Most of the conversation between Christians regarding alcohol consists in whether it is permissible within Christian ethics to consume alcoholic beverages for recreational use. I’ve lost interest in that debate. It’s an easy win. I imagine that the writers of Scripture would laugh at a twenty-first century Christian who mandated that one cannot drink alcohol. Still, there’s another view that Christians often hold that I want to address.

Many Christians, I think, reject teetotalism because it’s possible for someone to drink alcohol and it have no discernible effect on the person. From this fact, they conclude: surely it’s acceptable to drink alcohol since doing so can be entirely innocuous. But there is something in this thought that is misleading. It suggests that when one drinks alcohol, it should have no visible effect on the person. The idea is that it permissible to drink alcohol not because alcohol is a good thing, but because it isn’t always a bad thing. This view is similar to someone who begrudgingly admits that sex is acceptable in cases of procreation. This person is, of course, permitting that sex is acceptable, but they aren’t really thinking of sex as a gift of grace to be enjoyed for its own sake. What I wish to challenge here is the claim that alcohol should never have a noticeable effect on our behavior.

I hold that it’s more than permissible to drink alcohol; it can be virtuous. Not only is drinking alcohol not a bad thing, alcohol can enhance our lives and make a positive contribution.

Alcohol makes this positive contribution not by some status that we confer on it, but by the grace of God. Fermentation is not some happy accident that humans either happened upon or invented. It’s not our creation; it is God’s work which he graciously gave to human beings. The statement (often attributed to Benjamin Franklin) that beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy is, of course, funny. But it is also true. The point is best brought out, though, by the psalmist in Psalm 104. The point is made better particularly because the psalmist doesn’t just say that alcohol is proof God wants us to be happy. Anyone who is not inclined to agree with this statement easily dismisses it. But the way that the psalmist puts it requires that in order for people to reject the goodness of alcohol, they must also reject the goodness of all of God’s creation. The psalmist places his reference to alcohol in the context of the many gifts God has granted throughout the natural world. Yahweh constructed the heavens and sent the winds (vv 2-4). He gave the earth the deep waters of the sea and the tall mountains (v 6). As far as creatures go, he gave water to the land animals, trees for the birds to nest (v 11). He gave the growing green grass to the cattle (v 14a) and to humans he gave plants for food and wine to gladden their hearts, oil to beautify their faces, and bread to sustain strength (vv 14b-15).

Never be alone. Act foolish and play. Drink a good deal. It would even be a good idea to commit a sin — but not a gross one (Martin Luther, quoted in Martin Luther by Martin Marty [New York: Viking/Penguin, 2004], p. 181).

1. I am not saying that Scripture condones or permits drunkenness (this should be obvious from what I’ve written but I suspect it isn’t obvious to everyone).
2. I am not saying that alcohol only has positive effects.
3. I am not saying that it is wrong not to drink (though I do think that for most Christians it is).
4. I am not saying that we can be flippant in our use of alcohol.
5. I am not saying that alcohol hasn’t been abused by people to the extent that they have destroyed their lives by means of it.
6. I am not saying that we should disregard laws in society about times and places to drink alcohol.

[We've all been there. A thought strikes you at a moment, but it's fleeting fast. Get it down somewhere fast or you'll lose it. I grew so tired of this happening to me that I began making a point to stop whatever I was doing and record it. I usually record it on a BlackBerry Storm. I noticed that I had a little collection of random thoughts piling up and thought I'd post them here on occasion. Sometimes these thought will be half-baked. You'll notice that the development of these thoughts come in varying degrees. Sometimes you might think, "I think that one should've sat in the hopper a little longer..." If so, tell me. No bother, these ideas are in development. What follows is one of those ideas that I put down as it came to me.]

It is often supposed that the scholarship of believing scholars is less credible because they have a vested interest in their own claims and thus are not in a neutral position to assess historical data. As the old adage goes: if the Pope says there is a God he’s just doing his job but if August Comte says this he may be on to something. Granted, believing scholars have a vested interest and that they are not neutral, but it is not true that their claims are less credible. It is no more possible for the unbelieving scholar to assess historical data from a neutral position. The claims of Christianity are the kind of claims about which one cannot possibly be neutral. They are life-governing claims that if true demand one way of perceiving the world and if not true demand other ways of perceiving the world. It is impossible then that even a skeptic should occupy a neutral position on looking at the biblical data and assessing its truth since she makes his assessment on the judgment of a worldview that is either Christian or non-Christian. She may be agnostic with regard to his conclusion about the accuracy of the biblical data, but she is not neutral in the means by which he assesses the truth of it since she is not agnostic or neutral to her methods of evaluation. Agnosticism and neutrality are not methods of evaluation. They are at best attitudes about the outcome of evaluation. Thus it is not possible to evaluate agnostically or neutrally. People can only do any evaluation because they have principles and convictions on which they must stand in order to make an assessment.

[Here is a condensed version of the sermon that I preached this Sunday, April 5, 2009. I don't think that I'm a particularly great preacher but I think that I do fairly well at it. I try to preach what I think I would need someone to preach to me. Hopefully I'm enough like other people so that what I need to hear is similar to what they need to hear. The sermon, you will notice, is largely influenced by Luther (yes, I know I just opened myself up the charge that I should be largely influenced by the text). His explanation of Philippians 2:5-11 in "Two Kinds of Righteousness" is, in my estimation, one of the greatest theological treatises ever written. I don't plan to regularly post sermons here, but I thought some might be interested in reading it and I get a blog post out of it...win, win.]

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Our text today is the epistle lesson.

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Philippians 2:5-11).

There’s a theory in ethics called egoism. It’s a pretty simple theory really. It essentially says that all ethical decisions whether good or bad are ultimately for personal gain and benefit. It claims that there’s only one motive for all your moral actions: self-interest. It’s easy to see how self-interest is behind wrong moral actions. A thief steals because he or she is selfish. The person is only thinking of themselves and not how it will hurt the person that has been stolen from. But what about good moral actions, or, acts of kindness? Well, in these cases, the theory of egoism says that you have a self-interest, too. You give someone a gift because you want to feel good or be thought of as a nice person. You give to charity because you pride yourself on being a better person. For any moral action you can think of there is a selfish motive involved, says egoism.

But our epistle lesson says something different. It speaks of actions which are totally empty of self, and says that we are called to act in a way that can’t be explained by self-interest. Our text begins telling us about Christ who has equality with God. He is full of righteousness, wisdom, power, and glory. He had no selfish reason in coming to save us. There was nothing that he needed; so he could have held onto those things. But St. Paul tells us, he didn’t consider these things something to be held onto. He didn’t hold tightly to them, but he made himself nothing by taking on humanity for our sake. He gives himself to us and we now have his righteousness, his forgiveness, and his resurrection life. We have Christ himself. His life is ours and ours is his. This was done for our benefit, not for his. He didn’t need us. We needed him. What he did, he did with no concern for himself. He simply loved sinners for their own sake. As our gospel lesson said last week: he didn’t come to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for us. Christ did not sit in his righteousness, holiness, power and glory and ignore the world. He gave up what he had for our benefit, and served us in a completely selfless way.

