letters to my Jehovah's Witness cousin

Last Thanksgiving I visited my uncle's family and got into an argument over theology. They're Jehovah's Witnesses, and I'm a conservative Lutheran Christian.

The conversation began with me asking them why they feel it's wrong to celebrate Thanksgiving. I told them my kids had asked, and I didn't know the answer. I roughly know why they object to Christmas. But Thanksgiving strikes me as completely unobjectionable. I'm sure atheists don't like it. But what in the the world could someone claiming to love God find offensive about it?

Anyway, my intention wasn't to attack their beliefs. I just wanted to understand their thought process. Theology interests me. And the JW's have some unique theological perspectives.

With the conversation in full swing, I asked them about some of their other unorthodox teachings and practices. Being the kind of thinker I am, I probed further when an answer they provided seemed weak or in need of clarification.

One thing led to another, and they began to take offense at my questioning.

At one point my cousin challenged me. "You're putting us on the defensive, insisting that we lay out why we believe what we do. What about you? You haven't said anything tonight to defend your beliefs. Why do you believe in the Trinity, or believe Jesus is God? Why should I believe that? Why do you think Lutheranism is right and we're wrong?"

I told him I hadn't come prepared to make such a case, but that those were fair questions, and that I'd be open to answering him.

Over the past few months I've been doing just that, sending my cousin e-mails as ideas have come to mind. Mostly these ideas have been prompted by Scripture passages I've heard read at church.

So far I haven't heard anything back from him. So who knows how he's receiving them.

Basically I'm trying to do what I've heard Greg Koukl describe as putting pebbles in my cousin's shoe. Where it exists, I want to help him experience some discomfort in seeing a disconnect between JW teaching and the Bible. (And I was up-front with him about that.) He's going to have to take what I present to him, consider its merit, and mull it over.

I've created a new blog to record the letters, called "Letters to my Jehovah's Witness Cousin." I think what I've been sending my cousin is worthy of a larger audience. At the very least, I'd like to capture it for my own future reference. And perhaps others will find it useful.

Note: Readers may find it beneficial to to read it in reverse order to follow its flow.

the marriage in the Fireproof movie isn't

I saw the movie Fireproof a few months back and wasn't as impressed as the greater Christian community seems to be. Although I know it set out to do the opposite, I think it leaves the audience with a distorted view of the nature of marriage.

People I've talked to are inspired by the movie, expecting the main characters to stay married. But to me, it's not at all clear that their relationship going forward won't still be built upon a foundation of sand.

I have no beefs with the husband. He admirably stepped up to the plate and worked on issues in his life and in his marriage.

But we see his wife leave when (and because) her husband's behavior resides on the "worse" side of the "for better or for worse" ledger, and return when his behavior improves. The wife's transformation, if you want to call it that, comes across to me as merely a response to being loved and pursued. Perhaps she actually responded to her husband's change by repenting of her unfaithfulness and her embrace of a worldly, conditional view of marriage (as her husband did). But we aren't shown that.

That detail, I would argue, is pivotal. It is the difference between pursuing happiness and pursuing what's right. Those that place happiness over doing what's right are not likely going to stay married. "For better or for worse" becomes "as long as things are going well." And I have yet to hear of a marriage that hasn't had periods of "worse."

Regarding where we leave the couple at the end of the film: What is going to happen when their second honeymoon phase is over? The movie seems to imply that becoming a Christian means the honeymoon won't end. But that simply isn't true.

There is no substitute for willfully keeping one's vows in spite of the temptation to do otherwise. In the husband's case, we see that Christ empowered him to do that. We don't see that in his wife.

Jesus as energy drink!

I recently visited a LCMS Lutheran church where the pastor proudly showed the following video:

Welcome to Our Church

What do you make of it?

There are good points, to be sure. But what I notice is that there's no Savior. Jesus is an ill-defined icon. And the church's historic message of salvation from hell is one this church is proud to say it considers unimportant.

Welcome, my friends, to the era of "Jesus as energy drink!"

is logic the opposite of faith?

I was in a class recently at my church. The fellow teaching the class said he believes Scripture teaches that Jesus was sacrificed "from the foundation of the world." Revelation 13:8 states, "And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship [the beast], whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb [Jesus] slain from the foundation of the world."

