A few poems

I was reminded tonight that I had a bunch of poems hiding out somewhere, so I decided to find them, and I will post them here.

This first poem was just for fun. My friend thought I could write a poem about anything, so she tested me and said to write about the sun....So, here we have a poem about the Sun:


The Sun

You come,

You go.

I awake to you gentle caressing my cheek,

Bringing life to my day.

Yet, you make your escape

Leaving me to fend for myself throughout the night

No warmth,

No life,

No radiance,

No Light.

There is one like you,

Imitating your glory,

But never fully reaching your majesty.

It is in this darkness

That I realize how precious you are.

 I tremble in the cold, dark night

Not because the night itself has wronged me,

But because I know that there is none like you,

And I quiver in awe of that thought.

O’ Splendid light!

O Glorious light!

Return to me soon, my love.

Bring solace to my soul,

Peace to my mind,

And let the beauty of life be revealed by your power.

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I was joking about wanting to be a King someday, and how I needed a queen.. As I continued to talk with my friend about this, I began to see a bit of a vision in my mind, and words began to come together into this poem:

Queen:

O’ Queen, my beautiful Queen

See how lovely you are,

Adorned with splendor and grace!

You are as lovely as Venus,

The bright morning star

Chosen as special out of the heavenly bodies

To announce the coming glorious light

And as Venus shines before the full glory is seen,

So too, my love for you, shines

Before I have even laid eyes upon your face

Before our gazes have met

I have seen the inner depths of your soul

And I love you.

 I have seen you

Standing firm and proud

Bearing such luscious fruit

And I desire to taste of it

O’ Queen, my beautiful Queen

So soft and delicate

Fit only for the finest linens

And the gentlest touches.

O’ my sweetest love

I adore you

I desire you

When will Heaven reveal you?

When shall I give pursuit to your heart?

When shall I make you my wife?

When shall I crown you my Queen?

I know not when,

Yet my heart is ready

For you.

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I wrote this one about a year after I became a Christian, and I was going through a time of hardship..


Out to Sea:

I’m afraid of losing you.
And my fears consume me
As the sea consumes a vessel,
First tossing it side to side
Emptying its inside of all treasure.
Then causing it to break apart at the foundations
Allowing death to flood each cabin.
Slowly it begins to descend to the depths
Crushed by pressure
Sealed by fate.

So too is my fate with out you, O sweetest name that my lips can whisper
My soul is emptied of the joy that you once stowed in my hull,
As I take the battering of the waves of life.
My foundation is cracked,
Slowly leaking life.
Holes in my sails prevent movement from this predicament.
Now the Kraken emerges,
And envelops this vessel
Promising to end this quickly.

But sea monsters lie.

And now,
Now I’m drowning,
Drowning slowly.
Liquid fills my lungs 
Forcing out the air.
Fear controls my mind now
And darkness clouds my view
As I slowly sink
Sink further away from you,
Son, the source of light.

Regarding that Turkish Bible

In 2012, a religious document made the rounds of the popular media (Morris). The claim was that this secretive document, worth $14 million, denied the crucifixion of Jesus and supposedly reported that Jesus prophesied that the prophet Muhammad was to come, as a Messiah type. Recently, I have seen this document make the rounds on social media. It is curious that after some very mild hype in 2012, this story has suddenly come back to life, for no apparent reason. This is usually the case when it comes to Christian history and the possibility of some sort of cover up.

 This post is meant to take a clear look at the claims, and see if this document, as well as the reporting of the document and Christian history, holds up to basic scrutiny.  I will break my argument into three sections:

• Reliability of the document. Here I will examine the documents age, its language, the details surrounding its secrecy and non-biased examination, and the relation of Muslim theology to this document

•  Reporting on the document, and Christian History. In this section, I will look at the reporting surrounding this document. More specifically, I will look at many of the supposed ‘facts’ surrounding popular  belief about Christian history, and the formation of doctrine and the Canon.

• Evidence for the Crucifixion. Since the document in case denies the crucifixion of Christ, it only seems right to counter the underlying premise of the document.

By the end of this post, I hope to lay out the case that this document is fraudulent, and not verified by any scholarly institution. Instead, it is peddled by Muslims who deny the historicity of the Crucifixion, and by those who do not have a clear grasp on Christian history. All of this runs contrary to accepted historical evidence and should be put to rest.

Reliability of the Document

The first major flaw that we see with the claims of this document is the purported dating to 1500 years old. This presents a few issues.  If dated to 1500 years of age, this would make it around 400 years after the New Testament documents were penned. This would be akin to someone at the end of NEXT century writing a document stating the George Washington was never President of the United States. Why would we trust a document from a later in history, when it contradicts primary sources (those who were there, or knew someone there)? 

Can you imagine taking a history course where they ignore the writings of soldiers and citizens during the American Civil War, and instead use the book “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”? That would never stand. Yet, when it comes to Christian history, this sort of thing is allowed to stand. It is quite perplexing.

