On Eden, God's Plan and authority in: Heaven and Earth Part 3

I have been looking at Genesis 2 - 11, how some common assumptions about Genesis don't actually fit what is going on.  Now I am going to look at what may be going on.  This is new to me, but interesting.

First, we realize in Genesis 3 that evil (whether it is a serpent or the Devil working through a serpent isn't clear here) is alive and well in the Garden of Eden before Eve or Adam sin.  Tempting someone to do evil would be right up their on the sin-o-meter, so you can't argue it as an unclear or grey area - temping someone into disobeying God is a sin.

Did God put evil into the Garden just to check Eve's obedience?

Some say yes, but others say no.

If we take the tempter as part of God's plan to have us all fall, then rescue us through Jesus, it puts humans as the centre piece of the story, creation and everything God does.  When humans fall, the world goes bad, God needs to rescue us and we should feel really, really guilty for being born in sin (meaning we are already sinners before we sinned due to Adam passing on his fallen nature to all of us).  Everything on earth was great until we showed up.  Bad us.  The Story quickly becomes all about our sin.  It ignores that fact the world really is red in tooth and claw, evil lurks around, and death is part of our survival (if no bacteria died, we wouldn't have made it passed those first seven days).

Is it helpful to feel really disgusted with ourselves for being born as we were (sinners)?  Will that motivate us to avoid sin, or make us feel helpless towards sin?

If we take the presence of the tempter in the Garden as a state of how things were on earth before humans arrived, we see the fall as us being complicit with the present evil.  The world is already red in tooth and claw, darkness lurks and looks for company, and death is a burden we already have to bear.  We are born in bondage to sin and need to realize this - not just in the truth that there is sin, but in what that means for us.

Is it helpful to feel really disgusted with the devastation evil has wrought on God's creation?  Will realizing that our sin aids the forces of darkness to regain control over God's beautiful creation (including people) and our obedience to God reverses the dark kingdom's control?

That former view is the Fall summed up in Penal Substitutionary view of the atonement, the latter is the Fall summed up in Christ Ransom or Christus Victor view of the atonement.

On Eden, God's plan and authority in: Heaven and Earth

Usual reading of Genesis by an evangelical.

Gen. 1 - possibly literal (depending on denomination), possibly not in the time-frame given (not 6 literal days).
Gen. 2 - At some point there must have been a specially-made Adam and Eve (even if someone believes God could have made the world through evolution, Adam and Eve were the first humans).  Once Adam and Eve sin, the world "falls".  This can be interpreted a number of ways.  Often it goes like this (if you don't believe in a 6 literal day scenario); All of nature was in harmony, Adam, etc. was created (via evolution or special appointment), then  sinned.  At this point humans experienced death, disease, mutations, genetic defects, pain, war, evil - and all of creation was thrown into turmoil.  Many Christians believe we are steadily getting worse, sin is growing and eventually we will be so rotten, God will come and end the world (after the worst suffering the world has ever seen).

IF an evangelical believes in a 6 day creation reading of Gen. 1, then Adam's fall brings death - many believe no living creature died before this point.

None of this is in the Bible per se. There are consequences laid out for the three guilty parties (Adam, Eve and the serpent), but they don't die a physical death when they eat the fruit as the Bible said they would (Genesis 2:16-17), so it is often interpreted that humans (if not all creatures) became mortal once Adam sinned.

What this all ignores however is; IF no evil entered the world before Adam's fall, what on earth is the serpent doing in the garden?

Evangelical standard responder (ESR): "Easy, God put Satan there to tempt us (give us a real choice between good and evil)"

But why would Satan even be in God's holy creation?  God removes himself from human presence when we become sinners (God was with Adam and Eve until they sinned, then he judged them and removed them from the Garden of Eden).  If we lost Paradise because God couldn't tolerate being around our evil, why does he tolerate the worst source of evil mentioned in the Bible hanging out in his presence (the Garden)?  And if he can handle Satan's evil being in his presence, then he is capable of being around evil...something I had been told was impossible for God (more later).

The Bible doesn't say we are removed because God can't handle the presence of wickedness, the Bible says we are blocked from Eden because the Tree of Life resides there and he doesn't want us to live forever ( in, I will suggest, our now fallen state) see Genesis 3:21-24.

Still, Satan has access to the Garden God made for Adam and now, also, his helper?

Because Satan is on earth before Adam.  Not just existing before Adam but right here on earth before Adam.

On Eden, God's Plan and authority in: Heaven and Earth Part 1

I don't think I have ever looked at Atonement Theories as much as I have in the last little while.  All the while I have happily attend this or that evangelical or charismatic denomination blissfully unaware of all the different theories of atonement - mostly.  Is there one correct theory? Do we really know which one it is?  Can we know for sure?  I don't know totally.  I feel a kinship more strongly with some than others indeed, I reject others.  If we are to know Jesus (as Christ-followers) we should know who he is, through or by faith? through or by the Holy Spirit? through or by Grace alone?  Now it gets a little less clear historically.  Depending on which Christian denomination from which time all of the atonement theories have been promoted.  What about all theories being sort of correct (a compromise theory ;)?

This is the part of the blog where I say "thankfully I am NOT a theologian"

others may say... "when we get to heaven we will find out"

But.... that may actually cause us to not get to heaven!  I think about it this way:.  If we are to know Jesus, we need to know why we need to put our faith in him, as opposed to ourselves (modern concept) or our society (post-modern concept) and rely on an unseen being.  Just a thought from a blog.