Our text tells us the have this same mindset as Christ. What does that mean? It means that you have all the righteousness of Christ, too. All the greatness of Christ is yours because his life is your life. You are in the same position he was. But you aren’t given grace to make you selfish by keeping it for yourself. Having Christ’s life means that, just like Christ, you are free from self-concern. To have his life is to not hold onto the benefits of Christ for yourself but to empty yourself and take on the form of a servant.

Scripture teaches us of two kinds of righteousness: the first is the righteousness which Christ has given you as a gift apart from works. It belongs entirely to you. “The second kind of righteousness (a life of good works and love toward one’s neighbor and meekness and fear toward God) is the product of the first type, actually it’s fruit and consequence….Therefore it hates itself and loves its neighbor; it does not seek its own good, but that of another, and in this its whole way of living consists.”

Notice that Paul doesn’t just tell us something simple like “Be like Jesus.” He doesn’t just give us some law. He gives us gospel as well. He tells us where this demand to be like Jesus in our actions has been provided by Jesus himself. In other words, he tells us about the grace that we already have. He says in verse 5: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus.” This mindset is yours in Christ. How so? Having been given all things in Christ your pursuit for your own righteousness. Your effort to do good for yourself is over. That is a life that you don’t need. You are free from the need for self-concern. Seeing then that you are free in Christ, you are free to give your life to others. You have no need to be concerned for yourself because you have a savior who is concerned for you. Its right there in his word, he made himself nothing for you. He proved that he cares for you and that he works all things for your good. So now you can look away from yourself and to look to others just as Christ did for you.

As you know, today is Palm Sunday. If you want to know what Palm Sunday is about, here it is. Palm Sunday is about Jesus Christ being concerned with you and not about himself. Christ came into Jerusalem riding lowly on a donkey with no thought of self-importance. Here is the king of the universe entering a city in a way that no other king would enter. Caesar would never enter a city without great attention on himself. When Roman emperors road through a city they were out to impress you with their greatness and power. But Christ’s entrance was as unimpressive as one can be. He was riding on a peasant’s animal, not a king’s animal. He had no military might riding before him to indicate his power to crush his enemies. Jesus’ reputation had gone before him. John’s gospel tells us that the crowd that saw him raise Lazarus from the dead had been spreading the word about him. And now they heard he was coming to Jerusalem. All these people were expecting someone with a great display of greatness. Surely a man who could raise the dead would be impressive. He would surely make some grand entrance. But Jesus puts none of the attention on himself. Instead he is focused only on what has brought him to Jerusalem—giving himself for the benefit of you and me. Here he was receiving praise one moment as he enters Jerusalem but yet he was ready to endure the horrible suffering and death to follow because his concern for others. And so Paul tells us that we can have this mind because Christ had this mind for us. Do you want to worry about something? Don’t worry about yourself, you’ve got a Savior that already took care of what you think you needed to worry about. If you must worry, worry about other people. Be concerned for them.

The first epistle of John chapter 4 tells us something very similar to our text today: “By this is love perfected with us…because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us.”

We have received the love of Christ and we are transformed to be toward others as he was toward us. We have no fear of punishment but we love others because we have received Christ’s love. We can be emptied of ourselves and serve freely because Christ emptied himself for us and served us freely. “Have this mind among yourselves which is yours in Christ Jesus.”

I suspect that most Christians don’t think of acting for other people the way I’m talking about it today. How do most Christians think about good works? I think it probably goes something like this: “God has told us about all these things we are supposed to do and not do and we need to be good people and follow them because they are right to do and he punishes us if we don’t do what he has said.” I don’t know if many people would admit to thinking this but it’s definitely the standard way that most Christians operate. The problem with this is that has the wrong motives. There is fear of punishment from God and Scripture is quite clear that we have nothing to fear before God. Punishment has been dealt with in Christ. As 1 John 4 says…”There is no fear in love, because perfect love casts out fear because fear has to do with punishment.” What motivates a lot of Christians to do “good works” is their desire to please God and their wish to not displease him. A person with this mindset is also motivated being thought of by others as a good person. We want them to think well of us so we do things so that they will notice us.

But our text tells the right way to think about good works. It tells us that the standard Christian motive for doing good works is deeply wrong. It is flawed through and through. In fact what can look like good works are not good works at all, but are an expression of selfishness and focus on one’s own benefit. Think just a moment about how this works. A person thinks to themselves: “I don’t want God to be angry at me, and I don’t want to be punished for doing the wrong thing. Furthermore, I like being thought of by others as a person who does the right thing. So I’m going to help you.” When this is our motive we want to be noticed for having done the right thing. If someone else got the credit, it upsets us.

Now in case you are thinking to yourself that you’ve never done this, ask yourself if you’ve ever done something good that you wouldn’t have done if someone didn’t know it was you doing it. You wanted the credit. You wanted them to know who did it for them. But Christ tells us that a right motive doesn’t seek self-glory. He says in the Sermon on the Mount:

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

We’re all guilty of doing good works with the motive of getting glory from others. But this is just more self-focus. We don’t need self-focus when we have a savior so focused on us. Because we are righteous in God’s sight, our motive can now be just on the benefit of others. You can now be motivated simply by the needs of those around you. As Luther writes, “The soul no longer seeks to be righteous in and for itself, but it has Christ as its righteousness and therefore seeks only the welfare of others.” The person that has received mercy doesn’t think of himself or herself any longer and can now give attention to others.

So the final word today is that salvation frees us from self-pursuits. Any righteousness, any wisdom, any power you have belongs to others just as Christ’s righteousness, wisdom and power was not grasped for himself but became ours. As Luther writes, “For you are powerful, not that you may make the weak weaker by oppression but that you may make them powerful by raising them up and defending them. You are wise, not in order to laugh at the foolish and thereby make them more foolish, but that you may undertake to teach them as you yourself would wish to be taught. You are righteous that you may vindicate and pardon the unrighteous, not that you may only condemn, disparage, judge, and punish.”

So I declare today to you here. You are free in Christ. You have been given all of his gifts and if you know this then look away from yourself to see the needs of those around you and serve with a focus only on them. To quote Luther again: “You should be as inclined and disposed toward one another as you see Christ was disposed toward you.”

You have the greatest motive of all to give yourself in concern for others without selfishness. The motive is that Christ has freed you by giving himself to you. Only believers in Christ can have this motive because only believers in Christ are freed by Christ.

Maybe you’ve never thought of salvation this way: that all need for self-concern is over and you can now direct it toward others. This is Christ’s gift to you. May continue to give us grace that we may have the self-giving mindset among ourselves which is ours in Christ Jesus. God grant this unto us all. Amen.

And now may the peace of God which passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Undoubtedly, many who read this title are members of churches where homosexuality is considered morally wrong. These people will think: “No, my church doesn’t encourage homosexuality. We are against it.” Determining which churches promote homosexuality and which do not may seem obvious, but it isn’t.