"So," he concluded, "this is really interesting. In Old Testament times, Jesus had already been sacrificed, even though He had not yet been sacrificed!"

Although I have a lot of respect for this teacher, I think he misinterpreted the passage.

The New American Standard Bible translates the verse: "...everyone whose name has not been written from the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who has been slain." Revelation 17:8 reads almost identically, but omits the part about the Lamb: "...whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world..."

I think the phrase "from the foundation of the world" was meant to refer to when the names were written, not when the Lamb was slain. And Scripture teaches elsewhere that Jesus died only once: "For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all" (Romans 6:10), and "Christ also suffered once for sins" (1 Peter 3:18). So I think the correct interpretation is pretty obvious.


After the class I shared my skepticism over the teacher's interpretation with a friend from the class. One point I made was that we can rule out the teacher's interpretation simply because it is internally contradictory. It would have been logically impossible for Jesus to have been both "already sacrificed" and "not yet sacrificed" at the same time; it would have violated the law of non-contradiction.

The law of non-contradiction states that something cannot both "be" and "not be" in the same respect and at the same time. Things that contradict cannot both be true.

My friend had a hard time with that.

Two weeks later, after further consideration, this same friend suggested that I was placing my trust in logic and "secular philosophy" rather than "receiving the Word of God in faith." He felt the breach of logic was something I should be open to since "God's ways are not our ways" (which I think is a misapplication of this statement in Isaiah 55:8). My friend went as far as to question my Christianity.

What my friend doesn't realize is that one can't argue anything, spiritual or otherwise, without using logic. In fact, (not coincidentally), his correction of me itself relied upon logic: (a) Christians must interpret Scripture in a certain manner, (b) I don't interpret Scripture in that manner, therefore (c) I must not be a Christian. If (a) and (b) are true, then (c) must also be true. We know this because the law of non-contradiction is universally reliable.

You see, the reliableness of the law of non-contradiction is the very thing which allows us to determine whether or not something is true: we compare it to things we already know to be true. If it contradicts or is inconsistent, we reject it.

One can label this "secular philosophy" all he wants. But in reality, it's just figuring things out. Its opposite is not faith. Its opposite is haphazard thinking, irrationality, incoherence, foolishness, absurdity, ridiculousness, fallacious, nonsense, falsehood.

Theologians sometimes say we "use Scripture to interpret Scripture." This is another way of saying we rule out interpretations of passages that contradict interpretations of other passages we already have good reason to believe are correct. We do this because we do not believe the Word of God contains contradictions -- contradictions being, by their nature, inconsistent with the character of God (which is another application of logic, and an affirmation that we understand God to be rational).


Suppose the law of non-contradiction was not always reliable. And suppose someone directed me to worship a hamburger, claiming a hamburger was actually God. I'd be in a tough position. I'd have no way to evaluate the truthfulness of his claim. Normally I would consider the attributes of God and the attributes of a hamburger, recognize them to be different, and conclude that, because they are not identical, a hamburger is not God. But if the law of non-contradiction were not universally reliable, and something could indeed be its opposite, I would have no way of ruling out going to McDonald's for Sunday worship!

And without confidence in the law of non-contradiction, how can anyone trust God's promises? How can we even grasp what it is God is promising? When we decipher the meanings of sentences, we favor interpretations that are consistent with the meanings of words. We reject interpretations that contradict, or are not consistent with, the meanings of words. Without logic, all of that is out the window. So understanding a promise becomes impossible, let alone believing and trusting it!


What I was doing in that class at my church was nothing more than using common sense to reject an incoherent interpretation of Scripture. I don't think logic is a threat to Scripture. On the contrary, I think logic protects Scripture from multiple abuses.

a significant flaw in Jehovah's Witness theology

I have an uncle and aunt and cousins who are Jehovah's Witnesses. I visited them recently and we got to talking about their beliefs. Not expecting to hit on something particularly profound, I told them how I have difficulty with their prohibition on government involvement (such as voting) -- that I think government involvement is a virtue. Interestingly, I found out I hit upon a fatal flaw in their worldview.

They explained to me that JWs believe the fundamental sin in the Garden of Eden was man rejecting God's governance, and that earthly governments are, by nature, the embodiment of a rejection of God's theocratic rule. They believe that at the end of time, God will destroy all government and establish His own government once and for all. They believe that our current time on earth primarily serves the purpose of proving to the heavenly hosts that man cannot successfully rule himself. So, to them, participating in government is to side with the enemy and contribute to the effort to prove God wrong. They get a lot of this from the admonition to be "in the world, but not of it." All of this, they believe, is the central theme of Scripture.