There is a more important issue at hand, however, regarding the dating of this document.  It has been widely reported that this document is 1500 years old. This is NOT the case! Some of the pictures released of the document raised immediate eyebrows among the Neo-Aramaic (also known as modern Assyrian) speaking community. According to Assyrian International News Agency (AINA News):

“The bottom inscription, which is the most clearly visible from the published photos, says the following:

Transliteration: b-shimmit maran paish kteewa aha ktawa al idateh d-rabbaneh d-dera illaya b-ninweh b'sheeta d-alpa w-khamshamma d-maran

Translation: In the name of our Lord, this book is written on the hands of the monks of the high monastery in Nineveh, in the 1,500th year of our Lord.”

Did you notice that? Assyrians can read the inscriptions and it clearly says that this book was written in the 1500s CE, not 1500 years ago. This is 1400 years after the original New Testament was penned.

AINA continues by saying :

“There are spelling errors that are immediately noticeable.… 

The bottom sentence uses the word ktawa (“book”) to refer to the book, but in Assyrian the Bible is never referred to as a “book.” 

One says awreta (Old Testament), khdatta (New Testament), or ktawa qaddeesha (holy book). Given this, since no one has seen the inside of this “Bible,” we cannot be sure if it is in fact a Bible. 

Most significantly, this writing is in Modern Assyrian, which was standardized in the 1840s. The first bible in Modern Assyrian was produced in 1848. If this book were written in 1500 A.D. it should have been written in Classical Assyrian.”

So, even those there were claims that this document was from 1500 years ago, cues from the text show that the document says it is from the 1500s. Still, just from the use of modern language, we know that the text cannot be before the 1840s. In my opinion (and likely, most serious scholars), this is the most damning evidence against the reliability of this document. It is clearly written in a very late date, some 1800 years after the actual events of Jesus’ life and death.

However, there are more reasons to doubt this document. First, it hasn’t been tested by any professional, scholarly institution. In fact, outside of a few pictures, this document has been kept in relative secrecy. If this document was such a big deal, why won’t they let third party researchers test and examine it?

Finally, we have to contend with the fact that the claims around this document seem to fit right in with a particular theology of Muslims. In Islam, it is said that Jesus never died. Specifically, God would never let a messenger die in way such as crucifixion. Therefore, Muslims are left to believe one of a few things:

·         The story of the Crucifixion was made up at a later time, and Jesus never died.

·         Jesus was going to be crucified, but God disguised someone else to look like him, to die in his place.

·         Jesus was crucified, but never died, as he was protected by God’s power.

So, the fact that a document proclaiming be 1500 – 2000 years old, supposedly says that Jesus never died, is held in secret by Muslims not to be tested by anyone else, and is only validated by the Islamic theocracy in Iran, seems to be suspect of extreme bias. The fact that they can ignore the lingual evidence that shows this document to be written in the l800s shows that they do not have the intentions of sharing the honest truth about this document. This is meant only to serve their goal of spreading their religious beliefs.

I have no qualm with people wanting to spread their religion. I admit that, as a Christian, I also want to spread my beliefs. However, I will not knowingly spread lies to further that goal. Eventually, the lie gets out, and it makes one look like a fool. And, as Mr T said “I pity the fool…”

Reporting on the Document in Context of Christian History

Along with the reporting of this document has come the predictable conspiracy stories about the Vatican, and the general ignorance of Christian history. Most Christians are used to seeing these types of stories, especially around Christmas or Easter. This, I suppose, is a good thing. There is now a wealth of scholarly information about Christian history, because of these reoccurring myths.

One of the most enduring of these myths is that, as an article claims that “during the Council of Nicea (sic) the Catholic Church hand-picked the gospels that form the Bible as we know it today; omitting the Gospel of Barnabas (among many others) in favor of the four canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John” (Serpent). If I had a nickel for every time I heard a claim similar to this, I would be a very rich man.

First, let’s look at what the Council of Nicaea WASN’T. It was not a secretive meeting of the Catholic Church, where they decided to write doctrines in order to control the populace. It also was not a time period where there were many competing, equally true versions of Christianity being debated, with the current version of Christianity being the winner. 

Prior to Nicaea, doctrine had spread from Jesus to the Apostles. The Apostles passed it on to the Early Church Fathers (a collection of scholars, writers, and clergy that were appointed by the Apostles).  Doctrine was spread by oral and written means. For example, the Apostle Paul wrote 13 letters to various churches and friends, in order to make sure they remember to follow the things that he had taught them in person.  These teachings and tradition are preserved, in part or in whole, in the later writings. This is important because it shows that the teachings of the ECFS, especially those around Nicaea, were the same teachings that the first Christians believed.  Generally speaking, if you have a certain teaching, you can find out if it has an authentic source by tracing it to an earlier time. The earlier you can trace it, the more likely it is that this is an authentic belief. It doesn’t necessarily mean it is true in its substance because it is old, but at least we know it comes from a trustworthy source, as opposed to something like this fraudulent document in Turkish possession.

For example, think of the story about Christopher Columbus. Many modern people believe that in his time, it was common to believe the Earth was flat. If we go from the year 2014, we can go back in time following this belief in popular culture. However, we have to stop in 1828, the year that Washington Irving first published this myth. You cannot go any time before this and find the claim that Columbus was a brave man that rejected the flat earth hypothesis. No, instead, if you go back to the time around Columbus (and even before), you will read that many people accepted that the earth was some sort of spherical creation. Therefore, given the time between the account and the actual event, plus contradicting contemporary testimonies, we can deem this story to be a myth.

