who can work independently and is focused on his or her own educational goals. On the other hand, the format is strikingly unsuited for encouraging and sustaining the average or challenged student, who requires the instructor to establish clear, measurable objectives, engage students individually and with their peers, monitor progress and hold students to deadlines and performance benchmarks, provide regular feedback on their work, and encourage their efforts on an almost daily basis.

MOOC 1.0 incorporates many features of established credit-based online courses, but differs in a number of critical ways. Students must register to gain access, but while the absence of standards for admission or prerequisite knowledge requirements generates massive enrollment, it also results in a mix of students, from the highly qualified to those without the basic knowledge or skills to move past the opening lessons of the course.  There is a set schedule, start and end dates, and due dates for assignments, but no attempt to require students to observe this calendar. While MOOCs offer an array of exercises and activities, often quite well-designed, the exercises are usually machine-graded or self-assessed, devoid of contact with or feedback from an instructor.  Some MOOCs have student discussion boards, but they are not monitored or guided by qualified instructors, and the task of keeping discussions relevant and shared information accurate is crowdsourced by the students themselves. 

Since they do not carry academic credit and are not selective, MOOC 1.0 courses take no responsibility for learning results. While acknowledging that these courses lack the full apparatus of credit courses, their sponsors try to have the best of both worlds by inviting other colleges, universities, and organizations to supplement MOOCs and award academic credit by whatever means they choose. But without fully integrating the monitoring, engagement, and evaluation of students with content delivery, even the best intended retrofitting of MOOCs to approximate college courses is too little, too late for the mainstream student.

The deficiencies in the first generation of MOOCs would not matter so much if the courses were intended to fill a sink-or-swim niche in higher education, where it might be acceptable that only a small fraction of enrolled students (commonly 10 percent or less) finish and earn certificates of completion.  What makes the lack of a structure to support the typical college student (regardless of age) alarming is the claim made by some advocates (and increasingly embraced by legislators in some states as a policy solution) that MOOCs can replace college-based credit courses, expanding access to higher education and dramatically reducing its costs. 

Early responses to MOOC 1.0 within the academic community have been ambivalent.  Leaving aside the threat of their students being lured away by the siren call of MOOCs, what are most institutions and faculty to make of free courses that are not accepted for credit at the home institution of the star faculty teaching them, courses without prerequisites or any form of screening to assure that students possess requisite prior knowledge, lack of accessible instructors, measurable objectives, or grades, and with completion rates averaging around 10 percent? What credit course, program, or academic institution would be allowed to survive with that kind of student completion rate? 

Nevertheless, in the past year, many traditional institutions have committed to building MOOCs of their own, or developing ways of enticing MOOC takers into their own online programs by offering to validate and award credit for MOOC credentials.

This response is not based on the track record of MOOC 1.0 beyond its proven ability to attract large numbers of students, most of whom never complete.  Many institutions wish to be part of the conversation on an educational phenomenon that has attracted so much attention and may have as yet incalculable consequences for higher education.  They also see new opportunities to attract investment in their distance learning efforts by state and private funders. Whatever the motivation, however, their involvement is bound to change the very nature of MOOCs.

Enter MOOC 2.0

As the complex and contradictory reactions to first-generation MOOCs within academia play out, we are seeing the emergence of a second generation of MOOCs. Investments are being made by leading foundations, state agencies, and institutions themselves to build MOOC 2.0 courses that focus on the typical student, integrate more effectively with established distance and on-ground programs, and lead to trustworthy credentials.

These courses, sponsored in most cases by institutions with track records in effective distance education, will experiment with some enrollment restrictions, reachable instructors and facilitators, clarity about fees for enhanced services and evaluation, and more tangible guarantees of credit or recognition for those students who successfully complete. 

Thus, the potential exists that MOOC 2.0 will evolve to incorporate many of the best practices of distance learning. The best MOOC 2.0 courses may turn out to be “hybrids” that combine the characteristics of quality online courses with a lower threshold for risk-free exploration, enabling them to reach more online learners and stimulate them to further their education. We should encourage and welcome this trend.

As the MOOC concept evolves, it is becoming more difficult to define a MOOC or distinguish among a growing jumble of similar acronyms that emphasize different characteristics. MOOC 1.0 may survive as originally conceived – massive and open – as a means of sharing and exchanging cutting-edge knowledge with the best and brightest students. 

But the millions of more typical students, who need guidance, encouragement, and frequent feedback to achieve their academic and career goals, will still rely on the infrastructure, services, and resources of academic institutions to succeed.  These are the institutions that do now and will continue in the future to educate massive numbers of students.  MOOC 2.0 has the potential to add a useful tool to their kits.

The promise of MOOC 2.0 is that by adopting proven strategies that promote success for the average or challenged student, MOOCs may give a boost to the already productive distance education movement by attracting more students and providing a low threshold means of entering online study. 

The paradox is that the next generation of MOOCs may no longer possess the features that initially attracted the attention of the public and the media.

Ron Legon is executive director of the Quality Matters Program.

I have several friends who will be interested in the following book:

Joss Whedon and ReligionEssays on an Angry Atheist’s Explorations of the Sacred 

Edited by Anthony R. Mills, John W. Morehead and J. Ryan Parker Foreword by K. Dale Koontz 

This is a collection of new essays on the religious themes in, and the implications of, the works of Joss Whedon, creator of such shows asBuffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly, and more recently writer and director of the box-office hit Marvel’s The Avengers. The book addresses such topics as ethics, racism, feminism, politics, spiritual transformation, witchcraft, identity, community, heroism, apocalypse, and other religiously and theologically significant themes of Whedon’s creative enterprises. The disciplinary approaches vary as well; history, theology, philosophy of religion, phenomenology, cultural studies, and religious studies are all employed in different ways. The existential faith commitments of the various essay authors are also different. Some are clearly believers in God, some are clearly not, and others leave that matter aside altogether in their analyses.

 

In Reading Revelation Responsibly, Michael Gorman brilliantly captures Revelation’s critique of civil religion that undergirds empire:

Revelation is a critique of civil religion (first of all, but not only, Roman civil religion), that is, the sacralization of secular political, economic, and military power through various mythologies and practices—creeds and liturgies, we might say—and the corollary demand for allegiance to that power.

Because civil religion is so closely connected with power, it often appears in extreme forms in empires and empire-like states (e.g., modern superpowers), grounded in the assumption that expansion and victory (in war or otherwise) are signs of divine blessing and protection, and in the common belief that god is on the side of the powerful.  At the same time, however, civil religion is not exclusively the property of empires and superpowers; it is also to be found in former empires, would-be superpowers, ordinary states, and even poor, developing nations.  Human beings seem to have a need to attribute a sacred, or at least quasi-sacred character to their political bodies, their rulers, and the actions of those entities.  One tragic but frequent result is the sacralization of one’s own people, whether nation, race, or tribe, and the demonization of the other.  Out of such religion comes a culture of hatred and even violence.  We know far too many examples of this in modern times (pp. 47-48).

He concludes this section by focusing the critique of empire as a warning to the church as it faces the seductions of civil religion (p. 56):

Is Revelation a critique of empire?  Yes—but that is not its ultimate theopolitical function.  The fate of empire is certain; what is uncertain is the fate of those who currently participate in the cult of empire.  The more significant critique is the critique of the church, and specifically of its participation in the idolatry of the imperial cult, the civil or national religion.  Will the churches repent?  For the churches, one main question emerges: “Beast or Lamb?”

It’s impossible to read Gorman without sensing the power of Revelation for the contemporary American church–not as an object of fascination and speculation, but as urgent prophetic warning.

Editor's note: Dean Obeidallah, a former attorney, is a political comedian and frequent commentator on various TV networks including CNN. He is the co-director of the upcoming documentary "The Muslims Are Coming!" and co-host of a new CNN podcast "The Big Three" that looks at the top three stories of the week. Follow him on Twitter @deanofcomedy.

By Dean Obeidallah, Special to CNN

(CNN) – I'm an American-Muslim and I despise Islamic terrorists. In fact, despise is not even a strong enough word to convey my true feelings about those who kill innocent people in the name of Islam. I hate them with every fiber of my being.