Before this came to light, I shared with them Romans 13:1-7:

"Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God. Therefore whoever resists the authority resists the ordinance of God, and those who resist will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to evil. Do you want to be unafraid of the authority? Do what is good, and you will have praise from the same. For he is God’s minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for he does not bear the sword in vain; for he is God’s minister, an avenger to execute wrath on him who practices evil. Therefore you must be subject, not only because of wrath but also for conscience’ sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for they are God’s ministers attending continually to this very thing. Render therefore to all their due: taxes to whom taxes are due, customs to whom customs, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor." (emphasis mine)

What I said to them was, it seems bizarre to me that a church body would forbid its members from participating in something the Apostle Paul refers to as a "ministry."

We discussed the issue at some length, but in the end they warned me not to base my beliefs on an idea found only one place in the Bible. (In reality, I think the rest of Scripture harmonizes quite comfortably with this passage. Consider all the men of God in the Old Testament who worked in government. And consider that nowhere in Scripture is there a command against government participation. And I can see no necessity to interpret "of the world" as meaning government involvement any more than I can see "of the world" needing to mean something like commerce -- something the JW's have no issue with. We know from its usage in Scripture that the term "of the world," or "worldliness," refers to the sinfulness the world is entangled in. We are told to be "in the world," but not tied up in sin.)

"Hmmm. Are you saying that this passage of Scripture is inaccurate and its teaching can’t be relied upon? Does its message differ from the Watchtower's?”

What I find particularly interesting is, I have never heard this used as a challenge to JW theology. I think it hits upon a significant vulnerability. There is no way I can buy the idea that the Apostle Paul would have written the above passage had he believed government, as an institution, was fundamentally an embodiment of rebellion against God.

Amazing Grace movie

I went a saw the Amazing Grace last night, a movie based on the life of antislavery pioneer William Wilberforce. A devout Christian and Member of Parliament, Wiberforce brought an end to the slave trade in the British Empire. I highly recommend it! It is engaging, touching, and documents the life a true hero.

About the characters (from the movie's website):

Elected to the House of Commons at the age of 21, Wilberforce, over the course of two decades, took on the English establishment and persuaded those in power to end the inhumane trade of slavery.

John Newton, a former slave trader and composer of the hymn Amazing Grace, was a confidante of Wilberforce who inspired him to pursue a life of service to humanity.

William Pitt the Younger, England's youngest ever Prime Minister at the age of 24, encouraged his friend Wilberforce to take up the fight to outlaw slavery and supported him in his struggles in Parliament.

Barbara Spooner, a beautiful and headstrong young woman, shared Wilberforce's passion for reform and became his wife after a whirlwind courtship.

Olaudah Equiano, born in Africa, was sent as a slave to the Colonies, but bought his freedom and made his home in London, where he wrote a best-selling account of his life and became a leading figure in the fight to end the slavery of his fellow countrymen.

Bible studies or paraphrase studies?

The popularity of paraphrases of the Bible has struck me as a negative development in Christendom. When I say paraphrase, I mean the reworking of Biblical texts, (rather than merely translating them from one language to another), and then marketing the reworking as "a Bible." Often times in the process, the length of the text is increased to make it more descriptive or colorful for the reader. (Rick Warren's best seller The Purpose-Driven Life makes extensive use of quotes from various paraphrases.)

While the popularity of paraphrases strikes me as negative, it doesn't strike me as surprising. I've read these paraphrases, and I can understand people deriving insight, and enjoyment, from reading them. But here's my concern:

What are we saying about the adequacy of Scripture if we (or scholars) act as God's editor? What are we saying when we substitute the inspired text with a text we find "more insightful"? Did God fail to get it right the first time?

In a way, these paraphrases are Biblical commentaries in disguise. Commentaries are fine for what they are. But when they're substituted for the actual text of Scripture, my concern is that Christians will file away what they read in them as being God's word. These commentaries don't claim to have the authority of Scripture, yet, in usage, such authority is certainly implied. (And what if the commentator gets it wrong?)

So are there any legitimate uses for biblical paraphrases? I think so.