 I don’t know if it the process of tracing a belief/story’s origin has an official name, but I would call it historical stratification, as it reminds me of geological stratification.  In geology, you can usually tell which rocks are oldest, and which are newest, by how they are laid.  If we were to dig up the earth some place, and find 30 layers of basalt below 10 layers of sedimentary rock, which is below many layers of soil, we can determine that the basalt is the oldest. Also, since there is no interruption in the layers, we can tell that the basalt came from the same source, whereas the sedimentary rock came from a different source. You cannot claim that sedimentary rock and basalt are from the same source. They may be hard, and buried in the ground, but they are clearly different.

Now, that takes me to the purpose of Nicaea (whew, that was a lot to say just to get to this point). Nicaea came at a time when many new teachings were starting to pop up all over the place. These teachings were not in line with what was passed along since the beginning of the Church. The official term for this is heterodoxy, but is also known as heresy.

Heresies have been around Christianity since the beginning. The first believers of Jesus had to wrestle with their identity. Did converts to Jesus have to become a Jew first? Did they need to keep the dietary laws? Would the men have to be circumcised? The apostles agreed that this was not necessary, and denounced the attempts to make Gentiles into Jews. However, this movement persisted, and worked against the Apostles; this among the first heresies.  Gnosticism also began to slip into Christian churches. This is where we get many of the heresies of the first few centuries. Despite this, Christianity was relatively uniform in teaching the same doctrine.

However, the number of heresies did grow, especially when Christianity became prominent in the Roman Empire. This is why the Council of Nicaea was called. The Emperor wasn’t too learned on theology, so he relied on the bishops. In one corner, there were Bishops who continued teaching things which they had been passed. In the other corner were bishops that began to teach heresies. In all honesty, there shouldn’t have been a debate. After all, if you have clear teachings from the beginning, how can you dispute that? But the debate was allowed, which has now given rise to that famous meme “there were many equal competing Christian factions”. No, the doctrine that was set into Creed form at Nicaea was doctrine that was already taught for the past 250 years prior to Nicaea.

The other major myth is that the New Testament was ‘hand-picked’ at Nicaea.  The claim is the same with the official doctrine: There were many competing books, and the powerful Church decided to pick the ones which gave it most control, therefor we cannot trust the New Testament. Again, this is false. Going back to the ECFs, we can see that they already had the writings now included in the New Testament, and did not include any of the Gnostics, such as Gospel of Barnabas, Infancy Gospel of Thomas, Gospel of Mary, Gospel of Peter, among others.

If one is trying to preserve the original teachings, doesn’t it make sense to use writings from the people who taught those original teachings, instead of using later creations by people who were known heretics?

But, for the conspiracy minded person, this is proof of some sort of secretive power grab, despite the historical evidence showing otherwise.

Proof of Jesus’ Crucifixion

I’ll make this section short, simply listing extra biblical non-Christian sources that document the Crucifixion of Jesus. I could post plenty of Early Christian sources, but I want to avoid the accusation of Christian bias. By posting sources that are deemed hostile to Christianity, it removes the appearance of pro-Christian bias, therefore making the argument for the historicity of Jesus’ death more solid.


Tacitus (A.D. c.55-A.D. c.117, Roman historian) mentions "Christus" who is Jesus--Annals 15.44
"Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their center and become popular."




The Babylonian Talmud
"On the eve of the Passover Yeshu was hanged. For forty days before the execution took place, a herald went forth and cried, "He is going forth to be stoned because he has practiced sorcery and enticed Israel to apostasy. Anyone who can say anything in his favor, let him come forward and plead on his behalf." But since nothing was brought forward in his favor he was hanged on the eve of the Passover!"

Lucian (circa 120-after 180)

"The Christians, you know, worship a man to this day the distinguished personage who introduced their novel rites, and was crucified on that account.

 Celsus (~ 178 A.D.)
"Jesus accordingly exhibited after His death only the appearance of wounds received on the cross, and was not in reality so wounded as He is described to have been."

Works Cited

AINA News. (n.d.). Retrieved from Assyrian International News Agency: http://www.aina.org/news/2012022916569.htm

Morris, C. (n.d.). Retrieved from Christian Post: http://www.christianpost.com/news/turkeys-1500-year-old-28m-bible-linked-to-gospel-of-barnabas-70148/

Serpent, T. (n.d.). Retrieved from Sons on the Pyre: http://sonsonthepyre.com/1500-year-old-bible-confirms-that-jesus-christ-was-not-crucified-vatican-in-awe/

Street Corner Preachers

Sometime around my sophomore year of university, I ran into a group of street evangelists in the free speech area of the campus. I was minding my own business, not caring much what they had to say. Then a gentleman stopped me and began to accuse me of all sorts of sinful things. That caused me to go from not caring to jimmies heavily rustled, in about 2.1 seconds.

 It wasn't that these things weren't true. Most of them were true (for me or anyone else walking down that path).  It was college, after all. Who didn't go out and have a drink or twelve? Who didn't smoke here or there? Who wasn't lusting after others? We all did it! So, it wasn't that he was correct about my wrong actions. I knew they were wrong. I knew I was doing wrong things. That was never in question.

