Author Archives: wb

About wb

I once was lost, and now I'm found. But I still don't know where I'm going.

hello world

You may or may not have noticed that my posts dropped off suddenly in December. That’s not terribly unlike me, but this time the reason wasn’t getting distracted by other work. I found myself writing a post here that probably should have been on my “regular” blog. Then I realized that I really had no reason to have two blogs anymore.

I originally started this blog because I was getting too hung up on looking professional, and I worried that my day-to-day ramblings would undermine that. I came to see that hiding wasn’t a good idea. Now I’m coming to see that I don’t really need a separate space after all.

I still like the name and the logo, so I’m not ready to give up on the site just yet. But you’ll find all my new writing over at joshvajda.net, along with everything I’ve already posted here.

Still wandering,
–Josh

The Power of Memory

When we left the Israelites, God was in the middle of doing something miraculous for them. The chapter breaks in your Bible are not part of the original text; they were a help added later for reference, just like page numbers. But it’s helpful to treat this part of the story separately because even though it’s a continuation of the same miracle, the emphasis is on something completely different: remembering.

I confess my performance in Hebrew was not my best, but I do remember a few things from class, and one of them was the importance of memory and remembering in the Old Testament and for the Jewish people. Over and over again God does miracles for His people, but quite often He also includes instructions to remember.

For example, the Passover miracle was a one-time thing. It was the night that God sent the worst plague on Egypt, killing the firstborn sons in each family. But He made provision that anyone who covered their doorposts with the blood of the lamb would be saved. So God passed over those who responded in faith to God’s instructions.

But this important miracle was to be remembered every single year since then. There are detailed instructions about what to make, how to make it, and what to do. And as is so often the case, God includes explicit instructions for teaching their children: when they ask you, this is what you say.

So the celebration of the Passover is a way of protecting and practicing the memory of the event, and a way of instructing those who do not know. It is teaching others and also a kind of self-teaching.

There were other times God’s people were to remember what He had done. As mentioned before, the Ark of the Covenant contained manna and a budding staff as a testimony to the miracles God did in the wilderness. But in this scenario, instead of instituting a feast that will be practiced every year or collecting an artifact to be guarded, God commissions a monument.

One of the cool things about this choice is that it signifies that they aren’t going anywhere. They can set up a monument because future generations will be in the same land, able to see it. After 40 years of wandering, this had to be an exciting thought.

And Joshua actually has them make two monuments: one with large rocks (carried on the shoulder) from the riverbed, arranged at their military camp in Gilgal, and another with rocks from dry land arranged in a monument on the riverbed itself. I imagine the water rocks were smooth and the land rocks were not. For a long time, then, that had to be a captivating picture.

The text tells us that when this story was finally written down, the stones were all still there, available for the reader to go see. I haven’t checked, but I highly doubt they are still there over 3,000 years later. Too many things could have happened since then. So in a sense, the rock monument was for them, not for us. But it’s recorded in Scripture for our benefit. More on that in a minute.

What’s important is not that we have historic artifacts to go back and verify that the Bible is true. The findings of archeology can only do so much, and it would be wrong to hold the testimony of the Israelite people at a distance until we can verify it through scientific methods. Testimony is just as valid a source of truth. We must take what we can from both.

Testimony and memory are closely intertwined, and maybe it’s here that we are tempted to have our doubts. We know there are liars out there, but most of us aren’t as jaded as Greg House (whose famous catch phrase was “everybody lies”). I suspect most of us who feel skeptical simply recognize our limitations. Sometimes we forget things. Sometimes we compare notes with someone else who was there and find out it’s not so simple. One or both of us may be misremembering.

Research tells us that when we remember something, we are not just retrieving a file, but we are rewriting it. And in the process, we may introduce errors. What a scary thought! The act of remembering at once strengthens the memory and exposes it to risk. But we can’t protect memories by never calling them up. This causes us to lose touch with them in other ways.

Then, of course, there is the added problem of testimony: miscommunication. How many times have you thought you understood what someone else said only to find out later that’s not what they meant? It’s acceptable when the person is accessible and you can give feedback and verify and tweak the message until you’re on the same page.

Despite the weaknesses of memory and testimony, they can be a valid source of knowledge. Just think how totally lost you would be if you tried to get by without them! If you never trusted someone else’s testimony, your parents couldn’t raise you. You couldn’t learn to read. And sadly, we know what life can look like without memory as we see loved ones taken by dementia.

Testimony and memory and an essential part of being human. Despite the risks, it’s good to listen to others, and it’s good to practice remembering. And perhaps because of the weaknesses, God had the Israelites construct the monument. It would be a physical aid to memory. It would conjure the testimony and strengthen the memory through repetition. Even the most important things can use some help.

Perhaps especially the most important things.

I think of my wedding ring, for example. Most days I don’t even notice it. I spend far more time interacting with my wife! Our marriage shapes our relationship and our lives on a daily basis. And yet even for something so foundational, I have this little physical memory aid. When I do notice it, I remember what she had etched on it. I remember how she struggled to get it on my finger on that hot summer day. I look at it when she’s not here and it reminds me of the person who gave it to me, what that meant, and all we have been through together. Of course, it doesn’t bring back all of this every time, but it’s an invitation to any of these things. And even under ideal circumstances, where we are together and happy, what a blessing it is to have it.

I mentioned how the rock monument isn’t for us, but the text is. In some ways, the text of this story is itself the new monument. We are given something physical to remember what God did for the Israelites. We may not see the stones for ourselves, but we can hold the pages of the story in our hands and remember what God did for His people. And this story about the stones reminds us that we, too, need to practice remembering the most important things.

If the only monuments in your life are of you and your family and your achievements, take heed; these are good things, but life is bigger than that. What monuments do you have of God and what He has done? Is Thanksgiving and Christmas about your possessions or the generous God who gave them? Are your walls and storage boxes sanitized of God’s influence on your life? Do you treat the pages of the Bible as a series of monuments to be talked about and remembered?

Finally, don’t just keep these monuments to yourself. Remember them aloud, together with your friends and loved ones. I am probably oversensitive to repetition. I generally prefer subtlety to heavy-handedness (unless we’re working on something together, then overcommunication is best!). But I need to learn that life together is a kind of project, one where we sometimes need to risk overcommunicating what is most important to help one another remember.

