Are holidays and religious festivals suitable for Christians?

For this week's newspapers, I answered a question about whether it is appropriate for Christians to set aside certain days to commemorate people or events of a religious or civic nature:

Q:  I’ve heard accusations recently that it is unbiblical for Christians to celebrate certain days or seasons as an observance of people or events from church or national history.  When, if ever, is it acceptable for Christians to do this?

We can find evidence that humans have set aside certain days of the year as commemorations throughout history, even when their only tool to do so was the angles of the sunlight shining down on the earth.  In Bible history, we see the same pattern, as the Lord forbids Israel from joining in the religious festivals of their unbelieving neighbors, but also gives them a calendar for their own commemoration of His deeds in history. 

They remembered God’s act of creation on the New Year, the forgiveness of sins on the Day of Atonement, and the giving of the Law on Pentecost.  The Passover was not only instituted to save the people of Israel from the tenth plague upon Egypt, but also given as a yearly commemoration of God’s deliverance from death and from Egyptian slavery.  After the Israelites settled in the Promised Land, they celebrated the Feast of Booths as a commemoration of their ancestors’ 40 years of wandering the wilderness on their way from Egypt, and later, the festivals of Purim and Hanukkah marked other events of God’s deliverance. 

In similar fashion, the Christian Church also holds a yearly cycle of festivals remembering the life of Jesus and His provision for the Church.  Nearly all Christians celebrate Christmas and Resurrection as a minimum.  The most historic churches spend the first half of their liturgical year remembering the major events in our Lord’s earthly life, and the remainder focusing on His teachings as they have been handed down to the Church which preserves and proclaims them.   

While the date and number of these festivals is not given in the New Testament, we do know that the Church began to read Scripture in a predictable pattern from very early on.  Historical documents from outside of Scripture also indicate that the Resurrection was celebrated at the same time as Passover within the lifetime of the Apostles, that Lent became a time of preparation for this festival by the end of the First Century A.D. and that Christmas was a common festival by the first half of the Second Century, giving a strong indication that this tradition of the Church in commemorating feasts and festivals was approved by the Apostles themselves and is an ancient part of the Church’s life. 

We also see today that the Church commemorates other events in the lives of Biblical saints such as the Annunciation, when our Lord’s conception was proclaimed to Mary by the Angel Gabriel, and the Confession of St. Peter, who boldly proclaimed Jesus as the promised Savior.  In addition, other Biblical saints and their roles in the Scriptures are remembered on the dates of their deaths, and other important figures in Christian history are commemorated for their exemplary contributions to the life of the Church. 

The types of feasts, festivals, and commemorations listed above would all be an ancient and acceptable part of Christian tradition, along with other events such as the anniversary of a congregation, when Christians might gather to thank God for providing in a particular way.  The only caution regarding these festivals would be to ensure that they are held in thanksgiving for what God has done, rather than being transformed into worship of the human persons involved in God’s works. 

National and civic commemorations are also appropriate for Christians to engage in outside of their congregations, provided that they do not involve idolatrous worship or a compromise to their confession of Christ to the world.  However, in most cases it is inadvisable to make these commemorations a part of the church’s worship life, but rather to let the nation’s festivals be celebrated by the nation and the Church’s be celebrated by the Church, and allow the members to participate in both according to their vocation. 

The Who, What and Why of prayer:

For this week's newspapers, I answered a question about to whom and for what we should pray:

Q:  When Christians pray, who should they pray to, and what things should they pray for?

The typical formula by which Christians pray is a prayer to God the Father, through or for the sake of Jesus – God the Son, and guided by God the Holy Spirit.  This sort of prayer includes the whole Trinity, and acknowledges that we have no right to approach God in prayer, except because His Son Jesus had died in our place, forgiven our sins, and reconciled us to His Father, and that it is only by the Holy Spirit that we can trust in Him and rely on this. 

The public prayers of several liturgical traditions reflect this by ending with the words, “…through Jesus Christ, Your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.” 

Sometimes less-formal prayers simply shorten by praying to God “in Jesus’ name,” and other prayers might pray to Jesus Himself without mentioning the other members of the Trinity.  Although permissible in theory, prayers directed toward the Holy Spirit are only rarely seen in the history of Christian prayer. 

Because the Triune God forbids those who trust in Him from mixing His worship with that of other gods, it would be inappropriate for Christians to pray to any god other than the persons of the Holy Trinity, such as the Muslim Allah, the many Hindu gods, or local ancestral deities, or to direct prayers to demons or to lesser spirits associated with other religions. 