"Oh easy" says the evangelical "Jesus died for my sins?"

So, if you hadn't sinned he wouldn't have died?

"Well...he knew we would sin, so he came and died."

Okay.  So you sin, he dies in your place (he takes your punishment)?

"yep"

"so that was the purpose of the Atonement?"

"yep"

Many feel that wasn't the early church's teachings on the Atonement.

"Well, they are wrong, this is what it is."

Okay, so...I think you are explaining to me a form of Penal Substitutionary Atonement theory - or Christ/God took your punishment on himself.

"?????" *sigh* "look, this is the basic truth, if you can't get it, you aren't saved/born again/a true Christian (or whatever said evangelical's church calls their members)"

Did you know that isn't the only way of looking at Christ's accomplishments on the Cross?

"Do you believe he saved us from punishment for our sins?"

Of course.

"so what other Atonement theory could possibly be out there, that fits with Evangelical Christianity?"

Well, Christus Victor, Ransom Theory, Moral Influence, Recapitulation Theory...

"does Jesus die for our sins?"

Yes (Christus Victor, Ransom Theory, Recapitulation theory...), and so much more or No,(Moral Influence...) depending on which theory you are talking about.

"What more could Christ do on the cross, he died to save us from Hell nothing is greater than that?"

Indeed, what more could he do...

This is where I am at.

1. If the early church held to the Ransom theory, the Eastern Orthodox Church never altered it, should we at least know this theory?  Why the silence?
2.  If Christ came just to die for our sins (be a scapegoat, or satisfy a need to punish sin) what is the point of the Kingdom on earth?  or for that matter the rest of our lives once we have accepted his payment for our sins?
3.  It is good to consider the sacrifice God made, but when people say: "that was our punishment" then what did God forgive?  Why pay for someone else's sin?  It gives a warped sense of forgiveness.  I forgive you but will beat myself instead????  Imagine a parent saying this to a child.  Dramatic, yes, but certainly not teaching forgiveness - since the parent is still meting out the punishment (just on him/herself, not the child).
4. We definitely need faith to be with God and have God with us.  Faith saves, but only faith in who Christ is.
5. Failure to figure out who he is means we don't get to be with him.
Does our understanding of the Atonement affect our position with God?  For example, could Calvinist's be wrong, Eastern Orthodox Churches right and no one else gets to heaven, or vice versa?

I hide in the smug satisfaction I am not a teacher - they will be judged more harshly (Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. James 3:1)


Maybe, though, it is not enough to avoid taeching.  Maybe I need to know this, for wisdom, guidance, etc. Maybe there is something we have lost since the book of Acts was written, maybe it is rooted in the Atonement theory...

On Eden, God's Plan and authority in: Heaven and Earth (Intro)

I started this blog because there is (whether Christians can handle this or not) very strong, well supported evidence that we humans 1) evolved over many, many generations and 2) that, since populations mostly evolve as a species, humans were never down to one breeding pair (no common mom and dad for humanity).  This led me to question Genesis - mind you, not God, but Genesis.  Not so much the Bible - for it is what it is - but our views on the Bible.  In the time I began this blog the debate over Adam and Eve versus Science has heated up in Creationist and Intelligent Design circles, but they often mistakenly call this branch of population genetics "evolution" - supposedly to lump it into the same dubious category and stir up doubt in Christians before the evidence is presented.

I maintain that the Adam and Eve story (Gen. 2 - 11) is in the Bible for a reason, it is not a tack-on, or a way to explain science to a lesser scientifically developed culture or people to satiate their curiosity about our origins.  But... in order to get to the point I am at now, I had to be exposed, on many different levels to our Christian history.  It didn't form in a neat package, it formed from something else entirely, then revealed  where we have gone so astray from the true meaning of Genesis.

What I began to notice, apart from the creationist debate was how far our church and other christians were going to the far right of conservatism on women's issues.  I grew up in one province, went to University in another, and got a job in a third, so I had been to many churches and evangelical denominations all over.  There were many conservative views held by people about women, but most of it was about parenting, or mothering, rather than wives roles.  Most of my married friend solved arguments by working things out before they went to sleep.  No one I knew who was my age followed the wives submit to your husbands rule - at least not as a principle (other than mutually).  Then I went to more charismatic churches (where women preached and prophesied.  I returned again to an Evangelical church.  Our pastor mostly quoted John Piper in his sermons.  I really didn't know him, nothing stood out about his quoted comments and life was merry.  One day, however, I stumbled across a YouTube clip of Piper slamming CS Lewis!  Piper, acting as if he was better, or more correct than CS Lewis?!?  The first warning bell was: what kind of a Pastor slams another directly (not mentioning he doesn't agree with a particular theology in general, but calls out a Christian with whose theory he disagrees with specifically)?.  I know people do this all the time, but pastors with large followings who get quoted in Sunday morning services usually aren't in the business of putting other popular Christians down to promote their hypothesis.  The second red flag was: Does this guy really think he is so much wiser than CS Lewis that he would have the ability to shape the Christian world's views the way Lewis did?! and thirdly, what was his problem with CS Lewis anyways? Piper decided Lewis was not an evangelical?  What? Who is deciding this?  Does he think Christians who don't agree with him are not as christian or anointed to teach as himself?

