Look Into My Eyes

Look into my eyes!
Look into my eyes, what do you see?
Giggles – smiles
Little toes – a little nose

Look into my eyes, what do you see?
Curiosity – adventure
Fast feet – pulling the cat’s tail

Look into my eyes, what do you see?
School – homework
Makeup – boys- phone calls all night long

Look into my eyes, what do you see?
First crush- First date
First kiss- First heartbreak

Look into my eyes, what do you see?
Special someone – love at first sight
Dinners for 2 – relaxing in the moonlight

Look into my eyes, what do you see?
Broken spirit – bruises, heartache
My fault – I’ll do better

Look into my eyes, what do you see?
Fear – loneliness
Despair – no one cares

Look into my eyes, what do you see?
Forgotten – withdrawn
Utter darkness – suicide attempt

Look into my eyes, what do you see?
New beginnings – spirit set free
Strength – endless possibilities

Look into my eyes, what do you see?
 The heart of a survivor
Inspiration to others – My sister, my friend

By Tracey Koss (with her permission)

An Award-Winning Poem

April 2011

Thank you, Tracey

To Claim the World as Creation

In his book, The Seven Pillars of Creation (Oxford University Press, 2010), author William P. Brown uses scientific knowledge to expand, interpret, and rethink the meaning of the Bible for our time.  He discovers numerous “points of contact” between science and scripture and concludes the book with these thoughts about the importance of seeing the universe as God’s creation:

To claim the world as creation is not to denounce evolution and debunk science.  To the contrary, it is to join in covenant with science in acknowledging creation’s integrity, as well as its giftedness and worth.  To see the world as creation is to recommit ourselves to its care, not as the fittest, most powerful creatures on the animal planet but as a species held uniquely responsible for creation’s flourishing.  It is to celebrate the inalienable beauty and dignity of all living kind and bear witness to God’s manifold creation.  It is also to bear witness to creation’s groaning as the ground suffers from deforestation, mountaintop removal, toxic dumping, and rising temperatures.  To see the world as God’s intricate, intelligible, surprising, sustainable creation is to return to wonder and go forth in wisdom, such that “the mountains and the hills…shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” (Isa. 55:1-2).

Spring in the North Country reminds us that the mountains and hills do burst into song with the return of life, and we can indeed all but hear the fields clap their hands with young crops promising a bountiful harvest.  In the North Country, we also witness the steady erosion of God’s creation and feel the responsibility God has planted in us for this tiny corner of her vast creation.

The Nature of the Bible (5)

 So, if we no longer accept the platonic Bible—perfect, infallible, and inerrant—where does that leave us? Here I must speak personally, because the journey away from an infallible Bible is a very personal one for me and it has to do more with what I affirm than reject. I do not believe that the Bible is the capital "W" Word of God because I do believe that Jesus of Nazareth and he alone is the Word of God—see "The Nature of the Bible (1)."  The Bible is a witness to the Word.  To the extent that the Spirit uses the Bible to touch hearts, it is inspired.  To the extent that the Bible provides a spiritually compelling and true portrait of Christ, it is authoritative. For me.


Faith starts with God in Christ, walks with God in the Spirit, and seeks to walk in the direction of the will of God as revealed in Christ.  The Bible is a useful tool to these ends.  I don't see how we can do without it.  As a young Christian, the Old Testament prophets, particularly Amos and Jeremiah grabbed my attention with their bold, uncompromising call for justice in a hard, unjust world.  I learned from them that God takes sides and loves the poor and oppressed with a special love.  It was an easy jump from there to the God of the Exodus, the "I Am" who called Moses, Aaron, and Miriam to lead an inconsequential tribe of slaves to freedom.  In the light of the Old Testament, Jesus came to make a special kind of sense.  He continued the prophetic tradition.  In his teachings and his healing ministry, he exemplified its deep concern with justice—for a Kingdom that is bound by no prejudices where women stand with men and Samaritans with Jews as equally loved, equally valued in the sight of God.  It is a Kingdom where political influence and great wealth are dangerous barriers to the salvation of our whole race.


In the end, again speaking just for myself, I realized the whole debate over a perfect Bible is a waste of time.  I really could care less.  The power (the inspiration!) of the Bible is its witness to the God of Israel and God in Christ.  That is its authority.  Cold, legalistic demands that I believe in something obviously false to me—a perfect Bible—only get in the way.  The beauty of the Psalms are their own witness.  The vision of the Kingdom in the Book of Isaiah is in and of itself powerful.  Amos is amazing!  I Corinthians 13, Galatians 5:22-23, and other equally moving New Testament passages stand on their own authority.