What really ticked me off was the way he spoke to me. He was full of arrogance. He shouted out things, instead of calmly speaking about it. He came off as an angry, judgmental jerk.

So what did I do? What I do best- I got in an angry confrontation with him. I skipped class, just to stand out there and shout him down. The only time I left was to go find a Bible, so I could hurl accusation against the preacher. That was fun- talking about mixing fabrics, eating bacon, sleeping in bed with a woman who had her period- you know, the important things. In the end, nothing was solved

Since that time, I've held a little bitterness for street preachers. Every time I come across one, it is always the same things running through my mind:
Why are they always yelling at people?
How can they be so judgmental?
Don't they know God is love?
They are driving people away from the Gospel!

And every time, I always get a bit of anger in me, which causes me to go to combat mode. Every time, I get into a debate, and leave feeling angry and self righteous.

Well, every time except this last time.

It was just a few days ago. I went on a walk, and ended up at the Lincoln Memorial. I think it has one of the best views there. Anyway, I was walking to the stairs when I heard a man shouting scriptures about salvation and sin.

"Great," I thought to myself, "Another street preacher trying to ruin everyone's day."

I made my way up to the top of the stairs, took a few photos, and then made my way back down. I started to walk by the man, almost ready for a fight. Then I stopped and I listened to him.

I heard past the yelling voice.

I looked past the rough look he had.

Slowly, everything around me began to transform into a familiar room. The man appeared with a familiar face.

I was staring at, and listening to myself. Seriously. The words that came from this man's mouth could have easily come from my mouth during any of my talks to the youth.

What.

The.

Heck?!?

"Did I transform into some crazy, fundamentalist over time?"
" Have I lost my bearings? Am I becoming a Pharisee?"

These are serious thoughts I had. I mean, I really began to doubt myself, because I seemed to be like this man.

But then I became really humbled. Who am I to say that this guy is wrong? There was not a single theological mistake that he made, while giving his sermon. He was preaching the material that any Christian should preach. He was saying that humans were sinful, and that Christ made salvation possible for humankind. I give variants of this same talk. Every. Single. Event.

 Now, I still feel that it is better to not shout at people. Even if you are yelling nice things, people are not as likely to respond (or even listen) to you.

So, I guess what I am saying is that probably won't be going into battle against other Christians who are preaching Christ on the street corner.  Instead, I will pray for them to have success. I want people to know Jesus, no matter the method. If the street preacher can reach 1 person, then he has brought glory to the kingdom of God.


I guess I am just becoming more mellow...

Orthodoxy vs. "It's Biblical!"

I really hate when people use “X is biblical”, during a debate. X is usually some long held belief, first said by some long ago dead dude, and espoused by a bunch of other long ago dead dudes. It seems to be the get out of debate free card.

“This debate has taken a turn for the worse. I don’t know how to respond to this criticism. What should I do? Oh I know…”

“Excuse me sir, but my long held belief that we are debating is Biblical! You can’t argue against Scripture! Check and mate!”

Do you know how annoying that is? Very. And you want to know something embarrassing? I have used that tactic in the past. I think that makes it even more hated in my book.

Anyway, this post is going to be about the difference between a belief being biblical, and a belief being orthodox.

First, however, some definitions:

• Biblical: of, relating to, or being in accord with the Bible
• Orthodox: from the Greek meaning “right belief”. (For the purpose of this post, I will switch between the term Orthodox and the phrase right belief)
  
  For the purpose of this post, Orthodox is not to be considered in relation to Eastern Orthodoxy, unless specified by the phrase "Eastern Orthodox". I realize I capitalize Orthodox quite a bit. I am too lazy to change it now. At the same time, I don't want any confusion.

All Orthodox beliefs are biblical, but not all beliefs classified as biblical are Orthodox. Most heresies (deviation from Orthodox belief) are biblical, but no heresy is Orthodox. In other words, one who has a heretical belief can find passages of scripture to back up their viewpoint. For example, I could string together a few verses to back up varying Gnostic beliefs. Maybe one has a view that the Jesus is different from Yahweh. We can look at some OT Scriptures point to Yahweh as being an evil god, while using the NT Scriptures to point to Jesus being a good god. This is a heresy, but one can twist Scripture (that is, cherry pick) to make their point.

One could also look at the religions of Mormonism, Islam, and Jehovah’s Witness (abbreviated to JW). Mormons and JWs are loosely Christian. In other words, they have some common elements to Orthodox Christianity. But most Christians would not recognize their beliefs as being right. Yet, the Mormon or JW will use various Scriptures from the Bible to back their beliefs. They have biblical beliefs, but not right beliefs. I have also seen a many dā‘ī (Muslim Missionary) use Christian Scripture to make a case for their beliefs (claiming that the Paraclete, or Helper, was Mohammed, for example). Certainly, not many Christians would say that a Muslim has the right belief. That would be completely contrary to the basis of Christianity. Yet, the Muslim can and will use the Bible to back up claims made by the Quran or Hadith.

Even within accepted Christian circles one will see opposing sides use the biblical card. Both the Arminian and the Calvinist, for example, use Scripture to back their beliefs. Are they both right? Can atonement be both universal and limited? Can Grace be prevenient, free, AND irresistible?

