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Jews for Jesus

July 19th, 2010

One might have thought that, after 2,000 years of opposition, hostility, persecution and eventually extermination at the hands of supposedly Christian authorities, the Jews would be in no frame of mind to look favourably upon the Christians’ Saviour. It is all the more surprising, therefore, to discover that the reverse is true; in-deed, that the 20th century has seen a pronounced movement for what has become known as “the reclamation of Jesus for Judaism”.

Joseph Klausner, writing in the Twenties rejects the idea that Jesus is not an historical figure. He speaks glowingly of Jesus, although he does not accept Jesus as the Messiah. He writes: “Everything which Jesus ever uttered on ethical teaching is Jewish but his over-emphasis was NOT Judaism and, in fact, brought about non-Judaism”; “It is universally admitted…that Christ taught the purest and sublimest system of ethics, one which throws the moral precepts and maxims of the wisest men of antiquity far into the shade”; and “In his ethical code there is sublimity, distinctive-
ness and originality in form unparalled in any other Hebrew ethical code; neither is there any parallel to the remarkable act of his parables”.

Similar assessments of Jesus are to be found in the works of Claude Montefiore, Geza Vermes, S.Sandmel, S.C.Reif, D.Flusser and many others.

One Jewish scholar, Dr. Pinchas Lapide, goes so far as to claim that the Resurrection of Jesus actually happened. He cannot, however, accept Jesus as the Messiah. All very remarkable.

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If Jesus came back to earth to-day

July 9th, 2010

If Jesus were to return to Earth to-day in the state He had before, what would He make of the Church and society?

The Church: He would be amazed and appalled that there are 38,000 different denominations and sects within Chrisstianity. He would call the leaders together and instruct them to end their divisions forthwith.
He would be puzzled that the ministry structure of bishop, priest and deacon – set out in the NT was not being universally followed. He would also enjoin His followers to adopt the additional ministries set out by St. Paul.
BIBLE: He would commend biblical scholars for all their efforts. He would, however, upbraid the two extremes of scholars coming to ultra-liberal conclusions bordering on agnosticism and of Fundamentalists, performing contorsions to try to reconcile the irreconcilable in the text, refusing to admit to themselves that Jesus had amended parts of the OT.
Ministry: He would state quite clearly that clergy could be married or single, as they wish and not through obligation. Because of the changes in society since His day, women can become bishops, priests and deacons.
He would be disappointed that most of His followers had not adopted His teaching about “binding and loosing” and would order its immediate implementaation.
He would order the disestablishment of the Vatican and bishops’ palaces, as these owe more to the pagan Roman Empire and less to the Carpeenter of Nazareth.
He would be appalled by the glass and plastic skyscrapers in the States housing the” electronic preachers”. The uninterrupted radio and TV preaching a haute voix and with a nadir of guilt is, He would say, not how He preached in Galilee.
With regard to religious orders, He would say that He gave no instructions whilst in Galilee that there were to be Dead Sea Sect-type communities within Christianity. He would add that if they practised apostolic outreach, they may continue.
He would praise missionary endeavours in the Third World and the activities in the West over the centuries. He would, however, draw attention to the lack of missionary effort in , say, Europe, which enables opponents to score intellectually.
Prayers to Mary and the saints – there are two points
1. In this life many people ask others for their prayers – the same principle applies after death.
2. All prayers to Mary and the saints are through Me.
His main thrust would be concern for the poor, sick and needy at home and overseas – in brief, the Social Gospel. He would applaud the massive progress since His own day. He would state that it was His attention to visit Africa and Asia. For the West there needed to an ever-increasing bias to the poor.and a world government.
He would draw attention to the fact that Russia and the West still possess nuclear weapons aimed at each otheer as if the Cold War had not evaporated..
As to other world religions, Jesus said He would need to study them but stated that He was starting from the basis that “Those who are not against us are for us”.
In the course of several TV and radio interviews Jesus stated that

He looked forward to visiting the Holy Land but from what He had heard there was tension and war just as there had been in the 1st century AD.
He applauded the efforts being made to reduce atmospheric pollution
The City and banking sounded like Sodom and Gomorrah
On abortion He said that as a general rule He was against it but that there might be occasional exceptions
On contraception He said that He was in favour of it within marriage
On homosexuality He drew a line between the person and sexual activity. He said that gays and lesbians should not be treated as pariahs.
On Evolution He said that He had not had time to study the subject. He added that, whatever might turn out to be the facts of the situation, at root God was the author of life.
In answer to persistent questioning, Jesus said that He was divine but preferred to be identified as “Jesus”.

Jesus’ Knowledge

There are various aspects of Jesus’knowledge.

There are tendencies in the gospels suggesting that Jesus had perfect knowledge (for instance, in John’s gospel He hints at His forthcoming death and resurrection). All the gospels attribute to Jesus the ability to know what people are thinking even though they hve not expressed themseelves
Jesus is presented as knowing at a distance what is happening.
There are passages in the gospels which show Jesus as leaarned, although He “has never studied”.
In all the gospels there are passages illustrating Jesus’ knowledge of the future: in particular of His passion, crucifixion and resurrection.
There are passages which show Jesus as appearing not to know things. For instance,, He appears not to know who has touched Him in the crowd; and as a young boy He is shown in the Temple asking questions of the teachers of the Law and He is said to have grown in wisdom. He was thus on a learning curve. Jesus appears not to know, in His resurrected state, when Israel is to be freed from Rooman rule – only the Father knows this.
All four gospels report Jesus as making reference to a future destruction of the Temple, an event which would seem to assume the Fall of Jerusalem. Did Jesus make such a prediction? If the evangelists put words into Jesus’ mouth after the event, they missd several important points which would have made Jesus’ predictioon even more impressive. For example,

there is no reference to the barricading of the city with aa four-mile wall.
There is no reference to the civil war going on within the forces of the Jews, which facilitated a Roman victory.
There is no reference to the famine in the city
The way in which the “abomination of desolation” mentioned by Jesus is fulfilled is not specified by any of the evangelists, as one would certainly have expected had the evangelists been in the business of manufacturing a Jesus with the powwer of forecast.

The usual objection to any suggestion that Jesus predicted would happen to Jerusalem and the Temple is that it is not within Humanity’s powers to see the future,
Einstein said “To us convinced physicists the distinction between past, present and future is an illusion, though a persistent one”. Modern Physics contemplates the possibility that we should be able to see the birth of someone born 150 years ago!
According to scientists Time can run in either direction. It is not unscientific, therefore, to consider the possibility of precognition in human affairs and on a purely human level, without wishing to rely on divine revelation to account for Jesus’ predictions
Professsor Hans Eysenck of London University’ Institute of Psychiatry wrote nearly 50 years ago: “Unless there is a gigantic conspiracy innvolving some thirty University departments all over the world, and several hundred highly respected scientists in various fields, many of them originally sceptical to the claims of the psychical researchers, the only conclusioon that the unbiased observer can come to is that there does exist a small number of people who obtain knowledge existing in other people’s minds or in the outer world, by means as yet unknown to Science”.
Predictions of future events (air disasters,earthquakes, road accidents, shiips sinking etc.) are well-known and, in a number of cases well-documented and corroborated.
In June 1914 there was a well-attested case of a Bishop, a former spiritual adviser to Archduke Ferdinand and his wife, predicting the assassination of the Archduke to friends several hours before it happened.
A book, written by Dr. Hearne, entitled “Visions of the Future”, gives many examples of precognition, including the following. The niece of some good friends forsaw by several hours the massive Flixborough explosion in the UK in 1974, with believable witnesses confirming her story.
Jesus’ powers of precognition are in tune with the foregoing. In His case He possessed powers to an advanced degree.

Infallibility?

The word “Infallibility” is associated in Christian Theology with the General Councils of the Church and with the Pope. (Technically, the Pope is not infallliblle – he is not an oracle; it is the pronouncement which is infallible and which has to meet stringent conditions. It is very rarely used.)

The Anglican-Roman Catholic Commission (ARCIC) produced two reports on Authority in the Church in the mid-Seventies and the early Eighties. The following are some of the points they made:

In all councils….decisions are authoritative when they express the common faith and mind of the Church”
“The primacy, rightly understood, implies that the bishop of Rome exercises his over-sight in order to guard and promote the faithfulness of all the churches to Christ and one another. Communion with him is intended as a safeguard of the catholicity of each local church, and as a sign of the communion of all the churches”
” By their agreement or disagreement the local church of Rome and its bishop fulfilled their responsibility towards other local churches and their bishops for maintaining the whole Church in the truth”.
“In times of crisis or when fundamental matters of faith are in question, the Church can make judgements, consonant with Scripture, which are authoritative. When the Church meets in ecumenical council its decisions on fundamental matters of faith exclude what is erroneous…..This binding authority does not belong to every conciliar decree but only to those which formulate the central truths of salvation.”
“If the leadership of the bishop of Rome has been rejected by those who thought it was not faithful to the truth of the Gospel and hence not a true focus of unity, we nevertheless agree that a universal primacy will be needed in a reunited Church and should appropriately be the primacy of the bishop of Rome.”
“Moreover, although it is not through reception by the people of God that a definition first acquires authority, the assent of the faithful is the ultimate indication that the Church’s authoritative decision in a matter of faith has been truly preserved from error by the Holy Spirit”
“A service of preserving the Church from error has been performed by the bishop of Rome as universal primate both within and outside the synodal process. The judgment of Leo I, for example, in his letter received by the Council of Chalcedon, helped to maintain a balanced view of the two natures in Christ”.