Miraculous

Once upon a time, “miraculous” meant just that. Today we more often use it as a synonym for improbable or amazing, if we use it at all.

During the Enlightenment in Europe, elites came to think that the physical world was governed by laws that could not be broken—even by God. God was supremely rational, only acting in ways that we would deem rational, ways that fit what nature told us about reality. After philosopher David Hume expressed his skepticism of miracles, we in the West began to think of them differently. Something might be improbable or amazing, but nothing truly miraculous could ever happen.

This poses a problem for Christians, because the Bible is full of accounts of miracles. (Or is that rather a problem for skeptics?)

Some assume that what science tells us about the world is true and that it could only ever always be that way. For that person, the choice is to either dismiss parts of the Bible as mere myth or to try and come up with an alternative explanation for how nature could accomplish what seemed (to the ignorant barbarians depicted in the story) true, like expert sleight of hand.

In Joshua chapter 3, the story centers on a miracle. The Israelites are about to enter the Promised Land, and God speaks to Joshua in verse 7 and tells him: “Today I will begin to exalt you in the sight of all Israel, that they may know that, as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.” He goes on to direct Joshua to have the priests carry the ark of the covenant into the river.

A few quick notes: the ark of the covenant was a special container for artifacts from past miracles, like the Ten Commandments and Aaron’s flowering staff. When placed in the Holy of Holies, it was the space God chose to meet with Israel. It was exceptionally holy and will go on to have its own adventures in the book of 1 Samuel.

You should also know that when God led the people out of Egypt, He parted the waters of the Red Sea so that the Israelites could pass through on dry land.

In other words, their journey out of Egypt and into the Promised Land will end the way that it started, by passing through the waters that have been miraculously separated for them.

You may be thinking, “come on, Josh. You can’t possibly believe that actually happened. That sort of thing never happens.” Precisely. That’s why it’s called a miracle. No one argues over whether that sort of thing “happens.” The argument is over whether it could be made to happen. In short, the question is about whether God exists and is who He says He is.

In chapter 2, Rahab recognized that God was over the heavens and the earth. By parting the seas, God is exercising His rule over the earth. It all belongs to Him. Is anything too hard for Him? (Jer. 32:17). Will He speak and not carry it out?

Anyone who wants to “naturalize” this miracle has his work cut out for him. There are details to contend with. The source of the water is not shut off, but “the water flowing downstream will stand up in a mass.” This wasn’t a conveniently dry time of year, but harvest time, when “the Jordan overflows its banks.” It wasn’t some local event, because the mass of water “extended as far as Adam, a city next to Zarethan.”

It wasn’t that people didn’t know how water works, or that some exceptionally rare event tricked them. They know how crazy this sounds. And yet it’s not crazy at all if you believe in God.

And that’s actually why this is happening. Verse 10: so “you will know that the living God is among you.” God is going to do the unthinkable to demonstrate that He is with them.

Our chapter ends here, but the story doesn’t. We’ll pick that up next time. But for now, just wonder at the possibility that God exists, and that the laws of nature are under His control, and that miracles actually happen. How might believing that change the way you live?

Miracles still happen today. I have seen them. Dr. Craig Keener has famously documented many of them. They may not always happen, or not when we want or the way we want. But the fact that they do happen is a reminder that the living God exists and is among us.

An Unlikely Hero

I’ve always been proud of my name, and every kid knows the story about the battle of Jericho. I’ve known most of these stories from a young age. And somehow, by God’s grace, the fact that the story prominently features a prostitute didn’t sink in until I was much, much older.

But as we continue surveying Joshua, we meet her right away. Her name is Rahab, and she is not only the main character in chapter 2, she’s the hero. Joshua sends spies to scout out the land and gain intel, and she takes them in, hides them, and covers for them. What’s more, she feeds them information: her people are terrified of them and their God.

But the best part is this: unlike the other Canaanites, Rahab recognizes not only that God has given them the land (v9), but that He is “God in heaven above and on earth below” (v11). So she wants to defect. She wants to be on God’s side.

And she’s not just in it for herself; she bargains with the spies for the life of her family—”father, mother, brothers, sisters, and all who belong to them” (v13). She’s risking everything for her family.

We don’t know anything about Rahab’s former life, except her occupation. But if you read the books of Moses, you would know what God thinks of that line of work.

  • “Do not profane your daughter by making her a prostitute, lest the land fall into prostitution and the land become full of depravity.” (Leviticus 19:29)
  • Priests are not to marry a prostitute (Leviticus 21:7, 14)
  • “None of the daughters of Israel shall be a cult prostitute, and none of the sons of Israel shall be a cult prostitute.” (Deuteronomy 23:17)

Perhaps more to the point, there are many laws governing sexual ethics, and prostitution routinely breaks them. The penalty for that kind of thing wasn’t jail time like today; it was death. What’s more, prostitution usually had religious significance, so her work was probably devoted to one of the very false gods the Israelites have come to wipe out. Idolatry was also prohibited and punishable by death.

So all we know of her past is something terrible about her. On paper, she is not the kind of person who is a good fit for God’s people. And yet, by taking in the spies, helping them, and bargaining for her family, she demonstrates that she believes what she has said about God: He is God of heaven and earth (i.e. everything).

In fact, her faith is mentioned alongside the likes of Abraham and Moses in the epic list found in Hebrews 11.

Do you see what’s happening? Rahab should be the kind of person the Israelites have come to eliminate. But because she believed what she heard about God, believed that He is the one true God, and acted on that belief, she is spared.

In fact, later on we find out she isn’t just spared but welcomed, and not just as a resident alien but as a crucial person in God’s plan of salvation. She marries into the people of Israel. (The prostitute got married? Yes. Rahab joined the family.) Her great great grandson becomes the most famous king in Israel’s history: David. And if you know anything about Bible history, it should come as no surprise that as King David’s ancestor, she is also an ancestor of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

This is what I love about Scripture. The Old Testament sometimes gets a bad reputation, but over and over again we see pictures like this. God showed Rahab kindness because of her faith. Because of the works that evidenced this faith, He forgave all the despicable works that came before it. This is the God of the Bible, one who gives laws and seeks justice in the land, but then welcomes the sinner who turns and places her faith in Him.