I began, apart from my musings on Genesis, to look into John Piper, others of the Gospel Coalition and then Calvinism in general.  What I found was a group of pastors and their followers who hold to an atonement theory that puts the fall of Adam and Eve in a highly fundamental position to a Christian's faith.  So, I either do endless mental gymnastics trying to make Adam and Eve become literal - prehistoric farmers in a mythical land who somehow manage to survive by farming for at least three generations, build cities near or around Ancient Mesopotamia then all of humanity reverts to a hunter-gatherer population in Africa for the next 150,000 years - Ow! my head just exploded.
* OR*
I decide if this is even the correct understanding of Genesis.

What is with The Neo-Reformers?

Since our denomination is not explicitly Reform (statement of faith was always very neutral), I never connected the Mars Hill Church in Seattle with the weird Presbyterian or Dutch Churches (Christian Reformed, Dutch Reformed, etc., etc.).  I started hearing about Mars Hill Church, later learned it was in Seattle way back in the early 2000s.  It was sort of a buzz in the back ground, and I certainly never noticed who the pastor was.

Fast forward to the last little while.  Our church adopted the new statement of faith our denomination drew up.  It was billed to the elders as "an improvement over the old statement", if that was it's intent then the "improvements" were to push it more towards Calvinism.  I had only been aware of Calvinism through my English Lit and History classes at University.  We were assigned a novel that was written to mock 17th Century Calvinism in Scotland and the creep through England (think Puritans).  I knew little of Calvinism (attending Baptist based and Alliance churches, I somehow missed this theology).  The story was of a Scotsman full of religious zeal and conviction who becomes an evangelist, then as his life continues, becomes a very evil person indeed.  But, it really doesn't matter because he is one of the "elect" (saved by God).  Since he is the "elect" he is guaranteed a place in Heaven, so on earth he goes on a sin bender, and becomes a more and more evil person - but no problem, he was predestined to Heaven.

As a Christian, I was always a little wary of attacks on the Churches.  It wasn't that I didn't agree with pointing out issues, just that "real" Christians were often poorly represented in both English Lit (sometimes) and University in general (often).  I liked the first few chapters - he seemed like a good Christian.  I really had no idea what would happen next.  I usually had many, many novels on the go (since I had more than a few classes assigning novel studies).  It was the predestination that chilled me.  Remember, I had no idea what the outcome of this story was going to be.  It started out nicely, but became darker and darker.  I learned through class lectures, while reading it, that this was a movement that would sweep through Scotland and down into England (or was in England, or something).  This was the root of the Puritan revolution, so it was important for us to understand what was happening in England at this time.

It was the idea that someone felt they were secure in their salvation - to the point of sinning wherever and however they pleased that struck me as silly.  This wasn't Christian.  At least not anything I recognized as Christian.  Those silly Reformers, I thought.  And that was that.  I learned that Scottish Presbyterians and Dutch Protestants were the remnants of those old conflicts (of course, being Europe, whenever a group got powerful and took over a government, lots of killing had to occur (at least that is what my history classes liked to point out).  American Puritans had one up on the regular political killing, they did witch trials -  so profs needed to point this out to everyone, since slagging all religion seems to be a bit of an essential at some universities.  In this case I was on the prof's side - this wasn't what Jesus came and died for!  And I left it at that.

Since our church adopted the new statement of faith, I ended up, years later, having to dust this old History topic off the shelf again.  I knew our pastor liked John Piper.  I wouldn't have noticed much, but their were clips all over YouTube of this guy questioning everyone else.  You know, CS Lewis, NT Wright.  Apparently they weren't real evangelicals.  I was concerned.  First, in Anglicanism, there are both evangelicals and traditionalists (as well as Liberals, Charismatics, etc.) - going to university and attending IVCF (largely run by Anglicans in at my school) showed me how diverse Anglicanism was.  Any pastor who couldn't see that C.S. Lewis was a believer was seriously flawed in my mind.  What on earth was this guy's problem.

Then our church began to grow - burst at the seems with young adults would be a better description.  Like all churches do when they grow, they began to talk about a church expansion.  Fine again.  They wanted to have one church and many campuses.  They were looking into other churches who had done this - a local Pentecostal church, a church in the city and that Mars Hill church in Seattle.  It was then that I looked up some YouTube videos of the pastor at Mars Hill.  His name is Mark Driscoll and he had these crazy videos about the evil of:  A woman working and a man staying home.  Yes, you read that correctly.  In his church (Mars Hill) a man who stayed home while his wife went to work would be called in for church discipline.  I cracked up.  What a friggn' idiot.  There are a lot of things that you may want to call people on, but employment arrangements?  Way to make a mountain out of nothing.  Now, there are some versus in the N.T. dealing with men who don't provide for their families, but this was specifically a question about a woman who wanted to work and a man willing to stay home.

http://youtu.be/1WPVxndUcHQ

And our church checked this place out???!!!!

Then, our church decided to do a theology series.  The chose Driscoll's video series.  I now had to look into this again.  Dricoll was a Calvinist/Reformer/neo-either of those words.  Those predestination believing, witch burning, death sentence handing out if you disagree with us Calvinists?!  Seriously.  And, now being the age of the Internet, I looked this stuff up. YUCK.

Fist, what on earth is a Calvinist?

http://calvinistcorner.com/tulip

I am not saying other groups reject everything they believe, but they insist on these five points as essentials to good Christian theology.  They base a lot of this on Romans chapter 9 (more on that later).  There are some Calvinists who don't go for the TULIP (five points of Calvinism).


John Hesselink in his book “On Being Reformed”:

• All this not withstanding, we are also children of the Reformation with its recovery of certain evangelical themes: the Word alone, by grace alone, and by faith alone. More particularly, we are a part of a specific Reformation tradition known as Reformed or Presbyterian...

