Associated Baptist Press
February 27, 2009 · (09-28)
David Wilkinson, Executive Director
Robert Marus, Managing Editor/Washington Bureau Chief
Bob Allen, Senior Writer
In this issue
Court says Montana election law wrongly applied to church (360 words)
Opinion: Jesus' vacation and the Canaanite woman (1,103 words)
Opinion: On interpreting the Bible (725 words)
Music review: Grace inside a sound -- U2, 'No Line on the Horizon' (900 words)
Court says Montana election law wrongly applied to church
By Bob Allen (360 words)
SAN FRANCISCO (ABP) -- A federal appeals court ruled Feb. 25 that Montana officials violated the free-speech rights of a Southern Baptist church when they required the congregation to register as a political action committee for supporting a 2004 ballot initiative against gay marriage.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals did not address the constitutionality of a Montana law that labels as "incidental political committees" groups not specifically organized to influence elections but that make a contribution or expenditure on behalf of a candidate or issue. The law also requires reporting and financial disclosures from such organizations.
A three-judge panel did say, however, that Montana's commissioner of political practices erred in applying the law to Canyon Ferry Road Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist congregation in East Helena with about 200 members.
Judges said the church's actions -- sponsoring a video against gay marriage and encouraging members and guests to sign petitions supporting defining marriage in exculsively heterosexual terms in the Montana Constitution -- were so minimal they were unworthy of the state's attention.
The Alliance Defense Fund, which assisted in the church's defense, called the ruling a major victory that could embolden other churches to take a stand on ballot initiatives in the future.
"Churches shouldn't be penalized for expressing their beliefs," said Dale Schowengerdt, legal counsel for the ADF, a conservative Christian legal group formed in 1994 to counter the American Civil Liberties Union. "They should never be forced to forfeit their free-speech rights just because the government decides to enact unconstitutional laws requiring them to remain silent on social issues."
Montana Solicitor Anthony Johnstone, however, who argued before the appeals court that the church was subject to the disclosure law, said he doubted the ruling would have any broad implications.
Social conservatives often criticize the 9th Circuit, which recently said the federal government could not deprive same-sex couples of benefits offered to married couples, as being hostile toward religion.
The three judges, who unanimously ruled in favor of the church, were Circuit Judges Harry Pregerson and William Canby Jr., who were appointed to the bench by President Carter, and Senior Circuit Judge John Noonan, a Reagan appointee.
Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.
Opinion: Jesus' vacation and the Canaanite woman
By Jim Somerville (1,103 words)
(Editor's Note: A column that Associated Baptist Press published Feb. 23, written by Miguel De La Torre and offering a novel take on one of the New Testament's most difficult passages, set off a lively discussion about biblical interpretation in the column's comments thread as well as across the Baptist blogosphere. We decided to take the opportunity to ask a seminary dean and a local-church pastor to provide their takes on how to interpret difficult passages of Scripture faithfully.)
(ABP) -- In the verses that precede Matthew 15:21-28, Jesus goes about his ministry of teaching and healing tirelessly, although he is mobbed by crowds. Then, the Gospel accounts of the story say, he "went away."
So, while neither Matthew nor Mark say that Jesus was on vacation, they do say that he went away to the Mediterranean coast, that he entered a house, and that he didn't want anyone to know that he was there. Sounds like a vacation to me. I can imagine a nice pastel-colored beach cottage somewhere on the shores of the Mediterranean, with Jesus sitting on the front porch, gazing out over those deep blue waters, savoring those delicious breezes.
You wouldn't hold such a thing against him, would you? Everybody needs a break from time to time. But suddenly the silence was broken by the sound of this woman coming up the front steps in her flip-flops, calling for his help.
"Have mercy on me, Lord! I know you're on vacation. But my daughter is possessed by a demon. I need your help." And if Jesus had a widow's mite for every time he had heard that request, he would have been a rich man. He had been surrounded by crowds of people, remember? They had been pressing in against him, begging to touch the fringe of his cloak. He hadn't even been able to eat.