The Catholic, the Protestant, and the Eastern Orthodox can point to scripture to back up varying beliefs on a subject. Who is right? All have some sort of biblical viewpoint. Can the Eucharist be symbolic of Christ, and yet be the real blood and body of Christ? Is it both right and wrong to baptize infants? Of course not. Yet, all three dominant branches of Christian have biblical verses to back these views, along with many more.

What about the Pentecostal and Cessationalist? The Charismatic uses the Bible to support their view of the rather free usage of spiritual gifts, and the other uses the Bible to support the view that gifts have essentially ceased. Both have biblical support, but which is right?

Just because one’s view is claimed to be biblical does not make it a right belief.

What, then, does make a belief Orthodox? Well, that certainly is up for a lot of debate, I suppose. If we were to place an Eastern Orthodox, a Roman Catholic, and a Protestant in a room and ask this question, I am sure we would have 3 different answers. I certainly won’t claim to know more than the millions of priests, bishops, and theologians that have tried answering this question. Of course, that won’t prevent me from offering my opinion. This is my blog, after all. J

Before I give my opinion, I want to give a little background to how my opinion shaped. It is no secret to my friends that I have long had dissatisfaction with many Reformed beliefs. On the other hand, there are some that I feel are very reasonable and correct. That led to me consider varying Protestant doctrines. I was most familiar American Protestant traditions, such as Free Will Baptist, Church of Christ, and Assemblies of God.

So, I began to look at other Protestant churches, such as Lutheran and Anglican.

Again, I felt that some things were missing from these churches, so I moved on the Eastern Orthodoxy. There was, again, some things that I felt were right, and others that seemed wrong. Rinse and repeat with Roman Catholicism.

So where did this lead me? Well, it made me begin to read Church history a lot more, as well as the writings of the early Church fathers (ECF). I haven’t read all of the ECF’s writings, as I wanted to keep with the earliest of them (the first 200 years or so), but I’ve read enough to begin to form a strategy for qualifying beliefs as Orthodox.

Below, I will outline the strategy that I have developed. It is a little lengthy, so I suggest taking a break before continuing on.

Done with your break? Good. Let's continue.

First, the belief must be in Scripture.  I think that most Christians would agree that the Bible is indeed where we can find doctrine. But, as shown in the examples above, it is not enough to simply say that finding support in Scripture makes a belief right. If we stop at this step, we can make up any set of doctrine and claim it to be right because it is in the Bible. On the other hand, if the belief is found nowhere in Scripture, it can be automatically dismissed. If we are able to determine there is indeed Scriptural basis, we’ll need move on to the next step, which ties in right along with Scripture.

Second, context matters. The saying goes something like “context is king”. Believe it or not, context can make or break a belief. For example, let’s say a conservative Baptist church believes that women should be silent during service. They are not allowed to pray out loud, sing, preach, or even give announcements. This belief seems valid because there is scripture that says “Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says” (1 Cor 14:34). Boom goes the dynamite. That verse proves that women should shut up in Church! How can you argue with me? It is biblical.

Well hold on cowboy, let’s look at the context of this verse. Now, this is not a cop out. Seriously. You really need to examine context. I don’t know if there is a right method to looking at context, but here are some tips:

• Are there any verses or passages that would seem to indicate the opposite of what I think a verse says?
• What do the verses around this verse say? Do they hold up my belief 100%?
• What is the theme of the chapter? Does it jive with my belief?
• Who was the author of this passage? Do they have other writings that line up with this belief?
• What was the situation for which the scripture was written?
• Who is the audience?
• What is the time period?
• What does the original language indicate?
• What is the style of writing?

For aforementioned belief, if I use context, I can put quite a bit of doubt into my belief by doing a little research. For starters, I know that this passage is attributed to Paul. He wrote a letter to a specific church  located in the city of Corinth. This specific church came with specific issues. One of these issues was that there were some scandalous women in this church that caused a lot of problems. From this, I might start imagining that he was specifically talking about these women.

Let's dig a little deeper.

 I also know that there are other writings from Paul that indicate there were women active in the early Church as deaconesses, among other things.  Further, I can find only one other passage from Paul that says that women need to be silent. In that verse, he is speaking to his protege about best practices in church leadership. And even then, he only states that he did not allow women to teach men.

If this were to be a right belief for all Churches and believers, I would imagine it would be included in all of his letters to the various churches. In fact, this doesn’t even come up again in his next letter to the Corinthians. That tells me that this verse was a solution to an issue with the particular church, for a particular period of time. Then the situation was handled, and didn’t need to be addressed again. The latter verse in 1st Timothy (women not permitted to teach) was not an absolute command, but seems to be a preference of one man. That hardly constitutes rigid Orthodox doctrine.

I would personally discredit the belief of the Baptist preacher after this step.  But for the purpose of this blog post, we will continue to go through my method.

