[+/-] The Great Omission

While I was working on this post, it struck me that Acts favors the word "disciple" to describe followers of Jesus (30 uses), as opposed to "believer" (13) or "Christian" (just 2). I notice that most of us today prefer the latter terms, perhaps because they sound less impressive or presumptuous. To my ears "disciple" sounds like an lofty title, fitting perhaps for a few very wise and godly people I know, but not to a half-hearted screw-up like me. "Believer" sounds like it might include those of us who aren't the best or most devoted followers of Jesus, but who can sign our names to the Apostles creed or some other list of doctrine. (Real Live Preacher thinks this is a very modern and un-biblical understanding of belief.) And "Christian" sounds like someone who goes to church on Sunday and doesn't say words like "fuck".

I know that none of these definitions are very good ones, but I've been thinking specifically about the term "believer" recently. Based on a quick look through Acts, it seems like the early church used "believer" and "disciple" more or less interchangeably. This makes me think that it is a mistake to distinguish between having faith in Jesus and following Jesus, between being a believer and being a disciple. (I think James would agree.) So I was surprised and pleased when I found much the same thing expressed on the dust jacket of Dallas Willard's delightfully titled new book, The Great Omission:

The last command Jesus gave the church before he ascended to heaven was the Great Commission, the call for Christians to "make disciples of all the nations." But Christians have responded by making "Christians," not "disciples." This has been the church's Great Omission.

Full blurb

The book itself is a collection of previously released essays and sermons, and may be a bit repetitive, particularly for those who have already read some of Willard's books. I haven't read it myself, so I won't recommend it. But I love this idea that discipleship, not doctrine, is the essence of Christianity.

[+/-] Genocide

I've often been troubled by Bible stories about genocide. It seems like a good portion of the Old Testament is devoted to stories about the God wiping out entire nations - men, women and children - either through the Israelites or other means. I've been told that killing the children of wicked nations was actually an act of mercy, because if they were allowed to grow up in such a corrupt society they would certainly become evil themselves, and God would be forced to judge them for their wickedness. This explanation has never sat well with me, for a number of reasons.

1. The Old Testament really doesn't include the concepts of heaven and hell. The idea of people being damned for their evil actions or unbelief is definitely post-Old Testament. And the idea of an "age of accountability" before which children are not responsible for their actions is arguably post-New Testament. So, at least from the Israelites' perspective, genocide couldn't have been about saving children from God's wrath. In fact, as far as I can tell, being wiped out is the ultimate expression of God's wrath in the Old Testament.

2. The idea that killing babies is merciful is pretty hard for me to swallow. Couldn't they have rescued and raised as Israelites? Wouldn't this have been far more merciful? Besides, this thinking would seem to support to euthanasia and the abortion of disabled babies, which I think most Christians who defend OT genocide would oppose.

3. If it was merciful to eradicate an "evil" race of people back then, is it still merciful today? Would it have been merciful to wipe out the Germans in World War 2, or the Soviets in the Cold War? If this sounds absurd in the modern world, why was it less absurd back then? (See this post.) What was it about the Amalekites and the Edomites that made them so irredeemable? Has humankind really progressed so much since ancient times, that societies were far more evil then than even the worse ones today, or that such societies were beyond help then, whereas now they often improve dramatically in just a few years? (So much for humanity being in decline.)

4. How can we say that entire nations, meaning every single person within them, deserved God's wrath? Were there really no good men and women among them? (And if so, what has changed? Why are there no purely evil nations today?) Why would God use such a blunt instrument as war to bring judgment to evildoers? Why not just strike the guilty ones dead? Throughout the Old Testament God punishes innocent people for the sins of their neighbors or kings. How is this just?

5. There is a great deal of evidence in the OT that as the king goes, so goes the nation. Good kings, both Jewish and Gentile, lead their people to righteousness and obedience, and wicked kings lead them to idolatry and depravity, generally with very little resistance. And yet it is usually the king's subjects who bear the brunt of God's wrath. (See 1 Chron 21, especially v.17.) Why? If God felt the need to bring an end to a nations wickedness, couldn't he have killed the wicked king and replace him with a righteous one, a la Saul and David? Not only would this be more just (or at least, more merciful) but it would increase the number of righteous nations, rather than simply decreasing the number of unrighteous ones. And if God determines who becomes king (as Jesus and Paul seem to think) how can He punish the people when the leader He gives them leads them astray?