I'm not going to tell you, "Islam is a religion of peace." Nor will I tell you that Islam is a religion of violence. What I will say is that Islam is a religion that, like Christianity and Judaism, is intended to bring you closer to God. And sadly we have seen people use the name of each of these Abrahamic faiths to wage and justify violence.

The unique problem for Muslims is that our faith is being increasingly defined by the actions of a tiny group of morally bankrupt terrorists. Just to be clear: The people who commit violence in the name of Islam are not Muslims, they are murderers. Their true religion is hatred and inhumanity.

The only people terrorists speak for are themselves and the others involved in their despicable plot. They do not represent me, my family or any other Muslim I know. And believe me, I know a lot of Muslims.

I can not express to you how angry this makes me: impossibly stupid people , with incredibly ignorant beliefs, have been allowed to abuse a second child to death.

The Philadelphia couple serving 10 years’ probation for the 2009 death of their toddler after they turned to prayer instead of a doctor , has violated their probation now that another of their children has died. Herbert and Catherine Schaible belong to a fundamentalist Christian church that believes in faith-healing. Judge Benjamin Lerner said at a hearing they violated the most important condition of their probation: to seek medical care for their remaining children.

That’s right, it wasn’t enough for these ridiculous ignoramuses to kill one child, their faith is so incredibly ignorant and inflexible they had to kill two.

This is child abuse in the highest form, and these two should lose all parental rights, forever, and be in jail for a long time.

Scot McKnight and Joseph B. Modica, Jesus is Lord, Caesar is Not: Evaluating Empire in New Testament Studies (Downers Grove, IVP Academic), 2013. (Amazon.com)

When I saw this book previewed in the IVP catalog a while ago I made sure to ask Adrianna Wright to include me as a reviewer. She did and I received a copy a few weeks ago. This book addresses a topic that interest me. Empire in the New Testament is a field of inquiry that has become increasingly attractive in recent years. Personally, I began to read books like Brian J. Walsh’s and Sylvia C. Keesmaat’s Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire; Richard J. Horsely’s Jesus and Empire: The Kingdom of God and the New World Disorder; and John Dominic Crossan’s and Jonathan L. Reed’s In Search of Paul: How Jesus’ Apostle Opposed Rome’s Empire with God’s Kingdom around 2005. It was at a time when I had graduated college quite discouraged by a Christianity that was consumed with either living right to go to heaven or living wickedly to go to hell. Also, I was disillusioned by the rhetoric coming from many Christians during their effort to re-elect President George W. Bush. Finally, I found literature that introduced me to a reading of Scripture that addressed earthy matters, including corrupt world governments and their rulers, which was my impression of the Bush Administration in my early twenties.

Then I kept studying and I realized that the New Testament may be more nuanced that I imagined. The first book to challenge my thinking on this topic was written by Seyoon Kim, Christ and Caesar: The Gospel and the Roman Empire in the Writings of Paul and Luke, which helped me realize that there may be a third option. It may be that early Christianity was neither accommodating to Rome nor anarchist. Instead, it could be that there is far more nuance and complexity. Since then I have come to appreciate something C. Kavin Rowe suggested in his book World Upside Down: Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman Age, namely, early Christianity offered an alternative culture, but it wasn’t seditious, necessarily. Sometimes we find stronger anti-imperial language, especially in the Apocalypse, and sometimes we find language that seems a bit more grateful for Rome.

This book edited by Scot McKnight and Joseph B. Modica is filled with essays by writers who understand this. This book is not an attack on Empire studies. In fact, the editors and authors are very appreciative of those who have helped us better understand the text by studying how it relates to the Roman Empire within which these texts were written. That said, there may have been a pendulum swing that went a tad too far the other direction which this book aims to correct, arguing for a healthy, cautious middle.

Message of the Book

The message is simple. As the editors put it, “This book is an attempt to strike a balance between a postcolonial reading of the New Testament and one that recognizing the contributions of that reading, yet posits a very different view of the ‘kingdom of God (p. 212).’” In other words, “…the New Testament writers affirm that Jesus is Lord, not with the sole intent of debunking Caesar and his empire, but to offer a stark contrast between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Satan.” Now, the Roman Empire may behave in ways that is aligned with the kingdom of Satan, but that doesn’t mean there is a one-for-one correspondance. Rome could do some things well for a temporal, human government.

Summary of the Contents

Andy Crouch begins the book with a Forward that is the written equivalent to an exciting movie trailer. He observes, “We will always have empire (p. 8).” This is true “as long as we have complex human societies (p. 9).” Empires are the result of humans attempting to live as image bearers. We create things and we govern, but Crouch reminds us, “Empires always end (p. 9).” He says that the biblical writers are “surprisingly ambivalent” about the rising and falling of empires (p. 10), noting that even Cyrus can be called “Messiah,” as in Is. 45:1 (p. 11). This is because, “Not all empires are alike (p. 11).” Therefore, “…the question is not really whether we will have empires (we will) or whether they will endure (they will not), but what  kind of empires will we have in this time between times (p. 12).”

Then he says the following which captures the point of this boom quite well:

“…to say ‘Jesus is Lord’ does not seem actually to entail saying ‘Caesar is not [Lord].’ Rather, it entails not saying ‘Caesar is Lord.’ This minute grammatical distinction, simply a matter of where the negation is placed, seems to me to explain so much about the New Testament witnesses. The affirmation ‘Jesus is Lord’ requires not so much a strident denunciation of earthly lords as a studied silence concerning their pretensions. The answer to Caesar’s inflated claims of significance is further proclamation of Jesus the Messiah’s real significance (p. 13).”

Jesus is Lord, but that doesn’t mean Caesar isn’t lord, even if temporarily. Caesar may be lord, but he is responsible to the Lord. In the meantime, Christians are to proclaim Jesus, the true Lord of lords, and if this results in persecution so be it. If it doesn’t and if like Paul we gain audiences among governing authorities, then we must proclaim Jesus to them as well, and let the Lord be the judge of all lords.

In the Introduction McKnight and Modica say a few things about empire studies as they relate to New Testament studies before outlining what the reader should expect from this book.

Chapter 1: We Have No King But Caesar: Roman Imperial Ideology and the Imperial Cult is written by David Nystrom, an expert on the Roman Empire. He explains how Rome came to power and the ideologies that supported their self-understanding, including the belief that their empire was ordained by the gods. This chapter is extremely helpful because it prevents us from importing back into history our understanding of Roman practices. Nystrom explains things such as patronage, whether worship directly implied divinity, and so forth.

Chapter 2: Anti-Imperial Rhetoric in the New Testament by Judith A Diehl is partly a survey of modern scholarship on how early Christians related to Rome and partially a presentati0n of how we may think about. For those lacking familiarity with the field this won’t catch you up completely, but it will give you a basic idea of what is being said and who the “movers and shakers” have been.

Chapter 3: Matthew by Joel Wilitts is the first chapter that directly addresses a section of the New Testament. Willits spends most of this chapter interacting with the work of Warren Carter. Rather that reading Matthew as anti-imperial Willits writes, “I don’t think Matthew is anti-imperial at all. Matthew’s problem with empire, if one can even put it that way, was not empire, but which empire (p. 85).” In other words, Matthew advocates the Davidic King and Israel’s empire. Matthew does address Rome, but it is not the primary message of the Gospel. Instead,

“Matthew was neither critiquing ‘empire’ per se nor singling out Rome uniquely. To take this view would be to inappropriately diminish Matthew’s message. Jesus is not only or primarily God’s answer to Rome. Jesus is God’s answer to Israel’s unfulfilled story (p. 97).”

Chapter 4: The Gospel of Luke and the Roman Empire is a fascinating juxtaposition between Luke and Josephus. He compares and contrast their approach to Rome and how their message may have been understood. It is proposed that Josephus was “snarling sweetly” in his writings, not directly opposing Rome, but saying things that defended his people and that were partially critical of Rome all the while writing for his Flavian audience. Similarly, Luke isn’t hiding anything. He isn’t against Rome, but he isn’t ignorant of Rome’s shortcoming either.