Prayers to creatures that are real and good, but are not God Himself would also be prohibited.  This would include prayers directed toward angels, other Bible characters, and Christians who have died before us.  This is made clear in Scripture when St. Paul writes to Timothy that “there is one God and one mediator between God and men – the man Jesus Christ.” 

At some times and places, a compromise has been suggested that, even though we may not pray to deceased Christians, it is permissible to ask them to pray for us from Heaven instead, much like we would ask a living neighbor to pray for us. 

Even though this idea recognizes that our deceased brothers and sisters still live with the Lord as members of the Church, and some Scriptures even lean toward implying that they do pray for us there, this has typically been discouraged in most times and places.  This is the case because there is not a direct Biblical instruction for us to ask them do so, because it has a significant danger of crossing the line into worshipping the dead, either by confusion or carelessness, and because we have the privilege of asking Jesus Himself intercede for us is, which is of infinitely higher importance. 

In a related note, Jesus’ parable of the Pharisee and the Tax collector also teaches us that the length and number of prayers and those offering them is not an indication of God’s answer, so confining our requests for prayer to the living congregation of believers does not impair God’s ability to answer.  Instead, although persistence in prayer is a virtue, we recognize that the brief prayer offered once is just as likely to be answered as the prayer of thousands offered repeatedly. 

This is because prayer is answered purely as a gift because of Jesus and not because of our effort or worthiness.  In fact, in Jesus perfect prayer given to the Church, He instructs His followers to pray for several things that God has already promised to do and which will happen even without prayer.  Yet we pray for them out of confidence that they will happen, rather than in order to cause them to happen. 

Christians may pray for these things that God has already promised with the certainty that He will grant them.  They may also pray for any other good thing in God’s creation—both earthly and spiritual—even if He has not promised that He will certainly give it.  In such cases, we recognize that God may grant it, or He may know in His infinite wisdom that we are better not to have it, and therefore withhold it for our benefit. 

The number of things for which Christians may not pray is a short list:  They may not pray for those who already died apart from Jesus to receive forgiveness and be saved, and they may not pray for sinful things or things that are harmful to themselves or others.  In such cases, we can be certain that God will not grant what is asked for, because it is contrary to His revealed will.

Prayers for Deceased Christians: Why not?

In response to inquiries regarding last week's question about prayers for deceased Christians, this week's article addresses follow-up questions on that same topic:

Q:  If it is permissible for Christians and their churches to pray for their deceased fellow Christians, then why do so few churches do so?  Even though it’s not wrong to do, is it wise?

The reasons prayer for deceased Christians is so rare among churches are many, but a few stand out most prominently:  because of an incomplete view of eternal life, because of its abuse in the past, and because of the potential for it to cause confusion. 

We Americans have often had handed down to us a mythology that we merely “die and go to heaven,” and that the story ends there.  However, Scripture’s description of life after death is much richer.  Jesus and St. Paul describe Christians as at rest with Christ following death, but that it is not how they will stay forever.  Instead, they will be resurrected on the last day to live again in the body in a new creation free from this life’s sorrows and sufferings. 

Some who recognize this truth of the Resurrection of the Body have chosen to pray as an expression of their confidence that it will one day happen and they will be reunited in real, physical life with their fellow Christians who have died.  However, for those whose understanding stops with a heavenly rest, they would see it as useless or even profane to continue praying concerning those who already rest with their Lord, therefore they do not contemplate the possibility of doing so.

There is also a history of abuse of prayers for the deceased.  For example, at the time of the Reformation, one of the points of contention was concerning purgatory and the use of prayers, indulgences, or masses to advance the deceased person to a better state after death.  Even though both sides continued to use these prayers, the Reformers rejected both a belief in purgatory as well as the idea that prayers offered after death caused any change for the status of the deceased, while the Roman church defended both ideas.

Some have also mistakenly thought that a person who ended their earthly life destined for eternal punishment could still attain salvation after death through the prayers and offerings of the living.  This is an idea that has been almost universally rejected in Christian theologians in all times and places, but because of misunderstanding or influence from other religions, has occasionally crept into the minds of some Christians and the life of the church. 

Because of these abuses, many Christians after the time of the Reformation have chosen to exercise additional caution by avoiding this kind of prayer entirely.  Instead, they chose to limit their prayer to prayers which give thanks for the blessings that the Lord granted to the deceased or for the blessings that He gave to others through them. 