Okay, most Protestants can agree with this.  Our final authority is the Word and we are saved by Grace.  But then there is a lot of wiggle room with The Word.  The Bible, written over thousands of years and many languages, is hardly an easy book to agree on.  If it were, there wouldn't be so many denominations of Christianity.  From the time Christianity was legalized in the Roman Empire, there have been splits (Easter Orthodox vs. Roman Catholicism).  The Protestant movement has been split a million times over.  Every group thinks they have the best Theology, Doctrine and or Statement of Faith.  But these neo-reformers sure seem hung up on "inerrancy of scripture".  I mean no mistakes while coping or translating?  Really?  Want to explain Junia (LOL, and off topic)?

http://www.bible-researcher.com/chicago1.html

Statement/Article 12 is the real mess.

WE AFFIRM  that Scripture in its entirety is inerrant, being free from all falsehood, fraud, or deceit.

WE DENY  that Biblical infallibility and inerrancy are limited to spiritual, religious, or redemptive themes, exclusive of assertions in the fields of history and science. We further deny that scientific hypotheses about earth history may properly be used to overturn the teaching of Scripture on creation and the flood.

free from all falsehood and deceit?  Again, read about Junia (a woman apostle, whom a later translator tried to hide by switching her name to Junias).  The NIV kept it "Junias" while the King James was using older texts (pre-1200s) and translates it "Junia" - so which text is free from deceit and what should we make of the ones that aren't?

http://christianthinktank.com/fem08.html

Anyways... to bring it back to science and The Word, the Chicago Statement denies that the inerrancy of the Bible is limited to spiritual themes, but includes the fields of history and science.  The Bible is inerrant on matters of science?  Well, depending on what they mean.  The details, the genre, the what?  How do they square this with Heliocentrism, Galileo, what God said to Job about creation (columns holding up the earth) etc.?  I mean, surely the Bible is inerrant, so we need to pretend Columbus and Galileo didn't exist.  That Abraham only saw 2 or 3 stars in the sky when God promised him a multitude of descendants (the light from the rest hadn't got here yet). Help!  I am not sure I want to witness to people if they have to sign up for this clap trap or associate myself as a believer with that stuff.

This I know little about, however, the three neo-Calvinists I hear about in our church - Keller, Piper and Driscoll (well, in Theology courses, anyway) are all caught up in making sure everyone knows a wife should submit to her husband.  Sort of silly, considering that would be a "work" and Calvinists scream that we are saved through Grace alone.  Hey, on that vein, why do anything once you are saved?  But I digress.  One of the out-workings of this obsession with making women do all this work to maintain salvation (notice they skip the part where husbands are to submit to their wives: see here ), is...needing Genesis 2 on to be all about wives being submissive because she sinned first.  I won't get into how ridiculous all this is (hint: Eve sin never passes down to us, nor, technically did Christ die for her, if we are literalists, just Adam and his offspring since Near-Eastern worldview doesn't see women as the baby-makers, just the baby-growers).  The connection is between the verse where men are to leave their mother and father and join to their wife.  It is found in Gen. 2:24 and Ephesians 5:31 so they see it as essential to their neo-Calvinist Theology where wives have to submit to their husbands, but all other works are completely unnecessary for salvation ( Mark Driscoll swears in his sermons, long NYT article) in contrast to Ephesians 5:4, 1 Timothy 6:20 and other verses, because he is free from works, I suppose.

My issue is; why are neo-Calvinists so hung up on wives submitting to husbands lately - is it because it drew the blue collar crowd to Mark Driscoll's church?  Are the others hoping for increased numbers in their followings?   What it does do is make people read Ephesians 31, then Genesis 2:24 quite literally.  This, then makes one look like a heretic to point out Gen. 2 - 11 is based on ancient Mesopotamian myths, not fact.  It can still be how God wanted it told, carry the same lessons, but be a Myth.  However, neo-Calvinism pressures scientists and historians to chose between what they know is the case and what the church wishes was the case.  And why on earth are neo-Calvinists - who believe in predestination of the elect - trying to up their numbers in their churches?  Isn't that God's job only?

Updates, Thoughts and Faith in General

Updates:
It has been a busy summer.  And it has been an interesting summer too.  The big deal was; some people found out my husband didn't see Genesis chapter 2 literally (not actually possible).  He is a scientist, would they like him to lie?  Fudge his data? Pretend he is wrong? Join them in making up lame conspiracy theories against science (to add to the growing collection)?

Thoughts
I am learning a lot too.  There is quite a group of Christians out there who see Adam and Eve as essential to our Christian faith.  Now, I am not so clueless as to why this would be - Jesus, according to Paul, came to redeem mankind from Adam's sin.  So, just to be crystal clear here - We need to remember that this supposed "original" sin occurred when there was only one man on the earth.  Once he sinned, he had some magical power to bring down the entire human race (thank goodness Eve didn't - since she was the original human sinner - the serpent was the original sinner, but I digress).  If a Christian says they don't believe in a literal Adam or Eve, the reaction is pretty strong and consistent - that Christian is weak, lacks faith, etc.  What is interesting (more on this further down) is that it takes a fair amount of reprogramming and faith to switch to the literal side - yet Christians do it when they convert as adults.