Open along side a translation of Scripture, I can see a paraphrase serving as a legitimate study tool. Optimally, it could help illuminate the actual meaning of a Biblical texts. Sometimes I know I've lost the understanding and appreciation of particular passages due to over-exposure, in which case, a paraphrase has the potential of helping me "rediscover" these passages with fresh eyes.

We just need to make sure we don't jettison the actual Bible from our Bible studies.

"judge not"

Below is something my pastor wrote last week for a study of Matthew we're doing. This was for chapter 7. I thought it was worth sharing.

Judge Not. For generations the most famous Bible passage was Jesus' beautiful summary of the Gospel in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that He gave Hi only begotten Son, so that whoever believed in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The last few decades have seen a shift, and now perhaps the most famous passage is Jesus' warning about judgment in 7:1: “Judge not, that you not be judged.” This text is wrongly used as the banner text for lawlessness (called “tolerance”): no one has the right to say anything negative about anyone else's thoughts or words or deeds. There is no judging because there is nothing wrong, nothing bad, nothing evil; the standard of good and right is simply what I want or what I feel like. This is the law of tolerance, we are to tolerate each other's actions, live and let live. But tolerance is not merely passive, we are also supposed to embrace all the nuttiness and flat out wickedness of others. To 'tolerate' gay marriage is to approve of it, anything less is homophobic. To 'tolerate' Islam is to approve it, speak well of it, not be critical, “Judge not!” The only act that is considered 'sinful' is being intolerant.

So we often hear the criticism that the Lord's Church is “judgmental” because it is slavishly bound to the conviction that there is a right and a wrong way to believe, think, speak and live. According to the law of tolerance, if we want to keep the Lord's command and “Judge not,” then we need to jettison the Ten Commandments as a norm for good behavior, in fact, we need to jettison all norms for behavior and life, and tolerate everyone's free choices. It this what Jesus is teaching?

Perhaps the best way to begin an answer is to consider Jesus' own actions. He is, after all, the supreme example of obedience to the Father. His life is, therefore, the perfect picture of what it means to “Judge not.” (This is to be understood absolutely. One of the reasons that we can go about not judging is because we know that the Lord Jesus will do the judging Himself. We can leave it is His hand.) But still the question remains, was Jesus tolerant? We need only think of a few examples to say, “No.” Consider the overturning of the money-changers table, or the “woes” to the Pharisees, or the “Go and sell all you have” to the rich young ruler, or even His teaching in the sermon on the Mount. Does this sound tolerant, “Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven... If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off... When you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites... No one can serve two masters... Hypocrite! First remove the plank from your own eye... Beware of false prophets... Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven...” Are these examples of tolerance? Indeed the very idea of a last judgment is anathema to the creed of tolerance.

What begins to emerge, then, is the need to have a better understanding of “not judging.” If “being tolerant” is not the opposite of “not judging,” what is the opposite? The answer Jesus has already given: forgiveness. “If you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.” [6:14] Whereas tolerance tries to get around the law by ignoring the law, in the kingdom of heaven the law is triumphed over by the Gospel. “Mercy triumphs over judgment.” [James 2:13] So the law stands (not one jot or tittle is passing away), but the law doesn't have the only word or the last word. “Not judging” means that the Lord's word of life and salvation and the forgiveness of all sins has been heard by us, and then cannot but be spoken by us to our neighbor. We know that the exceeding righteousness and the perfection of the Father has been given to us in spite of our unworthiness; that the Father has withheld, for Christ's sake, the judgment that we deserved because of our sin; that God's affections and actions toward us are full of love and compassion and mercy and forgiveness, and therefore, as His children, our affections and actions towards our neighbors ought to look the same.

On the other hand, if our attitude toward our neighbors reflects a harshness and criticalness and an unwillingness to help, that same measure of judgment will be turned onto us by our heavenly Father. “For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged; and with the same measure you use, it will be measured back to you.” [7:2] We should not be poking around, looking for our neighbor's flaws, speck hunting, trying to 'help' them by showing them their sinfulness and unworthiness. Jesus uses the parable of the plank and the speck to explain. It is the height of foolishness for a man with a plank or a beam stuck in his eye to attempt to help his neighbor dig a speck out of his own eye. This is like the man who goes, uninvited, to help his neighbor fix a leak in the faucet while his own basement is flooding. “Tend to your own unrighteousness first,” Jesus is saying. “Judge yourself, and then you will find reason for mercy and compassion.” All of our judging is to be tempered with mercy.