Chapter 5: John’s Gospel and the Roman Imperial Context by Christopher W. Skinner attempt to fill a gap in the field. The nature of the Fourth Gospel has led many to neglect it when studying empire. Skinner corrects this addressing a variety of objections to finding empire on John. Then he interacts with the works of Tom Thatcher, Warren Carter, and Lance Byron Richey discussing topics like “negative Christology” (i.e., Johannine Christology is mostly intended to rebuff imperial claims) and “the rhetoric of distance” (i.e., Johannine dualism as relates to the Gospel and Rome). Skinner expresses gratitude for those who have helped us see that the Fourth Gospel does say something about Rome, but he concludes that “…the Fourth Gospel is largely concerned with the incarnate Logos who has come down from above (p. 128).”

Chapter 6: Proclaiming Another King Named Jesus? The Acts of the Apostles and the Roman Imperial Cult(s) by Drew J. Strait contributes to the discussion of Acts’ relationship to Rome (which unlike John’s has been addressed by many over the years). Strait engages several dialogue partners providing helpful caveats and clarifications, one of the most insightful being the reminder that there is not one official imperial cult, but that the imperial cult had many forms. Also, his discussion of apotheosis and the ascension is very informative.

Chapter 7: “One Who Will Arise to Rule the Nations”: Paul’s Letter to the Romans and the Roman Empire  by Michael Bird addresses one of the most complex documents in the New Testament. One where we may find the most anti-imperial rhetoric mixed with the most caution toward Rome. Bird provides background information on Paul and Rome as well as how this has been discussed in recent scholarship. Then he moves through some of the more complex passages such as 1:1-4; 1:16-17; 13:1-7; and 15:5-13. While Bird’s essay seems the most welcoming to modern trends he does note, “Romans is not a political manifesto. It is pastoral theology, albeit one not divorced from the sociopolitical realities of the Roman Mediterranean (p. 161).”

Chapter 8: Philippians and Empire: Paul’s Engagement with Imperialism and the Imperial Cult by Lynn H. Cohick is a very informative study on Philippi and how Paul’s letter would have been understood there. She provides a background of the imperial cult that clarifies a lot, noting that while the imperial cult did include the living Caesar it would have included Julius Caesar, Augustus, Augustus’ wife Livia, and Claudius. In other words, it isn’t “Jesus v. Caesar” per se. The imperial cult is familial, including even a female member (pp. 169-170). Like Bird’s essay Cohick choses to discuss a few select areas: 1:27; 2:5-11; and 3:20-21, evaluating what has been said about these passages and whether the anti-imperial reading makes the most sense historically. Cohick counters with an “eschatological, anti-pagan” reading.

Chapter 9: Colossians and the Rhetoric of Empire by Allan R. Bevere is a two part chapter. The first deals with the aforementioned book Colossians Remixed: Subverting the Empire by Walsh and Keesmaat and the second part discusses Philemon. As much as I enjoyed Colossians Remixed I think this chapter is a strong critique of the book and Bevere provides what seems to me to be a more historical sound reading of the text and the problem addressed by the author (who he suggest is Timothy with Paul’s approval). Bevere is slow to embrace the idea that Paul was requesting Onesimus be released by Philemon in that epistle, noting that the relationship has changed, but that it isn’t obvious to him that Paul is requiring Onesimus be made a free man.

Chapter 10: Something Old, Something New: Revelation and Empire by Dwight D. Sheets revisits what may be the most discussed text in the field. Revelation is presented as the most anti-imperial document of the New Testament. Sheets revisits how we understand the author’s beliefs about Jesus’ return and the nature of apocalyptic discourse. He provides a thoughtful reconsideration of Domitian, which I found to be the most insightful part of the chapter (see pp. 202-205).Through this lens of the imminent return of Christ accompanied by the warning against cultural assimilation Sheets argues that these factors may have been far more influential than merely some theory of anti-empire.

Concluding Thoughts

If I were to critique this book in any way it would be this: each chapter needs to be its own book. For those who are attracted to the writings of Carter, Crossan, Horsley, and others this book may bother you because it has to provide a brief rebuttal. This may seem insufficient when we consider how much work these aforementioned authors have put into their anti-imperial readings. That said, if the reader is able to take these brief proposals and then revisit anti-imperial readings with them in mind I think a more fruitful, nuanced vision of how early Christians related to Rome will emerge. Empire studies have benefitted New Testament studies. There is no doubt about that. Yet we need to make sure to avoid a pendulum swing, The New Testament may not be about the “sweet by and by,” but neither is it about revolt or being so anti-Roman that the authors hoped to see Rome collapse some way other than when Christ returns, when all empires will collapse, not just Rome. I highly recommend this book for those who are new to the field or those who have been studying in it a while now.

Filed under: Book Reviews, Early Christian Origins, Historical Studies, Roman Tagged: book, Caesar is Not, Jesus is Lord, Joseph B. Modica, Scot McKnight

Today we continue Denis Lamoureux’s series of brief slide shows on his popular book I Love Jesus & I Accept Evolution. Lamoureux covered chapters 1 and 2 in the first post and in today’s (11 minute) presentation he covers chapter 3, where he discusses the nature of “ancient science.” This book is a great introduction to his [...]

#CFP: Out and About in Time and Space: Traveling Time on Television:

Time travel as a plot device has been used frequently in television for a variety of reasons. It offers the storyteller… (author unknown) via H-Net Academic Announcements - Call for Papers on April 21, 2013 at 08:31AM

In previous postings I gave concise summaries of the thrust of my recent guest lecture in Rice University and one of the two lectures in Houston Baptist University.  In this posting I want to summarize the other HBU lecture:  “The Place of Jesus in Earliest Christian Prayer and its Import for Early Christian Identity.”  

In a number of NT texts, Jesus is pictured as the heavenly intercessor or advocate on behalf of believers.  This is a well-known emphasis in the epistle to the Hebrews, of course (e.g., 2:14-18; 4:14–5:10; 7:15–8:7; 9:11-22; 10:11-14).  But this idea is also reflected as early as the passage in Paul’s epistle to the Romans (8:34), where Jesus is “he who also intercedes for us.” Here, Jesus intercession seems to function primarily in establishing believers as acceptable to God.  Paul’s brief and compressed reference to the idea suggests that he regarded it as already familiar among his intended readers, suggesting that it was “common property” among various types of early Christian circles.  This appears confirmed in the reference to Jesus as “advocate with the Father” of/for believers in 1 John 2:1.  Likewise, the reference in John 14:16 to “another advocate” (there identified as the Holy Spirit) seems to allude to the notion that the risen Jesus is advocate.  Jesus’s advocacy to God on behalf of believers, and the Spirit’s advocacy of Jesus to believers.

In some other NT texts, Jesus is portrayed as teacher and role model of prayer for believers.  The Gospel of Matthew has distinctive references to Jesus teaching his disciples how to pray (Matt. 6:5-8), followed by the Matthean version of “the Lord’s Prayer” (6:9-13), which clearly functions as a model for prayer.  But, among a number of other NT references, in the Gospel of Luke there is a particular emphasis on Jesus as pray-er/praying, a number of the references distinctive to Luke (e.g., 3:21; 5:16; 6:12; 9:18, 28-29).  As well, Luke has a number of prayers ascribed to Jesus (10:21-23; 22:32; 23:46).  In the Gospel of John also, Jesus both prays and teaches his disciples to pray, and in other NT texts as well we have references to Jesus as praying.

Jesus is also pictured as recipient of prayers in some NT texts.  Mainly, of course, the NT depicts prayers as addressed to God.  But in several cases Jesus is recipient or co-recipient.  The most common instance seems to have been the corporate acclamation/invocation by which the corporate worship event was constituted, which involved a “calling upon” Jesus.  Likewise, in early Christian baptism, one called upon Jesus, invoking him over the baptized person.  Indeed, in 1 Cor. 1:2 Paul refers to fellow believers simply as those who everywhere “call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Perhaps our earliest reference, however, is 1 Thess. 3:11-13, where God and Jesus are jointly called upon to enable Paul to re-visit the Thessalonian church.  Other instances can be cited (e.g., 2 Thess. 2:16-17), and in 2 Cor. 12:6-10 Paul refers to his repeated appeals to Jesus to relieve him of the “thorn in the flesh.”  The oft-cited “maranatha” in 1 Cor. 16:22 indicates that the liturgical invocation of Jesus was praticed in Aramaic-speaking circles of believers as well as in Greek-speaking circles.