Three Churches that Encourage Homosexuality

There are several ways that churches can encourage someone toward homosexuality. There is of course the obvious way, such as when a church says: “We do not condemn homosexuality. God made some people to be homosexual just as he has made some to be heterosexual.” There are churches that say this as directly as I just did. They welcome homosexuals believing that homosexuality can honor God just as much as heterosexuality. Let’s call these type of churches Openly Approving Churches. It is easy to see how these churches encourage homosexuality.

Then there are the churches that rail against these kinds of shameless promotions of homosexuality under Christ’s name. Thinking that they actively discourage homosexuality, they pride themselves on the way in which they condemn it, call down judgment on those who practice it, and rid themselves of anyone who struggles with it. These churches often have only have two words for those they discover to be homosexuals in their churches: “Get out!” (Ok, maybe three or four: “Get out, queer!/flaming homo!, etc.”). Let’s call these type of churches Openly Condemning Churches.

Then there are churches that generally don’t have much to say about the issue, but when they do address the subject, they simply state that it is a sin to practice homosexuality. They don’t want homosexuals in their church and wish they would just quietly go away. Let’s call these type of churches Silently Condemning Churches. I suspect that the majority of churches fit into this category.

I want to argue that each of these three responses to homosexuality are in fact responsible (in some measure) for encouraging it and bringing about the very thing they claim to hate. Here’s how it happens… 

Suppose that you belong to a Silently Condemning Church. It is common knowledge that the church doesn’t approve of homosexuality but it is rarely talked about. If someone was to admit to being a homosexual or if someone who struggles with homosexuality were to begin attending the church they would ostracize this person. He/she would not be welcome at the church and some members would prompt the pastor to have a talk with this person and let him/her know that he/she should leave the church. The pastor perhaps tells the person that what he/she is doing is sin and that he/she should stop having feelings toward members of the same sex. Ultimately (and rather quickly) the pastor makes known to this person (explicitly or implicitly) that he/she does not belong in this church.

In this scenario, what has the church communicated to this person about his/her homosexuality? In effect, it has said: The church has nothing to offer you. The church is not for people who struggle with your sin. We leave you to your sin. A homosexual is what you are and must be, but what you are is wrong and we offer no help with it. Furthermore, Jesus Christ can’t help you. He only helps normal people who sin but you are beyond the pale.

The person hears this message loud and clear, and, even worse, believes it. Your church convinces him/her of something he/she either already accepted or had been considering for a while: your real identity is that of a homosexual. It is who you really are. If the person ever thought that homosexuality might be wrong, that notion is quickly abandoned for the belief that it is never wrong to be true to yourself and to be who you are. A God that would judge someone for being who they are and for doing what they cannot change is evil.

Now, maybe this person wishes that he/she wasn’t a homosexual. Nevertheless, believing this is true, he/she practices homosexuality. This person has found out that the people out there who are against homosexuality are only in the business of condemning it, they don’t have anything else to say about it.

This is how your church pushes people (further) toward homosexuality.

In an Openly Condemning Church, the process takes place even more quickly and is more severe. It is possible that in Silently Condemning Churches people might initially think (as mistaken as they might be) that the church might be willing to help them in their struggle. But people who have sexual feelings toward the same sex or are involved in homosexuality are under no delusion that Openly Condemning Churches will help them.  Not only will these churches will not seek  to help someone who wants help in their struggle with homosexuality, they live for the opportunity to banish them. These kinds of churches very quickly push people further toward homosexuality.

Why Churches Unintentionally Encourage Homosexuality

But why do churches do this to people who are involved in or tempted by homosexuality? They don’t usually do this to people who struggle with anger, food addiction, depression, etc. They are even more longsuffering toward people who commit sins of the heterosexual variety. Furthermore, they are often more than accepting to those who make life difficult for anyone who struggles with the above sins.

I propose that there are at least three reasons the Silently Condemning Churches and the Openly Condemning Churches unintentionally encourage homosexuality.

The first reason that churches treat people this way is that they view homosexual behavior to be something that marks one as an unbeliever. Even in cases where a church’s view isn’t this well-formed, homosexual behavior or homosexual feelings at least indicates a person who is clearly not one of us. It is harder to say that someone who struggels with, say, anger demonstrates themselves to be an unbeliever since it is something with which we all struggle. We view anger as a common sin. It is normalized for us and so we are much more accepting of those who struggle with it. Where condemning a sin doesn’t require us to condemn ourselves, we are much more likely to tolerate it and perhaps even stand by someone else in their fight against it. But where a church feels like it can condemn others without condemning itself the temptation to do so is great. When we don’t understand how someone could be involved in homosexuality or have homosexual feelings we are prone to consider it one of the really awful sins. Sins that a believer (or at least someone who belongs to our group) couldn’t be in involved in.

The second reason that churches treat people this way is that the church has not historically had to deal with homosexuality in its midst. This is new territory. The history of Christian thought on the subject has promoted the idea that it is a sin that is only committed by those outside the church. Think of how little has been written in the history of the church that addresses the subject of how to bear someone’s burden who struggles with homosexual desire or is involved in homosexual activity. The social pressure to approve of homosexuality is something the church has not faced before (or at least not since the first and second centuries). But there is no sign that this pressure is decreasing and so the church must confront a problem that it is not used to confronting: how do we relate to church members who have homosexual feelings or are involved in homosexual activity? When a contemporary church, operating with the historical view that homosexuality is a sin that is only committed by those outside the church, encounters a member who admits to homosexual desire their first inclination is to put them on the other side of the doors where the church has historically taught those who are involved in such things belong.

The third reason that churches treat people this way is that homosexuality is often viewed (by both Christians and non-Christians) as a person’s greatest identity-determining factor in a way that other sins are not. Someone who is angry doesn’t call him/herself “an angry” the way someone who is involved in homosexuality considers him/herself “a homosexual”. An angry person doesn’t associate him/herself in groups of angry people. Even heterosexuality isn’t treated as one’s primary identity marker the way homosexuality is. Both homosexuals and heterosexuals often think of homosexuality as what is most important about someone who practices homosexuality. The church has bought into this view of homosexuality as well, and so it presents a challenge to treating someone as having  an identity in Christ that is greater than his/her struggle with homosexuality.

These reasons work together to explain why churches push someone away who might otherwise seek help in their fight against sin.

So what should we do?

There are those who have given up fighting against the sin of homosexuality. We must love them, be gracious to them, call them to repentance, and pray for them. But we cannot biblically consider them to be part of the church, just as we cannot consider to be part of the church anyone who has given up fighting against sin of any kind.

But those that I’m primarily considering here are those I’ve continually referred to by the phrase “struggling with homosexuality”. It is those who fit this description that the church must bear with, show patience toward, bring under the ministry of word and sacrament, and remind of Christ’s forgiveness. They must be treated as part of the company of the rest of us who are living as simultaneous saints and sinners.

Christ does not give up on those who turn to him.  He stubbornly fought against sin for them. To push away from the church those who call for help as they fight against any sin is to treat sin as greater than grace, to withhold the resources of forgiveness and strength, and to proclaim a savior who is too weak to hold the battle for them.