Of course, there are many unanswered questions.  There always are.  It is our questions that make life interesting and somedays even exciting.  As best as I can understand it, the purpose of the Bible is not to answer all our questions but to introduce us to the God of Israel and Christ—and then to give us aide, comfort, and sometimes challenges on the Way.  You see, its not a matter of believing in the Bible but of learning to trust the God who is revealed there.  Amen.

The Nature of the Bible (4)

In response to David Philips' essay, "The nature of the Bible," which defends the Bible as the Word of God, we have seen that the Bible is not the Word of God, big "W" but, as the Confession of 1967 says, it is "the word of God written," small "w".  Christ is the Word of God, and the Bible is a witness to Christ.  It is subordinate to him.  Inspiration in the Bible does not mean the Bible is perfect but rather that God is creatively at work, present; inspiration does not result in perfection but in new or renewed life.   At heart, the view that the Bible must be perfect in order to be authoritative reflects a Greek philosophical tradition that became current in Western Christianity well after the books of the New Testament were written.


In sum, the view that the Bible as the Word of God must be perfect, infallible, and inerrant is but one way to understand the Bible.  It has a history of its own going back tens of centuries to a time when the church learned to adapt its understanding of Christ to the religious and philosophical thought of the Roman Empire.  It is an ancient, honorable "artifact" of our ability to think about Christ in new languages and cultures, which many of us find in no longer compelling.  Platonic Christianity clings to a world that we no longer live in and that, for us, no longer even exists.  While we don't understand why many faithful Christians continue to find it meaningful, it is clear that they do, and as best we can we try to honor that fact.  We really don't intend to scandalize and upset them, though obviously we do.


But, in any event, we need to move on.  Just as those who first turned to Platonism did so seeking fresh insights and new ways of thinking about Christ, so in our scientific age with its vastly enlarged universe and incredible insights into reality we seek to do the same thing—learn again how to see Christ with the eyes of our time.  We have been given two eyes to help us do so: the eye of the Bible, our original faith document, still spiritually compelling today; and the eye of our scientific age, intellectually compelling in our day.  Our prayer, the prayer of every generation, is that with our two eyes we can see Christ, the Word, clearly and in focus for our time.  Amen.

The Nature of the Bible (3)

In response to David Philips' essay, "The nature of the Bible," which defends the Bible as the Word of God, we have seen thus far that the Bible is not the Word of God, big "W" but, as the Confession of 1967 says, it is "the word of God written," small "w".  Christ is the Word of God, and the Bible is a witness to Christ.  It is subordinate to him.  In addition, the biblical understanding of inspiration as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit has nothing to do with the idea of perfection.  It means, rather, that God is creatively at work giving new or renewed life.  The Bible is inspired because it gives witness to the life-giving, creative work of God.

Phillips links the authority of the Bible to its perfection.  He writes, "Because the Bible is God's Word and is without error it is the supreme authority for the Church."  He notes that there are many, whom he labels heretics, who do not believe that the Bible is uniformly perfect in all of its parts.  He is particularly perplexed by so-called "open evangelicals" who "are not prepared to accept the Bible is true in all its detail."  From his perspective, Phillips can only conclude that if the Bible is not entirely true "in all its details" then either it is not entirely the Word of God or God has authored an unreliable scripture and is also unreliable.  These conclusions are unacceptable to him, obviously.  The issue for him, then, is: "Is the Bible the Word of God in its entirety or is it not?"  His answer is, "Yes, it is."

By this way of thinking, either the Bible is perfectly true throughout or it is not.  If it is perfectly true then it is reliable and authoritative.   If not, then none of it is reliable—all or nothing.  Phillips' arguments sound logical and persuasive—so long as we accept the platonic philosophical view of reality that subsumes them.  According to Platonism, the real world is the unseen world of perfect universal forms not our world of imperfect copies of the universal.  In the Christian version of Platonism, the Bible is lifted up to the level of a perfect universal form, and as such it must be entirely and completely perfect.  Platonism does not allow for a mixing of imperfect earthly forms and universal perfect forms.  The Bible, hence, must be one or the other.  Western Christianity has long been dominated by this platonic, dualistic form of thinking about the Bible in particular and Christian faith generally.