And now, when he has finally gotten a few minutes' peace, here comes this Canaanite woman. She's from another country. She has a different religion. It would be like a Muslim woman coming to me on vacation, asking for help. I might not say it, but I would wonder: "Isn't there a mosque you could go to? An imam you could ask? Why are you coming to me?"
And so Jesus tells her, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." In other words, "I can't help you. I'm up here in Gentile territory. I am way out of my jurisdiction."
But this woman comes and kneels before him, bowing her head to the ground and begging, "Lord, help me." It is the request Jesus has never been able to refuse, but this time he says, "It isn't fair to take the children's food and throw it to the dogs." It is another way -- but not a more polite way -- of saying, "Go away, woman, you're bothering me."
And yet she won't go away. Jesus is not just her best hope; he is her only hope. She looks up into his face, her eyes searching for some flicker of empathy.
"Yes, Lord," she says, "yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." It's a good answer. It is such a good answer that Jesus looks into those pleading eyes and feels his resolve crumbling. He can't help himself. Above the weariness of his human nature and the strength of his divine nature, it is his nature to feel with those who are hurting and want to do something about it.
And so he says to her, "Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish." Even as he did it he must have known what it would mean. Soon the news would spread, and before long everyone in town would be coming up those front steps, begging for mercy. His vacation would be over. But he did it anyway.
There is a word for what preachers do when they try to explain why bad things happen to good people. It's called theodicy, and it comes from two Greek words that mean, essentially, "to justify God." Theodicy is how we try to get God off the hook, how we try to convince people that even though terrible things happen, God is still loving and still powerful.
Today I've been doing something that might be called Christodicy -- I've been trying to get Jesus off the hook. I've been trying to convince you that even though he first ignores this woman, and then tells her it's not his problem, and then calls her a Canaanite dog, he is still loving and compassionate. "He was just worn out," I've been saying. "He needed a break."
Surely you can sympathize. We have all said or done things we have regretted, and often we have said them or done them when we were tired, when we just weren't ourselves. That's the excuse I've been trying to make for Jesus today: he was tired; he wasn't himself.
And that's true, isn't it? Follow Jesus through the Gospels and you will see that it is his way, usually, to reach down into the depths of human misery to lift people up. The force that he used was humanizing rather than dehumanizing. And that's what makes this story so difficult. In it we see Jesus ignoring this woman, dismissing her, and finally insulting her. It isn't like him at all.
And maybe that's what we are supposed to learn from this story -- that ignoring, dismissing, or insulting a fellow human being is not Christlike behavior. When we see it in him it shocks us; we scramble to explain.
But what about when he sees it in us? Is he shocked by our behavior, or is it just what he has come to expect?
And that's something I learned from that Canaanite woman. No matter how much Jesus ignored her, dismissed her, insulted her, she never stopped believing that her daughter was worth something -- and, eventually, she convinced him that she was worth something too. Instead of seeing her as a Canaanite dog, he came to see her as a woman of great faith.
It may be only a coincidence, but at the end of this Gospel Jesus doesn't tell his followers to go and make disciples among the lost sheep of the house of Israel. He tells them to go and make disciples of every nation, including that nation where the Canaanite woman lived.
Is it possible that she persuaded him? That, while he was on vacation, Jesus learned that the love of God was big enough not only for the house of Israel, but for the whole human race? Is it possible he learned that among the people of the world there is no one we can ignore, dismiss, or insult, but that all people everywhere -- people of every class and race and culture -- are the children of God?
It sounds possible to me. It sounds like the truth. In fact, it sounds like the gospel truth.
-James Green Somerville is pastor of the First Baptist Church of Richmond, Va. This column is adapted from a sermon he delivered there Aug. 17, 2008. Transcripts, audio and video files of this sermon are available on the church's website.
Opinion: On interpreting the Bible
By Alan Culpepper (725 words)
(Editor's Note: A column that Associated Baptist Press published Feb. 23, written by Miguel De La Torre and offering a novel take on one of the New Testament's most difficult passages, set off a lively discussion about biblical interpretation in the column's comments thread as well as across the Baptist blogosphere. We decided to take the opportunity to ask a seminary dean and a local-church pastor to provide their takes on how to interpret difficult passages of Scripture faithfully.)