This also helps make sense of all the passages in the Scriptures that command us to make judgments. For example:

St John 7:24 Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment.

1 Corinthians 5:11-13 But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat. (12) For what have I to do to judge them also that are without? do not ye judge them that are within? (13) But them that are without God judgeth. Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person.

1 John 4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world. We see this teaching of Jesus reflected in the apostles. (See also Romans 2:1; 1 Corinthians 4:5; James 2:8-13)

Romans 14:10-13 But why dost thou judge thy brother? or why dost thou set at nought thy brother? for we shall all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. (11) For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God. (12) So then every one of us shall give account of himself to God. (13) Let us not therefore judge one another any more: but judge this rather, that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brother's way.

James 4:11-12 Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law, and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law, thou art not a doer of the law, but a judge. (12) There is one lawgiver, who is able to save and to destroy: who art thou that judgest another?

unconditional love?

Today Dennis Prager is questioning where the idea came that unconditional love is a desirable quality in people. It's an interesting question. I suppose it depends on how you define unconditional love. But in its strictest sense, it seems to me that even God does not exhibit unconditional love. The Bible describes God as hating some people. And I doubt He loves Satan.

However, being a father, I can say that it seems that I have unconditional love for my children. Although, maybe there is a condition: that they be my offspring. And since that's a condition that is inseverable, the love always remains. And in a sense, it's the same way for us as God's adopted children. Well, maybe not. We still have the freedom and reject God and thereby face his rejection.

the Trinity: one + one + one = one?

Last month contained the day in the church year called Trinity Sunday. My pastor included these statements in his sermon that day:

First, what is the teaching of the Trinity? There is one God in three persons. The Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God, but there are not three gods but one God. We worship the Trinity in Unity and Unity in Trinity. Who can understand this? One + one + one = one. This is incomprehensible. God has not given us minds to comprehend this; only hearts to believe it and mouths to confess it. (Pastor Byran Wolfmueller)

I really like my pastor and learn a lot from him, but I don't like the way he characterized this. One + one + one is not incomprehensible because our minds are lacking. It is incomprehensible because it is logically impossible. Not even God can understand something that is logically impossible.

Comprehension means to take in the meaning, nature, or importance of something -- to grasp it. If something is incomprehensible, its meaning, nature, or importance are not knowable. So one has to wonder, if the content of the teaching of the Trinity is incomprehensible, does the "teaching" really teach us anything? Incomprehensible words, by definition, bring us no closer to understanding the nature of something than we had prior to hearing them.

If someone told me that, all things being equal, three objects weighed one pound each, but together also only weighed one pound, he would be telling me something inconsistent with logic and the concept of weight. While one can say that to believe such a thing would require "faith," I would question whether such faith was really a belief in something, or merely a rejection of logic and mathematics. If I had to do something that required an accurate perception of the weight characteristics of these objects, I would have to ignore at least one of three things: (1) I would have to ignore the knowledge that their quantity was three and that they each weighed one pound, or (2) I would have to ignore the knowledge that in total they weighed one pound, or (3) I would have to ignore mathematics. If I ignored none of these, and claimed "faith" in all of them, I would be no closer to grasping the nature of the objects than I was before, because these pieces of knowledge are inconsistent. Such "faith" would be merely an exercise in justifying belief in things absurd. (And once you open that Pandora's Box, the distinction between knowledge and ignorance evaporates.)

The doctrine of the Trinity uses the concept of quantity, and uses numbers as a means of qualifying quantity. If the numbers used violate the most rudimentary concepts of mathematics, then they must not be numbers as we understand numbers. And if someone talks to me about such numbers, they might as well refer to them using nonsense words, because I don't have any idea what they are. Using numeric terminology will only send me down the (apparently wrong) path of trying to integrate them into what I already know about numbers.

Now lest you think I'm arguing against the doctrine of the Trinity, I'm not. I'm merely arguing against this type of characterization of it.

I read a thought provoking book by RC Sproul a while back called Not a Chance. It contains the following passage on the topic of the Trinity which I found quite helpful:

Christianity rests on two profoundly important and profoundly difficult paradoxes that remain mysteries: the Trinity and the Incarnation. Classically, the Trinity was defined in these terms:

God is one in essence
and
three in person.