Who are the big pushers of this?  Neo-Calvinists, all those who have the Chicago Convention's statement on Biblical inerrancy hammered into their constitutions, everyone who feels they have just been enlightened and figured out why we are all being punished for some random guy's sin.  Now, this isn't to say there was no Adam/Eve - their could have been - but it is now realized through Genetics (not Darwinism, or whatever people like to call the fossil record these days) that any first Mother/Father were not alone, our population has always been in the thousands (at least) and we are descended from many different people, not just one couple.

Faith in General
The other thing that has been on my mind is faith and belief.  The idea is that when we are saved (if we are not brought up in the church), the Holy Spirit gives us "Spiritual Eyes" or a Spiritual Awakening and we can see that Jesus is our saviour.  For many, certain things in our lives just change immediately when this happens - no more taking the Lord's name in vain, no more gossip, people claim addictions just melt away too.

Then we adopt a Christian World-view.  Is it because of Adult Sunday School? Social Evenings?  I have no idea.  But over the course of a few years, most new believers will begin to fit into the Christian culture.  This isn't all bad, we do step away from worldly ideas and ideals and this makes us counter cultural.  It is nice to have friends who also feel this way too.  But... soon after we become believers, we quit questioning everything.  I was 12 and I remember being told Evolution was garbage.  I just sort of said 'yeah'.  OK, so 12 year olds don't spend much time checking out their science textbooks (back in the days before the internet was used, it was the library or school textbook for info) for fact finding.  But, and I have done this a few times, I would question my whole faith, or none.  It took a while to realize why faith is so difficult to keep believing in sometimes (when we aren't being persecuted, etc.) - because there is so much unnecessary "essentials" tied into our understanding of God.

People may wonder why we have all these pre-human hominoid skeletons lying around, and early ancestors in Africa (despite Eden being the beginning of life), but they have to categorically ignore it all to preserve their faith (or hope Adam gets found soon).  Or, like myself, one may try to envision a world where people lived 700 years (how many greats needed to be inserted before grandfather?), Angels came down (not sure where I heard the Son's of Man were Angels, but anyways) and slept with the beautiful women and had hero-kids (like The Incredibles?).  Think too much and your head might pop.  The safe alternative is - just don't think about it.  Claim endless ignorance.

Here is how I deal with it now.  Nice Myth.  Were Adam and Eve real? Maybe, but if so, there were others around.  Why couldn't Adam and Eve be real?  Well, it took humans 190,000 years to get agriculture working well enough to abandon hunting, Adam didn't just go an plant a field - he passed enough farming knowledge down to his son, that his son managed to build a city - cities are utterly dependent on agriculture, putting this story in a time and place that doesn't jive with what we know to be true of first humans.

Undoing a part of my belief system and letting it go is great.  But, it is NOT easy.  From the day you arrive at a Christian institution you are warned that you must hang on to your faith (don't listen to this or that preacher, anti-christian commenter, or science prof) and undoing one part of the Bible will unravel the rest.

But here is the tough question.  How much of our faith is from God?  It seems that so much of our faith is tied up in the Christian Culture.  My husband points out organization after organization gets well funded to fight evolution.  Why? because this belief it is essential to being a Christ follower in this day and age.  When confronted with something we believe is wrong - we have a strong reaction (some people say they are sensing the evil in it).  That strong fear reaction creates a sense of legitimacy to the issue.  But few people recognize that fear reaction is what is not Christian - God has won and we can walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

I see people's reactions when you say the accounts of Adam and Eve parallel ancient Mesopotamian myths (tree of life, woman taken from man's rib, woman getting man to eat taboo foods, Noah's boat and the flood in general, extended life-spans, etc.).  Their doubt about my faith.  But the Bible is the Inspired Word of God, but Myth is one of his genres in a book full of poetry, prose, parables and proverbs.  Like poetry, Myth doesn't have to be literal.

I wonder what else is not really a belief in God, but a belief in something I have assigned to God as essential?

Thoughts on a Floating Planet

The horrible earthquake, followed by a Tsunami, in Japan should wake any Westcoaster up.  Japan's earthquake - at 8.9 had a hundred times more force than Haiti's.  Haiti's was, according to Wikipedia, 7.0.  I don't know what each number means on the Richter Scale, but there is a huge difference between a 7 and an, almost, 9.

The 8.9 looked like a 5 or 6 earthquake on the videos, no windows busting out, no collapsed buildings.  The only hint of the huge force of it was the the people's reactions.  Some fell on the sidewalk and most seemed scared.  For a country used to earthquakes, that was a clue this was huge.  The reason the videos fooled us was Japan's incredible engineering.  It is amazing to watch those huge buildings swaying, yet holding up.  Christchurch crumbled and Haiti collapsed with much less force.

The horrible part was the Tsunami, breakwaters cannot stop the force of a 10 meter high wave.  And watching the video, it appears nothing can.

Which makes me think of the great benefits of our ancestors' way of life.  A hunter-gatherer would just pick up a fallen tent, and keep going after an 8.9 quake.  Everyone has to run from a Tsunami, but the hunter-gatherer will have a much easier time rebuilding his life.

My thoughts as I feel as vulnerable - realizing how fleeting life, safety and/or security is.

My other thoughts are, when God provides for our needs - our needs for survival are pretty basic.  If he answered the Hunters need, they would find a flint to make into spear or a deer in their path.  Our basic needs are really food, clean water, and shelter/clothing to protect us from the elements.  A tent, water and rice and beans are really all we need in temperate climate - along with outdoor wear, and good boots.  Maybe I should put these in an earthquake kit.  Are we entitled to more because we choose such a complicated life?