(ABP) -- The story is told that when William Tyndale was a young man, a priest told him that it was better that the Bible was in Latin (a language only a few Englishmen could read) and that the church told people what to believe, so false teachings could be contained.
Tyndale responded, "If God spare my life, I will cause that the boy that driveth the plow shall know more Scripture than thou dost."
A revolution in human history started with that declaration. Tyndale translated the New Testament into English. His translation richly influenced the King James Version and later English translations, and English-speaking people have been able to read and interpret the Bible for themselves ever since.
But if we are not going to depend on a church official to tell us what the Bible means (remember the Baptist principles of freedom of conscience or "soul competence" and the priesthood of the believer!), then we face the task of interpreting the Bible for ourselves -- a challenge so daunting that we all need to approach it with a great deal of humility and seek all the help and guidance we can find.
Here are just a few suggestions about how to enrich your Bible study and how to work through the interpretation of difficult passages, hard texts and divisive issues:
1. Consult several translations. The King James is beautiful and irreplaceable, but it is Elizabethan English, and we have much more accurate Greek and Hebrew texts today. Read a translation like the New American Standard Bible that offers a word-for-word translation, a middle-of-the-road translation (in terms of whether the translators approached their task with an attempt to balance between literality and readability), like the New International Version, Revised Standard Version, or New Revised Standard Version, and a translation that translates meaning rather than words, like the Contemporary English Version or the New English Bible. By reading several translations you will get a clearer idea of the possible range of meanings.
2. Use a good study Bible, like the HarperCollins Study Bible or the New Oxford Annotated Bible. The notes at the bottom of the page are brief but valuable comments on the text. Learn to use the marginal or cross references to lead you to related passages.
3. Buy a good one-volume commentary on the Bible so that you will always have it handy. The Mercer Commentary on the Bible and the HarperCollins Bible Commentary will serve you well. When you need to go further, consult a good multi-volume commentary, like the New Interpreter's Bible, the Smyth & Helwys Bible Commentary, or any number of other fine commentaries. They will help you understand the issues, the history of interpretation, and the arguments for various interpretations.
4. Take a broad view. Look at the context of the passage. What is the historical setting, and what are the major themes of the book in which it appears?
5. Consult other passages in the Bible that speak on the same subject. The Bible often speaks differently to different settings, so we have to be very careful about taking any one passage to the exclusion of others on controversial social or ethical issues. Instead of planting our flag on just one verse, we need to consider everything the Bible says on a particular topic.
6. If the Bible says different things in different places, look for an ethical or theological progression. Ask yourself which verses reflect the grace and love of Jesus, or Jesus' uncompromising call to discipleship, most clearly? How does Jesus offer a context for understanding the Old Testament, and how did the early church interpret Jesus and his teachings? Where is the Bible crossing longstanding boundaries, and where is it simply echoing the culture of its day?
7. Seek the guidance of a pastor, teacher, or friend. None of us has all truth, and none of us is right all the time. Keep an open mind on subjects where the Scriptures are not clear, and above all pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
One of the most rewarding aspects of studying the Bible is that every time we work through a book or passage carefully, we gain insights we had never seen before. Thank God, even the "boy that driveth the plow" may hear a word the rest of us have missed.
- R. Alan Culpepper is dean of Mercer University's McAfee School of Theology.
Music review: Grace inside a sound -- U2, 'No Line on the Horizon'
By Steven R. Harmon (900 words)
(ABP) -- "This is the most thoroughly Christian thing they've done yet."
That was my initial reaction to the last two U2 albums in 2000 and 2004. In retrospect, that was just as true of the triad of albums U2 released in the 1990s, but I admit that wasn't what I thought on first listen to them. Their nuanced irony required a few more listens and a good bit of rewarding theological reflection to get there.