I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard or seen this formulation described as a "contradiction." Why is it called a contradiction? We are accustomed to thinking in terms of "One person equals one essence." This equation may be a convenient one, but it's not a rationally necessary one. The Trinity is indeed unusual and mysterious, but it is not inherently or analytically irrational.

If the formulation for the Trinity asserted that God is one in essence and three in essence or that he is three in person and one in person, we would be engaging in the nonsense of contradiction. Something cannot be one in A and three in A at the same time and in the same relationship. That's a contradiction.

The classical formulation of the Trinity is that God is one in one thing (one in A, essence) and three in a different thing (three in B, persona). The Church Fathers were careful not to formulate the nature of God in contradictory terms. . .

The formula is not meant to say that essence and person are the same things. Essence refers to the being of God, while person is used here as subsistence within being. Essence is primary and persona is secondary. Essence is the similarity, while persona is the dissimilarity in the nature of God. He is unified in one essence, but diversified in three persona.

the da vinci dud

From this and other reviews of The Da Vinci Code, it sounds as if the book got the movie it deserved.

true gnosticism is not much of a da vinci code ally

In researching the Gnostic gospels, I came across gnosis.org, a web site (I think) run by this a guy in Hollywood, Stephan Hoeller, "the sole American bishop consecrated by the Duc de Palatine, mysterious bearer of the English Gnostic Transmission." The site links to an interesting story about Hoeller in LA Weekly. Reading it, I can again see why early Christians rejected Gnostism. It's a completely different religion!

What is ironic is, I can't imagine most critics of Christianity out there who celebrate that the The Da Vinci Code is uncovering some suppressed truth that kills Christianity's credibility would have any comfort whatsoever with the far-fetched, unfounded religious claims of the Gnostics. It strikes me as a classic case of, "the enemy of my enemy is my friend."

But true Gnostics may not be as much of a friend as they'd like. From the article:

Since Bishop Hoeller is a bona fide scholar of the lore alluded to by the now stupendously rich Mr. Brown, the question must be posed: Was it some sort of tantric sex thing between J.C. and M.M. [Jesus Christ and Mary Magdalene]?

"Although I'm delighted by the interest in Gnosticism it's stirred up," Hoeller says, "and by its part in restoring Mary Magdalene to her place at the side of Jesus, I must confess that my regard for The Da Vinci Code is considerably less than for The Matrix. For one thing, [Da Vinci Code author] Mr. Brown seems to have an agenda. He appears to be deliberately courting certain "interest groups," among them conspiracy buffs, enthusiastic but badly informed Goddess worshippers and almost anyone who harbors a grudge against the Christian faith. And though the Gnostic Gospels do identify the Magdalene as having a unique spiritual kinship with Jesus, there's no suggestion that the relationship was sexual, much less that it produced offspring. This is a canard derived almost wholly from an earlier piece of sensationalistic pseudo-history called Holy Blood, Holy Grail."

"According to which," I interject, "the bloodline of Jesus produced the French monarchy . . ."

"Yes, well . . . the Merovingian dynasty."

"And your opinion of the Holy Blood theory?"

"Flapdoodle."

the gnostic gospels

It's insightful to read the actual text of the Gnostic gospels. What's striking is, they aren't very large, they don't read anything like the Biblical gospels, they don't say very much, and they sometimes don't made a whole lot of sense. It's obvious why they never gained legitimacy with the early Christians.

The books may be interesting from a historical perspective. But it escapes me why anyone would consider them a threat to the Biblical accounts. If readers of the The Da Vinci Code would actually take a few minutes and read the Gnostic books, the far fetched claims about them would certainly have a lot harder time gaining traction.

Here's a particularly goofy quote from the Gospel of Thomas:

Simon Peter said to him, "Let Mary leave us, for women are not worthy of life."

Jesus said, "I myself shall lead her in order to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every woman who will make herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven."