Let me add:

I am shocked and saddened by what I have seen on the videos.  I cried when I saw the cars driving, yet the waves approaching.  I live on the Westcoast, in that same 'Ring of Fire' and am under no illusion that we are any safer.  In fact, I think we are less so, none of our infrastructure has been tested by a 6.5 or 7 earthquake, let alone an 8.9.  If one does strike, I doubt we will fare as well as Japan.  Tsunamis have ways of twisting and weaving, and Islands of supposed protection may be bypassed and areas of perceived safety may get hit.  I am pondering what I expect from God - safety, security, things I feel I need and reality.  Does God promise us wealth and abundance, or just the basics?    

First one Second, Second one....? Last? (Part 2)

When I treat the bible as a primary source, (that is a book written at a certain point in history by an eyewitness to that particular time or event) rather than a holy book lowered from above, I can see a cultural divide.  Here you have ancient Ur, a Mesopotamian City with it's non-creator gods.  At the zenith of the Mesopotamian civilization - where everybody is supposed to want to be, you have Abram and his wife, clearly Nomadic Herdsmen, called away.  I always thought of Abe and Sarah as 'Ur'ites - folk from Ur.  Now, I see them as the Nomadic herdsmen who traded with, but were not from Ur.  They were wealthy, not because their business was in Ur - but because they profited from selling their flocks to the city, likely on religious holidays (this happened in India during Eid, a week before the holiday goat herders began showing up in the empty lot by our house, there were goats all over the place).  That is why their nephew Lot is allowed to go with them and later, their servant runs into their extended family (Rebecca) out in the desert.  They profited from that pagan-worshiping society, but they weren't actually a part of it.  They had a different God.  He was a worshiped God, hence Abraham running into Melchizedek.  So, who was this God?  The God worshiped by Shepherds?  In ancient times, that would mean God was the god of the shepherds.

I think those urban gods and goddesses were new.  The world was still largely Nomadic Hunter-gatherer when Ancient Mesopotamia rose from the Myst's of Time.  Creator-gods were still worshiped everywhere but the urban centers.  Nomads, being closer to the old way of life, worshiped the Creator-God, not as an anomaly, but as he had always been and still mostly was.  It was Urbanites, with more time, possessions and an ability to accumulate wealth that began true paganism in earnest.  The nomadic hunters wouldn't of have time to build multiple temples, create elaborate stories and divide period of time (I doubt they even had days or weeks) into days for each Deity.

When I read Job (the oldest written book of the bible) or Genesis, I am struck with two points.  The first is, Abraham and Job are not the only God-believers.  Abraham's family believes in God, Job's friends, and Melchizedek is a high priest.  And second, They are all herdsmen - Job, Abraham, and Abe's extended family (Jacob's wives, Issac's wife - Rebecca).  God gives Abraham Israel to herd in, not farm.  Lot takes the greener valley (Sodom) and falls into the non-God fearing, Urban way (he is living in town when Judgement comes).  The refrain running through these tales is: God calls his people away from the bad cities, guides them to good grazing and rescues them from the perils of Urban life.  Almost sounds like a psalm (David was a shepherd as well).

Not that God was going to remain a god of the herdsmen, he gives them Israel 400 years later with rules on how to farm it (apparently they learned this skill in Egypt).  They are now just another Kingdom in a shifting, battling, very pagan Middle East.  But their roots are wanderers, they are not as far, religiously, from the Hunting tribes that wandered the earth for most of human history.  This makes me think that God was worshiped for many Milena before written history arrived.  That we are only getting a small glimpse of God's story with Humanity.  That Adam and Eve are arch-types of the great shift that faced humanity - Agriculture.  Who got in trouble for their offering - Cain or Abel?  Why?  What was wrong with grains?  They were hard to grow - labour intensive, needed ploughing, sowing, reaping and watering.  They were, though, Urban/Agricultural offerings.  Offerings to other gods, newer gods.  Long before Agriculture, back when all of us humans hunted, meat was the harder wrought offering.  Gatherers could find wheat in the middle east, it grew wild - before rivers were diverted to water farms, trees were cut to make more farmland and animals were herded in large numbers to feed vast cities.  Back then, hunting was the harder work, and that made meat the greater sacrifice.

First one Second, Second one....? Last? (Part 1)

I spend most of my space here talking about Genesis 2
I do see the two chapters (Gen 1 and 2) as two different creation stories, but let me explain.  Genesis one puts earth into a form the ancients could relate to - the whole earth, God's creation, as a temple.  Genesis 2 puts our relations with this Almighty and powerful God into perspective.  I like the God/human aspect of faith.  It is all great that God went out and made a beautiful universe, that doesn't really make people worship God, perhaps a creator, but not any particular one.  Genesis 2, now that is where I can see people being impacted.  It is personal now.  God isn't some Big-Bang creating, Universe expanding deity we call up to with offerings once or twice a year.  This is our God, who created a temple for himself, who searches for a place to dwell, and has chosen us, out of millions of creatures, to dwell with.

Still sounds ridiculous?  Maybe, but I love human history, so here is what I think is going on.  For 200,000 years man walked this earth, hunting, gathering, wandering farther and farther.  He (plural) was smart.  He learned how to make fire, cook food, make tools, boats (apparently), hunting weapons and clothing in cold climates.  The Neanderthals could do this too, but Homo Sapiens Sapiens (us) were smarter, and managed to out-compete them for food.  Fifty thousand years ago the stronger, taller and more powerful Neanderthals died out, we expanded.  We hunted species to extinction, sailed to all livable corners of the earth, and developed better techniques.