I don’t have much recommendation beyond this. I don’t think we should have much more to say than this. In thinking about how to relate to those who acknowledge that homosexuality is a sin but are still tempted by it, fall into it, but turn to Christ for hope, we must avoid treating their sin as somehow worse than ours. The effectiveness of the church community in the lives of those who struggle with homosexuality will, in large part, come about precisely because we do not distinguish “them” from “us” and do not treat their sin as a greater offense to Christ than ours.

Homosexuality is a sin just as adultery is a sin, just as pride is a sin, along with embezzlement, or hating the guy at work who annoys you. These sins will, of course, have different consequences in one’s life, and the consequences may come in varying degrees. But with regard to its status as a sin, homosexuality has nothing going for it that your sins in the past half-hour don’t. We have then only two options: push people further toward homosexuality by our hostility, alienation, neglect, and self-righteousness; or, with confidence in the power of Christ, stand by those who are struggling with the sin of homosexuality in the same way that we must stand by others in any sin, and in the same way that we desire others to stand by us.

As I was walking the campus of the University of Missouri-St. Louis, I heard one of two middle-eastern women in conversation say: “Jesus f***ing Christ” which made me wonder why there isn’t more religious sensitivity in American society toward Christians the way there is toward Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc. I can think of two reasons.

One reason is that Christians are the majority religion in American society. It is hard to take seriously the oppression of the majority. No one entertains the belief that there is a plight of the majority. If I make a comment in front of two middle-eastern women (say they are Muslim) to the effect of “F*** Muhammad” I can reasonably expect that this is perceived in a way that the parallel statement by the two women is not. Society tires of the majority as the majority in a way that it does not the minority and so we tolerate insensitivity toward the majority in a far greater way.

The second reason I can think that there isn’t more religious sensitivity in American society toward Christians is that Christians have reasons to tolerate it that others do not. Islam is not taught to endure those who hate you and speak evil of you as Christians are taught by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5). There is no command (that I can find) in the Q’uran to love your enemies. Consequently, I do not see that people fear violent repercussions from Christians either on an individual level or on organized level. There is within Christian teaching the idea that the world’s attitude toward us has already been established in it’s attitude toward our Lord. We share the same fate. So Christians should not be surprised at this. And the Christian response is to be the same as Christ’s. When he was reviled, he did not revile back but kept entrusting himself to God who judges justly.

Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry

One of the questions that I’m asked from time to time, and one that I also have asked many times concerns why a Christian needs to continually confess our sins if we have already been forgiven. Many of us have the vague notion that we need to confess our present sins, but don’t really know why. Sure, 1 John 1:9 (a letter written to believers) encourages confession of post-conversion sin, and certainly Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Forgive us our trespasses…” but many people do so without any clearer reason than that they are commanded (Of course, doing something because God has commanded it is never an insufficient reason, but it is better if we can also know the reason for the command). 

Therefore, God does not, as many stupidly believe, once for all reckon to us as righteousness that forgiveness of sins concerning which we have spoken in order that, having obtained pardon for our past life, we may afterwards seek righteousness in the law; this would be only to lead us into false hope, to laugh at us, and mock us. For since no perfection can come to us so long as we are clothed in this flesh, and the law moreover announces death and judgment to all who do not maintain perfect righteousness in works, it will always have grounds for accusing and condemning us unless, on the contrary, God’s mercy counters it, and by continual forgiveness of sins repeatedly acquits us (Institutes II.14. 10).

[I've been wanting to blog on this subject for a while now and after reading Christopher Gates' comment on another thread, I felt compelled to echo and elaborate on some of the things he said.]

When I was growing up, I heard my mom use the word “crap” one time and only one time. My jaw dropped. “Those” words were simply never used in our house. I could not believe what I heard. After I decided that I heard correctly, I was ashamed of her (even though she only said it in front of another sibbling) and I was seriously worried that God was going to punish her severely for it. I carried this view with me even into adulthood (though I eased up on the idea that God would severely punish you for using them). I always thought them to be a sin. I don’t remember when I changed my view but I remember when it was solidified.

Years ago, I remember watching a documentary on the making of Shawshank Redemption. One of the former prisoners from the defunct prison where the movie was filmed was being interviewed and he was asked to sum up what it was like living in that prison. He paused for a moment. Put his head down, and then looked up at the camera and said, “You were f***ed.” I realized that that one simple phrase captured the entirety of his experience in a way that another phrase could not, simply because that phrase has so many conotations, and he clearly meant every one of them. It wouldn’t have worked if he said, “It was awful. The prisoners would rape you and the guards would beat you.” That one phrase said it all at once and said it better.

I can think of three arguments that I have heard over the years for never using curse words. I think the last one has the most merit, but still misses the mark.

The first argument centers around the idea that there is an agreed upon list of bad words, and that there is something sinful (we’re not usually told what) about using words from that list (and of course, the list isn’t as agreed upon as many would like to think. For example, “crap” made the list in our house, but it didn’t make Chuck Swindoll’s). The argument, rather simply, goes that the Bible says that we shouldn’t use foul language. The verse that’s usually pointed out to me is Eph 4:29: “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace to the hearers” (KJV). This is an unfortunate translation of this verse. The way it is translated implies that there is something inherently corrupt about the words used. But Paul is not speaking of words which are themselves corrupt but the words which do the corrupting of others. Many versions translate it the same as the KJV (NIV, NRSV, RSV, NASB to name a few). Ironically, they don’t translate the second half of the verse the same way. They say “that which is good for edifying”. If they were consistent with the first part of the translation they would translate it “edifying words” or something similar. This would imply that there are words that are inherently edifying, instead of words which have to be USED to edify. No one is edified simply be saying lots of Christian-associated words like “grace” “God” or “Jesus” (I’m sure you’ve seen the green and white bumper stickers which simply say “JESUS”. I always think ‘yeah, what about him?’ The sticker makes him look like he’s running for senate or something). These words are not inherently edifying, they have to be used in this way. We seem to understand this when it comes to encouraging someone, but somehow we don’t think the same about discouraging or “bad” words. Here, we have a list. And the mere mention of a word from that list at any time, according to many Christians, is tantamount to a sin. Why? Well, they’re just bad words and your not supposed to say them. Is there any biblical support for this? Of course, Eph 4:29. The circle continues…

Thankfully, the ESV gets it right. The translation reads: “Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” This translation discourages the reading that there are words which are inherently corrupt. The words are not spoken of as being corrupt in themselves, rather to qualify they have to corrupt somebody. Paul’s point is not: Don’t use harm words (i.e. words from the naughty list).  Paul’s point is: Don’t use words to harm others. The difference (again) is between using words which are already corrupt vs. using words for the purpose of corrupting. How we decide what words these are depends on the effect they have on the listener not whether or not they are on an arbitrary, predecided list of words.