But what of the Scriptural foundations of all this?

Jesus founded the Church. He gave it an hierarchical structure with Peter as earthly head.
He gave wide-ranging powers to this Church and these powers were handed on to the second, third etc.generations of leaders.
In His long personal contact He instructed them for the preaching office; transferred to them a whole series of powers – the power of binding and loosing; the power of consummating the Eucharist, the power of forgiving sins and the power of baptising. At the Ascension He handed over His mission to the apostles
The Church is Christ’s property which He has acquired with His own blood; His bride, whom He loved and for whom He has given Himself in order to sanctify her.
Christ told His followers:”Those who hear you hear me”
St. Paul said that the Church is the body of Christ.
With such a background one can see that the Church at the outset was regarded as infallible. In keeping with Christ’s statement that His message would continue to the end of Time, one can see why the gift of infallibility was essential.
There is no good reason why in future the laity world-wide should not be fully involved in the process of defining an infallible decree of the Church. We have the technoloogy to do this. It would confirm or otherwise what the Pope or a General Council wishes to pronounce.

How has it worked out in practice?

The General Councils up to 1054 have worked well. In that year Catholicism and Orthodoxy split. From that date Orthodoxy has not held a General Council because they accept that there can be no General Counncil without the involveement of Rome. Catholicism, on the other hand, has held such councils but these have not been recognised by Orthodoxy.

It has to be said that in any future proposed re-union of Christendom the Vatican will have to be reformed. It has a long, mainly dark, past and even to-day by its attitude and statements sends out unattractive vibes. Hence it puts people off rather than attracts them. Part of a reformed Church will be the ending of the Vatican as a state,with ambassadors etc.

Up until the Second Vatican Council in the Sixties the Catholic Church regarded itself as the sole Church of Christ. That council recognised Orthodox, Anglicans, Baptists etc. as fellow-Christians within the overall Church.

There is, therefore, a problem. Catholicism believes that infallible decrees from Rome cannot be issued without the Church as a whole agreeing. As infallible decrees were issued in the 19th and mid-20th centuries, they were issued without consulting the whole Church (including Orthodox, Anglicans, Baptists etc.) and would seem to be lacking in infallibility.

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Evolution – A Theory?

June 21st, 2010

It is not the purpose of this article to reject out of hand all concepts of Evolution. It is rather to highlight some of the points in the case against being too eager to drop the word “Theory” after the word “Evolution”.
Even established scientists refuse to consider the possibility that Evolution could be wrong. Professor D.S.M. Watson, a Nobel Laureate, has openly admitted: “Evolution has been accepted by scientists, not because it has been observed to occur or proved by logical coherent evidence to be true but because the only alternative, special creation, is clearly unacceptable “.
In “Animal Species and Evolution” (1963)Ernest Mayr, a supporter of Evolution, conceded:”The basic Evolutionary theory is in many instances hardly more than a postulate and its application raises numerous questions in almost every concrete case”.
One of the leading (and in his case crusading) disciples of Darwinism is Professor Richard Dawkins of Oxford. In “The Third Culture” (1995), a series of interviews with leading evolutionists, John Brockman discovered an unsuspected degree of intellectual discord.
Stephen Jay Gould, a fossils expert from Harvard, dismisses the arguments of Dawkins as “logically and empirically wrong”; Brian Goodwin, a British biologist,describes Dawkins as “the most extreme exponent of an unfortunate tendency in biology”; and Professor Lynn Maargulis of the University of Massachusetts, dismisses Dawkins’ writings as an extended exercise in tautology, divorced from the real world of biological facts.
The scientific establishment is so concerned lest the sanctity of belief in Evolution be violated that there has been, and still is, tremendous discrimination against those who have left the “party line”. An important factor in bringing about the almost universal dominance and acceptance of Neo-Darwinism has been that virtually every eminent professional scientist appointed to a post in the life sciences in the last 60 years or so, in the English-speaking world, has been a convinced believer in Neo-Darwinism..
The Scientific Establishment (which includes such eminent names as Sir Gavin de Beer, Sir Julian Huxley, J>.B.S. Haldane, C.H. Waddington, Ernst Mayr, Theodosius Dobzhansky and George Simpson) has perpetuated itself in the same way that the Soviet Praesidium used to under Communism!
Writing in “The Spectator” (London) on 31.12.94 Warwick Collins told his readers that his tutor had been the brilliant theorist, Professor John Maynard, a disciple of J.B.S. Haldane. He told him when he raised certain objections to Darwinian theory that he would not be permitted to air them publicly and that he would personally block publication of a paper which Collins had written on the subject and that, if he continued,his status as one of his inner group of researchers and students would be withdrawn!
Collins argued inter alia that “Darwinian individual selection, as the central mechanism of Evolution, would tend to eliminate one species after another; and that far from being the origin of species, as Darwin suggested, Darwinian theory seems more capable of providing an elegant explanation of “species extinction”!
The palaeontologist, Miles Eldridge in “Reinventing Darwin” (1995) writes:”Gradual evolutionary transformation at the ‘macro level is a myth”.
Dean Kenyon, Biology Professor at San Francisco State University, in his book, “Of Pandas and People”, provides the most comprehensive and thorough scientific critique of Darwinian theory currently available. For 30 years he was the leading scientific authority in the U.S.A. on the mechanism by which the first and most primitive of living organisms might have arisen spontaneously billions of years ago from a chance interaction of chemicals on the Earth’s surfaces. He came to the conclusion that “life itself owes its origins to a master intellect”. It must be stressed that for Professor Kenyon the inference that there must be an intelligent designer has nothing to do with religious belief but is rather a possible conclusion that can be reached from an honest interpretation of the scientific evidence.
Radiocarbon dating, so necessary for assisting Neo-Darwinists to establish the enormouss time-span for their theory to be accurate, is now widely suspect. After an impressive start, the method quickly ran into difficulties. Anomalous dates were produced from successive attempts, including the discovery that some living shell-fish had very little radiocarbon in their shells and so had been theoretically dead for up to 2,300 years!
The human eye is the archetypal “impossible” for Darwinism; indeed, it is the one subject which, as Darwin himself confessed, gave him a “cold shudder”. The problem for Evolutionists is to demonstrate that the human eye has developed by evolutionary stages.
Professsor Michael Crawford and David Marsh challenge the widely accepted theory that chance mutation and Darwinian natural selection “drive” evolution. According to them, the interplay between Humankind and chemicals in the food chain is the dominant evolutionary force.
Evolutionists believe that the snake is a reptile which was originally like a lizard but lost its arms and legs as a result of adapting to a crawling mode of life. Similarly the whale is believed to be a mammal which has returned to the sea and lost its limbs in order to becomee stream-lined for swimming. Despite the whale’s enormous size, its thigh-bone has now shrunk to a mere 18″ and is on its way to vanishing completely. When one asks about the evolutionary advantage to the snake and the whale, Evolutionists fall back on “random mutations”. This, however, is no more than an act of faith, since it has not been demonstrated.
In his book, (“Evolution: A Theory in Crisis”) Michael Denton, a molecular biologist, states: “The complexity of the simplest known type of cell is so great that it is impossible to accept that such an object could have been thrown together suddenly by some freakish, vastly improbable, event…..In terms of complexity, individual cell is nothing when compared with a system like the mammalian brain. The human brain consists of about 10,000,000,000 nerve cells.
Professor Mark Doughty, Professor Chemistry at Concordia University, Montreal, writes: “Evolution presents us with a perplexing array of order…..It is impossible to believe that such a stupendous series of incessantly repetitive reactions within the living cell, all involving the smallest units of matter – photons, electrons, protons, could have been solely the result of a fortuitous concourse of disparaging entities at the right time and the right place”.
According to Professor G.A. Kerkut, an Evolutionist, instead of there being one missing link, there are actually thousands upon thousands!
Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, a plant biologist, is something of a scientific heretic, who believes that plants and animals can “tune in” to the experience of their predecessors.