Jesus is also depicted as the basis for Christian prayer.  As noted, prayer is dominantly addressed to God in NT texts.  But it is also true that prayers are typically offered with reference to Jesus, e.g., “in his name” and/or “through” him (e.g., Rom. 1:8; 7:25; Col. 3:17; Eph. 5:20).  These texts likely reflect actual prayer-practices, in which Jesus’ status with God was invoked as a distinctive basis for prayer.

In all these ways, earliest Christian prayer reflects distinctive features, giving to early Christians a distinctive religious identity.  The programmatic and singular place of Jesus was without parallel or precedent in the Jewish matrix in which earliest Jesus-followers emerged.  So in that Roman religious environment, early Christian prayer-practice reflected sense of having a particular and distinguishing identity.

(A version of this lecture will be published in a multi-author volume arising from a research project on “Prayer and Early Christian Identity” based in Oslo.)

In 2009, Kent Schaible, the two-year-old son of Herbert and Catherine Schaible, contracted bacterial pneumonia. Kent could have been saved by doctors, but his parents didn’t give him that chance. Instead, they prayed for ten days… and, to nobody’s surprise, that didn’t help. A few doses of Tylenol could have saved Kent’s life, but his parents decided they had a better solution in mind.

Herbert and Catherine Schaible

The Schaibles belong to First Century Gospel Church of Juniata Park, Pennsylvania. It’s a place where the pastor preaches the gospel of faith-healing — if you have enough faith, God will heal you and those you love. You don’t need a doctor if you just believe hard enough. And if you don’t, you’ll be punished…

Medical insurance, hospital fees, and prescription costs today are enormous, but a believer receives healing for free.

…

If anyone has more faith in doctors and drugs, than they have in the living God and the risen Savior, their salvation would be in serious jeopardy.

Someone should tell the church that one interpretation of the Bible is that God gave people doctors to help heal them. God’s giving you medicine; take it!

After Kent died, the Schaibles were found guilty of involuntary manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a child. In all, they could have served up to 17 years in prison. But that’s not what happened:

Pointing out that, according to Pennsylvania state law, “religious freedom is trumped by the safety of the child,” [Judge Carolyn] Engel Temin handed down her sentence: 10 years probation, the terms of which include a requirement that the Schaibles schedule regular appointments with a “qualified medical person” for all their children and release their children’s medical records to probation officers.

Not only did they receive a slap on the wrist, they were allowed to continue caring for their seven other children. But what about the court’s orders? Would they comply?

[Herbert Schaible] explained he will do his best to comply with the orders of his probation, which require that he and his wife allow their children to be checked up on by medical professionals.

…

“We’re not trying to live 10 years at one time,” he responded. “And when tomorrow comes, God will be with us. So that’s the way we look at it. He will show us what to do.”

Of course, I bring all of this up because of horrific news that was reported yesterday: The Schaibles have killed another one of their children in the same manner.

Brandon Schaible, only eight-months-old, spent the last weeks of his life breathing with difficulty and suffering from diarrhea. His parents watched him deal with this yet failed to take to heart the lesson they should have learned years ago: Take the child to a goddamn medical professional.

You want to pray? Fine. Pray. But do something useful while you’re at it.

At a hearing Monday, Philadelphia Judge Benjamin Lerner said the Schaibles violated the most important condition of their probation: to seek medical care for their remaining children.

…

… charges could be filed once authorities pinpoint how the boy died. An official cause of death is pending an autopsy, according to police.

Even if the official cause suggests he would’ve died no matter what the parents did, it wouldn’t take away from the fact that his parents did nothing of value.

Even the judge was blunt about what that meant:

“I am sorry for your loss. Deeply sorry,” Judge Benjamin Lerner told the couple. “But in all honesty, I am more sorry for the fact that this innocent little child will not be able to grow up to be what he wanted to be.”

…

“You are not a danger to the community,” Lerner said. “You are a danger to your children.”

The seven other Schaible children are currently in foster care while the parents are still free. The Schaibles now face jail time, a sentence they deserve now even more than they did years ago. Prosecutors are waiting to get the autopsy report before pressing criminal charges.

I have so many questions…

How many times does their imaginary God have to send them a message before they get the hint?

When is their pastor going to admit he’s preaching something dangerous and some of the blood is on his hands?

If the Schaibles were the ones who were sick, would they have denied themselves proper care, too?

We don’t know the answers to those questions, but we do know that the Schaibles didn’t make an honest mistake here. They saw the consequences the first time around and went down the same path this time.

Part of the problem is Pennsylvania law, which states:

If, upon investigation, the county agency determines that a child has not been provided needed medical or surgical care because of seriously held religious beliefs of the child’s parents, guardian or person responsible for the child’s welfare, which beliefs are consistent with those of a bona fide religion, the child will not be deemed to be physically or mentally abused.

In other words, child abuse to the point of death is awful… unless it’s done in the name of religion, in which case the state promises to look the other way. That needs to change. Religion shouldn’t be a “Get Out of Jail Free” card.

And we shouldn’t have to wait for a third Schaible child to die before the parents are punished for their faith-based homicide.

On a side note, a lot of Christians will go to great lengths to protest abortion rights because they oppose “killing innocent babies.” But those same groups are basically nowhere to be found in cases of faith-healing deaths.

It was a nice surprise to discover a few days ago that the National Library in Paris put up on the Gallica website photographs of some of the Sahidic parchment fragments in their possession. More precisely, they have uploaded until … Continue reading →

In the middle of the 20th century, the leading German textual critic Kurt Aland succeeded Ernst von Dobschütz as keeper of the authoritative list of manuscripts, whose first report appeared in 1950 (ThLZ 75). Aland was efficient in keeping the list up to date, publishing numerous supplements in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s. What is immediately evident from these articles is that Kurt Aland did not continue registering amulets or ostraka, as his predecessor von Dobschütz had done. Thus, Aland’s omission of these materials marks the turning point in the classification of non-continuous manuscripts. In fact, the previously registered amulets and ostraka were suddenly and without explanation removed from the list by Aland and they were never to appear again; my attempts to find a reason early on in the literature for their removal from the list have been unsuccessful. In Aland’s Kurzgefaßte Liste der griechischen Handschriften des Neuen Testaments—the first edition appearing in 1963 and the second in 1994—Gregory’s 0152 and 0153 are bracketed, indicating that they are to be removed from the authoritative list of manuscripts. Moreover, in the second edition, Aland states explicitly in the footnotes to 0152 and 0153 that these categories were not continued: “[D]ie Liste der Talismane (fortgeführt bis T9…) wurde nicht fortgesetzt…[D]ie Liste der Ostraka, geführt von O1-25…) wurde nicht fortgesetzt” (Kurzgefasste Liste, 33 nn. 2-3). Likewise, in Kurt and Barbara Aland’s handbook on New Testament textual criticism, in which a version of the Liste appears, 0152 and 0153 are listed as follows (Text of the New Testament, 123):

0152 = Talisman. (Delete from list)
0153 = Ostracon. (Delete from list)

In that same book, Aland and Aland list multiple registered papyri that they claim should be removed from the Liste, since they are non-continuous:

"Among the ninety-six items which now comprise the official list of New Testament papyri there are several which by a strict definition do not belong there, such as talismans (P50, P78), lectionaries (P2, P3, P44), various selections (P43, P62), songs (P42), texts with commentary (P55, P59, P60, P63, P80), and even writing exercises (P10) and occasional notes (P12). The presence of lectionaries may be explained as due to a structural flaw in the overall system, the inclusion of commented texts to the lack of an adequate definition for this genre (probably akin to the popular religious tracts of today which feature selected scripture verses with oracular notes), and the other examples are due to the occasionally uncritical attitude of earlier editors of the list (85)."