Fear of causing confusion to those who are unfamiliar with the church’s history and theology has also been cause for avoiding prayers for deceased Christians in the church’s recent life.  Because the visible, audible action of what is done in the church is often more accessible to the average Christian than the abstract words on the page of a theological explanation, Christians who place a high value on clearly communicating the truth about Jesus have often preferred the safer route of foregoing these sort of prayers over the risk of giving their fellow Christians or those outside the church the false impression that it would be possible to offer assistance after the fact to a condemned soul who had died. 

Paul writes twice in his first letter to the Corinthians that even when certain things are permissible among Christians they are not always helpful or wise, and that may be the case regarding the wisdom of engaging in this practice among Christians in our time and place. 

The wisdom of making use of this freedom by Christians will ultimately depend on the spiritual maturity of those within a given congregation and the presuppositions that exist in the community it serves.  It may very well prove that one pastor and congregation will determine to take up the challenge of safeguarding against abuse and confusion as they engage in this practice while another may conclude that these risks exceed the potential benefits and choose not to exercise their freedom to do so. 

Whether a given congregation or family determine to pray or not to pray, the key element when approaching this question is to properly understand the foundational Scriptural teachings about death, resurrection and salvation, and choose what will best communicate timeless truth into the particular time and place where they live and serve.  

May we pray for the deceased and why?

For this week's newspapers, I addressed a question about praying for our fellow Christians who have died:

Q:  Are Christians allowed to pray for people who have already died?  If so, why would they do so?

God frequently invites His children to come to Him in prayer for the things they need.  He also invites Christians to pray for one another, and not merely for themselves.  In many quarters of Christianity, it is recognized that God’s Church is not enclosed within a boundary that limits it only to this physical world, but that the souls of the faithful departed are also just as much a part of that Church. 

The Church’s liturgies recognize this when they make statements such as that we worship “with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven,” or when funeral liturgies pray for God to “Give to Your whole church in heaven and on earth Your light and Your peace…”

So, just as the Church itself is not limited to the souls of the living, prayer is not necessarily bound by that limitation.  However, it is a practice to be approached with caution, because of the subtle ways in which it could go astray. 

For example, in segments of Christianity which believe there are potential destinations for the deceased other than eternal rest and eternal punishment, such as a purgatory, it is common to offer prayers in order to speed the deceased’s trip from such middle states into the Lord’s presence.  For those of us who do not hold to a third destination such as purgatory, it would be inappropriate to offer prayers that seek to change the destination of deceased persons, since it is held that their reward or punishment are already determined, based on verses like Hebrews 9:27 and the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus in Luke’s Gospel.

We often teach about prayer that there are things which God has forbidden that will not be granted through prayer, things which God has promised, which He will grant whether we pray for them or not, and things God has neither promised nor forbidden which He will answer in whatever way is most beneficial for us, since His wisdom is higher than our own.  For Christians who do not believe in a purgatory, yet still find it allowable to pray for their departed brothers and sisters in the faith, it falls into the second of those categories. 

Just as children might ask their parents for things the parents had already determined to give, Christians might pray that God would fulfill the promises that He had given in Baptism and His Word to forgive the sins of those who trust in Him and grant them eternal life, in light of the fact that they still await the Resurrection of the Last Day, even though their destination is already secure. 

We pray similarly in the Lord’s Prayer when we pray that God’s name would be holy, His kingdom come, or that His will would be done.  These things will be done even without our prayer, but we pray for them anyway – not to change God’s intentions, but because we believe our Father’s promise and acknowledge it through prayer. 

This is similar to what we do when we confess our sins and receive forgiveness or when we receive the Lord’s Supper.  Christians do not build up a debt of sin, which they periodically purge by Confession or Communion.  Instead, they who rely on Jesus already live in a state of perpetual forgiveness, but continue to receive from the Lord through these acts, because they are the thing to which He has attached His promise. 

Likewise, because our Lord has promised these things and invited us to pray, we pray for the things He has promised, even for those whose souls rest with the Lord, but still await the fullness of eternal Life which will come at the Resurrection. 

Christians are not required to pray for their departed faithful in order that they receive the Lord’s promises, nor are they forbidden from doing so because their reward is already secure.  Instead, they trust what the Lord has promised for them, and many choose to express that trust to their Father at His invitation to prayer in anticipation of the day in which both those presently alive and those previously departed will be reunited in eternal, resurrected life. 

Part 1 of a two-part answer on this topic.  Check back soon for the conclusion of this answer.

Do Pastors Really Only Work One Day (or One Hour) per Week?

For this week's newspapers, I answered a reader's questions about what pastors do during the week:

Q:  What does my pastor do for the remainder of the week after the Sunday service is over? 