He says that what makes an elephent an elephant is not some genetic programme woven in DNA but a designing principle which he calls “formative causation”

He states that a computer by itself cannot do anything intelligent or impressive: a computer programme pre-supposes a computer programmer. In the thinking of the convential biologist the computer programme is the DNA – there is still a need for a programmer in the universe.

The followiing challenge was issued to Neo-Darwinists in 1940 by the then Professor of Genetics at the University of California at Berkley, Richard Goldschmidt:”: “…try to explain the evolution of the following features by accumulations and selection of small mutants: hair in mammals, feathers in birds, segmentation of anthropods and vertebrates, the transformation of the gill arches in phylogeny including the aortic arches, muscles,nerves etc.,teeth, shells of mollusces, ectoskeletons, compound eyes, blood circulation, etc.etc. Getting on for 70 years later his points have not been comprehensively answered.

Darwin is under attack from another quarter. Professor Keith Oatley of Glasgow University told the British Association for the Advancement of Science cconference in Seeptember, 1989 that Darwin was wrong with regard to emotions, According to Professor Oatley, Darwin thought that human emotions were “fossils of the mind”, vestiges of primitive behaviour that were useful for our ancestors but were not so any longer. He said that Cognitive Psychologists now believed that Darwin’s view was flawed, particularly since many mammals and birds show emotions. He added that “Emotions are not just vestiges of an infantile and bestial history. They are important now in our lives, in the everyday management of actions. The function (of the emotional state) is to help adapt to events and to make sense of them”.
With regard to “Evolutionary Ethics” Bertrand Russell has this to say:

“The motive force of Evolution, according to Darwin, is a kind of biological economics in a world of free competition. It was Malthus’ doctrine of population, extended to the world of animals and plants, that suggested to Darwin the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest as the source of Evolution”.
“Darwin himself was a Liberal but his theories had consequences in some degree inimial to traditional Liberalism. The doctrine that all men are born equal, and that the differences between people are due wholly to education, was incompatible with his emphasis on congenital differences between members of the same species”.
“An adherent of Evolution should maintain that not only the doctrine of the equality of all men, but also that of the rights of man, must be condemned as unbiological, since it makes too emphatic a distinction between men and other animals”.
“Though Darwin himself was a Liberal, and though Nietzshe never mentions him except with contempt, Darwin’s ‘Survival of the Fiftest led, when thoroughly assimilated, to something much more like Nietzshe’s’ philosophy than like Bentham’s”.

Darwin and his apostle, T.H.Huxley, believed that “negroes are closer to apes than white people are”. They said that the black races would be eliminated – apparently without protest on their part.
Darwin’s survival of the fittest was a template for Hitlerism.
It is significant that Sir Julian Huxley, grandson of TH Huxley, and the principal architect of the Neo-Darwinist theory in the 20th century as well as being a prominent Humanist, publicly advocated that people who were genetically abnormal should be sterilised in order to relieve society of having to care for their offspring!
In his correspondence Darwin wrote in 1870: “My theology is a simple muddle. I cannot look at the universe as the result of blind chance, yet I see no evidence of beneficent design or indeed of design of any kind in the details”. In 1879 Darwin wrote to J. Fordyce: “My judgeement often fluctuates. In my most extreme fluctuations I have been an atheist…..I think that generally (and more and more as I grow older) but not always, an agnostic would be more a correct description of my state of mind.”
In the year of his death, according to a record made by the Duke of Argyll, in reply to the Duke’statement that he saw the wonders of life as the expression of mind, Darwin looked at the Duke very hard and said “Well, that often comes over me with overwhelming force but, at other times,” and he shook his head vaguely, adding “it seems to go away”.

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Healing

June 4th, 2010

Long before the NT there was religious healing. Religious shrines and religious amulets have been found at shrines in Egypt,Babylonia, Chaldea, Arabia, Greece and Rome.
In Humanity’s earliest days the line between primitive Medicine and religious healing was almost invisible.
Jesus was the outstanding healer in the Ancient World. He healed the blind, the deaf, the dumb, lepers, paralytics and the mentally disturbed in addition to the possessed.
But what of healing to-day?
The most prestigious healing shrine of the Catholic world is Lourdes.
It is right to state at the outset that Lourdes takes great pains to verify or otherwise claims to religious healing. This stands in contrast to the claimed healings at revivalist meetings. It is suggested that they should adopt the Lourdes system which follows.
The strict medical procedures adopted at Lourdes are:

The disability or malady should be serious.
The patient should not have already been improving at the time of the healing nor suffering from a condition that normally might be expected to improve.
The patient should not have been under orthodox treatment at the time.
The healing should be sudden and instantaneous.
The cure must be perfect and complete.
The cure should not occur at a time when a crisis due to natural causes has affected the patient or the illness.
The cure must be permanent. A patient has to be free from all symptoms of his/her illness at least a year before a miracle is declared.

An array of well-qualified doctors examines the fine details of each case submitted to it. These doctors are not all Catholics; indeed, some are non-believers.
It is common within the Catholic Church over the centuries to find examples of healings through the intercession of saints whether in this life or the next. These are well attested, if not to the standard of Lourdes.
Examples of Lourdes pilgrims who have been cleared by the system are:A sufferer from acute bronchitis over many years; gross complications and secondrary ailments set in.Cases in which a diseased organ – an eye, an ear , a paralysed limb – will suddenly begin to function while remaining damaged to such an extent that it could not possibly perform physiologically.Paralytics and arthriticsCancers
Heart and lung disease.

The number of healings verified by the Lourdes system is of the order of 200 but many thousands of claimed healings are not referredd to the Medical Bureau.
The most notable Protestant healer in the second half of the 20th.century was Kathryn Kuhlman of the USA. She addressed huge meetings at which she claimed to heal many in the audience
Her services were highly charged emotionally, as is the case with many similar healing-services at the Evangelical end of the Church spectrum around the world.
Surveys of Miss Kuhlman’s healings produced a mixed bag. Few, if any, were submitted to the sort of scrutiny that obtains at Lourdes.

The Star Of Bethlehem

Most biblical scholars do not accept the historicity of the Star of Bethlehem: together with the other elements surrounding the Birth of Jesus it is regarded as myth. What may be said against such a voluminous case?
Stars have been mentioned in connection with such figures as Aeneas, Alexander the Great, Augustus, Mithridates and Alexander Severus.
The Star of Bethlehem might have been a supernova or new star. This was the preferred candidate of the astronomeer, Johannes Kepler, in the 17th century. There is, however, no record of a star of this type just before Jesus’ supposed birth.
The Star might have been a comet: the prime candidate being Halley’s Comet. However, by astronomical calculations we know that this comet had appeared in 12-11 BC, several years before the Birth.
The Star might have been a planetary conjunction. Kepler calculated that Jupiter and Saturn had met up in 7-6 BC. From calculations we know that a triple conjunction occurred in the high points of May/June, September/October and December of 7 BC and that Mars passed early the next year.
The Star might have been two meteors in roughly the same path at an interval.
The ancient Chinese made detailed observations of comets and in the likely time range for the Birth only one comet is recorded and this apppeared in 5 BC and was visible for more than 70 days. From the Chinese records we know that this comet rose in the east, as also described ny Matthew concerning the Star. There was a further comet in 4 BC
It is possible that the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 7-6 BC had acted as an early warning to the Magi; that the conjunction of Mars, Saturn and Jupiter had acted as confirmation; and that the comet in 5 BC was the signal for them to begin their journey to Bethlehem.
It is interesting to note with regard to Matthew’s term “stood over” that the Jewish historian, Josephus speaks of a star that stood over Jerusaleem and of a comet that continued for a year at the time of the Fall of the City in 70 AD.

Hard Sayings of Jesus

There are several hard sayings of Jesus in the gospels. Four are selected here by way of illustration.

* Pearls before swine

The full quotation in Mt.7:6 reads: “Do not give dogs what is holy; and do not throw your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under foot and (the dogs) turn to attack you”.

The general sense of the saying is clear: objects of value, special privileges, participation in sacred things should not be offered to those who are incapable of appreciating them.

Has the saying a more specific application? In the NT Church more restrictive brethren might have used the quotation as an argument against presenting the Gospel to Gentiles. At a slightly later date it was used as an argument against admitting unbelievers to the Lord’s Supper.

Jesus knew that it was useless to impart His message to some people: He had no answer for Herod Antipas when Herod “questioned Him at some length”.

* Let the children first be fed

The full verse reads:”Let the children first be fed, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs” (Mk7:27)

To the modern reader this verse is hard because it seems so inconsistent with the overall character of Jesus. In the event, as a result of the Gentile woman’s persistent request He healed her daughter. However, the problem remains that Jesus seems to be anti-Gentile: “dogs” is an insult in any language. Although Jesus’ over-arching mission was to the Jews, as He Himself stated (Mt.15:24), He did heal Gentiles and the full outpouring of the Spirit at Pentecost opened the door for Genntiles to enter the Church as full members. Even more so, this quotation seems to be a contradiction to His main bearing. The jury is still out on this saying!