Be Strong and Courageous

A Brief Intro to a New Series

I’ve been thinking lately about getting back to a Bible study. I discovered as a Sunday School teacher (and again teaching electives at another church) that even though I am interested in other fields, the Bible is the best bridge with fellow believers. If something in history, philosophy, or theology is relevant, it will be most apparent when it comes up in conversation about the Word.

I plan to continue my previous writing plans as able, but they were taking a lot of time and I needed something more manageable for an everyday commitment. More importantly, I want to make sure whatever time I am investing here is maximally useful to those around me.

So after debating a bit, I thought I would do the obvious thing and pick up my personal studies in the Bible and write about them each day. I spent the better part of the last 2 years in the Pentateuch, and after flirting with more ambitious follow-ups, it now seems clear to me that I should just keep going.

So today I am beginning a series in Joshua. I have no ulterior motives for picking this book over others. I am simply stepping out in full confidence that whatever is here contains truths that are useful in some way or another. My intent is to simply share a bit of what I see, and explain some of the process behind my thinking. That way you can benefit from whatever fruit is there, but also perhaps find insights that improve your own study skills as well.

Exploring Joshua 1

There’s a lot one can say about everything that has led up to the beginning of this book, but you get the gist of it right here. Moses is gone. This is one of the most famous religious figures in world history. Moses led them for 40 years, represented them before God, represented God to them, and passed on hundreds of laws (summed up in the original Big Ten).

Joshua has some big shoes to fill.

The text doesn’t get into even those details. What it emphasizes is God saying He will bring to fruition in Joshua what He promised to Moses (verse 3), and He would be with Joshua just as He was with Moses. Moses may be gone, but God is not. Whatever Moses’s personal strengths and abilities, God was the true source of his wisdom and power. Because of this, Joshua take comfort in knowing that what matters most hasn’t changed.

What really hits you over the head in this chapter is the phrase “be strong and courageous.” It shows up directly four times (verses 6, 7, 9, and 18) and then again in the negative form “do not be afraid or discouraged” (verse 9). The command is clear enough; we know what courage is, and we know what kind of strength goes along with it. But two additional things strike me because of it.

First, the relationship between this command and the assurance before it. “I will be with you, . . . I will not leave you or abandon you. [Therefore] Be strong and courageous.” God is there, God is almighty, God is all-wise, God is supremely good, and so knowing that He is here to fulfill what He has promised should be enough, right? But the command implies that Joshua doesn’t get to simply coast and watch God work. God is calling Joshua to join Him in leading, to join Him in the victory.

You see, God will give them victory, but they still have to fight. They still have to choose courage over fear. They still have to spend their strength accomplishing what ultimately God will do. We sometimes think something happens either because of God or because of us, but this verse is a great example of how God works in, with, and through us to accomplish His purposes. To watch God work often includes working with Him.

Second, I imagine all this repetition is needed for some reason. There are reasons to be afraid. There are reasons to feel weak. I won’t speculate what they are because the Bible doesn’t give them here, but it’s safe to assume Joshua (or at very least those around him) would benefit from some encouragement. Before Moses, there was slavery in Egypt. They had come a long way. And if the record is any indication, Joshua probably trusted Moses more than anyone else did. Whatever might have given him pause, God is saying there is a greater truth, a reason to be strong anyway, to be courageous anyway.

But again, I’m not interested in speculation. If the reason were important, God would have given it. What is here is the command: be strong and courageous. The reason doesn’t matter. The call to action does.

I also love the way God put those words in the mouths of other Israelites as well. God said those words directly in one form or another three times. Joshua heard those words from the mouth of God. Then, in holding some of the tribes accountable for their part of the fight, he hears the same words coming from them! “Certainly the LORD your God will be with you, as He was with Moses. . . . Above all, be strong and courageous!”

That had to feel good. God was confirming His words through His people, the very people who could let him down in battle just as their parents often did to Moses in the wilderness. If God could confirm His words through them, it’s a reminder that God can fulfill His promises through them, too.

One final thought. “Be strong and courageous” was not God’s only command. He begins with “prepare to cross over” (verse 2) and eventually gets to the next set of commands, which have to do with keeping the law.

But this isn’t just a third item on the list. I almost missed an incredibly important little word! To. (This is why prepositions get me really excited in Bible studies!) Verse 3 says that “be strong and courageous” is not just a blanket admonition but is attached to keeping the law. He says in verse 7, “Above all, be strong and very courageous to observe carefully the whole instruction my servant Moses commanded you” (CSV).

This sheds light on our “why?” question above. You may be afraid to follow through on God’s Law. You may be discouraged and give up following God’s commandments. Don’t be.

Now here’s where reading Exodus through Deuteronomy becomes essential to understanding the passage. If you read through them all, you might find them discouraging. It is a lot to remember, and a high standard to keep. The people have already demonstrated time and again an unwillingness to obey these commandments. Don’t give up. Don’t give in. Be strong in obedience. Be courageous in leading according to the Law.

And so God tells Joshua to meditate on the Law in order to keep it, and that in doing so, Joshua would find success.

Application

You might be tempted to read this passage and think God is telling you right now to be bold and courageous in whatever you plan to do. But that’s not what He was telling Joshua. God had already told him what to do: take the land and follow the Law. He was, in a very specific set of circumstances, reminding Joshua that He was doing something and would work through Joshua to complete it. “Be strong and courageous” is a command firmly rooted in those circumstances.

But if you are in Christ, you have a parallel set of circumstances. You are not called to conquer a land, but you are called to take up your cross. You may not be called to lead a people, but you are a part of the people of God. You may not have heard God speak to you directly, God’s Holy Spirit is with you. You may not be living under the Mosaic covenant, but you do have God’s instructions in the 66 books of the Bible (Moses+61, for those keeping score). You may not be promised victory tomorrow, but you have been promised that Christ will return victorious.

So this passage should remind you of the similar commands and circumstances you face. If you are in Christ, God is with you, has given you His Word, has included you in His people, and has promised you a place in the Kingdom of Christ to come. And in these circumstances, the same words apply as much as ever: be strong. Be courageous. Not to live out your personal mission, but to be faithful to the mission that God has already given to every one of His disciples.