Understanding Eph 4:29 this way means that curse words like any other words can be used for harm or for edification. Suppose I am caught in a real bought of spiritual depression and am not looking to Christ but dwelling on my failures (a form of self-righteousness in its own right) and a fellow believer sees me in this state and says, “Damn it, John, quit trusting in yourself and look to Christ. What the hell do you have to be so down about when you have new life in Christ?” Is this not edification? Perhaps I have been shaken by the seriousness of his/her plea through the use of strong language in a way that I might not have without these words. Since I was not corrupted by what was said, but was encouraged and fled to Christ then what was said (curse words and all) qualifies as “words which are useful for edifying” and not “corrupting talk”.

Another argument I hear from time to time against using foul language goes like this: “If you wouldn’t want your children saying those words, then you shouldn’t use them either.” This objection is more easily dealt with. I don’t want my kids doing a lot of things I do, and this is not a double standard. I don’t want my ten-month-old daughter behind the wheel of a car; I don’t want her using a razor blade; I don’t want her crossing the street. The reason is not because I think there is something inherently wrong with these things, but because I don’t think she’s mature enough to know how to handle these situations. The same goes for cursing. Children lack judgment on when to use those words, and until they possess the proper judgment, I don’t want them using them at all. This is precisely what I will tell my daughter. While I probably won’t use much foul language around her, it is only because I don’t want her to naturally absorb that vocabulary and then use it without discretion.

One last argument that I have heard doesn’t really raise the issue of morality as much as it does tastefulness. Numerous times people have said that cursing is a substitute for a poor vocabulary and is an indication of an ignorant person. The idea is that if someone was clever enough they wouldn’t need to use those words. I’m sure this is true in some cases. The person who rarely uses another adjective besides “f***ing” could probably benefit from receiving dictionary.com’s Word of the Day. But the opposite can be said as well. These words can enhance your vocabulary. They can be effective means of communication at times when no other words seem to quite capture the idea (such as in the case of the prisoner I referenced above). Sure, the charge may still apply that a really clever person could find a way to convey the same idea using different words, but then this would apply to any word. Does someone really need to use the word “gregarious”? Couldn’t a really clever person find a way to convey the same idea using a different word? Perhaps. But why be handicapped if you don’t have to? It’s better to have more vocabulary choices than fewer. This is part of what makes language so rich and so powerful. Besides, I don’t think a clever person would find a way to say things without using foul language. He/she would find a clever way to use foul language.

The point I want to make is that curse words are simply one part of strong language in general (I have in mind phrases such as “shut up” “you suck” “piss off” “I hate you”, “I love you”, “will you marry me?”, etc.). I think we should exercise care in how we use foul language, just as we should use care in how we use all strong language (and to a lesser degree, words in general). But I’ve yet to hear a convincing argument for total abstinence regarding these words.

I haven’t gotten into the issue of the motives of one’s heart. Motivation is really a separate issue which can make anything you do wrong — from eating a sandwich to preaching a sermon. But with regard to the question of whether cursing is inherently wrong, I cannot find a reason to think so. In fact, it may be in certain contexts entirely virtuous.

Martin Luther was known to use foul language when he spoke of sin and the Devil. This is entirely appropriate. What other words should we use to describe the foulest things than the foulest words we have available. If ever there was a purpose for using foul language this is it (as you probably know, some of our curse words — and also the very word “curse” — originated as religious pronouncements such as “damn”and “hell”). Perhaps you may be treating the Devil a little too politely. He deserves to hear foul language, and because of Christ you deserve to say it to him. Here’s a bit of a primer from Luther to get you started: “But if [the merit of Christ] is not enough for you, you Devil, I have also shit and pissed; wipe your mouth on that and take a hearty bite’ (Luther quoted in Heiko Oberman, Luther: Man between God and the Devil [1982], 107).

There’s more that I want to say on this subject, but I’ll save it for the comments. Perhaps you’re aware of other arguments against using foul language and want to discuss those. If so, I’d love to hear them.

[We've all been there. A thought strikes you at a moment, but it's fleeting fast. Get it down somewhere fast or you'll lose it. I grew so tired of this happening that I began making a point to stop whatever I was doing and record it. I usually record it on a Blackberry Curve. I noticed that I had a little collection of random thoughts piling up and thought I'd post them here on occasion. Sometimes these thought will be half-baked. You'll notice that the development of these thoughts come in varying degrees. Sometimes you might think, "I think that one should've sat in the hopper a little longer..." If so, tell me. No bother, these ideas are in development. What follows is one of those ideas that I put down as it came to me.]

Science is only valuable as a tool for making our lives easier or more fruitful. We value science for giving us what we value. We do not tend to value science for its claims to truth. If we found that science took away or impeded our possession of the things we value, it wouldn’t matter whether it asserted itself as true. It would cease to be granted its authority. Science thus has an anthropocentric component. If we were to discover some fact that had no value for human living then it would be irrelevant (until it could be shown to have relevance for what we value). Furthermore, science is not valued for its ability to reveal reality to us. The picture of reality that science claims to provide is becoming increasingly more confusing. And the average person understands the picture supplied by science less and less. Nevertheless most of us trust the picture of reality that science gives us. But we trust it not because we’ve tested it according to a strict method for identifying reality but because it continues to give us some of the things we value. Thus, with regard to the question of what constitutes reality, the claims of science are only of practical and have no intrinsic theoretical value. To the extent that we believe that science gives us an accurate picture of reality we must show what difference this makes for science — why it is scientifically necessary or relevant that the picture provided be true. The irrelevance of scientific realism is reinforced by the need for realists to show that scientific realism is pragmatically necessary. Even in answering that science gives us an accurate picture of reality that answer will have to terminate in a pragmatic concern. What does an accurate picture of reality get me? How can I use it?

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I know that many “Reformed” evangelicals like Paul Washer’s preaching. I find this rather troubling. I’ve heard several sermons by him and I find myself grateful that I heard the gospel elsewhere because I’ve yet to find it in anything Paul Washer says. Now, it’s true, I don’t just dislike his theology, I also dislike how he delivers it. I’m probably predisposed to dislike Paul Washer’s preaching. Paul Washer, how do you annoy me? Let me count the ways… I’m annoyed by the contrived weepiness with an amazing control to shut off the faucet when its time to yell. I’m annoyed by the synthetic British-southern hybrid accent, or (in keeping with the accent), the attempt to weave Puritan word-order into sermons (e.g. “you know not God!”), or what seems to be a relish for pissing people off while masquarading as speaking the hard things out of love. But these are my personal piques and I don’t expect others to share them. So I’ll dispense with those things and give attention to more serious errors.

I’m sure there are worse sermons out there, and I’m sure that anyone who listens to his sermons will think that he’s a pretty good communicator. There’s no question he’s a passionate speaker, and that he is a gifted orator. So when I say, it’s one of the worst sermons, I don’t mean to judge him stylistically (though I wouldn’t last 5 minutes listening to this guy). I mean “worst” in the sense of dangerous, harmful, corrupting, etc. In my judgment, his gift as a communicator contributes to this. If he taught in a turgid and disinteresting style, then I’d rest assure that most people weren’t listening to him. But he’s got people’s attention and I’m quite sure that he could have them do just about anything he said to prove their devotion to God.