Of course, no one had time or need to create an alphabet, so we have no record of what our ancestors believed.  People love to say humans used to be afraid of lightening and thought it had supernatural powers, but now know it doesn't.  That's not fair, really, because hunter gatherers are rarely afraid of the land or aspects of it they see regularly.  They obviously weren't afraid of it's effect on the land - Fire, because they discovered this early and used it ever since.  I have lived in the far north, and with people who love to live out on the land.  I have never noticed these people to be afraid of natural occurrences.  They are much more in tune with how nature works than us urbanites are.  A storm is fine, it happens, so what?  But the last remnants of hunter gatherer societies on earth all point to belief in a creator god.  Some have other gods, but usually lesser.  The Great Creator was a common theme from the Kalahari in Southern Africa to the Northern Plains Indians to the Inuit to the Australian Aborigines and the Amazonian Stone Age tribes.

Then humans began to figure out agriculture.  It started with a few false starts.  Societies in Africa and Asia would begin to cultivate and grow crops, some successfully, then they would abandon it, and move back to the Nomadic hunting way of life.  In Mesopotamia it finally took hold.  They had a slight advantage since wheat grew wild there, and it required little modification to become a life-sustaining crop.  They were conveniently located between two major rivers, that they learned to divert to water their crops.  Once they improved at agriculture, they began to urbanize.  See, pre-agriculture, humans couldn't settle.  Hunting is a nomadic lifestyle.  You hunt in an area, then move on.  There was no point in building huge buildings, developing permanent things like writing, because who would read it once you left?

Agriculture changed everything.  People settled, they improved food production to the extent that some people could actually stop spending their lives getting food.  Up until the agricultural revolution, everyone spent their life searching, and then growing food to eat.  Once people managed to grow enough food to feed more than their families change began.  Now, some of the people could do something other than farming.  A Class system was formed, Priests and Kings at the top, Solders and Tax Collectors next.  Whoa, taxes already?  Unfortunately it got an early start, all that water needed to be diverted, sewers needed to be built, and then protection from raiders was needed - when you have food, it gets dangerous.  So armies were trained up, this required means - the army needed food, the King and court did also, so the king ordered everyone to bring in a bag of this and a bushel of that.  Yes, they were urban dwellers, but everyone went out to the surrounding fields to work, even if they had houses in the city.  By taxing people, some could stop farming and fishing and do things like crafts, building, being a full-time priest or solider.  They would get paid from the King's coffers, and the King would fill his coffers from the taxes. This was all great, but it got a little confusing keeping track of who brought what.  This is why numbers and written words were invented (taxes, go figure).

At some point in this shift from more equal, food producing societies to class divided urban societies, lost a creator god.  Who knows, maybe they needed to justify twenty expensive temples, so they gave each god equal value.  What is apparent is, urbanized societies had very, very different religions from hunter-gatherer societies.  Now, around these rare early urban centers lived Nomads.  They were the herdsmen.  Agriculture was still grown for people and the useful domestic animals, like Ox or Horses, but Sheep and goats were often brought into town and sold, rather than being raised on the surrounding farms.  It is only recently that huge animal farms have existed, usually farmers raised a little of each type and sold what they had to market.  Animals were eaten for ceremonies and holidays, not as daily dinner.  The Shepherds wandered around grazing and raising their flocks.  They would have supplemented their meals with hunting, since they were not able to carry much with them.  Sure, they were better off than the Hunter Gatherer societies far to the North and South of the early civilizations.  They probably had animals to help transport their belongings - camels or horses.  They could trade or buy food in the Urban areas, to supplement their diets.  But they were not city-folk.  They didn't live in the city, nor did they pay taxes, except. perhaps to enter and trade.  They didn't worship at the city either.  The Nomadic herdsmen had their own god - he was a creator-type.

The Wider Scope

I am going to bookend the Bible by going from Genesis to Revelations then back again (first to last book).

First a quick note on my take of Revelations  It makes great Hollywood fodder, it is the most graphic book of the Bible, and one of the best written books of the Bible (although there are others).  For most Evangelicals, it terrifies Christians.  It is often read as a coming doomsday, actually, more accurately described as a dooms-decade, dooms-century or even a dooms-millennium- with the worst at the end, hence the fear.  I read it with fear as a teen.  It seemed ominous, bleak and something everyone would rather not be around for.  Not that I would want to live through a decade like that myself.

In the Evangelical view, Revelation is going to happen to the world, then in a nuclear-Holocaust style finale, the Earth will disappear and Christians will go be with God in Heaven.  This is pretty standard belief, so not agreeing with this (as well as doubting Gen. 2 is literal) really puts me into the black-sheep category/is she a real Christian? category.

Genesis 1 gives us God's creation account.  N.T. Wright gave a public talk in our town, about the temple imagery of Genesis 1.  The talk explained that to someone living during Second-Temple Judaism, the imagery and wording used in Gen. 1 would have lead people to recognize God's creation taking the shape of a temple, with Man and Woman sitting in the center, where one would find an idol in the pagan temples of the day.

If Genesis 1 shows us God's creation as a temple, with us as the image-bearers of God, then Revelations shows the cosmic surroundings of this temple.  Revelations, according to Darrell W. Johnson's Book Discipleship on the Edge shows us "things are not as they seem".  Revelations is not something that is going to happen to the world, it is something that is happening while Christians live.  It is why Christians should pray (supported by Daniel's Angelic visitation), why we should not become discouraged in light of present circumstances and that no matter what, God has won.