And the great thing is even when we are weak or discouraged, we can look to Christ. He was strong under the greatest temptations. He was courageous to death, even death on a cross. And because He was faithful in everything, we who are weak can find strength in Him. You who are discouraged can be emboldened because of Christ.

Of course, if you haven’t put your faith in Jesus yet, you don’t have the same ability Joshua did to be strong or courageous. God is not with us because we are good enough, but because we have aligned ourselves with His mission by trusting Him, submitting to Him, and being reconciled with Him. Being strong in your own strength and courageous in your own plans might get you somewhere for a while, but in the end even the strongest man grows weak and the most courageous woman dies. And without being reconciled to God, you live all that time as God’s enemy. And you die as God’s enemy. And then what?

I didn’t plan to go here today, but understand that whoever you are, the encouragement for you to be strong and courageous today depends entirely on Jesus Christ. If you don’t know Him yet, you can. And if you do, you have everything you need right now to be strong in Him and courageous in Him.

Reflections on Political Divisions

As I write this, it looks clear that Proposal 3 has passed in the state of Michigan, and that abortion is now considered a constitutional right. I have tried to back away from speaking about politics because there are more important things to talk about, and when I do speak up, I often choose to critique my own movement rather than preach to the choir and raise the banner. I don’t want to win. I want to get at what is true and good together.

But today I want to why it is that so many people see this as a horrifying defeat while at the same time so many more see this as a glorious victory. How can one event be interpreted in such vastly different ways?

Of course, I’ve seen the easy answer online: the other side is pure evil. “They” are full of hate. “They” just want to murder babies. “They” just want to enslave women. No doubt some do, but I hope you, dear reader, are wise enough to know such extreme positions don’t represent the whole group.

So if “they” aren’t pure evil, while else would they disagree with me? The next step is to say they are acting irrationally for one reason or another. Perhaps “they” are driven by an unconscious bias or hatred; some deeper inner drive is overriding their sense of good judgment. Maybe it’s the desire for sex, the desire for freedom, the desire for control, or some kind of homophobia or misogyny or racism. These, if true, may be forgiven to some degree, because we are complex people and sometimes unaddressed issues can throw anyone off course. With a little counseling, a little reflection, a little education, maybe we could overcome some of these hidden drivers.

Less forgivable is the idea that their irrationality is caused by an obstacle not from within but from without. Perhaps “they” have been brainwashed by some organization. Whether it’s the church, the state, the family, some corporation, some NPO, we worry that someone in power is lying to the people and manipulating them. This is less forgivable. In fact, the idea fills us with rage. I am informed! You are a pawn! My team is trustworthy, but yours is destroying my country! How dare they do this, and how dare you let them.

No doubt these are factors, too. We live in a marketplace of influence and attention, and there are some who want influence badly enough to do anything for attention. They will lie if lying gets them more influence. They will manipulate if they think it will benefit them. But how do you know who is playing this game and who is actually after the truth? House used to say “everybody lies.” Is the solution to trust no one? This only hastens the breakdown of society. We can’t live like that.

It is possible everyone is bent on power over principle. But I don’t believe we’re there yet. I think there are people of goodwill who want to raise healthy families, who want to do right by their neighbors, who want to leave to their children a society that is in some way better than the one they inherited. I think that kind of person is still the majority in America. I am convinced that we are not divided by hate or lies, although the haters and liars do benefit from our division. I am convinced we are divided by different beliefs about what it means to be good, and different beliefs about what is true.

So I submit that, despite there being some evil people, some tainted by irrational drives, and some hoodwinked by powerful organizations, we primarily interpret this event in two opposite ways because it seems rational to us. It fits with what we believe about what is true and good. We discern who to trust based on our pre-existing beliefs. We discern what is rational and what is irrational, or what is pure evil and what is accidental, based on our pre-existing beliefs.

And so while many will either lament or celebrate today’s outcome, I lament the underlying reality. I lament that a country full of people who want to do the right thing are so fractured in their understanding of what the right thing is.

Some no doubt believe that the rift has grown too wide, that there is no going back. I pray that this is not true. In fact, I have staked my career on the opposite of this. The reason that I applied myself to the study of philosophy and theology is because I believe it’s possible to discover the truth, and even to persuade one another of the truth. I don’t believe we are locked in our own minds with our own prejudices, helpless to change. I believe that we can come to see truths we would not initially accept. I believe we can grown in our ability to think well, to identify errors, and to help one another do the same.

In some ways it feels silly to have to write that. I have heard grown men tell me to my face that people become who they are are kids and when they are adults, they can’t change. And perhaps it is harder, sure, but it is patently false. We have evidence of this all around us, all throughout history, all throughout literature. Don’t buy the lie that says if you disagree with someone today, you will always disagree for the rest of your lives.

There is a more spiritual version of this argument that I hear as well. It says that people who don’t believe are trapped in their unbelief, and only people who do believe can see the truth. And since these beliefs are foundational to all others, you can never persuade someone who isn’t a believer about anything substantive, and you shouldn’t bother trying. This is a warped doctrine you will not find in the Bible. Don’t believe it.

How can I say this? Easy. We already share a great many beliefs in common. We already have many things in common that we take for granted. We learn to emphasize and brood over our differences, and at a more fundamental level we tend to find our identity in our uniqueness, but the reality is we share much in common, even if it’s only the capacity to emphasize, brood, and be unique. Of course, I believe it’s more than that.

Not only do we already have things in common, but we are already changing. We have changed over the past 10 years, and before that we had changed over the previous 30 years, and so on. Change is happening in the externals and in our fundamental values. And if they can change in one direction, they can change in another.

So if we have some values in common and have demonstrated an ability to change, then it’s not only possible but necessary to try and build on our commonality and change in productive ways.

Some on both sides want to see groups or even government dismantled. The problem with overthrowing the old culture is that the first act of the new culture is destructive. It is not a neutral action or merely an outward facing action, but it is an action that changes us. We become a culture of destruction. Again, we cannot live that way. We need a more constructive approach.

What blocks us first is fear. We are afraid that whoever we are meeting with won’t be honest, will be manipulative, or a pawn of someone else’s manipulation. We need to rebuild trust, which I am told comes through going through difficult times together and finding that we have each other’s backs in a crisis. The past decade has not been good for this either, because whether the issue is race or economy or public health, so many of us feel like we have been through the crisis and found others have let us down. That is a real challenge. I can only hope that we will give each other another chance.