It is clear, therefore, that when Aland took over the Liste the non-continuous text materials that von Dobschütz had registered were removed and his categories “Talismans” and “Ostraka” were altogether discontinued. But, surprisingly, no explanation for the removal of these materials was ever given. Kurt Aland’s wife, Barbara Aland, succeeded him as director of the Institut für Neutestamentliche Textforschung (INTF) in Münster (where the Liste is maintained), and she served in this position until 2004, at which time Holger Strutwolf took over as director. From the time of Kurt Aland’s initial appointment as keeper of the Liste until the present time, the non-continuous New Testament textual materials have had no place within text-critical research. As a general rule—a rule that is strictly enforced by the Institute in Münster—non-continuous text manuscripts are prohibited from being registered in the official Liste. It is not clear when this rule was actually formalized, but it was apparently established during the tenure of Kurt Aland.

This rule has commanded almost absolute allegiance within the discipline of New Testament textual criticism, yet it is interesting that no full discussion of it was ever provided by Aland. The immediate effect of the decision to restrict non-continuous materials was that when new non-continuous manuscripts of the New Testament were discovered, there was no way to classify them; as a result, most of these materials quietly faded into obscurity. Joseph van Haelst’s Catalogue des papyrus littéraires juifs et chrétiens and Kurt Aland’s Repertorium der griechischen christlichen—both published in 1976—improved the situation in some measure in that both catalogues listed some non-continuous texts (of particular importance is van Haelst’s section on amulets). The main problem is that neither of these catalogues is comprehensive, and, furthermore, Aland’s catalogue covers only those texts written on papyrus. But no real discussion of the potential value of non-continuous manuscripts would appear until the turn of the century.

The transmission of the text of the Greek New Testament represents a historical process that is highly complex, and when bits of the textual tradition become utilized for various purposes within the life of the church and its constituents, sometimes that tradition is reshaped. There are, of course, examples of non-continuous witnesses that yield no support for the wider tradition and are less relevant for the business of textual criticism. But for these manuscripts, which “form the dangling ends of branches that go no further” (Head 2013, 430), the story only just begins. These texts extend the evidence of Christian literature and yield historical information that provide the historian with a better glimpse into the everyday lives of Christians within Late Antiquity. For the most part, textual critics have stopped just shy of pursuing these historical phenomena, which is in part the result of the restrictions that are imposed onto the discipline. It is now time for these materials to be considered once and for all. 

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...or so says Frances Moore Lappé in a recent article, "Could Our Deepest Fears Hold the Key to Ending Violence?" The essay beautifully synthesizes a range of related insights that have impressed themselves on me through the years--insights which have been vividly driven home for me through my work with the Alternatives to Violence Project (AVP), especially facilitating AVP workshops in prisons.

Everyone wants to matter. More importantly, we want to matter to a community. Pugnacious communities that encourage violence prey on those of us who feel marginalized, who for one reason or another feel as if we don't belong or as if our contributions go unnoticed. What these communities offer is seductive precisely because violence vividly affects the world. The impact of violence, though negative, is inescapable. A community built around the valorization of violence thus offers the promise of finding belonging through actions that undeniably matter.

Who can deny that the Boston bombers mattered, that their actions made a difference in human lives? The difference was an awful one, a shattering difference. But for those who hunger for relevance, those who doubt their own significance in the world, violence is an obvious answer. And when a shadow community frames such vivid destructive actions as heroic, and treats those who commit them as champions of the shadow community, the outcomes are as predictable as they are tragic.

If you are disaffected, afraid of irrelevance, alienated from those around you, it matters a whole lot who reaches out to you. If extremists defined by in-group/out-group ideologies reach out to you, you're likely to reach back if you're hungry enough. Much depends on where else you can go to get fed.

When Jesus said, "Feed my lambs," one can't deny that real food, the sort that fills actual human bellies, was intended. But maybe another kind of food was also on his mind--the kind of food that inclusive communities can provide, when they offer creative outlets for making a positive difference in the world and a sense of belonging built around such meaningful creativity. At its best, that is what the Church can be. At its worst, it becomes defined by in-group/out-group ideologies, marginalizing some members who become disaffected and angry, and feeding others the wrong kind of food.

So, what can we do, each of us, to help make our own communities places where the alienated can come to feel as if they've come home? Where can we help build communities of this sort? How can we make sure that our world is a banquet of opportunities for real inclusion and creative (rather than destructive) meaning, so that no one is tempted by the poisoned food?

photo credit: Scott Gries (PictureGroup)

“It is a test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.”
– G.K. Chesterton

My favorite writer of all time is Mark Twain. The man was not only a brilliant humorist, but also a wise, prophetic, and at times searing cultural commentator. I often wonder what Twain would think about today’s culture of blogging, Twitter, and reality TV.  He’s been dead my entire life, and yet somehow I miss him.

One thing Twain always got right was satire.  

Satire, or any sort of humor for that matter, is tough to do right.  But it’s too important not to do it at all, and I think Christians in particular can do a better job of using humor as a prophetic, yet disarming, method for sharing with vulnerability, challenging the powerful, and tearing down idols. We are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses on this— from the prophets, to Chaucer, to Swift.  Jesus too was a brilliant humorist, with a penchant for hyperbole—planks in the eye, camels through the eyes of needles, straining gnats and swallowing camels. (I love that God seems to find camels especially comical.) 

So maybe we need to practice humor and satire a bit more often. As a writer who has attempted some satire myself, I’ve observed a few things about when satire works and when it doesn’t. 

1. Humor works when it's directed toward yourself

Before I wrote Evolving in Monkey Town, I re-read the best books from my favorite memoirists—Anne Lamott, Sara Miles, Donald Miller, David Sedaris, Ian Cron, etc.—to see what they all had in common. I jotted down notes as I went along, and among the four or five commonalities I observed was that each of these authors were consistently self-deprecating. 

“I started writing sophomoric articles for the college paper,” writes Anne Lamott in Bird By Bird. “Luckily, I was a sophomore.” 

Self-deprecating humor is disarming. It sets the reader at ease. It lets her know that you’re not the high-and-mighty-writer who has everything figured out; you’re just like her, taking it one day at a time. Self-depreciation, (without indulgent self-hatred, of course) makes you approachable, as a writer and a person. 

So instead of writing a scathing blog post against your ex entitled, “10 Reasons You Can’t Get a Date,” try writing a funny, self-depreciating post about yourself entitled, “10 Reasons I Can’t Get a Date.” 

2. Humor works when it's directed toward your own community or culture

You can get away with a bit of humor when you're picking on your own community or culture, so long as it’s gentle and wry. This is why Jon Acuff’s “Stuff Christians Like” blog works. It’s why “Portlandia” works.  It’s why Ian Cron’s chapter on growing up in Catholic school in  Jesus, My Father, The CIA, and Me works.

Laughing at the idiosyncrasies of a shared culture bonds us together and helps us avoid taking ourselves too seriously. 

While we can pick on our culture a bit, we should avoid picking on other people’s cultures. It makes sense, for example, for me to joke about the elevation of the Proverbs 31 woman in evangelical culture. [“In the evangelical Christian subculture, there are three people a girl’s got to know about before she gets her period: 1) Jesus, 2) Ronald Reagan, and 3) the Proverbs 31 woman. While the first two are thought to embody God’s ideal for all mankind, the third is thought to represent God’s ideal for women.” – A Year of Biblical Womanhood, p. 74] It would not, however, make sense for me to pick on interpretive biases within, say, Mormon culture or Jewish culture. 

Humor about one’s community both strengthens that community (by pointing to shared experiences) and challenges it (by gently poking at its blind-spots and assumptions). 

3. Humor works when it’s directed toward the powerful 

This is the true purpose of satire: to mock power. It is, truly, the language of the powerless. From the biblical prophets, to Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, to Swift, to Twain, to Orwell to our beloved Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, satire works best when the targets are the powerful and elite—be they institutions or people. 