Platonic dualism and its concept of perfect universal forms is a Western philosophy that doesn't arise from the Bible itself.   If we keep our eyes open for it, not even the God of the Bible, especially the Old Testament, is perfect in this platonic sense.  In Genesis 3:8, for example, God walked in the Garden of Eden in the evening looking for Adam and Eve.  God did not know where they were.  Later in Genesis, God saw how evil the human race had become, "And the Lord was sorry that he had made humankind on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart." (Genesis 6:6)  There are quite a number of Old Testament passages that say that God changed God's mind or regretted an action.  For the ancient Hebrews, the thought that God took a physical form, didn't know some things, and could have a change of heart were not problems.  God was still the Lord, Creator of the Universe, and the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—their God.  The children of platonic Christianity, however, can't accept the whole premise and so must rationalize away this non-platonic, admittedly ancient understanding of God.

In sum, Phillip's argument that the Bible must be perfect in order to be authoritative is based on a particular Western philosophical tradition.  If we accept the tradition, we accept the premise.  However, if we approach scripture from another perspective, the premise no longer holds.   And, just so we are clear at this point, Phillips draws his philosophical assumptions not from the biblical traditions of the Hebrews or the first generation of Christians but from Greek philosophy.

Ask a Pundit—or Flip a Coin

This is one not to be passed up.  Hamilton College has just published the final report of a class project conducted by five students. The paper, "Are Talking Heads Blowing Hot Air? An Analysis of the Accuracy of Forecasts in the Political Media," analyzes the accuracy of the predictions of 26 political pundits.  According to the Executive Summary, the students found that only six of the 26 pundits were more accurate than flipping a coin.  Four were actually less accurate than 50-50.  The most accurate by a large margin was Paul Krugman who scored an impressive 88% accuracy rate in his forecasts for the study period, September 2007 through December 2008—partly because he is a leading economist and only made economic forecasts.  In other words, he was talking about something he actually knew something about.  But, taken as a class, the political pundits can tell us no more about future developments than flipping a coin.

What a shock.

The Nature of the Bible (2)

The Bible is not the Word of God, big "W" but, as the Confession of 1967 says, it is "the word of God written," small "w".  Christ is the Word of God, and the Bible is a witness to Christ.  It is subordinate to him.

We turn now to another key notion in David Philips' essay, "The nature of the Bible," the idea of inspiration.  Phillips states that the Bible is "what God has spoken."  It is inspired, by which he means that it is "God breathed," that being the biblical meaning of inspiration.  Phillips then makes an inference that seems crystal clear to him.  Because the Bible is the Word of God, therefore, it is without error.  He writes, "The character of the Word of God as infallible or inerrant derives from the very character of God Himself... the Bible is accepted as utterly true and utterly trustworthy because of the character of its author."  God, he says, "is true in his very character and therefore His Word is Truth."  In sum, the Bible is True, inerrant, and infallible because it reflects the nature of God, who is by definition Unblemished Truth.

The inference is that the Bible is perfect because it is "God breathed.".  Phillips is correct to define inspiration by the term "God breathed," which comes from the second account of creation in the Book of Genesis.  It says there, "Then the Lord God took some soil from the ground and formed a man out of it; he breathed life-giving breath into his nostrils and the man began to live." (Genesis 2:7)  In the Psalms, God's breathe gives life not only to humanity, but also to all of God's creatures (Psalm 104:30).  The New Testament also speaks of inspiration as being an indwelling of the Holy Spirit.  In the Book of Acts, the Spirit filled the earliest Christians (Acts 2:1-4), Samaritan believers (Acts 8:17), and the Apostle Paul (Acts 9:17).

The gift of the Spirit has been given, that is, as the source of life for every living creature, for every person, and it has been given to the church.  In these cases, inspiration had nothing to do with perfection.  Inspiration signifies, rather, God's presence, giving life to what is dead physically or spiritually.

The affirmation that the Bible is inspired, in sum, means that it is another channel or vehicle for God's presence.  Through it God reaches into our lives in much the same way the Spirit touches human hearts.  Just as one Christian can be the channel for God's reaching into another person's life, so the Bible touches our minds and hearts.  Like churches, it can mediate the one true Word of God, Jesus Christ.  And like any other created thing, it can be abused, misused, and misconstrued.  It is inspired.  It is authoritative.  There is nothing in the Bible itself that requires us to infer that the Bible must be perfect because God is perfect.  Quite the opposite.  The biblical precedence shows that there is no link between inspiration and perfection.

The Nature of the Bible (1)

David Philips, writing in the journal Crossway (Winter 2003 No. 87), published an essay entitled, "The nature of the Bible" defending the view that the Bible is the Word of God—inspired, infallible, inerrant, and uniformly true in all of its parts.  His views are widely held among many Christians around the globe, so much so that many consider them the only "right" understanding of the Bible.