Some of the more talked about Gnostic gospels:

The Gospel of Judas
The Gospel According to Mary Magdalene
The Gospel of Thomas
The Gospel of Philip

The books the early Christians considered scripture (and are actually in the Bible):

The Gospel of Matthew
The Gospel of Mark
The Gospel of Luke
The Gospel of John

the da vinci code cracks

Stand to Reason has a very good article explaining what junk history is contained in The Da Vinci Code. It doesn't take much knowledge to realize how outright false the work is. It's disturbing that something like The Da Vinci Code can gain any footing whatsoever. I'm really disappointed Tom Hanks is doing the film. It seems like any movie he stars in anymore is nothing less than outstanding. What a disservice to his audience. He should have done his homework.

mysticism within the Christian community

Here's a critique I wrote a while back on a book by a popular Christian author and retreat speaker, Ken Gire. It's a good example of a guy teaching mysticism within the Christian community.

What's wrong with Ken Gire's book Windows of the Soul?

my wife has been having an affair

I found out over Christmas that my wife has been having an affair since before we separated. That explains a lot as to why she has had no desire to work things out. The pain I feel from the deception, the infidelity, and the kind of future I face, goes beyond words. I never imagined a thing like this could happen to us.

Here's an article that explains what happened in our marriage: The Walkaway Wife Syndrome. The only difference is that my wife admits she was never the "relationship caretaker."

Hopefully I'll be getting the blog going again soon after the divorce is final, which looks like March of 2006. Please pray for my family. At this point, I'm still seeking reconciliation.

--------------------------------
Here's an update as of May 9, 2006: We went to court in March and experienced a mistrial. The judge announced his anticipated verdict before we had hardly begun and told us we'd be wasting our money to go on. It was really awful. We'll be returning in August. My confidence in our legal system is very low at this point. That judge cost us about $10,000 in legal fees that day.

recommended books for marriage trouble

Here's another post that's off topic.

As alluded to below, my life this summer has been tied up with trying to revive my marriage without my wife's participation. I have been reading a lot of books. Some have been better than others. If you know anyone whose marriage is having trouble, (or if you want to prevent such a thing), here are some books I would definitely recommend:

Whoops! I Forgot My Wife

The Unexpected Legacy of Divorce

How One of You Can Bring the Two of You Together

Divorce Busting

The Case Against Divorce

When Love Dies

marriage = cohabitation with insurance benefits?

This is off topic. It has something to do with what I'm facing in my own personal life.

Yesterday my wife filed for legal separation. In the state in which I live, that means all the property is divided, child custody is determined, financial interests severed, etc. -- everything a divorce is, just without the name.

This was very unexpected.

Evidently my wife has been feeling beat up by me emotionally for a long, long time but has just been absorbing it. And I haven't given the complaints she has expressed the gravity they deserve. I found out in early May that she's profoundly dissatisfied with our marriage.

That wasn't good news to me. I welcomed the opportunity to get things healthy and seek counseling or something. But, surprisingly to me, she wasn't interested.

Basically, she's so distanced herself from me emotionally that she's come to believe that she will never again have feelings for me. And now that I've forced her to contemplate the situation by requesting we get help, she says she no longer wants to "live a lie" -- pretending to be happily married when really she isn't. My solution is to get the relationship healthy. Hers is to leave. At least that's how she's leaning right now. One of the real struggles I'm having is convincing her that things can get better.

For my own part, I'm deeply repentant and have entered into long term counseling to work on issues on my side. And I still have a little hope because she did file for separation rather than divorce (which she just as easily could have done). But I'm just devastated, because I really love her, and I really meant "for better or worse" for the rest of my life. And the thought of my kids growing up in a broken home is just horrifying to me. I never imagined this could happen. Especially so quickly. Especially without us both fighting desperately to save the marriage.

Not surprisingly, I've been researching divorce lately. In doing so, I came across a powerful argument by Maggie Gallagher in First Things as to the damage no fault divorce laws have brought on our culture. It describes very well the cause of my own deep feelings of betrayal. It underlines how our current laws not only do not affirm the sanctity of marriage, but in failing to do so, they make marriage potentially a cruel institution. I can certainly relate.

article link

Here are the highlights:

The right to leave ASAP is judged so compelling that it overwhelms the right to make (and be held responsible for) our commitments. For twenty-five years we have talked and written and legislated about no-fault divorce as if it represented an increase in personal choice. As the letters I received from divorcees suggest, this is a simplification and a falsification of our experience with no-fault divorce. For in most cases, divorce is not a mutual act, but the choice of one partner alone. "We might expect that both partners would be ready to end the relationship by the time one leaves," note family scholars Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr. and Andrew J. Cherlin in their book Divided Family. "But the data suggest otherwise. Four out of five marriages ended unilaterally."