Looking back on my youth conference experiences as I was growing up, I find that it was predominately a group of adults who engaged in a lot of manipulation of teenage emotional states. When it comes to playing this game, Paul Washer is the all-time MVP. He excels at scaring a couple thousand teenagers shitless. At this point, it doesn’t really matter what theology he holds too, teenagers don’t get worked up because of his theology. They get worked up because of a very angry, yelling adult threatening hell if they don’t agree with him.  But once the emotional ploy is over, I can assure you that they don’t persist in their commitments. They need to keep going back for more fear tactics to stay “sold out” to Jesus (Of course its a clever move on Washer’s part to criticize preachers who do this all the while practicing it himself [33:30]).

I’m not saying that nothing he says is true, or that nothing can be learned from him. But the damage he does is greater than what little good he has to offer.

Paul Washer does not know what it is to encourage the believers. He does not know that the  goodness of God leads to repentance and he doesn’t know that perfect love casts out fear because fear has to do with punishment. He doesn’t know that navel-gazing is maddening and takes the eyes off of Jesus. But he does no that no one else is as good a follower of Jesus Christ as he is. No one can give of himself in Romania, South America, and Africa like he can, and he’ll tell you otherwise if you don’t think so. If this guy wasn’t taken seriously be so many people, this would’ve made a great post under “There’s Humor in Theology”. Don’t take my word for it though. Get it straight from the faux-Puritan’s mouth.

[The following is a second edit, at the request of John Meade]

Here’s a few things to look for:

• If you disagree with what Paul Washer says then this means you have a problem with God, not with Paul Washer. (2:45)
• “The greatest heresy in the American Evangelical and Protestant Church is that if you pray and ask Jesus Christ to come into your heart, he will definitely come in. You will not find that in any place in Scripture” (9:56). Why doesn’t it count when Jesus says, “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me” (Rev 3:20)? I don’t care for the language of “asking Jesus into your heart” But if someone sincerely prays this it’s no heresy and certainly not the greatest heresy. Washer’s sermon comes a lot closer to heresy than asking Jesus to come into your heart and believing he will.
• At least 99% of people in Montgomery, AL think that they are believers in Jesus (13:00) What kind of statistic is that? I’m detecting a little evangelistic drama here. Anyone?
• Paul Washer has the power to shock you into life (or at least a bunch of teenagers) with his words (13:50).
• The Holy Spirit doesn’t work in the audience’s churches because they watched the wrong kind of shows on television before they went to church that day (16:40).
• “Abortion in the church is just as prevalent as outside in the world” (20:50). Doubt this statistic very much. But hey, it has shock cache.
• Denies that someone can be a drug addict or commit immorality and be a Christian. No such thing as a carnal Christian. When Paul said it to the church at Corinth he meant that they were all unbelievers (21:00).
• “I fear men who have spent most of their life telling other men that they are saved” (24:55). But he has no problem telling people that they are not saved.
• “You know that you have been saved because your life is in a process of being changed” (27:50). This change is of course equated with being a very moral person.
• God has to be the center of your life in order to be saved (28:25). I guess we’re all screwed (except Paul Washer), because God is not the center of your life or mine. That’s what makes us sinners.
• “How will you know if someone is a genuine Christian? By their fruit” (29:05). And of course the fruit is a list of good moral deeds (such as dressing modestly, not doing drugs, not telling or laughing at dirty jokes, not hanging around with bad people, not listening to the world’s music [whatever that is] and most of all keeping it in your pants until you’re married). Jesus was talking about how to recognize false prophets, and as we all know, false prophets are strung out on drugs, run with loose women (or men), tell the filthiest jokes, listen to the wrong music (Barry Manilow?) and show too much skin. Jesus was questioning their morals because in Jesus’ mind bad fruit is not doing what’s on the moral list and doing what’s on the immoral list. A false prophet’s low morals is how you’ll recognize him/her.
• Paul Washer can’t see your heart, and is easily deceived by his own heart, but he can know the content of your heart by looking at your fruit (35:20). For his definition of fruit, see point above.
• Profession of faith in Jesus Christ is worth absolutely nothing. He says this because Matthew 7 says that not everyone who professes will enter into the kingdom. Ergo, your profession is worthless (36:00). How’s that for logic?
• The logic continues…In Nigeria you can be almost certain that someone’s profession is true because they could die for professing Christ (37:45).
• “Your profession of faith is no proof that you are born again because everybody in this whole country professes faith in Jesus Christ” (38:55). So because other people fake it by falsely professing, when you profess, it doesn’t prove anything.
• When Jesus says, “Depart from me you workers of lawlessness”, he’s talking about people who don’t keep the list of commandments (41:50). Paul Washer keeps them, but his audience doesn’t.
• Paul Washer could astound us with his vocabulary if he wanted to…but he didn’t want to (46:00).
• Here come the tears (46:30) and again (46:55) and again (47:19) and the grand finale (51:32) and magically they’re off (53:07)!
• Paul Washer has spent his life in jungles and freezing in the Andes (49:00)…be impressed. Be very impressed.
• Apparently its possible to smell like the world (49:55). I wonder what scent that is. Is it made by Calvin Klein or is it that cheap fried food smell from the state fair?
• All of the parents of those in the audience want the wrong things for their children, but he wants the right things for his son (50:30). If only parents could be more like Paul Washer.
• If you want to be saved you should stand up when Paul Washer tells you too (53:50). Oh! and you have to walk down and meet with him (54:15).
• Preaching more like Paul Washer or full-on persecution is the only thing that is going to save the church in America (54:58).
• Oh wait! He changed his mind, you don’t have to come stand up and come forward (55:33). Oh wait! But if you are one of the really serious ones in the group you will come forward…The mind games continue.
• Paul Washer can’t read hearts (35:20) but he’s sure that someone’s Christian testimony from the day before was the real deal (58:00).
• An astounding feat of confusing law and gospel (00:51 – 58:34)

Apparently Paul Washer isn’t aware that there are two ways to offend God: with your immorality and with your morality. As C. S. Lewis said:

If anyone thinks that Christians regard unchastity as the supreme vice, he is quite wrong. The sins of the flesh are bad, but they are the least bad of all sins. All the worst pleasures are purely spiritual: the pleasure of putting other people in the wrong, of bossing and patronising and spoiling sport, and backbiting; the pleasures of power, of hatred….That is why a cold, self-righteous prig who goes to church may be far nearer to hell than a prostitute. But, of course, it is better to be neither (Mere Christianity [New York: MacMillian, 1967], 94-95).

Or, even better, as Jesus said to the morally-excellent Pharisees:

I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him (Matthew 21:31-32).

After criticizing Washer, only God knows whether I’m one of those described by Lewis as taking pleasure of putting other people in the wrong. I leave that with Christ.

[I'm clearing out my list of drafts -- posts I started but never finished. Here's a topic I took about a year ago and finally managed to finish.]