We’ve all heard the joke about pastors working only one hour a week, but hopefully it’s just a joke to the people who say it, because it is certainly not a reflection of reality.  In fact, due to their many commitments in the congregation and the unusual hours in which they must fulfill them—ranging from evening meetings with congregational boards to giving counsel to couples or individuals during most people’s “after work” hours, to the frequent emergency calls to the hospital or the bedside of a dying member—many pastors actually find it a challenge to devote adequate time to their families. 

One of the primary tasks of the pastor’s work week is preparing the sermon and service for the upcoming Sunday.  If a pastor followed the commonly-accepted formula that college speech professors dictate for preparing a public speech, the pastor would spend one hour of preparation for each minute of the sermon.  In the real world, pastors often rely on their education and experience to prepare more efficiently and most report spending 10-20 hours in sermon preparation (or 20-50% of their working hours).    

Unless a congregation has a professional musician on staff or an administrative professional devoted to the task, he is probably also responsible for planning all of the other elements of the service, scheduling those who will perform them, and distributing the materials necessary for them to do so. 

Because the pastor is often the primary staff member to occupy the building in smaller congregations, he may also spend many of his office hours answering phones, responding to correspondence, researching information requested from the congregation’s records, sorting mail, and other administrative and office tasks—or in passing on messages to part-time staff who perform them—beyond sermon preparation and service planning. 

If he teaches weekday or Sunday Bible classes or instructs youth, he will spend about 2-5 hours of preparation per hour of teaching if he is writing his own material, and an hour of preparation per hour of teaching if he is using curriculum purchased from a Christian publisher. 

In rural areas like ours, there is also the element of travel.  When frequently-visited hospitals are an hour away and the drive to the hospitals where congregation members receive more specialized care may be up to 4 hours, pastors spend a significant amount of time traveling.  A visit to a member in Rochester or Iowa City will easily occupy a full day for the pastor.

Pastors will frequently have responsibilities to the denomination to which their church belongs or to the district and regional bodies of that denomination, which equates to additional meetings and travel.  Additionally, much like other teachers, doctors, and other professionals, a pastor who takes his work seriously will devote time to keeping his skills current and expanding his knowledge.  This could take the form of single-day classes that are nearby, but often involves week-long conferences in another part of the country. 

The descriptions above all assume a traditional full-time clergy devoting the vocation’s statistical average 50-52 hours to congregational work, but it is becoming more common, especially in rural congregations, for pastors to serve multiple congregations, or serve the congregation only part-time, while working in another vocation as a supplement for the portion of compensation the congregation cannot provide.  This requires adjustments and choices to be made, both by the pastor and the congregation, to adapt for the reduced flexibility and shorter hours of this arrangement while maintaining the best possible degree of pastoral care in light of the circumstances. 

Do we believe in Jesus because the Bible says so or trust the Bible because Jesus said so?

For this week's newspapers, I answered a question about whether we build belief in Jesus on the Bible's reliability or rely on the Bible because of Jesus Resurrection:

Q:  For someone exploring the authenticity of Christianity, what is the best way to proceed when having doubts about the Bible’s reliability as a book? 

This reveals what is perhaps a disadvantage we North American Christians have in understanding the Christian Scriptures:  that we approach them as a single book. 

Because we lack the connection to the history and the original languages that Christians in other parts of the world, such as Greek-speaking Christians or Middle Eastern Christians, our intuitive approach to the Bible is often to look at the Bible as a single volume, but in reality, it is composed of 66 books written by 40 or more authors over the course of over 15 centuries. 

When we hear a preacher or a Christian proclaiming, “The Bible is God’s Word” or “The Bible is without error”, it’s like skipping to the answer of a complex math problem without showing the work it took to get there.  While the Bible-honoring preacher might be correct, simply stating this to be true is not, and should not, be adequately satisfying to a person who does not yet trust Jesus or believe the Bible to be reliable. 

If we narrow the question to simply determining whether it is reasonable to believe the claims of Christianity, we can start by looking only at the events of the four Gospels:  Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  Everything of Christianity’s authenticity relies on a single event from these historical records—the Resurrection of Jesus. 

Jesus Himself set this event as the criterion by which to trust in His claims or to write Him off as a fraud or lunatic when He responded to challenges to His authority saying, “Destroy this temple [referring to His body], and in three days I will raise it up again.”  So, the first step is to examine Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John’s historical accounts in light of their number (how many copies we have available to us) and their accuracy (how old and how similar the available copies are). 