In the book, Darrell points out that Christians are persecuted on two fronts, one, is from the outside - Christians in Domitian's Rome were being fed to the lions with earnest.  The other, is from within the Church.  There is a 'Jezebel' amongst one of the congregations, Satan has his throne there.  This is the battle to keep Jesus on the throne, and keep what a Christian ought not to tolerate, out.  The enemy is far more effective if he can convince Christians to accept compromise, since the church is often strengthened through persecution.  Letting Christians mold their faith to fit the darkness of their age (whatever thinking that is strongly contrary to Christianity in a certain place and time - something that is usually different from place to place and time to time), is more effective in eroding the collective faith then forces from outside the church.

Now, I read Revelations as an idea of what is going on in the Spiritual Realm while life, and in Revelations it is mostly Roman life, goes on as we know it.  While we live life unaware of the Spiritual forces and battles, Revelations shows us that God's power unfolds as does his judgment and wrath on wicked, oppressive rulers - just not in a time-line that necessarily is discernible to us (ie. convenient).  As Darrell Johnson's book explains, it is not that Revelations gives us something new, it just retells what the Bible has been saying all along in a symbolic, epic form.  It drives home points that have been consistent throughout the Bible, in vivid graphic images.  

I now view much of Revelations as what was occurring in Rome while the Christians were being persecuted.  It shows that God has not forgotten the injustices done to his church and the bowls of wrath will be poured out.  Looking back in hindsight (20/20), by holding his wrath against Rome, Christianity not only became legal, it became the Empire's Religion.  The blood was not spilled in vain, but no one in  Domitian's day lived to witness this (Domitian was around in the 80s and 90s AD- Constantine was around in the 320s AD or so).  It doesn't mean that the bowls of wrath aren't poured out, Rome was attacked by warring invaders, suffered pestilence and famine in those 200 years.  Even after the Empire converted to Christianity, it was sacked by the Huns, never to return to it's former glory.  I am sure Christians and non-Christan's alike suffered greatly for wrath unleashed on them, unwittingly, by their ancestors centuries before.  Perhaps the Christians held off the wrath, perhaps that
is how God works, perhaps it was avoidable had the latter Church been as faithful as the early church, perhaps not.  But what Revelations does show is God as the controller of all Nation's destiny.

Okay, so this is why I haven't been blogging.  I am in Revelations and Daniel studies/ books etc.  But I haven't forgotten Genesis 2.  See, so much is devoted to Genesis 1.  Genesis 2, NT Wright explained, is how God wants us to look at our role as his image bearers.  We are to go out to his earth, and care for it, mold it, work it, and bring him offerings from it.  We are the priests of his temple, so to speak.  Adam is put in charge of the animals in Gen. 2, called to subdue the earth later on in Genesis.  So our destiny is to go out and work in the world, and bring the fruit of our labours to lay before God.

For the Jewish religion, this was tangible offerings.  They tithed everything, income, livestock, spices etc., God gave, they worked and were to give it back to God.  In Christianity, we don't have a temple, or priests and nor are we to have tithes.  Yeah, I know.  Every Christian feels obligated to tithe.  But that is not what our Kingdom is about.  We are to be the sacrifice.  Whoa.  The image-bearers are to follow Christ.  Christ's whole life was a sacrifice.  Not just his death.  What we do, who we marry, who we minister to, pray for, care for - is it for our benefit, or Christ's glory?  


Most Christians in the world view North American Christians as wishy-washy.  We don't really suffer persecution, we don't make huge sacrifices in our lives.  We find following Christ difficult.  We are sort of like the camel.  He found it harder to go to Heaven then through the eye of a needle.  I know this is considered to be alluding to one of the gates into Jerusalem, but take it literally for a second.  I don't think a camel would walk into a needle very willingly.  Camels eat very needle-y cactus **, so they are tough.  But I am thinking once they keep pressing into the pain, they may quit. 

 I am guilty of this inside complacency.  I have a mortgage so I can own instead of rent my house.  It's an investment for retirement, so I may have a good reason.  I also have a piece of land, that is clearly not for investment purposes.  This is where we will build our cabin, our place (me, mine, ours, not yours).  But our cabin, if built well, could be our retirement home, so we are planning for the future.  Safe, secure, you know we won't be killed early due to witnessing or converting someone.  Not here, we are safe, so we need to live like we are safe.  We need to spend these years amassing for the next years.  I guess if you're a martyr it makes retirement planning easy.


This is where I need to figure things out a bit more.  It is not a this or that is OK or not.  It is a what is my purpose for being here.  To feel a calling, or live as a sacrifice?  Mostly, I was taught to find a calling.  What is it?  What should I do? Where will God lead me?  Who will God give me to marry?  But that may not even be what it is we are here for.  Maybe we are here to see a need and respond, whether we can afford to or not.  Maybe we are called to own little, possessing brings many burdens.  Maybe we are here to own lots, and give it away.  If the paradigm shifts from we are a called people to minister for/to God over to we are a sacrifice for God then a lot of suppositions change with it.


I haven't really figured it out.  It is just things I mull over. 



**(I know they eat very needle-y cactus because the camel I was riding in India went up to one, being a horse rider I would never let him take a bite of food while I was on his back, but how was I to know he would actually eat the most prickly, stingy cactus of them all? He got his snack, I got to fight him the rest of the camel trip - 3 days of warring with a snitching snacker!)