Yes, I watched Borat. I’m glad I didn’t listen to all the people who said it was a sign of the decay of civilization. I find it is a wonderful movie with insightful social commentary and profound lessons for Western society. While those who also watched Borat are wondering if I saw the same movie they did, let me try to make the case. First, if you haven’t seen the movie, throw out all you’ve heard and let my words reach you unfettered by the misplaced criticism. Contrary to popular opinion it is not simply a fratboy movie full of senseless bathroom humor. Think of the basic plot. Jewish comedian Sasha Baron Cohen pretends to be a naive, racist, third-world visitor from Kazakhstan in attempt to make light of unsuspecting Westerners. Surely, the idea has merit.

We take many of our Western values for granted: pluralism, tolerance, equality for races and sexes. We view the major civil rights issues to be making sure people have equal rights to health care, education, marriage, etc. Westerners typically see these as important, if not necessary, features of a society. However, Borat wants to challenge these and show that the non-Western cultures have to deal with much bigger problems than whether everyone gets equal access to health care. He puts his foreign customs and values up against our supposed tolerance to see just how much pluralism we can take. In the end, it is revealed that we really aren’t as tolerant as we think. Our tolerance only goes so far and it its limits are arbitrary.

I’ll focus primarily on one scene which I find most succinctly reveals what makes Borat a worthwhile film. In this scene, Borat is invited to a dinner party with wealthy suburbanites (which includes a minister) in Birmingham, AL. Here he behaves in all kinds of awkward ways that violate the hosts’ concept of propriety (kissing the men on the lips, mistaking a man who is retired as “retarded”), but priding themselves on being so multicultural and hospitable to those that are different, they merely smirk at his behavior. Borat asks if he can use the telephone and calls a black escort from an advertisement he picked up earlier and invites her to the house of his wealthy, white hosts. Later, he excuses himself to the restroom, and while gone, the hosts discuss how vast are the cultural differences but agree that “it wouldn’t take very much time for him to be Americanized.” Borat returns to the dinner table with his excrement in a plastic bag, asking where he should put it. This prompts the host to give him a lesson on bathroom hygiene. Finally, Lynelle, an overweight prostitute shows up at the door in a halter-top and short shorts. The pastor is the first one to leave when she shows up. The host begins to give various excuses as to why she can’t stay and when Borat asks if she can at least stay for dessert, the host calls the sheriff and chases them both out of her house. In the next scene, as they are riding in Borat’s van, Borat apologizes to Lynelle for the treatment she endured from his former hosts. The contrast between Borat’s generosity and kindness to those from all walks of life and the contrived pseudo-acceptance of the suburbanites is stark. And the viewer finds herself seeing more humanity and goodness in a man like Borat than in those of high society.

So much for tolerance and multiculturalism. It has its breaking point, but its limits are not based on well-thought principles. In scenario after scenario there’s an initial openness to Borat’s culture and values but many scenarios end with an arbitrary expression of offense that is simply a reaction rather than an expression of carefully crafted values.

Borat points out the hypocrisy of Western tolerance in other ways, also: put enough pressure on us and we gladly abandon our values. Another scene points out that just as easily as we accepted the so-called virtues of tolerance without careful thought or intention we can just as easily be swayed from it without much thought or intention. The scene below is not from the movie. Instead it is a clip from another Baron Cohen creation, the Ali G Show,where Borat occasionally appeared in a cameo.

I’m sure that if you had surveyed the opinion of the bar-goers toward Jews before Borat sang this number, you would’ve gotten something close to a standard, politically correct response of tolerance and openness to those of other races and cultures. Yet, by the end of a two-minute song he has them all shouting “Throw the Jew down the well!” Clearly many in our culture are easily swayed and take an ad hoc approach to values.

But we’re hypocrites and we’ve expunged intolerance from what we’ll tolerate in others, but we still tolerate in ourselves. Once again, the question is put on the table: does philosophical pluralism really work?

Lest we chalk up this racist response as the unfortunate expression of the culturally-deformed, unenlightened few who haven’t arrived at our level of public virtue, consider this clip of a Borat interview with a Cambridge University professor…

There is something ironic about a man saying that he has visited with some the most intelligent people in Britain as he stands on a litter-covered lawn and scenes of senseless behavior flash on the screen. Hopefully, you hear his sarcasm when he extols the wonder of government-funded education and declares to his countrymen: “We have lot of lesson to learn.”

The virtue of total tolerance is a farce. It is not possible to consistently hold it. Those who attempt to do so only open themselves for others (in this case Borat) to exploit this inconsistency. 

I have shared my thoughts on Borat with some thoughtful people and I always receive the same response: “You’re reading into the movie. No one else sees what you see….the filmmakers were not out to make a thought-provoking exposé on the foolishness of Western values” (Actually, I’m paraphrasing. No one ever used the word “exposé”). My response is always two-fold. 1) It doesn’t matter if other people don’t see what I see. I’m sure that most people that watched Borat enjoyed it for the physical comedy and its shock-value, but most media affects us without our seeing how it works on us. Therein lies the power of media. Besides, others I’ve spoken to also see Borat the way I do. 2) Maybe the filmmakers weren’t intentionally trying to comment on contemporary Western values, but they did so even if by accident. Our ideas often have implications that we don’t perceive though others do. Still, what makes someone so certain that the filmmakers weren’t intending to reveal the absurdities of our culture? After all, Baron Cohen studied history at Cambridge and wrote his thesis on Jewish participation in the American Civil Rights movement of the 60’s.

Now it’s one thing to directly confront the absurdity of cultural tolerance, but it is another to mock it in such a subtle and clever way as Borat. This is what makes the movie so worthwhile. Maybe you find yourself being offended by it. Perhaps it has done its job, if only you will reflect on your reason for taking offense and consider whether your offense is based on an arbitrary standard. If so, you might have made great fodder for Borat.

Albert Mohler recently wrote a largely anecdotal reflection on the local circumstances of power outages in Louisville. It was getting a little boring and then he chose to take an interesting if ridiculous turn. He concludes his blog post: “The Lord, as the Bible says, causes it to rain on both the just and the unjust.  Churches and taverns are both dark.  Darkness fell on those doing good and those doing evil.  The difference may not be evident again until the lights come back on.”

Now I never took the GRE, but I studied quite a bit for it and Mohler’s comment could easily function as one of those word association questions.

Rain on the just is to church, as rain on the unjust is to ______________. 

A. playground
B. Yankee Stadium
C. tavern
D. bald men

At the risk of being accused of putting words in his mouth, it seems clear that he’s identifying the just people as those in the church and the unjust people as those in the taverns. But whence comes this dichotomy? I certainly agree that the church is the gathering of the just, but why must this mean that Mohler considers those in places that serve alchohol are “those doing evil”? I doubt that substituting “grocery stores” for “taverns” would’ve afforded him the opportunity to communicate the point he was out to make.  I won’t go on the defense and argue that alchohol is a gift of God (Ps. 104:14-15), but I wonder, “Why distract your readers from your main point for a chance to take a dig at taverns and people who attend taverns?”

I patronize “taverns” almost weekly (not always the same place) and I have many times met other believers there. I often choose to meet with Christian friends in pubs. There are many Christians that hold Bible studies and discussion groups in pubs. I don’t see what necessitates that “taverns” are the gathering place of the evil. Furthermore, I have seen many more unjust things go on in churches than I have ever seen in taverns. All of this makes drawing the lines between the church as the home of the just/those doing good and the tavern as the home of the unjust/those doing evil messier than Mohler understands it to be.