6. God makes a point of saying that the Israelites were no better than the nations they conquered, and the prophets tell us they even surpassed other nations in wickedness. But God is patient with Israel, because of a covenant made with their forefather Abraham. (Another covenant, with David, allows a dynasty of almost entirely wicked kings to rule Judah for centuries. These kings lead Judah into great evil, and the people of Judah ultimately suffer the consequences of their kings' actions. Likewise Israel is scattered forever because of their wicked kings.) If God can be patient with Israel, ultimately redeeming them and never ceasing to love them, why does he not do this for other nations? We like the idea that God loves every person equally and immeasurably. The OT demonstrates (and states explicitly) that God loved (loves?) Israel more than others. Why? Surely it is not a special genetic trait of the Israelites that they are redeemable, whereas the best possible fate for other wicked nations is to be annihilated quickly, to save their descendants from God's wrath. I think we must admit that God could have dealt much more mercifully with wicked gentile nations. If annihilation is a mercy, it is a small mercy, like that of a judiciary system which kills convicts who could be rehabilitated, and sees itself as merciful for sparing them still crueler punishments.

7. I'm not aware of any Biblical mention of genocide as an act of mercy. On the contrary, it is generally portrayed as an outpouring of God's wrath. I doubt that the author of Psalm 137 was writing out of compassion for Babylonian babies.

There are other arguments in defense of the supposedly God-ordered OT genocides, most of which I find similarly unconvincing, but which I will not deal with here. If you'd like to take a look at some of the Biblical stories of genocide and commands to carry out genocide, here are a few: Num 31, Deut 2, 7, 20, Josh 10, 11 (note v.20), 1 Sam 15, 27, Est 9. Of course circumstances differ, and some of these genocides may be easier to excuse than others (some may not even be genocides in the strictest sense) but mercy - for children or anyone else - doesn't seem to have much to do with any of these cases.

[+/-] Why Parables?

In church the other day we looked at the three parables in Luke 15: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son. What struck me about them was their differences, specifically the difference between how sheep, coins, and sons are lost and found. A sheep is a dumb animal that wanders off, a coin is misplaced by the owner, and a son rebels. Similarly, the shepherd searches for the sheep and the woman searches the coin, but the father waits for the son to return on his own. Is one parable more accurate than the others?

It's interesting that Jesus apparently told these three stories in one sitting, to illustrate the same concept. Why three stories? Why not just one? Maybe he was using repetition to reinforce one main point, and maybe we shouldn't look too closely at the details. An analogy can only be taken so far. (As a friend pointed out, we shouldn't conclude from the shepherd analogy that God intends to shear, sell, or eat us.) But how far? Maybe we should look no further than the punchline of all three parables: that God cares about the salvation of the lost more than about those who don't need to be saved.

But even this doesn't sit well us. Strangely, all three parables include a non-lost group: other coins, sheep, or a son who needed no saving, which doesn't fit at all with our theology. Also, all three stories end completely happily - every sheep, coin, and son is found and restored - which will bother non-universalists. So maybe all we can draw from these stories is that God really cares about lost people and wants them back. (Which makes it sound like everyone start off on good terms with God, and then goes astray. Even this won't be acceptable for some.)

In the light of this, it seems to me that we can't have much confidence that any given element of a parable is accurate or true. Maybe you really like, for example, the way the Father runs out and embraces his son and gives him a ring. It doesn't seem like we have any reason for thinking that this part of the story is in any sense true to life.

This makes me wonder if these stories are less like allegories and more like ink-blot tests. You see what you want to see in them, and you ignore the rest as narrative dressing. So why would Jesus so often use such an imprecise and easily misunderstood method to convey important theological truths?

I don't have a really good answer for this. (I certainly would have done it differently.) But it's interesting to me that Jesus tends to revert to storytelling when he speaks about theology, as opposed to moral issues, about which he tends to speak more plainly. Today we generally try to be as clear as possible about doctrine. We favor creeds, worded as carefully as legal documents, to stories. Jesus never gave a creed. His method seems designed to encourage diverse interpretations. I don't know exactly what to make of this. Does Jesus place little value on orthodoxy? Does he want to hide the truth from those who don't deserve it? Or is it that theological realities are so ineffable that it is better to hint at them in vague stories than to try to pin them down with the precision of a creed?

[+/-] Shane's Reply

Those who read Jeff's comments following my recent post on The Irresistible Revolution may be interested to know that I emailed Shane Clairborne about his concerns, and he sent me a response. He said he chose to publish with Zondervan intentionally, as an act of "revolutionary subordination" (John Yoder's phrase). He didn't want to "preach to the choir", but to mainstream evangelical culture, and Zondervan was willing to publish what he wanted to say. Similarly, the cover is designed to be something that might catch the eyes of kids within the Christian subculture (Shane was once one of them). He also says they wanted his face on the cover, but "I told them that it had to look like I was hiding behind the cover, could not show over half my face... And that there had to be a collage of other beautiful faces on the inside cover as you open it up."

[+/-] Women and Defective Levites

My dear friend Lucid Elusion makes an excellent point about women's roles in the church in this post. I thought about posting my thoughts on the matter here, but decided to leave him a comment instead. I'd be curious to hear what others think.