So, if we are able to find support in scripture, and the belief stands up to contextual criticism, the next step would be to take a look at Tradition. This is a tricky one to deal with.  Before we continue, let me first clarify what I mean by tradition. I define tradition as the collective writings, beliefs, and actions of the early church. To avoid possible tainting, I try to limit tradition to the first 200 or 300 years of Christianity. Once we get to Nicene Council, the church becomes a little too cozy with the State for my liking. To avoid any possible corruption, I simply shy away from that post-Nicene period. That is not to say that Nicaea and beyond is corrupt. I do hold to the creeds, the canon, and most of the writings, after all. I just feel that the closer the tradition is to Jesus and the 12 Apostles, the less likely it is to have outside influences creeping in.

All of the being said, let’s get back to tradition and doctrine.

Do you remember how I said “All Orthodox beliefs are biblical, but not all beliefs classified as biblical are Orthodox”? Well, the same can be said of the relationship of orthodoxy and tradition. All orthodox beliefs can be found in Church tradition, but not all claimed tradition can be classified as orthodoxy/orthopraxy (right action).  In other word, if the belief is correct, one should be able to find it in the actions, writings, and beliefs of the earliest Christians.

Example time: Say there was an unknown, isolated tribe that converted to Christ after meeting St. Andrew. He teaches them the basics of the faith and then moves on to another tribe, only later to be martyred. This isolated tribe no longer has a connection to the early church and its leadership to teach it more practical matters.  So, let’s say they develop a tradition that mixes their former pagan beliefs and their new Christian beliefs. To celebrate the birth of Christ, they hold a ceremony where they kill a newborn child, to symbolize the pure atoning blood of Jesus. Imagine 1500 years later, this tribe is found by the outside world. They have this long standing tradition. Some of their holiest leaders have even written about the sacredness of this event. Would we consider this as right belief or action? Of course not! In fact, it wouldn’t even line up with Scripture!

Though that was a very extreme example, there are some seemingly harmless traditions that have no root in Scripture. This includes doctrines such as the ever Virginity of Mary. There is no scripture that says Mary was forever a Virgin (in fact, one even implies that she had sex with Joseph after Jesus was born).

It falls apart further when you examine historical context. The area that this belief took place was pagan, where there were many known virgin goddesses. We know that some of these beliefs mixed with Christianity sometime after the first few centuries of Christianity. It is not unreasonable to think that this was one of them.

Also, in terms of historicity, as a Jewish woman, Mary had a minor obligation to have sex with her husband. She could not withhold sex, else it would be grounds for divorce in some cases. Of course, a Catholic would retort that Mary was an extraordinary case. If that is true, then there should be some sort of proof for that claim.

Anyway, I said all of that to make a point. One needs to be careful with tradition. You cannot just take a tradition with no basis and try to use it to justify a belief.

Let’s look back to the example of our very conservative Baptist preacher that believes women should be silent in church. We already debunked it pretty thoroughly, but he wants to keep debating. He brings up Roman Catholic tradition of allowing only men to be Priests and Bishops. He wrongly interprets this as meaning that the Church has a history of women being silent. “Heck, even the Catholics got that one right”, he boasts. But, he didn’t do much studying. Well, it is time to school him on tradition. Remember, tradition is the collective writings, beliefs, and actions of the early church. If we look at writings of the ECFs (Polycarp, Clemente, Tertullian, etc), we’ll see automatically that there are women who are mentioned as having leading roles in the early church. Granted, none of them are considered priests or bishops. However, they do have roles which would indicate they spoke during the gathering of believers. This preacher doesn’t seem to have much to work on with his belief that women are to remain silent in service.

1. For most, it would seem that these three steps would be all you need to figure out if a belief is orthodox. However, there is one last step that I think is important. 

For the last step, I believe that one must go to the Holy Spirit for truth. As with tradition, this step has a great possibility for misuse and abuse. I have seen many people have really whacked beliefs because they were ‘led by the Spirit’.  The reason I list this as last is because of the potential for abuse. Anyone can claim the Holy Spirit gave them a special revelation. Remember, I said that almost all heresies are partially rooted in scripture. They are also partially rooted in this idea of “being led by the Spirit”.  Take Joseph Smith, for example. He claimed that he had a special revelation (although his was supposedly given by an angel). To back up this special revelation, he could cherry pick certain parts of the Bible to back him up. To further his claim, he created his own history, or tradition.

Many men and women who desire to fulfill their own beliefs will claim the Spirit led them to that point. How can we judge what the Spirit tells them? Are we God?  Well of course not. But God has told us to have a little judgment when it comes to these matters. If there it doesn’t pass the other three tests, why should I believe that your special revelation is anything other than a self -fulfilling fantasy aimed at fueling your pride?

Please don’t think I am diminishing the role of the Spirit in seeking out truth. May I die before do such an act! I simply wish to urge caution. Falsely attributing words or deeds to the Holy Spirit borders on being Blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, which is the unforgivable sin.

I should also mention that the Holy Spirit is the bookends of Orthodoxy. He inspired the hands of men to write the Scriptures, and He guides us to truth in our time of prayer and contemplation. He is at the beginning of this process and at the end.

One last note on this subject: I cannot stress enough the importance of meeting with a person, or group of people who are in the same spirit of seeking truth. You can do this in a formal church, with family,   or with friends. I think one is less likely to fall for a false belief, if they are with other people who can go through these steps with them. After all, iron sharpens iron. If two or more people gather to discuss beliefs, and are united in the Holy Spirit, He will lead them to truth. It might be a long and dirty trip, but I believe He is faithful to this purpose.