There are other ways to understand the Bible, however, and while they are roundly condemned by biblical literalists, such as Phillips, they deserve to be heard in the market place of theological reflection.  This post begins a series of brief responses to Phillips' essay, which the reader is urged to read first.  The goal here is not to convince anyone that they are wrong in their view of the Bible so much as to offer an alternative to those who may find biblical literalism less than spiritually compelling and intellectually satisfying.


An alternative view of the Bible as the Word of God begins with the meaning of the phrase, "the Word of God," which Phillips uses repeatedly as short-hand for his understanding of the nature of the Bible.  It is, for him, the Word of God.  Starting from that premise, his arguments for biblical literalism make perfect sense to him and tens of millions of others.

The opening words of John's Gospel state that, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." (John 1:1)  In context, the Word of God here refers to Jesus Christ and no one or nothing else.  The  "Word of God," capital "W," is Christ.  The Bible thus is not the "Word of God."  Christ is.  As the Presbyterian Church (USA)'s Confession of 1967 states in paragraph 9.27, "The one sufficient revelation of God is Jesus Christ, the Word of God incarnate, to whom the Holy Spirit bears unique and authoritative witness through the Holy Scriptures, which are received and obeyed as the word of God written."  The Bible is "the word [small "w"] of God written."  It bears testimony to Christ and, we would add, to God's work with and through the People of Israel.  Its testimony is inspired by the Holy Spirit, unique, and authoritative.

If we insist that the Bible is also the capital "W" Word of God, we in effect give it a status equal to Christ.  In our alternative view, the Bible is clearly not equal to Christ.  It is not in and of itself divine.  It was created and as such is not the equal of the Creator.  Seeing the Bible as being created and subordinate offers us the opportunity to see it in a different light.  More tomorrow.

Somber Day After Thoughts

Osama Bin Laden is dead.  We greet the news with mixed emotions.  Glad for the closure.  Sorry that it means more killing, more death.  In prayer that the world can move on—but fearful that we've taken just another step in a cycle of vengeance that has lost sight of moral purpose.

In his excellent military history of the American Revolution, Almost a Miracle: The American Victory in the War of Independence (2007), author John Ferling writes,

"There are always those who wish to sanitize war by portraying its grand and noble deeds—which sometimes occur—while drawing a veil over its shameless side.  By its nature, war is harsh, brutal, and pitiless, and while it can call out the best in humankind, it can also awaken the darkest side of human nature, arousing in many participants a cold hearted callousness.  For most, danger begets fear.  For some, fear sires ferocity and ferocity spawns a ruthlessness that subsumes compassion.  For still other men, more than is gratifying to acknowledge, soldiering is a license to unleash iniquitous qualities that they had struggled to suppress in peacetime." (p. 453)

Ferling makes these observations in the context of a bitter guerilla war waged by American rebels against British occupation forces in South Carolina during the American Revolution.  They could have been written of every war humanity has ever fought—including the War on Terror.

Christianities

Some years ago, I came across an important insight in a book about Judaism in the time of Jesus that has helped shape my understanding of the Christian religion.  I wish I could remember the name of the book and author, but I don’t.  The author made the point that in Jesus’ day there was not one “Judaism” but many “Judaisms.”  Jews understood and expressed their faith in a wide variety of ways through an equally large variety of institutions and groups.  They were so diverse that it makes little sense to lump them together under one name.

The same is true of Christianity in every age.  There is no such thing, strictly speaking, as “Christianity.”  Rather, we have many different Christianities, each one part of an amazingly diverse family of loosely associated faiths centered (in many different ways) on Jesus Christ.


In a better world than this one, we would celebrate the richness of all of these Christianities, historical and contemporary.  They affirm the fact that we can come to faith in many different ways.  No one version will appeal to everyone, but that does not mean those who refuse one brand of Christianity or another are left without options.  The Spirit moves in so many different ways—and this just among the followers of Jesus!  In a better world than this, we would give thanks for all of the gracious ways in which God keeps reaching into our lives.


The truth is, however, that over the centuries relatively few Christianities have taken any pleasure in the existence of other faiths in Christ.  We seem to find it all but impossible for Christians to accept the great diversity of ways in which Jesus makes sense to people.  We, at best, tolerate their existences. It is as if one of the few things that unites us across our Christianities is our my-way-or-the-highway attitude toward any Christianity but our own.  That's sad.