* You brood of vipers

This saying occurs in Mt 23:33: “You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell?”

The verse is part of a series of lamentations uttered by Jesus. John the Baptist had already used the expression. There are several considerations here:

There is considerable invective in the dialogue with the religious groupe of His time, At times the temperature was high It was not as if the combatants were cool-blooded Anglo-Saxons: Middle East races think with their gut.!
If Jesus had been on earth when the Nazis were in power over much of Europe, and had used this expressioon of them, He would have been applauded, It is the sort of thing that Churchill said in his broadcasts to the peoples of occupied Europe.
Rabbinic traditions enumerate seven types of Pharisee and only one of these – the Pharisee who is one for the love of God – receives unqualified commendation. Not all Pharisees were, therefore, denounced.

This generation will not pass awayThis saying (Mk 13:30) has been regarded as a hard saying by those who take it to refer to Christ’s second coming.
There are several interpretations:

Jesus made a mistake. He had already told the disciples that they would not have completed the mission He had given them earlier in His ministry before the irruption of the Kingdom would be accomplished. It had not happened. Elsewhere He had said that He did not know “times and seasons” – including after His resurrection. It is no sin not to know.
The Jewish race is meant by “generation”. They will still be around when thee second coming takes place
Jesus’ statement was in answer to the disciples’ questions about ” all these things” – the temple’s destruction and attendant events. Jesus’ reply might then mean “this generation will not pass away before the temple is destroyed (in 70 AD).”.

Even after 70 AD there was a feeling in the early Church that the Second Coming was imminent; indeed, this feeling persists to the present day.

(With acknowledgements to Professor FF Bruce)

ADDENDA

Taken from Psychology, Religion and Healing by the Rev.Dr.Leslie Weatherhead:

My own method of offeriing intercessions for the sick at the Ciity Temple is as follows.

First of all, I find that only about three or four cases can be lifted to God in prayer. It puts a very great strain on the congregation to ask peoople to steady their minds and hold them in intense prayer and longing for particular cases of illness…I try to make an imaginative picture of what is actually happening. This is the kind of thing that was said in an actual case:

‘Here is Nurse So-and-so, a member of our church, a girl of nineteen, who is studying at such-and-such a hospital. She is suffering from such-and-such a disease. Her temperature is very high. She cannot sleep without drugs. She has not taken any food for some days. In imagination go into the ward and stand with Christ next to her bed…..Believe that at this very moment Christ is touching her life and that His healing power is being made manifest in her body now. Believe that He can more powerfully work in the atmosphere of our faith and love….Hold, on the screen of
your imagination a picture of Nurse-and-so becoming well’. The nurse was healed at the time of the intercession, although she did not know she was being prayed for.

Taken from “Healing” by Francis MacNutt:

Rev.Frank Loehr, a chemist, reports in his book “The power of prayer on plants” the results of 156 persons praying in 700 unit experiments using more than 27,000 seeds and seedlings involving about 100,000 measurements and achieving up to a 52.71% growth advantage for prayer seedlings”

Taken from a TV programme:

Incisions were made into the arms of volunteers. The first group was screened from healers and was prayed over; they did not know it. The second group was screened from healers but was not prayed over. Neither group knew what the experiment was about. After a fortnight the group prayed over had made a swifter recovery from the
incisions.

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Was Jesus Christ a Socialist?

May 19th, 2010

Before coming to the question it is essential to examine the background of Jewish socio-political teaching.

In the OT there is strong opposition among the prophets to those who expand their holdings of land (Is. 5:8) ; those who deny justice and rights to the poor (Is.10:2) ;and those who crush and grind the poor by exacting the full measure of their debts (Is.3:5). Amos castigates those who oppress the poor, deny basic humann dignity and exact their debts harshly (Am. 2:7, 4:1, 5:11). The oppression of the poor and needy is a crime for which Yahweh will destroy the kingdom (Ez.22:29}

Ps.82:3-4 refers to the duty of judges to render justice to the poor and needy and to protect them from oppression and the Psalms frequently refer to the oppression of the poor by the rich (e.g., Ps.10:2, 9, 17f.) Yahweh does not forget the cry of the poor (Ps.9:13,19).

In the NT the attitude of Jesus towards wealth was simple: it is an obstacle to the Kingdom of God. His refusal to accept any income, even by earning, is a striking feature of His public life. (Unlike St. Paul)

The story of the widow’s mite (Mk.12:41-44) is less a praise of the poor than a condemnation of the rich. The story of the rich young man who would not renounce his possessions to follow Jesus is found in the three synoptics with slight variations (Mk.10:17f.; Mt.19:16f. Lk.18:18f.}.

Other examples of Jesus’ strictures on wealth include the parable of Dives and Lazarus (Lk.16:19-31); the difficulty a rich man has in getting into the kingdom of heaven compared to a camel getting through the eye of a needle; and “blessed are the poor” in Mt. 5.Jesus’ injunction “Love your neighbour as yourself” implies equality.

In Acts 2:44 the early Church all lived together and owned everything in common.”Love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Tim 6:9f.) James says that the rich man ought to rejoice when he is impoverished because of the fate of the rich (Js.1:10f.). The rich who humiliate the poor forget that the poor are God’s chosen (Js.2:1-9). A dreadful vengeance will overtake the rich who have deprived the poor of their wages and who live in luxury (Js.5:1-6).

Coming back to the question at the head of this article it is apparent that Jesus and His early followers reflect socialist attitudes.

(With acknowledgements to Dr. J.McKenzie)

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WHY DID CHRIST DIE?

April 20th, 2010

The simplest expression of this in the New Testamenet is contained in 1 Cor.15:3:”Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scripture”.
The oldest explanation is set out in Lk.18:31. Jesus realised the time for His death had come and so He set Himself to go to Jerusalem to fulfil God’s will: “Behold, we are going up to Jerusalem and everything that is written of the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished
The New Testament uses various metaphors to describe Jesus’death:
JESUS’ DEATH WAS A BATTLE: Jesus saw the whole of His life as a battle with the powers of evil (Lk.11:21f.).St. Paul also regarded the cross as the final and decisive struggle. Despite Jesus’ apparent defeat the struggle resulted in a complete victory (Col.2:8-15).
JESUS’ DEATH WAS AN EXAMPLE: Both St. Paul and John say that on the cross Jesus revealed God’s love: Romans 5:8: “What proves God’s love for us is that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners”; 1 John 4:10: “God’s love for us when he sent his Son to be the sacrifice that takes away our sins”. They both suggest that we ought to be challenged to share such sufferings ourselves.In 1 Pet 2:21 we have “because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps”.
JESUS’ DEATH WAS A SACRIFICE: It was natural for Jewish people to use the picture of animal sacrifice. Sacrificial language is used in connection with His death throughout the New Testameent. John the Baptist exclaimed when he saw Jesus: “Behold the lamb of God” (Jn.1:29); St. Paul speaks of “Christ our Passover lamb” (1 Cor.5:7); Peter speaks of Jesus as “like a lamb without blemish or spot” (1 Pet.1:19).
JESUS’ DEATH WAS A RANSOM: Jesus explicitly said that His intention was to be a ransom (Mk.10:45). The ransom was the price paid to set a slave free. Throughout the NT it is emphasised Christians are the property of God. They have been “ransomed from futile ways” (1 Pet.1:18); ” you are not your own; you were bought with a price so glorify
God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:19-20).
JESUS DIED IN OUR PLACE: In 1 Pet.2:24 we are told that Jesus “bore our sins in his body”, In 1 Pet.3:18 that “had died once for sins”.
PENANCE: The Cross cannot be looked at in isolation. It is very much associated wiith Penance:
Mt.3:2, 4:17; Acts 2:38; Jn.20:21 and Joel 2:12f.

(With acknowledgements to Dr. J. Drane)

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Is There a God?

April 7th, 2010

This section concentrates on arguing against Professor Richard Dawkins, the world’s best-known atheist, thanks to his book “The God Delusion”.

Dawkins’ main aims are to expose religion and to show that Science and Theology are incompatible.
America ‘s leading evolutionary biologist,Professor Stephen Jay Gould, has stated: “Either half my colleagues are enormously stupid or else the science of Darwinism is fully compatible with conventional religious beliefs – and equally compatible with atheism”, Dawkins is livid with Gould.

Sir Peter Medawar, a Nobel laureate, suggests that scientists need to be careful about making pronouncements agout religion. He fears that they may lose the trust of the public.