I know I went into too much detail, like I normally do.  Whoops, I’m doing it again… Anyway, here is a brief recap of the steps.


1. Can the belief be backed up Scripture?

2. Does the belief stand up to contextual criticism?

•  Criticisms include: Verses that seem to oppose, context within the chapter and book, tone of the author, audience, history, situation, literary techniques, etc. 

3. Does it align with the tradition of the Early Church?

• Remember, not all traditions are equal. If there is no basis for a tradition, don’t consider it. 
• Also remember that it might be better to consider the earliest traditions, as to avoid possible outside influences or corruption

4. Does the Holy Spirit affirm this belief?

• Remember that revelations not in line with Scripture and tradition are subject to intense scrutiny. Our sinful nature will try to deceive us into accepting falsehoods as truth.
• It is strongly recommended that you seek community with others who are fellowship with you in the Holy Spirit. There will be times you will need to them to smack you around, and there are times that you need to smack them around. Do this in love, of course. J

I am open to criticisms of this technique. I always look for ways to make my methods and beliefs stronger. I want to be rooted in truth. I do not want to be one of those who simply use Scripture as a weapon to fight against others and defend my own biases. I want to use it as a detective’s kit to find out more about God’s will for my life, for my family, and for my culture.

Blessings,

Thomas

A walk down memory lane...

Years ago, there was a commercial by Pepperidge Farms, reminiscing about the old days. It was later mocked on the TV show Family Guy, just a few years ago. That animated version later turned into a popular meme, seen all across the interwebs. An example:




I was reading some old Christian writings earlier, when I came across a passage about the nature of Christians. I immediately thought of this meme. So in honor of that, I lead into the passage with this:

Remember when Christians were described in such a positive light?

Pepperidge Farm Remembers...

And now, the passage, from The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus (c.130 CE):

The Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity.

The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life.

They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners.

Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers.

They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring.

They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh.

 They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven.

They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives.

They love all men, and are persecuted by all.

They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life.

They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonored, and yet in their very dishonor are glorified.

They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honor; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers.

When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred.

Just thought I would share this, because I loved reading it so much. Hopefully it gives you a little to think about. If people were to describe you as a Christian, would they use such language? Does your life stand out from the others? It  is so easy to be called a Christian, but it is infinitely harder to be Christ like. But, the difficult is what we are called to do!

Remember that the world is always watching. Are they going to see the selfish, prideful, and hypocritical behaviors that are attributed to modern Christians? Or are they going to see a life transformed by and surrendered to Christ?

Columbus sucks (and so do you).

We all know how terrible Mr Columbus, the Genoese sailor hired by the Spanish crown, was when he came to the Caribbean Islands. But do you know the people he encountered were also, at times, very terrible people?

The funny thing about humans is that we often see so much in black and white. There is always good and bad. Never is there a gray area! Except, you know, when there is, which is usually all the time. However, we seem to be programmed to look past gray and see only black and white.

This black and white world view exists now, just as it did way back when. For example, it was reported by the Spanish that the Carib were savage cannibals. This is a very black and white world view.  Some historians later dismissed it as Spanish propaganda to justify the wars against the Carib, and therefore the Spanish are horrible people and liars. This, too, is black and white, as there is evidence that show there was limited amounts of cannibalism in the Carib society, among the warriors. Evidently, there was a practice of eating some meat of dead enemy warriors. If you ask me, this is a pretty terrible thing to do. However, we don't mention this when we talk about Mr. Columbus and his encounters with the indigenous islanders.

The Spanish are also criticized for taking native slaves, including many native women to be wives. This, of course, is really bad by our standards. But did you know that the Carib invaders from South America did the same thing? They raped, pillaged, conquered and took wives from the Taino. Why is this never discussed? Why don't we write long posts to discuss how bad the Carib were?

The Carib are just ONE example of the gray area that exists in history of the New World. It is not black and white as the Spaniards told. The Carib were not all cannibals who feasted on the flesh of the living. HOWEVER, it is also not  the black and white revisionism told in modern times (that the Natives on the Islands were all peace loving people).

There is a middle ground. There is a gray area that we neglect to see. And this is an issue that bothers me greatly when discussing the history of the New World.

 So many people used to believe only the European narratives about savages, and so forth. As we got into more modern times, many people switched completely to the other side and started telling tales about how savage the Europeans were. In reality, the truth lies in the middle.

By modern standards, the Europeans did some pretty terrible things. Slavery, war, and conquest are not admirable things. But we cannot distort history and make it seem as if the Europeans were the only people to do these things. There are countless examples in both the New World and the Old World.

Europeans brought 14 million slaves to the Americas in a horrible slave trade. That is really bad, right? Of course it is!! But, what about the slavery that existed in the Americas pre-European colonization? Or the Arab slave trade that took about as many slaves as the Europeans did (including 1 – 1.5 million Europeans)? Is this not terrible as well? Why don’t we talk about it?