Jesus’ sharpest comments were always directed toward the politically or religiously powerful. Always. Indeed, you could argue that Jesus’ entire life—from being born in a barn in the midst of a genocide, to hanging out with prostitutes and drunks, to healing on the Sabbath and touching the untouchables, to riding into Jerusalem on donkey rather than a war horse, to healing the ear of a Roman soldier after it had been cut off by Jesus’ allies—was a stinging indictment of religious and political power. 

In this sense, I believe the book of Esther too can be read as satire, (or at least as including some fantastic instances of satire). King Xerxes epitomizes the imperialism, greed, excess, and senseless violence that Jews in exile were up against. And yet, routinely, the king and his court are portrayed as directionless buffoons, with no real substance. The emperor—the one that determines the timing of a genocide by casting lots— has no clothes. Power, even the scary kind, is an illusion. (And somehow, that makes it a little less scary.) 

Satire only works when its most stinging indictments are directed toward the powerful. This is why attempts at satire fall on their face when they make the weak their target.  For example, the writers at The Onion are usually great at satire, but they blew it with the Quvenzhané Wallis tweet, because it just doesn’t work when the subject of a c-word joke is a nine-year-old girl. Same goes for Daniel Tosh, who is a funny guy and all, but who probably should avoid making jokes about rape.

The rule of thumb: Pick on someone your own size, or bigger…never on someone smaller. And don’t take cheap shots. 

In the tradition of Jesus, Christians should feel free to wisely, carefully, (and perhaps sparingly) employ satire to poke holes in our culture’s obsession with power—be it in the form of religious oppression, patriarchy, violence, fame, or corruption.  And we should be eager to share the good news that, in the Kingdom that lasts, the guy on the donkey is Lord. 

4. Humor works when it tears down idols 

As a kid, I loved the part of the story of Elijah and the Prophets of Baal when Elijah taunts his rival prophets and the lack of response from their gods by asking if perhaps Baal is busy traveling or sleeping or going to the bathroom. (It was one of those rare, delightful moments when bathroom humor was allowed in the Sunday school classroom. I think even the teacher was excited!) 

Our culture is full of false gods and packed with idols: fame, notoriety, power, money, food, workaholism, legalism, “real men,” “true women,” the perfect body, the perfect home, the perfect relationship, the perfect life. And humor may very well be the most effective idol-smashing weapon we’ve got. Through humor, we can ridicule these idols of greed or indulgence or legalism, cut them down to size and expose them for what they are: empty promises, impotent objects of our worship. If ever there was a time to make our humor especially biting, it should be when it is directed toward idols….and our own propensity to bow to them. 

Now, the opposite of mocking idols is mocking that which is truly holy. And this is where cynicism comes in. Cynicism perceives everything as fake and therefore mocks everything as fake. Cynicism begins with the assumption that there is nothing good or pure or holy in the world, that any form of sincerity should be regarded with suspicion. My generation is great at satire, but it is also pretty great at cynicism. I sense this within myself and struggle daily to keep my cynicism in check by cultivating the fruit of the spirit, nurturing my sense of wonder and gratitude, and practicing grace. 

It would be awesome if I could get it right more often. 

But there is grace…

As I said before, these are just general observations I’ve made about humor and satire through the years, and some principles I worked really hard to incorporate into A Year of Biblical Womanhood, which included quite a bit of both. 

What about you? When have you seen humor/satire done well, and when have you seen it fall flat? What are some other principles to keep in mind. 

Our tour group visited several places in and near Jerusalem today. We began Jaffa Gate and the Tower of David (actually built by Herod the Great). We moved on through the Jewish Quarter to the Wohl Archaeological Museum. For general information about the Jewish Quarter see the informative web site dedicated to the area, here. Information about the Museum, where you may see the ruins of six houses built on the slope between the Upper City of Jerusalem and the Temple Mount, is available here. These houses indicate that some of the wealthiest residents of Jerusalem lived in them – perhaps the priestly class. These houses were destroyed in the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. Photos are not allowed in the Museum.

Then we went to the Burnt House – a house belonging to the Katros Family, a priestly family that made incense for the temple. This house also burned when Jerusalem was destroyed. The photo below shows the basement area of the house. An informative video describing what life might have been like in the months leading up to the destruction is shown.

The furnishings here also indicate wealth. Notice the stone jars and table. The area on the right side shows evidence that the house was burned.

A small display case displays a collections of small items found in the Burnt House. One of the very interesting items is a weight bearing the inscription “bar katros.”

The Katros family is mentioned in the Talmud as a priestly family that abused their position.

After visiting the Western Wall and the excavations south of the Temple Mount, we went to the Ramat Rachel Hotel for lunch. We only had time to drive by the Herodion before making our way to the Garden Tomb for our appointment.

For those who enjoy listening to free NT scholarship. I think listening to these sites and podcasts beats listening to the maximally conservative Evangelical scholarship over at Apologetics 315. The questions raised, the uncertainties pointed out by the following scholars are well worth pondering. (I've heard them all, great stuff) Mark Goodacre at Duke, NTPod: http://podacre.blogspot.com/

I do not find conservative Christians sufficiently honest.

I do not find liberal Christians sufficiently committed.

 

 

Skepticism is part of belief and belief is part of skepticism, so says Daniel Taylor in his The Skeptical Believer. But what then is faith? He says it is to “assent to a claim” or “acceptance of a claim.” But belief entails more than acceptance or assent. Taylor’s point is well worth pondering.  Faith is a [...]

A brilliant new competition is giving young people the chance to create a soundtrack to a recent clip from Doctor Who that will be showcased at the BBC Proms in 2013!

Music has always been a vital part of Doctor Who and BBC Learning and BBC Proms today announced a competition to inspire all UK secondary school students (aged 11-16) to get involved with this side of the show. The challenge is simple – we’re asking young people to create a short soundtrack to accompany a scene from the Doctor’s adventures.

Entries will be judged by top composers, including Ben Foster (conductor and orchestrator for Doctor Who and composer for Torchwood) and winners will be mentored by professional composers. The winning soundtracks will be showcased within the Doctor Who Proms on 13 July and 14 July, 2013… but hurry! The closing date for entries is Friday, 24 May, 2013.

Feel you need help? Don’t worry! We’ve got a special film full of great pointers along with a suite of videos that provide an insider’s guide to music technology and don’t forget to watch the two scenes we’re asking your soundtrack to accompany. And if you need more inspiration, take a look at where your music could be heard... The winners will have their soundtracks premiered at the Doctor Who Proms on 13 July and at the following day’s Doctor Who Proms.

You can find all the information, clips and files on our competition page. You can download and fill in the all-important application form and please read the terms and conditions which also include details about age groups, how schools should get involved and what teams are allowed to take part.

Don’t worry if you’ve never written a note of music before… Take a look at the special videos on the competition page, carefully read the application form and T&Cs and then just be bold, creative and have fun!  Best of luck to everyone diving into a world of music and as the Doctor would say – well, shout – Geronimo!

That’s negation in the “contradicting” sense of the term, rather than as in nullification or reversal. That being said, Jeffrey Tomkins’ headline today is “Plant Epigenome Research Negates Evolution,” which in theory could mean that epigenetics is acting to actively prevent the changes that evolution is creating. This is not, however, the case – at least not here.

Biological research involves a lot of “model organisms,” one of which is the thale cress, Arabidopsis thaliana. The paper that Tomkins is talking about today - Patterns of population epigenomic diversity (open access) – compares the patterns of DNA methylation of thale cress plants adapted to different environments, which they found to be much larger than they expected. DNA methylation involves the attachment of a methyl group to a base of DNA, which could be thought of as acting as a speed bump for transcription, slowing it down or stopping it entirely but in a way that can be undone if the group is removed. Eukaryotes like animals and plants seem to use every potential mechanism available to regulate gene expression, and this is no exception. And just as the sequence of As, Gs, Cs, and Ts can be determined and is called a genome, so too can the pattern of methylation within that genome be mapped – this is your “epigenome.”