No-fault divorce does not expand everyone's personal choice. It empowers the spouse who wishes to leave, and leaves the spouse who is being left helpless, overwhelmed, and weak. The spouse who chooses divorce has a liberating sense of mastery, which psychologists have identified as one of the key components of personal happiness. He or she is breaking free, embracing change, which, with its psychic echoes of the exhilarating original adolescent break from the family, can dramatically boost self-esteem.

Being divorced, however (as the popularity of the movie The First Wives' Club attests) reinforces exactly the opposite sense of life. Being divorced does not feel like an act of personal courage, or transform you into the hero of your own life story, because being divorced is not an act. It is something that happens to you, over which, thanks to no-fault divorce legislation, you have no say at all.

The spouse who leaves learns that love dies. The spouse who is left learns that love betrays and that the courts and society side with the betrayers. In court, your marriage commitment means nothing. The only rule is: Whoever wants out, wins. By gutting the marital contract, no-fault divorce has transformed what it means to get married. The state will no longer enforce permanent legal commitments to a spouse. Formally, at least, no-fault divorce thus demotes marriage from a binding relation into something best described as cohabitation with insurance benefits.

Rather than transferring to the couple the right to decide when a divorce is justified, no-fault laws transferred that right to the individual. No-fault is thus something of a misnomer; a more accurate term would be unilateral divorce on demand.

What the current no-fault debate revolves around is the question: Is marriage less than a legal contract between two people? Is the marriage contract enforceable, and if so how? When we marry, are we making a binding commitment or a fully revokable one (if "revokable commitment" is not an oxymoron)? If the latter, what is the difference, morally and legally, between getting married and living together? Why have a legal institution dedicated to making a public promise the law considers too burdensome to enforce?

These are on top of the intrinsic cruelty of divorce itself; of saying to the one person one promised to love forever, I’m not going to care for you any more. Constance Ahrons' 1994 book The Good Divorce is a decidedly optimistic account of middle-class divorced couples. Yet she found that just 12 percent of divorced parents are able to create friendly, low-conflict relationships after divorce. Fifty percent of middle-class divorced couples engage in bitter, open conflict as "angry associates," or worse, "fiery foes." Five years afterwards, most of these angry divorced remain mired in hostility. Nearly a third of friendly divorces degenerate into open, angry conflict.

These statistics are matched by what Judith Wallerstein found in her (nonrandom) sample of mostly middle-class couples: Ten years after the divorce, fully half the women were still very angry at their ex-spouse.

Where once we seriously fretted over the possibility of breaking up marriages, today we are far more concerned about the dangers of discouraging divorce.

No-fault divorce laws may account for somewhere between 15 and 25 percent of the increase in divorce that took place in the seventies.

In other words, while there are many social and economic factors conspiring to weaken our marriages, no-fault divorce laws have pushed us over the edge from being a society in which the majority of marriages succeed to one in which (according to demographers' estimates) a majority of new marriages will fail. When divorce is made quicker and nonjudgmental, more marriages fail. And the story about marriage contained in the law---of marriage as a temporary bond sustained by mutual emotion alone---is becoming the dominant story we tell about marriage in America, eclipsing older narratives about stubborn faith and commitment, "till death do us part."

No-fault divorce is thus both a cause and a symptom of our current marriage crisis. When the law treats divorce as a unilateral right of one partner, culture can hardly take seriously the moral claims of marriage.

How will we know when America has begun to rebuild a culture of marriage? When the terror of a divorce delayed pales in our minds in comparison to the horror of seeing an innocent spouse dumped---then and only then will Americans have escaped the divorce culture we now inhabit.

blog is out of order

I am going to put the blog on hold for a while. I have some issues to address in my life that are a higher priority right now.

emergent delusion

I just read what seems to me like a good analysis of McLaren's A Generous Orthodoxy, characterizing it as "a religion of perpetual doubt" and tying it in with Francis Schaeffer's teaching on what he termed "the line of despair." I haven't read A Generous Orthodoxy, but I am certainly on the same page as the author of this critique in regard to the nature of truth and such, so my guess is my take would be similar to his.

Emergent Delusion - A Critique of Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy
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