Once again, my early impression of No Line on the Horizon, to be released March 3 in the United States, has been, "This is the most thoroughly Christian thing they've done yet."
No Line on the Horizon is the 12th studio album by the Irish rock band U2. (Interscope Records)
Like the last two albums, No Line is much more overt in its Christian rendering of the world, what with lyrics like "Justified until we die/You and I will magnify/Oh, the Magnificent" from the album's second track. (So Bono is a fifth-point Calvinist. Who knew?) Yet what qualifies this album as thoroughly Christian is not so much its pervasive biblical/theological images as its overarching eschatological vision.
For those uninitiated in my profession's art of unclear communication, "eschatology" is the technical term for the division of theology that deals with "last things," from the Greek eschatos, "last," and logos, "ordered thought" about something. But eschatology isn't only about what happens at the end.
Baptist theologian James Wm. McClendon Jr. helpfully defined eschatology much more broadly: it's "about what lasts; it is also about what comes last, and about the history that leads from the one to the other.."
In other words, eschatology has to do with God's goals for all creation, from creation to consummation and everything in between, as well as our participation in what God is doing to realize these goals in a world in which they are manifestly not yet realized.
U2's music has long occupied the tension between the present experience of what lasts -- "all that you can't leave behind" -- and the present absence of its full realization -- "I still haven't found what I'm looking for."
The basic message of No Line is that earth is not yet heaven, and therefore the album summons us to "Get On Your Boots" and work toward the day when things will fully be on earth as they are in heaven -- when heaven and earth will be indistinguishable, and there will at last be no line on the horizon.
Moving in that direction requires the triumph "of vision over visibility" ("Moment of Surrender"), an echo of an earlier formulation of the same insight: that the things that last and that come at the last constitute "a place that has to be believed to be seen" ("Walk On" from 2000's All That You Can't Leave Behind). It also requires an inner transformation wrought by a receptive hearing of the voice of God ("Unknown Caller") and a faithful reception of the love of God which requires that one both "stand up" for it and "sit down" to receive it ("Stand Up Comedy").
The central eschatological metaphor of No Line is the sound of the divine song, heard only by those who have the ears to hear it, yet unconsciously sought by everyone, for all people were created to hear and sing this song. Seven of the album's 11 songs invoke that metaphor in one way or another. Key expressions of it are the lines "Let me in the sound...meet me in the sound" from "Get On Your Boots," reprised at the beginning of "FEZ -- Being Born," and the concluding declaration of "Breathe," "I've found grace inside a sound."
Within this framework, No Line also calls our attention to the discordant dimensions of our world. For me the album's highlight is "White As Snow," set as the dying thoughts of a soldier fatally wounded by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan to a melody loosely inspired by the medieval plainsong tune for the thoroughly eschatological hymn "O Come, O Come Emmanuel." The song's musical and narrative zenith, accompanied by crescendoing French horns, is the soldier's remembrance of his baptism, having received the forgiveness of "the lamb as white as snow." But he also remembers his post-baptismal life with regret, for neither his heart nor the hearts of others who have brought him, and the world, to this point have been "as white as snow."
The album's final song "Cedars of Lebanon," cast as the world-weary random musings of a foreign correspondent, closes with a question addressed to God -- "Where are you in the cedars of Lebanon?" -- and a warning: "Choose your enemies carefully 'cause they will define you/Make them interesting 'cause in some ways they will mind you." We're still asking the question voiced earlier in the album: "Where might we find the lamb as white as snow?"
The theologian in me can't resist pointing out that Karl Barth, who incidentally shared a May 10 birthday with Bono, likely would have resonated with this couplet from "Stand Up Comedy" in light of his aversion to rational apologetics: "But while I'm getting over certainty/Stop helping God across the road like a little old lady." And the laughing theologian probably would have chuckled in agreement with the assertion of "Get On Your Boots" that "laughter is eternity if joy is real."
Did I forget to mention that the sound U2 is now hearing and inviting others to hear sounds really, really good?
Steven R. Harmon is associate professor of divinity at Samford University's Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Ala.
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