And this brings me to my final point: how do we come to know who was wrong so that we can apologize and reconcile? If it’s true, as I have argued, that there are a great many people of goodwill on both sides, and that our disagreement is not over desiring the truth and doing what is good but rather over what is true and what is good, then we confront again the real task, and it is monumental: we have to find some way of talking about what is true and good constructively. We have to find some way of reexamining our own beliefs to see where they can be corrected and trusting that others will, too.

Because, and this is crucial, to be this divided can only mean one of two things at a fundamental level. For any single conviction where we disagree, either one side is right and the other is wrong, or the disagreement stems from a paradox that needs to be addressed. For example, if I say abortion is always wrong and you say abortion is sometimes right, we are faced with a contradiction. We cannot both be right, at least not in the same sense. We would either have to explore whether there is some imprecision in what we are saying and nuance our positions until we found how they fit together, or, if we find we face a true contradiction, we need to determine which stance is wrong. To do that we need a shared way of exploring our beliefs and some shared set of criteria that identifies what is true.

What I am describing is nothing new. In fact, it is very, very old. There are some who want to give up this process, who see this process as itself part of the problem. But I tend to think that most of us attempt to do something like this but overestimate our abilities and actually practice something far less rigorous and far sloppier.

Is it possible to examine our beliefs and values, to work toward consensus, and to believe the best about each other? I believe it is. The problem is (1) it is hard work, (2) we are too distracted, and (3) simply winning feels like enough. But if my victory is at the expense of half the country, it is a hollow victory. That was true for the end of Roe v. Wade, and it is true again today for those who supported Prop 3 in Michigan.

So I will continue to look for ways to test and refine my beliefs, and for ways to help you do the same. I will try to get better at explaining what I think is true and good and why, and inviting you to discuss that with me. But I call on all people of goodwill to believe the best about the people you disagree with. Some of them are liars and haters; I am not denying that. But please do whatever you can to make sure the people you are connected to get the benefit of the doubt.

It is probably too late for simple solutions, but I hope things will not have to get any worse before we take seriously our responsibility to build a society together rather than tear one apart together.

I AM, Therefore…

In exploring Romanticism, I expected to find some key seeds of thought at the root of the movement, things that contrasted with Rationalism. I was not disappointed.

I have taught for years on Descartes’ famous statement, later summarized as “I think, therefore I am.” In case you are unfamiliar, Descartes was a French philosopher/mathematician who was trying to bring about an end to the religious strife in his day by trying to discover truth that would unite, truth that could not be doubted. Not a bad wish. But his method was all wrong: first of all, because he tried to discover this truth by reason alone, shutting out the world of sense experience and inherited traditions. Second, because he opted to search through doubt. His conclusion was that he could find a way to doubt everything except the act of doubting itself. This, he reasoned, was a form of thinking, which must be done by a thinking thing, which must be me! Thus, he “proved” to himself the truth of his existence beyond all possibility of doubt. One perhaps unintended side-effect was the way it cast man as essentially a thinking thing. What am I? A reasoner.

It turned out proving anything else was harder than Descartes thought, which drew attention to the problem of how you know your perceptions are related to reality. This is the turn to the subject, where we focus on the subjective (mind dependent) in hopes of finding a way back to the real world “out there.”

Of course, rationalism as a movement didn’t get stuck in this subjectivity problem. It was too busy making sense of the universe through deduction and induction, through math and experimentation. But it would create other problems that I won’t get into in any depth today. Suffice it to say that, according to Isaiah Berlin, rationalism applied as a worldview was too much for some to bear, and so reactions percolated and coalesced until Romanticism was born.

I’m not able to tell that story yet. What I want to focus on is this: Romanticism as a counter-movement had its own moment like Descartes, with similar ripple effects. The German philosopher Fichte asserted, according to Berlin, “You become aware of the self only when there is some kind of resistance. . . . In the resistance emerged the self and the not-self” (Berlin 108, 109). In other words, “I resist, therefore I am.” I noticed it right away, and Berlin himself circled back to make this very point a few pages later, “I will, therefore I am.”

I have long been fascinated by the relationship between faith and reason, and in some ways this is a part of this larger conversation, the relationship between will and reason. Some scholars think European civilization shifted into modernity because of new teachings about God that placed His will above His reason and even His goodness (see Theological Origins of Modernity by Gillespie). God could never bind Himself by a promise because He is radically free. This is the “voluntarist” (from the Latin for will) picture of God, and the theory is that such a God could not act as the basis for knowledge about reality, so mankind turned to nature looking for something more stable. (I am truncating the argument considerably, but I hope not distorting it too badly.)

If so, it should be of no surprise that this voluntarist conception of God would, through one change and influence after another, result in something of a voluntarist conception of self. If my identity is in my will, especially as an expression of resistance toward the world and its order, then I am going to be encouraged to look inside to find myself, to insist on self expression as a necessary aspect of life, and ultimately to reject any categories that are foisted upon me. This is more or less the picture painted in Trueman’s Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self, although he highlights other, later contributors.

Supposing all this is true, then is it possible the same corrective I was taught about Descartes and rationalist skepticism could address Fichte and voluntarist individualism?

Anselm said, quoting Augustine, that “unless I believe, I shall not understand.” He saw his reasoning abilities and overall relationship to truth as dependent on believing rightly, although whether or not he saw himself as a “believing thing,” I cannot say for sure, but that seems unlikely.

Augustine also, with Luther after him, famously emphasized his inability to will correctly apart from God’s work. But this cannot be recast so simply as “Unless I believe, I shall not will [what is good].” Believing itself is usually seen as an act of the will, or at least closely bound up with it. But to some degree this is what we must say; faith is the first act of the will (or among them; I don’t want to be pedantic here) that makes possible the healing of the will. How this first act of faith comes about is a mystery debated over for centuries, but Western Christians are usually united in saying man is incapable apart from some help from God (see Second Council of Orange).

For my part, whichever thread we pull, whether reason or faith or will or any other human faculty, (e.g., conscience, intuition, sense experience, etc.), it will always lead us back to God. He existed first. He created us. He is intimately involved in all of reality. Before man’s reason was God’s wisdom, before man’s will was God’s “let there be.”