Preventing genes from being expressed in this way – which can be specific to the organism and even to the cell type – can have an important effect on the phenotype of the organism as a whole, though this study does not investigate what they are. Tomkins talks at length about how all this “presents a number of very serious problems for Darwinian evolution.”

First, the methylation of DNA is not a random event—it involves a complex array of molecular machines (proteins and RNAs) that attach the methyl tags according to environmental signals that are placed at specific DNA addresses all over the genome.

Yes, it’s true that the methylation is not “random,” but this is what would be expected from the product of evolution also. For his second point Tomkins adds that “complex cellular machinery and infrastructure” are also needed for the methylation to be interpreted. I would say that this is only partially true: methylation is always going to have an effect of some kind, but further “cellular machinery” can add to this. As for Tomkins claim that there are “environmental signals … placed at specific DNA addresses,” I’m not sure that’s correct.

Third, for all of this to work as the plant grows and makes seed to reproduce, there needs to be another level in the system to ensure that the chemical DNA tags are accurately copied along with the DNA when it is replicated to produce new cells. This is especially important in the reproductive cells, so that the next generation of plants have the same adaptive system.

Importantly, the requirement that the methylation be heritable is necessary for evolution to be able to act upon them – if this condition were not the case we might actually be closer to something that truly does “negate evolution.”

Fourth, not only does this highly complex “all or nothing” system have a zero probability of evolving through gradualistic DNA mutations, but it also presents problems for the idea of natural selection acting upon it. If the plant is presenting a system of adaptation that is, to a large extent, insulated from direct selection on so-called positive DNA sequence mutations (an exceptionally rare occurrence), then how can evolution progress?

Tomkins seems to think that natural selection, and thus evolution, cannot act on methylation – this is patently false, and is contradicted by the very paper he is talking about which says:

DNA methylation is a covalent base modification of plant nuclear genomes that is accurately inherited through both mitotic and meiotic cell divisions. However, similarly to spontaneous mutations in DNA, errors in the maintenance of methylation states result in the accumulation of single methylation polymorphisms (SMPs) over an evolutionary timescale. The rates of SMP formation are orders of magnitude greater than those of spontaneous mutations, which are in part, probably due to the lower fidelity of maintenance DNA methyltransferases and accompanying silencing machinery. Epiallele formation in the absence of genetic variation can result in phenotypic variation, which is most evident in the plant kingdom, as exemplified by the peloric and colorless non-ripening variants from Linaria vulgaris and Solanum lycopersicum, respectively. Although rates of spontaneous variation in DNA methylation and mutation can be decoupled in the laboratory, in natural settings, these two features of genomes co-evolve to create phenotypic diversity on which natural selection can act.

So, there is heritable variation, in the form of “SMPs” (analogous to mutations, but accumulating much more rapidly), and this variation creates diversity in the organism as a whole which can be acted upon by natural selection. Evolution is therefore possible – all this from just the first paragraph of the introduction of the paper!

There are, however, two other aspects to Tomkins argument. The first is that he claims that this is “all or nothing” – perhaps one pattern can evolve into another, but you can’t get from no methylation to the kinds of patterns observed here in the thale cress? It’s true that if you remove all methylation from a mouse you’ll kill it, but that just means that it has come to rely on its existence and not that it cannot slowly build up over time. Properly answering this question would require information that this study does not provide – you would need to look instead at organisms that have no methylation, or just a little, and those that can safely have it removed. As it is we certainly don’t have the information required to say that methylation could not have evolved from nought.

The other aspect is just typical Tomkins:

Clearly, the precise and timely regulation of environment-responsive gene networks contains yet one more layer of bio complexity that Darwinian evolution cannot account for.

“Ooh, it’s complex, and evolution can’t explain complexity!” – that, capped off with a “clearly” for good measure. I call bullshit.

As it happens, this DpSU has bearing on an earlier one that Tomkins doesn’t spot. Back in October Mr Thomas pointed at a study comparing the amount of methylation in chimpanzees and humans. At the time he said:

If humans and chimps are close relatives, then they should have similar DNA methylation patterns in the areas of chromosomes that they have in common such as similar gene sequences. However, this team found major differences.

He argued that this difference means that humans and chimps are not related. However, this new study shows that there are “major differences” even in members of the same (plant) species! This is no barrier for evolution by any means.

Filed under: Daily (pseudo)Science Updates Tagged: Arabidopsis thaliana, Brian Thomas, Creationism, DNA, Epigenetics, Evolution, ICR, Jeffrey Tomkins, Methylation, Methylome, Science, Skeptic, Skepticism

Some of the faculty members who work with me this week got into that tired argument again over whether the plural of syllabus is correctly “syllabuses” or “syllabi.”  (I think I’d said “syllabuses” out loud in a conversation earlier, and just a few minutes after others had overheard this phrase of mine their argument was full blown.) I don’t really want to continue the debate here.

But wouldn’t we like to see some of what’s behind the English word, these English words? How Greek and how Latin? How fake and how real?

How right our uses of them and how wrong? How educated and how pretentious? How novel and how historical?

syllabus, syllabuses, syllabi

Here’s what the google ngram viewer shows us of how others before us have varied in the uses of them in print, the plurals never ever nearly as popular as that singular and those two used in equal measure only but a few moments in time:

Here’s what a few blogging experts say about the phrases.  For example, here’s a medieval philosopher, a former literary editor, a part-time tv commentator, a widely published essayist and poet, and “[t]he author of bestselling Kindle Singles,” Dr. Joseph Bottum starting off a post “Loose Language” (my emphases):

The plural of syllabus is syllabi. Or is it syllabuses? Focuses and foci, cactuses and cacti, funguses and fungi: English has a good set of these Greek and Latin words—and pseudo-Greek and Latin words—that might take a classical-sounding plural. Or might not. It kind of depends.

There’s pretension, no doubt, in using fancy plurals: a hangover from the days when class distinction could be measured by the remnants of a classical education. But we’ve all been carefully trained to mock such pretensions (on the grounds, as near as I can tell, that it’s terribly lower class to affect the traits of the upper class). And the most prominent use of such plurals nowadays is for comic effect, puncturing a stuffy occasion.

And then there’s linguist Dr. Mark Liberman replying in a blogpost “Bottum’s plea”; it concludes (again my emphases added):

So the debate has never been about whether there are or should be any rules of usage, or even about whether linguists should help people to figure out what those rules are, relative to a given context or style of speech or writing.  The contested question is what credence to give to the “rules” that self-appointed experts attempt to impose on the rest of us, especially in cases where these “rules” are inconsistent with the practice of elite writers, and are justified by illogical appeals to logic, historically false appeals to history, or unsupported assertions about ambiguity and other aspects of readers’ uptake.

Is the “will of custom” sometimes equivocal?  Of course; the mansion of the English language has many rooms.  Is it appropriate to limit this variation by imposing a “house style” on particular publications? Sure, if you want to. Will terrible things happen if your favorite style guide fails to constrain some optional choice, like “syllabuses” vs. “syllabi”? Surely not.

And Liberman had referenced history in an earlier post “What’s the plural of syllabus?“  At least, he’s shown how he at one point believed the following as he appeals to the logic of the assertions of the unnamed compilers and editors of the Oxford English Dictionary (and once more I emphasize):

The thing is, the word is a fake to start with, a misinterpretation due to scribal error. Here’s what the OED sez:

Now I’m writing my own blogpost. I’m merely a linguist with but a Master o  f Arts in the discipline, just dabbling in statistically significant data of human subject research called socio- linguistics. Not much of an authority myself, Dr. J. K. Gayle holds the most advanced degree in English, in classical rhetoric, while working more professionally with post-puberty learners of English as a language and their teachers and confessing to chronically private interests in how any of us ever learns “English.” (I have my mother to thank for encouraging me.)  So here’s my own rather subjective emphasized read of “what the OED sez:”

My eye is drawn to the alleged mere connections from our English “syllabus” to the ancient Greek’s “συλλαμβάνειν, to put together, collect.”