Do you hate the fact that Europeans brought diseases to the New World that killed off millions of people? Yeah, I do too. But what about a disease that worked in reverse? Europeans were afflicted by a New World disease, called syphilis. It spread through Europe, all the way to India and China, killing off millions of people along the way. Europeans get trashed for unknowingly spreading small pox in the early days of exploration, but no one ever trashes the people of the New World for unknowingly spreading Syphilis to the Europeans.  And do we hate on the Chinese for unknowingly spreading the Black Plague that killed (in some estimates) 200 million people in just TWO years?

We hate on the Europeans for causing environmental damage and exploiting natural resources. Ever heard of the North American Pleistocene extinction? At the same time that people were migrating to the Americas, the large fauna went extinct.  We know that slash and burn has destroyed millions of acres of rain forest, and we blame European introduction. The only problem is that this technique existed hundreds of years before Europeans came to the Amazon. We also know that Native Americans in North America deforested the areas surrounding where they lived. Cahokia, in modern southern Illinois, was once a large capital city of an empire. Archaeological evidence has shown how the nearby Mississippi river drastically swallowed land due to massive deforestation. This was one of many factors that led to the decline of the city, which was at its peak about several hundred years before Europeans.

Indigenous people have been in the Americas for somewhere between 15-40k years. It took them thousands of years to master the craft of ecological balance, and that wasn't always the case. The image of the “Noble Savage” who cries at the destruction of the environment is an entirely misleading image. The Americas were teeming with people, who used resources as needed. The reason we have this view is for three reasons:

 1) It is propaganda (much like the Spaniards had) created by the Pan Indian movement to garner support for their cause
2) Disease struck the people of the Americas killing off millions. After they died, nature regained the land, making it look as if there was never anyone there.
3) After the mass death of the Natives, the major empire broke up into smaller tribal areas. This had already taken place in the North, after the fall of the Mississippian culture some years before Europeans came. It is similar to the fall of the Roman Empire in the 400s. The lands under the control fell into many smaller kingdoms and principalities.

Essentially what you have is a land that once had hundreds of millions of people when the Europeans first came (and wrote about it), and was reduced greatly due to disease. When more waves of Europeans came, they did not see the vast Empires that once existed. Instead, they saw small bands of people, living in simple communities. The rest of the land was reconquered by nature. It appeared to these later Europeans that Native Americans were incapable of building the type of cities that Europe had. Therefore, the Noble Savage was created. It was carried on in the 1900s by the Pan Indian movement, by people who were trying to get support for their cause. They wanted to get more autonomy and retribution from the US government. They used this image for that cause. As I have mentioned, this is totally inaccurate, but the majority of people believe it.


So why did I write all of these? Believe me, I am not a Euro apologist. I find what Europeans did to be disgusting. I find it even more disgusting because they used Christianity to promote what they were doing. That is the ugliest lie of all time. Christ would never approve of such actions.

So, if I am not being an apologist for Europeans, why did I choose to write this? I choose to do so because I want to be a responsible historian. History must be looked at with all facts present, and in the context of the time. In our modern standards, Columbus and company were terrible people. In the context of the time, they acted like every other single group of humans out there at the time. They practiced slavery, but so did the Arabs, Africans, and Native Americans of the time. They engaged in warfare, but the very reason Europe was going west was because of the constant war threat from the East (from the Mongols to the Ottomans, the latter who has seized Constantinople and were constantly attacking Vienna and other European cities at the time). Yes Columbus’ crew took native wives, but this was NO different than what they saw happen between the Native groups on the islands.

In short, humans suck. It doesn't matter if you are looking at ancient Rome, the Song Dynasty of China, the Mali Empire in Africa, or the many Empires of North and South America. Humans really are broken. This is history. When you try to revise history to make one group look innocent and one group look evil, you are distorting history. There is rarely (if ever, to be honest) black and white situations in history. There is only gray.

So, on this Columbus Day, instead of just mindlessly spewing out about how evil Columbus was and how innocent the poor indigenous people were (like everyone else on Facebook), I suggest you pick up a book and read about the world around 1492. It is a dark, scary place. It is a world full of chaos. It is a world that mirrors the world that existed hundreds of years before that time period. It is a world that mirrors now.


I hope no one thinks I am supporting or approving of Mr. Columbus and the Europeans. My faith and my human decency prevents this. I just want people to look at history with a clear view, which shows the truth about the human condition.

15 Babies That Have More Hair Than Me

I thought I would post something light hearted for once. Just an FYI, none of these pictures are my own. I believe most have a watermark, so they belong to those people. Also, if for some reason someone wants me to take a picture down, please leave me a message and I will do so promptly.

Now, on to the adorable babies (and me).

To start off, we have moi. Nothing special, no hair.

 1) To start off for the babies, we have this adorable little one:

2) Just look how cute! And look at all that hair!

3) Sleeping beauty.

4) What a little stud muffin!

5) Another sleeper.

6) D'aww

7) You may have to go punch a wall after this, just to feel like a man again.

8) Oh. My. Gosh

9) =D

10) Even with a bad hair day, this cutie has better hair than me!

11) I wonder why all of these babies are sleeping? Maybe it is the sheer exhaustion from all that hair?

12)Mohawk! Nice

13) That's a lot of hair!

14) I love the little flower in that lovely little hair.

15) Why so grumpy, little baby? You still have your hair. I say that is a reason to smile!