Dawkins is a believer in Scientism, the view that Science can or will explain everything. This is rejected by most academic disciplines.

Professor Francis Collins, an evolutionary biologist, heads up the famous Human Genome Project. He says “The principles of faith are complementary with the principles of science”.

The cosmologist, Professor Paul Davies, argues for the existence of “fine-tuning” in the universe. For Davies the bio-friendliness of the universe points to an overarching principle that pushes the universe towards the development of life and mind.

Back in 1916 active scientists were asked whether they believed in a God who actively communicates with Humanity and to whom one may pray. Roughly 40% said “Yes”; 40% said “No”. In 1997 the survey was repeated with similar results: 40% said “Yes”, 45% said “No”.

Professor Freeman Dyson, a physicist who has done groundbreaking work in quantum electrodynamics, on being awarded the Templeton Prize in Religion in 2000, gave an acceptance speech celebrating the achievements of religion, while criticising the downside. He was also clear about the downside of atheism, noting that the individuals who epitomised the evils of the Twentieth Century, Hitler and Stalin, were both atheists. Dawkins’ reply? “He was just pretending to be religious, when,in fact, he was really an atheist”.

When Pope John Paul II wrote a letter endorsiing Darwinism, Dawkins commented: “The pope is a hypocrite”.
The President of the Skeptics Society in the USA , is Michael Shermer. He says that while religions have been implicated in some human tragedies, such as holy wars, “for every one of these grand tragedies there are ten thousand acts of personal kindness and social good that go unreported”.

——————————————————————————————————————

A slight alteration in the initial heat of the universe or in its total mass or any other factor would have prevented its formation. Without a fine adjustment of heat in the shrinking core of a hot star, carbon would not have been produced. Our planet swept up from debris of an exploding star; on this all life systems depend. A further co-incidence relates to the formation of the atmosphere and oceans. There are self-regulatory mechanisms which have kept the climate almost constant over 3 billion years despite a 25% increase in the Sun’s luminosity. Life emerged in the oceans; however, the salinity of the living cell’s internal fluids or external environment must never exceed 6% for more than a few seconds. Conditions on Earth have been almost always optimal for life.

Other co-incidences include: Just the right distribution of gases in the early universe; the primitive dynamic equilibrium; the right heat of the universe; the relative weight of neutrons, protons and electrons; the fine balance between gravity and electro-magnetism; the precise value of the strong nuclear force; and all the necessary ingredients were already in place at Time Zero, able to come together for the Creation.

(With acknowledgements to Bishop Hugh Montefiore for this section.)

Over the centuries Christian philosophers have felt it possible to prove the existence of God.

Some of the points made by Professor Richard Swinburne of Oxford University in this connection are:

It is fundamentally reasonable to believe in God
When a rational person finds all the cards in the pack are the same or all the flowers in some neighbourhood are exactly the same,he/she says: “There must be an explanation for this”.   When lookig at the universe, the enquirer must say: “I can explain why everything in the universe behaves the same if it has one Being who created it and gave it that power”.
An argument for the existence of God has as its premise the order of the universe; this makes the conclusion probable – but not certain – that God exists.
The Rationalist is credulous: he/she must start by believing experiences as they seem to be, in the absence of evidence to the contrary; otherwise he/she would never believe anything about the universe.
The former Master of Churchill College, Sir Hermann Bondi, FRS, a prominent Humanist, said: “In my acquaintance with scientists I find belief and non-belief.   I know sufficient numbers of scientists of each persuasion to be willing to make two statements as being stupid and palpably untrue prejudices viz. that a person, being a scientist, must accordingly be a believer in a revealed religion – or the opposite statement…..Some feel there must be an intelligence, an architect of all this grandeur, an architect that may be called God but without ascribing to this unknown entity any interest in our human affairs or in our prayers.   If I rightly understand it, this was Einstein’s view)”.
Lord Winston, Professor of Fertility Studies at London University, has stated that religious belief is genetic and has been so for 40,000 years.
It is interesting to note that Stalin, the foremost atheist in the world from the Twenties to the Fifties prayed during the Battle of Moscow in WW2.   According to his bodyguard he went down to a small chapel in the basement of the Kremlin, knelt down, put his hand on a book of the gospels and prayed.
It is also interesting to note that Stalin’s successor, Georgi Malenkov, towards the end of his life became a member of the Orthodox Church although he, too, was for a time the foremost atheist in the world.
Since the demise of Communism Gorbachev and Putin have become members of the Orthodox Church
It is instructive to read that Stalin, Hitler, Mao and Pol Pot were all atheists. They had no Higher Power to whom they were answerable.   When confronted with this Professor Dawkins says that Stalin was as he was because of his Communism, not his atheism – little realising that atheism, according to Marx and Lenin, is an essential part of Communism!   Also, in Soviet Russia “scientific atheism” was a compulsory subject in state universities for all careeers before 2001.
Christian Social Teaching

In Gen 1:28-9 God gives to human beings control of the earth so that it may supply their needs in abundance

The ideal state of Israel during the reign of Solomon is not just the abundance of the national wealth but the fact that “Judah and Israel lived in security , everyone under his own vine and under his own fig-tree” (1 Kings 4:25).

The Hebrew Bible takes the possession of private property for granted and is at pains to protect it (e.g. Ex 21:1-23:19, the Decalogue).

In the O.T. there is a marked reluctance to any interference with private property, not least by enforced taxation (e.g. Prov 29:4)

The Wisdom literature contains a number of exhortations to work hard and warns that failure to do so will result in poverty (e.g. Prov 6:6-11, 10:4, 20:13) and the wealth that God destines for human beings is the reward for their own effort to acquire it” (Eccls 3:13).

There are limitations in the Bible on the individual’s freedom to use his wealth. The sabbath year, the jubilee and other provisions in the O.T. outline the special duty to relieve poverty but on the basis of individual rights to leasehold (from God) of land. In the administration of law, however, no bias was to be given to rich or poor (Ex 23:2-3; Deut 1:17; Lev 19:15).

In the second section of the Book of the Covenant (Ex22:21-23:19) we find an appeal to conscience to help the poor and needy.

It is when the rich use their economic power to destroy the freedom and independence which is every Israelite’s heritage that they are attacked in the O.T., not simply for being rich (e.g. Jer 22:13-19.

When the prophets inveigh against the rich, it is not because of their wealth as such but because of their enjoyment of it while ignoring, or taking advantage of, others’ needs.

In parts of the O.T. we meet a conception of the poor which is religious and not restricted to social and economic poverty. This appears, for example, in Zeph 3:12 and Ps.108(109):22.

In later passages of the prophets post-exilic Judaism identified piety with poverty and lowliness. Such passages mean that true religion is not simply identified with membership of the depressed economic class but more an attitude of spiritual outlook.(Is 29:19,61; Jer 20:13)

In the Dead Sea writings we find a developed sense of the piety of poverty, the devout poor. In the pre-70 A.D. rabbinical writings poverty is often viewed as a curse.

(With acknowledgements to Professor J.R. Porter)

Jesus

There are two points which need to be made about Jesus in this context.

Jesus was not born as the poorest of the poor, The only reason that he was born in a manger is that Joseph could not find accommodation for them in “a hotel”. He could have afforded it otherwise he would not have asked.A carpenter was reasonably well up the economic scale in the ancient world. The poorest of the poor would have been the long-term unemployed, including the beggars, and slaves.
Liberation Theology, although commendable in its struggle against economic exploitation of the poor in Latin-America, is determined to politicise the life and particularly the death of Jesus.
Insofar as Jesus was actually crucified by the occupying power in Palestine – the Romans – a political power may be said to have killed Him. Jesus, however, did not see His death in political terms, but in theological terms. At His arrest He protests that He is not leading a rebellion against the state.(Mt 26:55; Mk14:48; Lk 22:52)

Unlike Moses and Mohammed Jesus was not a legislator. As Hans Kung has written: “Jesus did not produce any programme for the renewal and transformation of political structures. He did not raise in principle either the question of slavery or that of women, still less the universal emancipation of Man. Nor did He outline any commercial, political or cultural ethics….”. Furthermore, according to Kung, the Christian message does not give any detailed information regarding the problem of a technical solution to the “riddle of the magic square: how full employment, economic growth, price stability and a favourable balance of payments can be simultaneously achieved”.

Jesus did not reject money: in the Sermon on the Mount, for example,He insisted on the practice of alms-giving and He paid taxes to an oppressive regime. His band of followers had money (Judas was the treasurer).

There can be no doubt that He warned against the danger of riches (Mt 6:19-21,24; Lk 6:24; Mk10:30-31)

In His teaching to the masses He emphasised love of God and love of neighbour. He even advocated love of enemies. In the Parable of the Sheep and Goats He illustrated what will be expected of people at the individual judgement: how we have treated the most vulnerable members of society. This is the keynote of Christian Social Teaching.