I once ran into Mohler at Chick-fil-a on a Friday night a couple of years ago. The employee taking his order was a Southern Seminary student and he and Mohler were talking. I interjected that I was a SBTS grad and he said that “Chick-fil-a is a great weekend meeting place for Baptists because we don’t do beer, we do carbs.” This Baptist-turned-Lutheran saw that descriptively this wasn’t true (many Baptists do both) and prescriptively this wasn’t true (Christians can do both).

 Buy the shirt.

Think about this:

Under ‘things in the broadest possible sense’ include such radically different items as not only ‘cabbages and kings’, but numbers and duties. possibilities and finger snaps, aesthetic experience and death. To achieve success in philosophy would be, to use a contemporary turn of phrase, to ‘know one’s way around’ with respect to all these things, not in that unreflective way in which the centipede of the story knew its way around before it faced the question, ‘how do I walk?, but in that reflective way which means that no intellectual holds are barred. Knowing one’s way around is, to use a current distinction, a formof ‘knowing how‘ as contrasted with ‘knowing that’. There is all the difference in the world between knowing how to ride a bicycle and knowing that a steady pressure by the legs of a balanced person onthe pedals would result in forward motion (Wilfrid Sellars, Science, Perception, and Reality, [Atascadero, CA: Ridgeview Publishing Co, 1).

This statement sums up well what we are after when we speak of knowledge. Sure, we want to know about these radically different items Sellars lists but we want to think rightly about them. We want to know the how and the why not the simple what. Cornelius Van Til, reminded us (naggingly at times) that there are no brute facts. In fact, we can go even further: there isn't even brute knowledge of brute facts. To even recognize one fact as seperate from another takes a viewpoint, a perspective - the beginning of doing something with facts. We easily recognize what we are after when we speak of human knowledge - we want to know what to do with facts. But when it comes to speaking of God's knowledge, Christians often forget what's most important. We are often concerned with God's knowledge of facts or perhaps as some might term them (incorrectly in my judgment) propositions. We want to make sure God knows stuff - all about stuff. But when we get the bottom of what this means, it turns out we've found a God who can play a helluva game of Trivial Pursuit. Not exactly a great-making property for God.

I don't want a wikiGod or a supercomputer God. More importantly God does not disclose himself as this kind of God. It's important to make clear what I'm not saying. I'm not saying that God doesn't know all the facts. What I am saying is that speaking of a God who knows all propositions is missing the relevance of knowledge that goes beyond propositions. We often place the weight of what we mean by omniscience on knowing propositions we have misplaced what is significant about God's knowledge.

Suppose God was a supercomputer after all, and that he knew events of what would has happened, is happening, and will happen exhaustively. This hardly would count as knowledge. It wouldn't count as knowledge because it undercuts what is so valuable about real knowledge: usefulness.

This brings us to the goal of philosophy. Philosophers are not concerned with knowing facts as the goal of philosophy. In fact nearly all philosophers grant that we know all kinds of facts. But to know how to know a fact and what to do with the ones you know is a different matter.

God is a God who not only knows things but knows how to know things and knows what things mean. He knows how to 'get around' in the world. His knowledge extends far beyond propositions. It goes into an interpretation that leaves behind the obsession with the propositional "knowing-thats". (For example is a duck's knowing how to swim a metaphorical phrasing of the proposition: "Water supports me"?) Does God know everything? Sure. But he also knows every how, every why, and everyone in a way that isn't reducible or even reliant on propositional knowledge. And this means knowing how to connect the things to the hows and the hows to the whys. It means knowing from a perspective in a non-brutish way. It means having the right take on the facts. It means knowing what makes a fact a fact and knowing how to both relate what should be related and separate what should be separated.

Lest you think I'm attacking a straw man, here a few examples of the ways in which Christians (most egregiously Reformed Evangelicals) commonly speak of God's knowledge:

"The word means to see or know all things....I have recently been going through a box of old newspaper clippings from earlier years. To my astonishment, I had forgotten, not only many things that happened to me, but many of the people involved. Time dims our remembrance of much that has happened. God is not like that. He always knows what is past, present, and future, if he is omniscient" (Joe Nesom, "The Omniscience of God: Does the Lord Really Know Everything" Founders Journal Fall [2001]: 4).

Further examples of this kind of talk in Reformed literature could be multiplied beyond your interest.

This is not a recent way of talking about God’s knowledge either. Irenaeus tells us that God gave us Scripture “in order that our faith might be firmly established; and contained a prophecy of things to come in order that man may learn that God has foreknowledge of all things” (Against Heresies 3.21.9). The benefit of prophecy is that we may learn that God foreknows all things? The common appeal to foreknowledge as “foreloving” doesn’t fit this context. God does not forelove all things because God does not love all things (Prov 6:16)

Notice the concern with knowing facts. But what good are these facts if God doesn’t know what to do with them? Now in defense of the way that people often speak of omniscience they are certainly not denying that God knows how to make use of the facts.

The danger in ignoring this more robust picture of knowledge is that we often assume that God’s interpretatoin of the world is much like ours. The difference being that he knows more. This I think has led to many people who have an easier time accepting a God knows every fact than a God who has the true interpretation and picture of reality. I dare say that most non-Christians find the former more palatable to believe about the Christian God than the latter. A God who knows lots of stuff isn’t the theat to our independence the way that a God who has the only right perspective on everything. I certainly find this more offensive to my attempts to control my reality.

Furthermore, speaking of a God who has the right interpretation presupposes that he has the all the facts down. If he didn’t have all the facts neither we nor God could be sure that he had the right interpretation since some unknown fact(oid) could possibly overturn how he thinks they should be related.

Consider the ways in which Scripture sometimes speaks of God’s knowledge:

 Lord, you have searched me and you know me, You know when I sit and when I rise. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways (Ps. 139:1-2a & 3).

Is the significance of God’s knowledge to be found in knowing that he knows all the facts about me, such that if I were a category on Jeopardy God would clean up on any question (daily double included)? Isn’t the real value of this knowledge found in God’s knowing how I operate, what makes me tick, where I fit into the bigger picture and who I really am afterall?

Wilfrid Sellars speaks of the work of a philosopher as working to see how the work in one field fits into the bigger picture, and thus actually creating the bigger picture. It is not that we approach our study of a subject with an already known big picture, rather we integrate the parts to create a picture. But neither do we know the parts any better than the picture? No. Once again we are up against the one and the many problem. But God is not concerned any less with doing philosophy in this sense. He is a philosopher of the true sort. And any hope we have of knowing how to put together the big picture or know one part of the picture from another is a following after God who has created the picture we seek to understand. Our philosophy is to reflect his philosophy. His is the perspective that we seek to gain, but we can only ever gain perspective as creatures. Our knowledge is at best analagous to his. It is true knowledge, but it is not identical. This is what we should be emphasizing about God’s omniscience and this is I think the greatest challenge to those who cast doubt on the omniscience of God.