The fundamental principle of identity is I AM. And, crucially, that “I” is not me.

Meditations on God

Or “Stand in Wander,” part 2

The heart of theology is God Himself. What we believe about God undergirds everything else, and so what we have in common is that much more crucial, and where we disagree can be that much more divisive. As far as I am aware, I hold a very traditional Christian view of God. But this doesn’t mean that I don’t sometimes bump into people who disagree with me.

I believe God is Trinity, one God in three persons. It is difficult to comprehend and difficult to explain to my kids sometimes, but I don’t believe it because it’s convenient. I accept it as the Bible’s testimony about who God is. There is only one God, but the Father, Son, and Spirit are somehow distinct. I take it that any competing view of God in church history is a rationalization, trying to smooth out the wrinkles. The Trinity does not seem to me to be a rationalization; it’s simply affirming what is there in the text on faith.

I think the Trinity is essential, but I don’t get too dogmatic about people accidentally confusing the persons of the Trinity in their prayers, as so often happens. One friend not long ago said, “Heavenly Father, we thank you that you are a risen savior.” Not true. But I know what he meant and I don’t think less of him for it. I suspect God is patient with people who come in humility and love and accidentally blur the details of a mystery.

One of my favorite books about God was in some ways not really a book about God at all. I chose Fools for Christ from a list of options to read and report on in my sanctification course at seminary, and at first I was baffled by what was there. 6 portraits, and not all of people I would normally think of as Christians. But author Jaroslav Pelikan was making a point with each of these about the nature of the traditional philosophical ideals of the True, the Good, and the Beautiful. And as I reflected on the book I came to see his point: for each of these, he demonstrated how we cannot use Truth, for example, to “get to” God. We cannot be good enough or beautiful enough. We cannot access God by these three virtues. But likewise, we do not use God to access these three virtues, as though if we want the Truth, we should pursue God, if we want Beauty, we should pursue God, etc. Why not? Because that would be idolatry, making God a means to getting some greater thing beyond Him. Instead, we approach God by grace for who He is, and in Him is Goodness, in Him is Beauty, in Him is Truth, and so we get these things thrown in, as it were. It did a great job of clarifying for me the doctrines of transcendence, of grace, and of God’s perfection. It gave me a clear vision of how to relate my own quests for truth, goodness, and beauty to Him, and I will be forever grateful.

Returning to the concept of the Trinity, I have never liked the idea of “perichoresis,” but it may be in part my bias against dance. I don’t mean that I think dancing is bad or that I don’t recognize the joy that comes from being moved by the music. It just always seemed like a frivolous image to attach to God’s eternal nature. God is God! He’s not a dance party. Of course, that’s just a metaphor, but metaphors are only good if they help you make a connection, and this one just doesn’t work for me. (For those of you who aren’t familiar, “perichoresis” is the idea that the unity of the three persons is something like a dance in which they are so closely working that they blend into a kind of oneness. This just seems sloppy to me. Perhaps there are better presentations out there than the one I heard.) Instead I prefer language I heard elsewhere, although I no longer remember where: that what one person does, the other persons do in, with, and through Him. This seems more accurate to me, although it probably has its own weaknesses.

One of the key doctrines that is running in the background behind my doctrine of God is the analogical nature of speech about God. I believe that words we attribute to God are not univocal in the sense that words are human conventions based on human experiences, and what God is precedes and transcends those concepts. Nevertheless, God is not wholly different from these things because He uses human words to reveal who He is to us, and since God is truthful and trustworthy, we know that there must be some truth to these words, even if they cannot be understood in basic human ways. So we have the language of analogy, that there is something in common but not precisely the same when we speak of God. God is Father, has something in common with human fathers, but is not a human father. God may be described as having a hand, but we know that what we think of as a hand is something He created, and that He does not have a body, so the word does not precisely mean what it normally means, but it does truthfully communicate something about God. This is primarily because of God’s transcendence.

On this note, one thing that bothers me is the trend in some circles to try and divest God of any masculine connotations. One book I read recently, for example, never called God “Him” but only “Godself.” Blech. I know God transcends human sex categories. He is not male the way we know male. And yet, God chose that word, that set of words (He, Him, His, Father, etc.) to reveal Himself. So it does not seem to me to be more enlightened to exchange them for something that He could have chosen to do but didn’t, out of fear of what the words God chose might do. Better to confront the error than to clear the table and start over.

Another doctrine that has profoundly influenced by theology is the idea that there is no nature apart from grace. (I believe I mentioned something about this in passing in my first entry for this series.) In virtue of God’s omnipresence, in virtue of God’s creating power, and even more so because of His sustaining power which “upholds all things,” I believe there is no such thing as a place on earth where God is not. Everything originates with Him, everything is proximate to His presence, and everything is sustained by Him. Everything is sacred, although it takes effort to properly understand this. God is distinct from Creation; we are not gods, and we are not in God in some pantheistic or panentheistic sense. But there is no neutral space, no place where God is not, nothing irrelevant to spiritual things one way or another.

There is more I could say about the traditional attributes of God, about how He is all-wise and almighty, or about His character and the astounding harmony of mercy and justice perfectly united and expressed in Him, among many other goods that we hold in tension in this world. Again, I think saying “I hold traditional views” pretty much addresses things. I have no hesitation about saying God is love, or seeing love as the defining characteristic of God (if we should be forced to choose one). Why? Not only because the Bible says “God is love,” but this is the core characteristic of our discipleship as well. If Paul can say “love is the fulfillment of the Law,” and Christi Himself can say that the two greatest commandments are to “love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength,” and “love your neighbor as yourself,” then it seems to me love is at the heart of all the rest.

And that brings me to where I will end today’s reflections, limited though they are. I am so grateful to have been trained at Dallas Seminary, where more than one professor emphasized the role of Jesus Christ as the fullest revelation of who God is. I understand some traditions try to emphasize God in a more all-encompassing way, or perhaps the Father because He is given priority of place over the Son in His ministry. But I am convinced our best representation of who God is comes through Jesus Christ, the incarnate God. As Dr. Burns said, it is impossible to make too much of Christ. God is Father and Spirit as well, but our access to them comes through the Son.

Why I Am Exploring Romanticism

(Note: I usually try to write things that I think might benefit others, but this post is shaping up to be a little more personal, self-indulgent, and reflective. If that’s not interesting to you, don’t tell me, as I shall then have to pretend not to know you.)