It is instructive that after the Ascension the Apostles established “Christian Communism”, as we learn from the early chapters of Acts.

In keeping with the teaching of Jesus and His Apostles we are obliged to hold in our political leanings the poor (whether at home or abroad) ever before our eyes. As some main-line churches put it: the bias to the poor.

Pacifism

In many parts of the O.T. and in some parts of the N.T. God is depicted as a God wrath. Jesus is quoted, however, as saying “Love your enemies and pray for your persecutors”; “Do not resist one who who is evil.But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also”.

Some of the early Christian writers (the Fathers) make the same point:Origen, Tertullian , for example.

Against the idea of Jesus the pacifist it has been argued that His words were not meant to be taken literally – they were couched (as were other parts of His teaching) in colourful, striking language, complete with Oriental exaggeration and “poetic licence”; that He was not laying down detailed guidance for every conceivable situation – He was not a legalist; that the examples He cited do not deal with a threat to life; that He did not tell us how to react if the injury is about to be inflicted on a third party; that His followers carried swords.

St Augustine pointed out that, when Jesus was struck on the cheek at His trial, instead of accepting it silently or turning the other cheek, He answered back.

The evidence from the early centuries of the Faith is ambiguous. The first evidence of Christians joining the army dates from 173, when a number was recruited by Marcus Aurelius, near the Danube. Christians were very unhappy about joining the army because, at least among the officer was compulsory to sacrifice to the Emperor.

With the conversion of Constantine opposition to military service was dropped, as the Church now formed the government. By the year 410 the army had become a “closed shop” for Christians!

Eventually, the concept of the Just War emerged: a war must be declared by proper, supreme authority; the cause must be just; last resort; principle of proportion; reasonable chance of success and the right intention.

The nuclear threat has undermined some of the Just War points.

During the Second World War the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury, England stated: “Far better some years of ‘total war’ with the misery and waste and increasing bitterness of spirit than the riveting of that diabolical Nazi system upon more and more people”.

In 1983, before the collapse of Communism, Cardinal Hume of Westminster, England arguing for the retention of the Bomb, said: “The acceptance of deterrence on strict conditions and as a temporary expedient leading to progressive disarmament is emerging as the most widely accepted view of the Roman Catholic Church”

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THE END IS NIGH?

March 11th, 2010

At the ooutset it needs to be stated that Bible prophecy is probably not a valid use of the Bible. The industry of Bible prophecy did not get going until the middle of the 19th century in America.
It also needs to be stated that Jesus warned against it at His ascension and in Mt 12:38/9. Jesus takes precedence over any book in the Bible.

The first pre-Christian reference to the End is to be found in an Assyrian tablet dated 2800 B.C. “Our earth is degenerate in these latter days, There are signs the world is speedily coming to an end. Bribery and corruption are common”.

It seems that for as long as people have been in the world they have been predicting the end of it. The first record of a Christian doomsday cult hails from 156 AD. These were the Montanists, who believed that Jesus would return within their lifetime.

In the 4th century AD St. Martin of Tours was saying that the Antichrist had already been born and was among us. Down the centuries theologians have been equally as sure and equally wrong.

The approach of the first Millennium produced widespread speculation about the End.

In the16th. century Thomas More thought that the End was imminent. Luther forecast the End, as did John Wesley – both comfortably outside their own life-span!

Isaac Newton, a Deist, wished to be remembered as a theologian rather than as a scientist. He was obsessed with numbers in the Bible and made innumberable prophesies, including the End.

Billy Graham has recently said: “The Second Coming is on the horizon”.

There are literally thousands of apocalyptic sects making prophesies about the End, They are independent and come to conflicting conclusions. Many might be called Zionists: the key to the End is to be found in what is taking place in and around Israel.

The Irvingites prophesied that the End would occur in 1835,1838,1842,1845,1855,1866 and 1877.

Jehovah’s Witnesses have prophesied the End in 1914,1918 and 1925. Eventually, the prophecy was softened to “before the end of the 20th.century”.

Many claimed Marian visions have been reported in the last 30 years: Nicaragua, Spain, Taiwan, Medjurgorje, Rwanda, Austria, Syria,Chile, Argentina, Ireland, England, Italy, Korea, Egypt, the Phillipines, N.Ireland, Ukraine, USA, Ecuador, Canada, former Czechoslovakia, Australia and Iraq.

Most of these contain rumblings of the End. None has been approved by Rome.

One of the pre-requisites of the End is that the Gospel be preached to all peoples. We are not there yet.

In Saudi Arabia the Faith is officially banned. In Borneo there are an estimated 775 tribes whose languages the West does not understand. There are said to be a further 100 across the world

About 300 pilgrims a week arrive at Tel Aviv to witness the End. They are variously dressed as Jesus, Mary, Moses, Gabriel etc.. They have one-way tickets. The manager of the airport puts them all on return flights home!

The End will come one day. No-one knows whether it will be within the next 50 or 100 or 200 or 1000 etc. years.

One of the events before the End is the conversion of Israel. St. Paul in Rom.11:25f. states: “One section of Israel has become blind but this will last only until the whole pagan world has entered (the kingdom) and then after this the rest of Israel will be saved as well”.

But how will the Jews be saved?

Two explanations are current:

God, in a merciful act independent of any acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah or of a mass conversion prior to the End, would be reconciled to His people.
At the End “all Israel” would be pardoned its culpable hardening; would accept Jesus as the Messiah; and would have its sins taken away as a fulfilment of the Covenant.

Much of this has been ignored by Christianity over the centuries. The norm has been for the Vatican, Moscow and Christian nations to persecute the Jews as the murderer of Christ. Little attention has been given to the fact that Jesus forgave His enemies from the Cross.

Some further points:

Outstanding forecasts in the Bible were largely fulfilled at Pentecost.
There is no bibliccal forecast of such monumental events as the Holocaust and the use of nuclear weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
The forecast re the dry bones was realised at the return from Babylon. It cannot refer to the setting up of the state of Israel in 1948, as a king is mentioned and there was no king in Israel in 1948.
Ultra-Orthodox Jews do not regard the state of Israel as the restored biblical Israel.
A majority of people living in Israel are not Jewish.
Many Israelis are not religious.
The language of the book of Revelation is not literal – see Jewish and other Christian apocalypses.
Millenarianism was not taught by the descendants of the apostles.
For a teaching to be accepted it needs the endorsement of at least a majoriity of the Body of Christ, as with the definitions of the divinitiy of Christ, the Trinity, of the two natures of Christ……..
In many ways the Church replaced Israel: Mt 21:43, Acts 13:46, 15:17,28:28, Rom.9:24-6 1 Pet 2:9-10

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I’m Confessin’

February 18th, 2010

Jesus gave His apostles (and, presumably, their successors) the power to forgive sins. The form of this is not specified.
Our knowledge of the Church’s theology of penance in the earliest years of the Faith is meagre. Essentially the problem was that of dealing with sins committed after Baptism.
A powerful current of thought in the 2nd century Church favoured the view that no remission was possible for sins deliberately committed after Baptism.
This view is in line with the author of Hebrews and the author of 1 John.
There were more liberal views among some of the earliet Fathers but we are completely in the dark about the practical arrangements. It is more than likely that there was corporate public confession with the absolution pronounced by the bishop or presbyter.
With the dawn of the 3rd century the rough outline of a recognised penitential discipline was beginning to emerge, although there are still no signs of a sacrament of private penance (i.e., confession to a presbyter followed by absolution)
The system which seems to have existed in the Church was wholly public, involving confession, a period of penance and exclusion from communion, then formal absolution and restoration.
There is plenty of evidence that sinners were encouraged to open their hearts privately to a presbyter but nothing to show that this led up to anything more than counsel.
Certainly in the last decades of the 2nd century adultery, homicide and idolatry (or apostasy) seem to have been treated in practice, if not in theory, as unforgivable. This was relaxed over a long period of time and local practice varied.
In the 4th and 5th centuries there is no hard evidence of one-to-one private confession. Even St. Augustine is quite positive that the only form of penance known to him is public confession plus private confession of sins at home.
It is not until much later that the present form of confession to a priest, followed by absolution came into being.
One to one confession is practised by Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Anglo-Catholicism and Lutheranism.
One to one confession and absolution is practised within Mormonism, In Buddhism one confesses to one’s superior, In Hinduism there is no formal penance involving another party but holy men have a ready ear

According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, projected by John Paul II, confession of everyday sins in this sacrameent is
not strictly necessary. These may be dealt with in the Mass or in private prayer. The confession of serious sins is required at least once a year.

It is interesting to note that Jesus did not require confession of sins before He healed and forgave sins.