I am as fascinated by the OED editor’s collection of early quotations of the in print uses of this word and its English meanings.  Take a look for yourself (if you’ll pardon once again my emphases):

The question we must quickly ask is whether Taylor calling a syllabus a collection in 1667 was a mistake, the appropriation of a fake and graecized Latin word, a misinterpretation, a spurious deduction? Was he using bad English way back then? Why then does the OED editor choose to include that now? Am I asking too many questions?

Let’s take a look at other dictionary makers’ look at the Greek word allegedly causing all of the confusion. Click here for the full entry on συλλαμβάνω and collection of uses by Henry George Liddell and Robert Scott. The old verb in Greek is not too far off from the newer English noun syllabus, is it? “The syllabus, including [collected] links to lecture notes and homework assignments, can be found here,” writes Dr. Liberman and his co-instructor here.

I’d like the end this post with uses of forms of syllabus or the like (may we call these syllabuses or syllabi?) that we may find not yet collected, though they do exist somewhere between the Liddell-Scott and OED entries and well before the google ngram records and our own various contemporary uses of such “English.”

These are translational uses of the old Greek forms. They are generative. They are not easily contained or collected by our expert opinions about which is fake and what must be true.

The first is from the very first use of the Greek phrase in question by the translator(s) in Alexandria, Egypt, rendering the Hebrew Bible into Hellene.  It’s the Greek Genesis 4:1 -

Αδαμ δὲ ἔγνω Ευαν τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ
καὶ συλλαβοῦσα ἔτεκεν τὸν Καιν
καὶ εἶπεν ἐκτησάμην ἄνθρωπον διὰ τοῦ θεοῦ

It’s the first recorded “conception,” the conceiving of the first human being by his mother.

The second syllabus-related Greek phrase I’d like to end this post with is from the New Testament. It’s from the gospel of Luke, itself sort of a syllabus or a collection of the accounts of the gospel on hand. Before I say more, let me just announce this (as if any of us needs to hear it):  these two syllabi, or syllabuses, have been the cause of many troubles (and I link to my own elsewhere-blogged troubles with the plural of that last word below). Now, here’s the announcement of the immaculate conception as a unique instance of what we tend argue over as fake or as real as spurious or as historical as literary or not in our collections of understandings (as syllabi). Here’s Luke 1:31 -

Καὶ ἰδού συλλήψῃ ἐν γαστρί
καὶ τέξῃ υἱόν
καὶ καλέσεις τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦν

Filed under: English, Fun, Greek, History, Humor, Interpretation, Linguistics, Literature, New Testament, Pedagogy, Rhetoric, Septuagint, Translation Tagged: dictionary, etymology, Joseph Bottum, lexicon, Mark Liberman

In unhealthy relationships, the tactics used to keep you are not the same as those used to get you.

It’s the old bait and switch!

This happens not only in business: “What are all these hidden costs? You never told me about those!”

It happens in romantic relationships: “I can’t believe it! He was so loving. But as soon as we got married he changed into this monster!”

Sadly, it also happens with churches: “The church was awesome until I became a full member. Then suddenly all these expectations were dumped on me and I felt trapped and used!”

Sometimes it’s not malicious. Sometimes it’s just, “Now that I know you’re committed I’m going to be vulnerable and show you my dark side.” But sometimes it is malicious, as in, “Now that I know you are mine you will serve me forever or else!”

The common expression, “I didn’t sign up for this!” is common for a reason.

What’s your story?

(If you long for a safe place to share your story with other good listeners who know exactly what you’re talking about, consider joining The Lasting Supper!)

Last year, Prof Diarmaid MacCulloch, who serves as Professor of the History of the Church at Oxford, gave the Gifford Lectures. Prof MacCulloch is an excellent historian who has written important books on the Reformation and the history of Christianity. Check them out!

By: Jolanta Mlynarczyk, University of Warsaw, Andrew W. Mellon Fellow

The aim of my research at the Albright was to study an assemblage of ca. 200 oil lamps discovered at Qumran by archaeologists from the Ecole Biblique at the settlement itself and in the caves (1951-1956) as well as at Ein Feshkha (1958). The importance of this cluster of sites for our understanding of the late Second Temple period is indisputable, yet in the past many lamps have not been properly described within their archaeological context. Hence, the first stage of my research was focused on completing a description of the lamps and extracting the relevant contextual information. The second stage involved working out the typology. Conceived as a part of the general typology of the Qumran ceramics, the lamp typology consists of two series, each one dependent on a different technique employed in lamp-making: wheel-throwing and moulding. In the former group, the types have been distinguished on the basis of shape; and in the latter, the criterion of shape is combined with that of decoration.

In terms of general chronology, the assemblage covers over two centuries of lamp development in the region, from the early 1st century BCE until the first half of the 2nd century CE. Whenever possible, I examined the chronology of individual types according to the stratigraphy of the relevant examples; in some fortunate cases, this was supported by accompanying coins. At the same time, comparable lamps from dated contexts have been considered, whether found at the sites around the Dead Sea (Jericho, En-Gedi, Masada, Kallirhoe, Machaerus), in Jerusalem or in more distant parts of Judea /Palestine. Finally, the time range of each lamp type has been correlated with successive phases of Khirbet Qumran occupation.

I also addressed the questions of how many workshops supplied Qumran with lamps and where they were located. A macroscopic examination of the lamps enabled me to distinguish several groups of fabrics and different types of surface treatment suggestive of different workshops. These divisions have been challenged by the results of recent physico-chemical analyses attesting to the use of different clay sources (chemical groups of J. Gunneweg and M. Balla) as well as different types of fabric preparation (petrographic groups of J. Michniewicz). The suggested clay sources would have been in Qumran itself as well as in the vicinity of Jericho, Jerusalem and perhaps Hebron (one should remember, however, that a workshop situated in one place might have had good clay delivered from elsewhere).

The sheer fact that in Qumran the wheel-made lamps greatly outnumber the mould-made ones (174 versus 23) suggests that the latter were not made in the local workshop(s). Indeed, most of them are closely paralleled by the finds from Jerusalem in a series of types covering the Hasmonean and Herodian periods until 70 CE. Wheel-made lamps consist mostly of two major groups, each made up of several minor types. One group (39 items) is the so-called “Qumran lamps,” the distribution of which in the region proves that they were manufactured in Qumran; their contexts point to a Late Hasmonean date. Another group (127 items) is comprised of the “Herodian” (“knife-pared”) lamps, a 1st century CE type common in Judea, but in smaller numbers present also elsewhere in Palestine, probably made for the observant Jewish population. The “Herodian” lamps plus other types represented at Qumran suggest that the Qumran society was conservative, since all the lamp types are Judean, with the exception of just two Italian-type lamp fragments pertaining to the period when the site was garrisoned by the Romans. On the other hand, a number of lamp-making centers tentatively identified among the Qumran lamps (not only local lamps, but also the products of Jericho, Jerusalem and possibly Hebron) prove that the site was not isolated, i.e., it maintained trade and/or personal contacts with the above-mentioned localities.

~~~

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Aerial view of the Ziggurat of Babylon

I am pleased to announce, after some delay, the 2013 York Christian Apocrypha Symposium. The theme this year is “Forbidden Texts on the Western Frontier: The Christian Apocrypha in North American Perspectives.” The event takes place at York University September 26–28, 2013.

The planning for the 2013 Symposium was greatly helped by Brent Landau (University of Oklahoma). We have invited 22 Canadian and U.S. scholars to share their work and discuss present and future collaborative projects. Participants include David Eastman, Nicola Denzey Lewis, Mark Goodacre, Kristian Heal, Charles Hedrick, Cornelia Horn, F. Stanley Jones, and Stephen Patterson

Complete information about the Symposium is available at THIS LINK. We hope you can join us.

Recently the members of Crooked Creek Baptist met to identify the core values of the church.  These core values are the basic building blocks of our faith and activity in our local community understood through our relationship with Jesus Christ.  These 7 Core Values proposed are:

1.  Care
2.  Creativity
3.  Disicpleship
4.  Diversity
5.  Faith
6.  Mission
7.  Worship

Over the next several weeks we will be exploring these words and how they help shape the ministry of Crooked Creek Baptist.