I’ve been exploring some new trails lately and today I would like to try writing about them. This is in part to collect my thoughts, but also to combat the ever-present urge to wait until you have something better to say.

When trying to land on a specialization, venturing someplace new is a risky proposition. Everything is unfamiliar, which is exciting, but you can’t yet tell what is important and what isn’t. Of course, there are some things fresh eyes appreciate that old eyes have come to take for granted, but in academia, you have to wait there and be patient, take it all in and out and in again.

So I’ve chosen some new trails that run through my hometown. It’s a familiar place seen through new vantage points. Time will tell if it’s the place to settle down or another stop on the way.

I’ve been dabbling in history, you see. History! After majoring in English and theology and philosophy, minoring in film and meddling in music. History, where one Ford thing after another warns away good Baptists and where unplanned obsolescence is made to bow to the latest iPhone Galaxy.

I have always loved systematic theology, and for a time I believed (because I was so taught) the best theology was indistinguishable from philosophy. And while I do defend reason and believe in a good argument and find joy in programming and debugging, I have come to believe that to do that in the academy means contributing to secular scholarship. And I don’t at all enjoy trying to fashion arguments that do not follow from Christian premises or wading shoulder deep into analytic proofs. (Besides, my brother has already claimed the handle “Philosophy Vajda,” so I am too late. I must embrace another identity.)

While systematic theology is my passion, I find it hard to locate a scholarly grounding there. It seems to me that most of theology is either philosophy, history, sociology, or interpretation, but related to theological interests in some way or another. One of my mentors assures me that systematic theology is real and scholarly and essentially means citing the scholars in other disciplines. I am open to that idea, but for now I am unsure. I suspect that if I want to contribute scholarship that exists not just for my denomination or tribe and instead builds on the great city to which all scholars strive to contribute, I must embrace to some degree or another one of these feeder disciplines. If so, history is the obvious choice.

I won’t go into all the personal reasons why, but suffice it to say, history has always been a part of my life, always an interest; it is what I most often read for fun, it is an element in much of my favorite fiction, it is an essential framework for understanding the world. In fact, (this anecdote I will share), while on staff at Cornerstone, I took the StrengthsFinder survey and was appalled to find “Context” was my number one strength. It might as well have said my greatest strength was “walking without tripping” or “breathing with astonishing effortlessness.” Over time I came to see that “context” is so basic to me I was completely unaware of another way to view the world.

But enough of all that. History is a direction, not a destination. I have been poking around a corner of history that is new and old to me. Growing up I was immersed in 20th century history, and it still fascinates me. But over time I came to see that the seeds for the 20th century were planted in the 19th (that is, the 1800s, for you practical types). So I have been dabbling in that century for many years now, mostly in audiobooks and Great Courses, but occasionally in books, too. Marsden’s first edition of The Soul of the University and Noll’s Princeton Theologians, for example.

Right now, I am poking around the early parts. I am learning about the roots of liberalism and their connection with Romanticism, and here’s where things get really wild for me. Nearly to the degree that history is in my blood, Romanticism is, too. Only toward the end of my education at DTS did I become aware that it was its own theological movement, and that its fingerprints were all over my life. I knew Modernity as rationalism, and Postmodernity as a kind of post-rationalism. I had heard about German Higher Criticism and Darwinism and fundamentalism and so on. I knew my denominations. I knew my doctrines. But Romanticism was always talked about under other names, or perhaps only through nearby relations like Pietism, Scottish Common Sense, Idealism, and so on. This really landed on my radar as an area worth exploring after reading Carl Trueman’s Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self.

So on the one hand, I am curious, and that is always a good sign. I also feel a burden to understand liberalism, postmodernism, and progressivism, and I have never been able to shake that burden. I’m not interesting in winning some apologetic debate; I wish to find the truth, not defeat an opponent. But if I can learn something from these traditions and perhaps bring to light things that could bring healing to the church, that would be an incredible priviledge.

But one last connection. Did I mention I majored in English? In every elective where I had the choice, I focused on 19th and 20th century literature. Until now, that education was preparation for the mind in general, but it has not proved all that useful in theological conversations. So studying the roots and effects of Romanticism puts me in a position to re-engage with my undergraduate work. This is thrilling to me for many reasons, not least of which is that I chose these studies because I enjoyed them and not because I planned to get anything professionally advantageous out of them. I have since been haunted by the need to choose the thing that will make my efforts “count” in some way, (see above), and that always casts a bit of doubt over whether there is anything deeper there to ground the labor. I look forward to exploring further whether there is something there in the natural growth that can feed the more structured enterprise.

Goodness. I sat down with the hopes of sharing what I had been reading about the Romantics, but it’s turned out to be all prelude instead. I promise to come back to it, though I know not when.

A Place Where You Belong

I was provoked in my spirit the other day by some tweets from a person I only began following this year. Sometimes it is important to name names, but I’m not ready to do that at this stage. I appreciate some of what he has to say, and he was recommended by a friend from church. I even have a book he co-authored sitting in my stack of books to be read in the near future.

So being new to him, I don’t know if this is his thing or if he’s gone off on a tangent, but there is a reason I don’t think it matters that you know who he is: he represents a way of thinking that has been around evangelicalism for longer than I’ve been alive. So I mean to critique the movement and the idea, not the man.

But what is this strange yet familiar teaching, Josh?

It’s about who church is for.

I almost went on a nostalgic rabbit trail here, but I stopped myself, for you. The point I was going to make stands on its own: I have grown up in churches that embraced change and churches that resisted change, and I am a big fan of the former. But with one caveat: what you change and what stays the same makes all the difference in the world.

I was once someone who pushed for change in one of those resistant churches. I saw modern rock instruments as neutral tools, not the spiritual poison many decried. I saw modern translations as making God’s words more accessible, and how could that be a bad thing? Choirs, pews, hymnals, stained glass—none of it sacred. Just one strategy or another.

What mattered above all else is this: what are we trying to do here?

I bought the idea that church should be welcome to visitors, and that sermons should be evangelistic, and that the Sunday morning experience should be geared around the kind of thing you could invite your friend to, because the pastor was better at sharing the Gospel than the rest of us. I had nothing against old things, per se, but I wanted to see improvement. I wanted to cast off anything that hindered.