(With acknowledgements to Dr.JND Kelly)

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Miracles

January 31st, 2010

One of Jesus’ own sayings acknowledges that there were other exorcists at work. Furthermore, we have stories of rabbis and charismatic teachers in Palestine.
Jewish miracle-workers cured diseases but there is a notable lack of reports of curing any kind of lamesness or paralysis.
The most common miracle attributed to holy men of Jesus’ time is the procuring of rain-fall. Such a miracle is never attributed to Jesus…
Jesus is credited with three instances of a very notable miracle: that of raising the dead to life.

The assumption that the ancient world was credulous is not justified. Herodotus, Thucydides, Polybius, Plutarch, Philostratus and Josephus express reserve towards miracles.

Even if one disallows some of Jesus’ miracles on the grounds of mis-recollectioon, symbolic act etc. – there remains a substantial body of material which has no close parallel in the ancient world.
Taking the period of 200 years before to 200 years after the birth of Christ, the number of miracles recorded which are remotely comparable to those of Jesus is astonishingly small.
Hanina Ben Dosa, when seeking a cure by prayer and Nakdimon, when seeking rain-fall, argue and barter with God, as Abraham had once done.
The miraclous activity of Jesus conforms to no known pattern. At times He has to be persuaded to heal and the range of miracle is astonisshing.
More miracles are attributed to Jesus than to anyone else in the ancient world,

Walking On The Water

Parallels to Jesus’ walking on the water are to be found in principle in accounts of levitation. Examples of this are to be found in instances recorded of the lives of some Catholic saints and Eastern holy-men It is perhaps the most commonly mentioned miracle in yogic and Tibetan Buddhist literature.

Stories of levitation are well accredited in both history and the present-day.

Jesus’ walking on the water may be a more advanced degree of levitation.

Water Into Wine

From the 1930s onwards Dr. J.Rhine in America conducted experiments to demonstrate that the mind can influence matter. The movement of dice ejected by a mechanism down a shute were apparently effected by acts of willing on the part of observers.

Even more startling were experiments involving a jar of tap water. Experimenters concentrated on the water and willed it to change its nature. In some cases the composition of the water changed.

In the Soviet Union before the fall of Communism an experiment took place in laboratory conditions in which the candidate tried by will-power to separate the yolk from the white of an egg. It worked.

Almost as amazing as the experiment is the fact that the experiment was reported: in a dialectical materialist society such experiments were not supposed to succeed.

Recently (2008) an artificial arm has been removed from the body and has been controlled by will-power by the owner.

All of these show that in principle the mind controls matter. This is what underlies but to a very much greater extent the turning of water into wine,

Footnote: A report on 1/10/08 shows that religious belief can help to relieve pain.

Researchers at Oxford University carried out brain scans on Roman Catholic and atheist/agnostic volunteers. The volunteers were shown paintings of the Virgin Mary and Leonardo’s Lady with an Ermine. After looking at each painting for 30 seconds the volunteers were zapped with electrical pulses for 12 seconds. Each time they were asked to rank how painful the schocks were on a scale of 0 to 100

The researchers describe how Roman Catholics and non-believers reported similar levels of pain after viewing the Leonardo painting but the two groups responded very differently to the Virgin Mary painting, with Catholics experiencing 12% less pain.

Preliminary studies on lapsed Catholics suggest images of the Virgin Mary lessen their sense of pain too. the researchers said.

Salvation

Through Christ’s life, death and resurrection the mystery of God’s love is revealed. We are saved; all this is pure, unmerited gift,
We can be assured of salvation but this ought not to lead us to be presumptuous. The word of Christ and His acraments give us this assurance.
The word “saved” in the Synoptic gospels means a “healing” by Jesus, often through faith on the part of an individual or another.
Justification and sanctification are two aspects of the same divine act. By pronouncing us righteous God also makes us righteous.
Baptism is the unrepeatable sacrament of justification and incorporation into Christ.
While we are not saved because of good works we are created in Christ for good works (For a different emphasis see Mt.25 – the sheep and the goats).
In Lutheranism a paradox is sometimes stated as “We are at once just and sinners”.
Salvation is in Jesus alone. It is a process rather than a single act. Faith is identical with the love of truth which saves. Through hope we are saved. Faith without works cannot save. Salvation is attained by those who persevere to the end.
It cannot be forgotten that Jesus said that the outcasts of society (the tax-gatherers and prostitutes in His day) go into the Kingdom before the religious establisshmeent of His day.

The Church

Jesus never wrote a book; He founded a Church

The early Church was led by the apostles, with Peter at the helm. Soon we have the emergence of deacons and presbyters(local officers) Bishops also exist in the New Testament. In Corinth we have apostles, prophets, teachers,miracle-workers, healers, helpers, administrators

In the earliest years of the Church after the N.T. period the usual pattern was bishops and deacons plus travelling missionaries – apostles and prophets. Eventually, these latter officers disappear and bishop, presbyer and deeacon becomes the norm. It is not until the 4th century that an individual believer is called a priest.

A special place in the early Church is reserved for the Bishop of Rome, taken to be the successor of Peter. The following Fathers of the Church ascribe a primacy to Rome and to Rome disputes and clear teaching are ascribed. Thus St. Clement of Rome, St Ignatius, St Irenaeus, St. Polycarp, Bishop Polycrates of Ephesus,Tertullian, St. Cyprian of Carthage, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine…

From these we have such statements as: “an overseer of love” “If one wishes to know the true faith, then it suffices to ascertain the teaching of this one Church” “If Italy is in thy neighbourhood then thou hast Rome, from whence for us (in Africa) the teaching authority already exists”"The Roman Church is the mother and the root of the Catholic Church..”.

Beginniing in the early 4th century we have the conciliar movement. Major disputes over doctrine (e.g. the divinity of Christ), after a long period of discussion were settled not by Rome,although Rome’s influence was impressive but by General Councils.

In 1054 the Greek Speaking Church of the Eastern Empire and the Latin Speaking Church of the West split. There had been considerable strain between the two for many years prior to 1054. Thus we have the Orthodox and Catholic denominations.

An important feature in the dispute – and it remains until to-day – is the standing of the Pope. The Orthodox believe that a special place belongs to the Pope. They ascribe to him a primacy of honour, together with the right (under certain circumstances) to hear appeals from all parts of Christendom. They see Rome’s mistake as being to turn the primacy of love into a supremacy of external power and jurisdiction. (Sadly this mistake is prevalent to-day)

With regard to the New Testament the content was only finally agreed upon at the end of the 4th century and even then there was some uncertainty in the East over the inclusion of Hebrews and Revelation.

Prior to that there was a variety of books which were used in worship, alongside books which were eventually placed within the Canon of Scripture. Thus we have such books as The Gospel of the Hebrews, The Gospel of Philip, The Gospel of Peter, The Book of James, The Gospel of Thomas, The Gospel of Bartholomew,The Acts of John and many, many more.

Prior to the use of these apocryphal books and the authentic books ,the early Church relied on oral transmission of the Gospel.

Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons (130-202 AD), preferred oral transmission to the written word. He writes: “The distant barbarians on the Rhine cannot read, yet without the external aid of a scripture they are established in a right path, for the Holy Spirit Himself writes the true confession ‘without ink and paper’ on their heart. Consequently, the preaching of the Church has no need, provided it proclaims Christ as He really was and is, to refer constantly to the books in which the apostolic message is recorded”.

What is to be said about Christian re-union? With 38,000 churches and sects across the world it is no easy task. Furthermore, attempts to date have produced only very meagre fruit.

All Christians accept the N.T. as agreed at the end of the 4th century. Most have sacraments such as Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. There is a general consensus about right and wrong (the Ten Commandments +). Most agree on the Social Gospel, although American Fundamentalism is out of line. Most can agree with the definitions of the Faith in the first millennium.

To be true to the apostolic period and the period of the first four centuries of the Faith, it would seem that any re-union should take in:

A ministry of bishops, presbyters and deacons plus the ministries set out by St Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians.

The Bishop of Rome to have a world-wide ministry, a “presidency of love”. Jurisdiction to be dropped from the vocabulary.

Academic freedom to be guaranteed. Controversial findings of scholars to be discussed openly, not suppressed.

The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit has been the most neglected member of the Trinity in much of the history of Christendom. What is the role of the Spirit?

Conceives Jesus,given in Baptism, expels demons, speaks in us when called to witness, Pentecost, Gifts of the Spirit, Wisdom, Faith, Encouragement, Joy, pervades the Church, heals,dwells in individual believer, a foretaste of heaven, love, teaches, principle of prayer, agent of holiness, speaking forth (=prophecy), remains forever,inspires Jesus to speak, reveals mysteries of God, is given in answer to prayer,seat of consciousness and psychic functions, proceeds from Jesus and the Father, witnesses.