But these impulses have changed over the years. Perhaps in part due to other doctrines learned in seminary, learning to appreciate the local church, membership, communion, baptism, etc. I came to appreciate not the value of old things in and of themselves but the possibility that I had not fully reflected on their wisdom. It was not history that won me over but philosophy, teaching me that every object and every image and every practice is part of a network of beliefs. There are no neutral tools.

I’ll save the implications of that thought for another time, but that wasn’t what effected the big change. Seminary didn’t directly change my mind. Instead, I found myself in another church that was generally resistant to change, and it made me reflect on the doctrines behind that. I had never really come back to that main question: what are we trying to do here? Or better yet, what should we be trying to do here?

Sure, there are the big categories of worship, teaching, evangelism, service, and fellowship. (If I recall, that version came through Rick Warren.) I still find this list helpful. But it’s missing a crucial element: who is the Sunday morning service for?

So I began, as any good Baptist would, looking at Scripture. I know the church is the people of God, not the building, so the local church meeting seems to be the local people-of-God meeting. So far, so good. In Acts, we see the apostles going out into the synagogues, the marketplaces, etc. to share the news about Jesus, and people were being invited back to their gatherings. None of the formal elements we recognize in church yet, but obviously a bunch of new people are going to change the dynamics of the meeting.

And there’s a lot of freedom in Scripture about how we can organize a church meeting; there is nothing that prescribes the size of the building, the order of service, the relative emphasis on different aspects. So maybe this is one of those issues? Some churches are inward focused and some are outward focused and we all have our strengths, amen.

But wait. When Jesus recommissions Peter at the end of John’s Gospel, what is His charge? “Feed my sheep.” This is the heart of pastoral ministry as distinct from other kinds of ministry, that the leaders of the church take up Jesus’s work of caring for believers needs. The work of the ministry belongs to all the saints (Eph 4) but pastoring is a unique ministry from one saint to another. It is caretaking.

This doesn’t in and of itself settle all the questions. But it does explain why it bothers me so much when people say things like this: “Church leaders, you need to decide who you’re going to lose: the people in your community who don’t know the love of Christ, or the church member who thinks the church revolves around him (or her).”

I want to read this charitably. I really hope the author meant being willing to offend members who don’t care about other people and refuse to do the minimum to reach them. But I fear some will take it a different way, and indeed some do teach it a different way.

Or then there’s this quote: “The gap between how quickly you change and how quickly things change is called irrelevance. The bigger the gap, the more irrelevant you become.” I’m struggling to find a charitable reading here. As though relevance were a virtue the church needs to cultivate, a fruit of the Spirit that comes from abiding in Christ.

What I fear is this: creating an experience for unbelievers and calling that “church.”

I fear a pastor who would say to his flock “you’re already saved, so get out of my way! I have to go find new sheep!” Presumably, once they are saved, they can get out of the way, too.

I fear a false dichotomy imagined between evangelism and discipleship. Either we evangelize, or we don’t. Either it’s for unbelievers or it’s for you stubborn insiders.

Church is not an experience. It’s a family. When you invite an unbeliever to church, it is not like inviting a friend to go to a restaurant with you; it’s like inviting a friend over for dinner. You don’t say “this is our home, stay out!” You practice hospitality. You make them feel welcome. But it’s still your house, for your family, with your awkward pictures on the wall, your grandma’s old blanket in the corner, and the smell of the foods you cook the most lingering in the air. You’re inviting people to your community, your family, your Heavenly Father.

The pastor on the lookout for unbelievers to add to the flock might say, “look at Jesus! He left the 99 to find the one.” Yes, but who is the one and where did He leave the 99? Isn’t the one a family member who has lost their way, someone perhaps struggling with doubt or burdened by sin or wrecked by life’s circumstances? Isn’t it someone who is already an insider, a believer, who needs help? And in leaving the 99 did He expose them to hunger and danger? No, the good shepherd leads His sheep into fertile pastures and will not leave them unprotected. Jesus does not advocate abandoning the 99. He doesn’t bring the 99 with Him into danger where the one lost sheep had wandered.

This is not either/or. If your vision of the one lost is the person who needs to hear the good news of Jesus Christ, and reaching him or her means mistreating those who are already saved, what kind of good news do your actions preach? Come over here with the rest, so I can leave you, too.

No, “feed my sheep” means don’t let the desire for a bigger flock cause you to overlook the flock you have. Pastor, Jesus has already entrusted these people to you! Don’t let them go hungry in a quest to find the ones that have not yet been entrusted to you.

My pastor in Dallas loved to tell the story of a church member who came to him with a complaint about the way they did something there. Todd would say, “I’m so sorry. No, really, I’m sorry. Would you please forgive me? I’m so, so sorry for whatever I did that gave you the impression that church is about you.” Powerful words. And there is an important truth behind them: just as the family does not revolve around the whims of the individual, so we should guard against trying to make the church fit all of our desires, our preferences, our conveniences. We are in this together. Our job is not to cater to the squeaky wheels.

But nevertheless, I disagree with the words at face value: it’s not exactly right to say that church isn’t about you; you are the church! Again, with the analogy of family: if I say to my brother “family isn’t about you,” I risk communicating or even believing that he doesn’t belong. That’s baloney.

Church shouldn’t revolve around you, but you belong here.

I believe churches should be welcome and hospitable to unbelievers. I believe we should translate our family practices and lingo so that everyone can understand. I believe we shouldn’t set up unnecessary obstacles in the way of our guests. But I also believe church is a family, that it is a place where only brothers and sisters can truly belong, and that the health of the family should be a higher priority than growing the family.

If someone is standing in the way of the change you want to make, especially if that change is something you believe is an obstacle to hospitality, the easy thing is to alienate that sister or brother. But the right thing to do is feed them. Disciple them. Invest in their maturity. And be open to the possibility that the change you want may not be the change your family needs.

I don’t have the platform of the person I’m quoting, and I don’t have my own church to pastor, but I am a student of the Word. “So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith” (Galatians 6:10). Don’t give in to the false dichotomy that says you must either cater to the whims of insiders or cater to the whims of outsiders. Invest in a healthy family, practice hospitality, and be amazed at how the two work together.