Jesus And His Enemies

The gospels record enmity between Jesus’ opponents and himself. The Sadducees (who provided the priests in the Temple) were mainly instrumental in having him crucified. The Scribes were religious lawyers. The Pharisees were far and away his main opponents,

The Talmud, a Jewish compilation of rabbinic traditions and way of life, which is Pharisaic in origin, contains some remarks hostile to the Pharisees which find the same faults in them as appear in the NT.

It would seem that the Pharisees’ hostility to Jesus arose from the threat they thought Jesus held for their position as religious leaders.

In the gospels the Pharisees watch Jesus closely to find fault with him. They try to trap him. They propose trick questions. They are scandalised by Jesus’ conduct : mixing with publicans aand sinners; his laxnesss in Sabbath observance; his healing on the Sabbath, although this was not agaiinst mainstream Judaism, his neglect of ritual ablutions.

Furthermore,they object to Jesus’ claim to be able to forgive sins. They object when Jesus is triumphantly welcomed by his disciples.

When they ask for a sign, Jesus calls them an adulterous and wicked generation. He condemns their exclusiveness as harsh and their rigour in the law as intolerable. They are blind with self-inflicted blindness. A recurring word in the invective discourses is “hypocrites”. They are “whited sepulchres”, concerned with looking devout while malicious at heart. They are “a brood of vipers”.

There are several ways of looking at Jesus’ hard words.

The words were actually uttered by Jesus and they are deserved

They reflect a basic problem with the Pharisees but they were embellished by the early Church which found itself in conflict with the Pharisees.

They reflect oriental exaggeration. Jesus was not Anglo-Saxon!

The words were uttered by Jesus but they were over-emphasised by the oral tradition underlying the gospels as part of the invective against the Pharisees.

If Jesus had spoken in this way of the Nazis, no-one would have objected to the language used; indeed, he would have been warmly applauded.

In Jesus’ eyes the Pharisees were blocking the way to salvation for the men and women of his time and, therefore, colourful, memorable imagery is needed.

There were seven types of Pharisee and in rabbinic tradition only one of them, the Pharisee who is devoted to the love of God, receives unqualified commendation.   It is likely, therefore, that Jesus did not attack all Pharisees.
The frequent use of the word “hypocrite” might literally refer to those who were appearing to be true Pharisees but, in fact, were only play-acting.   The genuine Pharisee and Scribe were not play-actors, whatever else they might be.
Jesus’ hard sayings, as in Matthew 23, are a lamentation rather than unmitigated denunciation.
It should never be overlooked that Jesus died for his enemies as well as his supporters.   From the cross he utters the words: “Father, forgive them; they know not what they do”.

(With acknowledgements to Professor J.McKenzie)

Heaven

Throughout history Humankind has believed that there is a life after death. It is a universal belief.
Of the five main religions to-day three (Judaism, Islam and Christianity) believe in a personal after-life; two (Hinduism and Buddhism) believe in re-incarnation and the achievment of nirvana and absorption into the infinite.

In the New Testament Jesus after His ascension dwells in heaven

The heavens which in the O.T. are unattainable by humanity (with the exception of Elijah) become in the NT the place of dwelling and reward for the Christian.

The Christian is a citizen of heaven. He looks forward to a home which God will build for him in heaven.

The Christian’s inheritance, reward and treasure are all in heaven.

The Father and the Son prepare mansions in heaven for the disciples.

The names of the disciples are written in the records of heaven.

Those who rise with Christ are with Him taken into heaven.

The risen, like Christ, are endowed with the qualities of the heavenly body.

There has been a long-standing tradition in Christendom that at the Second Coming there will be a general resurrection.   The earthly body will be transformed: there will be a new heaven and a new earth.   On this basis heaven as understood and experienced at the moment will not be the final resting-place of Humanity: it is an interim state.
Others interpret the N.T. evidence differently.   The parts which deal with the general resurrection are taken to be vivid apocalyptic language and the whole point of apocalyptic literature is that it is not meant to be taken literally.
Purgatory is seen by Catholics and Orthodox as a state in which the souls of the departed are prepared before being admitted to heaven.   Prayers may be said for them. This practice stems from the closing chapters of 2 Maccabees.
In traditional Christian thought Hell is the eternal abode of the damned.   Much contemporary Christian thought rejects the idea of vindictive punishment as incompatible with belief in a loving God.   The imagery about Hell in the N.T. and in Jewish thought at the time of Jesus is regarded by contemporary Christian writers as just that.   The emphasis has moved on to Hell as separation from God.

It is possible that the damned, rather than being conscious of their experience of unending hell-fire, are snuffed out.
There is a growing opinion that at the end of time all will be saved; otherwise God’s plan for Humanity will be thwarted.

Judaism and Islam share with Christianity a belief in hell,

Spiritualism claims to be able to communicate with the departed. Such objective investigations as have taken place have not come up with a convincing verdict. It should be added that the main sweep of world-religions is opposed to Spiritualism.

It is likely that what Spiritualists believe to be a departed spirit talking through a medium is an illustration of telepathy or a tapping into Jung’s collective unconscious

Jesus And The Dead Sea Scrolls

Ever since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Spring of 1947 critics have used them to discredit Christianity.
A general idea has entered the public sub-conscious that, somehow or other, the case for Christianity has been damaged by the Scrolls.

There are radical differences between Jesus and the Dead Sea Teacher of Righteousness.

There never came a time when it was held that the Messiah had come, whereas the Church proclaimed from its inception that the Messiah had come in the person of Jesus.

The Teacher of Righteousnes looked for the apearance of three figures at the time of the end – a prophet, a priest and a king. The N.T. writers see these three roles coinciding in Jesus.

The N.T. depicts Jesus as the Son of God. No such title is given to any figure in the Dea Sea community.
There are verses in the N.T, that predicate the title “theos” (god) of Jesus. There is nothing remotely similar in the Scrolls.

It is possible that there are similarities between the teachings of Jesus and the Scrolls. This is not surprising when one allows that both Jesus and Scrolls come from Judaism.

The Teacher of the Scrolls did not claim or possess the authority of Jesus

He was not conscious of being above the Law.

He worked no miracles.

He was not a master of parable or aphorism.

The Scrolls consign publicans and sinners to eternal perdition whereas Jesus mingled with them.

Even in the persecutions to which the Teacher and Jesus were subjected there are noteworthy differences. The enemies of the Teacher were anonymous, their identity veiled under the titles “Wicked Priest”, “Prophet of Lying” etc.. They were men of violence, impure, lovers of riches – in a word, violators of the Law. Jesus’ enemies, on the other hand, are prominent and known: the Sadducees, the Pharisees and Scribes.

Departed Souls

In the Catholic and Orthodox Churches the faithful are encouraged to ask their departed relatives and friends to join their prayers to those being offered on earth. It is a two-way process.

In the Catholic Church, although this is not widely advertised, it is permissible for those in this life to talk to the departed, although the departed cannot reply. The Church is strongly against anything smacking of Spiritualism.

Jesus – A Mythical Hero?

Certainly one can find ample evidence in the NT to support the idea of Jesus as an idealised hero figure.
Jesus performs healing miracles; He performs nature miracles; He even raises the dead.

In the many disputes with His opponents within Judaism, He never loses.

His teaching and bearing are seen to soar above what His contemporaries and even the Prophets and Moses had to offer.

He refuses to crack at His trial or on the cross. He makes provision from the cross for His mother, gives hope and comfort to the penitent thief and forgives His enemies.

Death cannot contain Him: He appears to His followers after His death.

The foregoing may be said to have the flavour of the mythical heroes of the ancient world and one might conclude that the figure of Jesus has been idealised like them. And yet, and yet…

On one occasion, when on home ground, Jesus did not perform many “mighty works…because of their unbelief”; indeed, the account in Mark may be translated “….He could do no mighty work there…..”
Jesus weeps, e.g., at the death of His friend, Lazarus.

He perspires heavily in Gethsemane and tries to avoid the anguish of what lies before Him. War heroes did not behave like this.

We read Jesus saying from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” – hardly the words creative reporters would have written the for an idealised figure.

In Mk 10:18, Jesus is reported to have said, “There is none good but God”. Not quite what inventors would have put into the mouth of the supposed Saviour.

Most puzzling of all, Jesus, who is projected as the Messiah in the gospels and elsewhere in the NT, fails to fulfil many of the Messsianic expectations in the native air of Palestine in the years spanning His life-time.
Jesus actually took it upon Himself to amend Tradition in the Sermon on the Mount, for example, where there are several passages in which Jesus says: “You have heard from the past…..but I say to you…..” Just who does Jesus think He is?! Again, hardly the sort of approach inventors of a Messiah, fulfilling Jewish expectations, would have devised.

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