Upon recognizing that the Gospels we know are identical or nearly-identical to the original editions written by the authors, we can examine them in light of known history from other sources, from which we will find that, while some names and events have no other confirmation, many of them, such as Pontius Pilate, Herod, and Caesar Augustus did exist at the time and place specified. 

It also comes to light that Roman historians report within decades of the life of Christ that Christians were worshiping Jesus as God and claiming that He was raised from the dead, indicating that this was not a later exaggeration of the story.  When examined in the light of motives and typical human behavior, it becomes additionally evident that the only reason the Disciples would continue to defend the story of the Resurrection in the face of harassment, torture, and death is if they sincerely believed they witnessed it. 

Combining all these elements, it becomes apparent that it is more reasonable to believe the Resurrection occurred than that it did not.  From that foundation, the rest of the Bible can then be defended.  The Old Testament can be found reliable, because Jesus, who proved His authority by rising from the dead, endorsed its books during His ministry. 

Peter, John, and the other eyewitnesses who wrote much of the New Testament can be relied upon because they were commissioned by Jesus before He ascended into heaven, and wrote their letters as explanations to new communities of Christians about what Jesus taught and how that applies to their circumstances.  And Paul, who wrote the remaining books of the New Testament, was examined by the Apostles, as explained in the books of Acts and Galatians, and found to be faithfully preaching the same message which Jesus had delivered to them. 

Finally, with regard to other challenges to Biblical records of events, such as the time and method of creation, the Resurrection answers these as well, because if Jesus was genuinely raised from the dead, and an all-powerful Father in Heaven exists, as He describes, then in light of the seemingly-impossible event of the Resurrection, the improbability of these remaining event becomes insignificant in comparison. 

Jurassic Eden

My article from this week's newspapers answers a question about how Dinosaurs fit into the Biblical Creation Story:

Q:  How is it possible to reconcile the creation events described in the book of Genesis with the existence of dinosaurs?

For those who disregard the events of Genesis as mere myth, this problem can be solved simply by adopting whatever theory about dinosaur life is current in the scientific community.  However, finding the place where dinosaurs fit into a literal reading of Genesis has been a task that requires more intense examination and which has resulted in diverse conclusions across the spectrum of Biblical scholars and scientists who are convinced of the authenticity of the Hebrew Scriptures. 

Some of the attempts are difficult to consider seriously as they border on science fiction.  These include ideas such as a previous creation that had fallen victim to disrepair or destruction prior to the events described in Genesis and an earth that was created to include evidence of history which never actually happened.  Even less credible attempts have suggested that dinosaur fossils are a hoax or even a demonic plant to lead people into doubt. 

More credible attempts at proposing solutions to this question have taken into account how limited our knowledge of dinosaur life really is, and how little the Bible actually says about that period of history. For example, all we know about most dinosaurs is their bones, which have been preserved as fossils, or perhaps an occasional fossilized footprint.  Many details which we think we know about dinosaurs, though, are merely speculation or educated guesses, including such details as their behavior and the appearance of their skin or other soft tissues, which have long since decomposed. 

We also know that Genesis only devotes two chapters to the creation event itself and 11 chapters to the world, as it existed prior to Abraham, but within these chapters exist several clues that might provide insight into the place of dinosaurs in the Biblical version of creation:

Probably the most important of these details is a massive flood in which all life on earth is destroyed, except for 8 people and 2 or 7 specimens of each animal kind, and there are two significant changes that accompany this event.  The first of these is a decrease in human life span.  In the pre-flood genealogies, the individuals named had lives that spanned six to well over nine centuries.  Following the flood, the sort of life spans we are familiar with today are seen. 

The second of these changes relates to a “firmament” mentioned in the first chapter of Genesis, which appears to be some sort of water canopy in the earth’s atmosphere—something we do not see in existence in our present-day world.  It has been proposed that such a feature could relate to dramatic atmospheric differences compared to what we know today, and may contribute to the differences seen in life spans in the pre-flood and post-flood worlds. 

Taking both of these things into account, and knowing that some species of animals grow throughout their life span, and not only until a certain point of maturity, it has been proposed that species who today live to a certain age and grow to a certain size could grow to exponentially larger sizes if allowed to live to ten times their current life span, resulting in a creature with a skeleton of the size and construction we presently find in dinosaur fossils. 

However one concludes about dinosaurs, though, the Resurrection is the event upon which Christianity stands or falls, because Jesus predicted His resurrection as the evidence that what He proclaimed was true.  If He rose and still lives, then all of His teachings are to believed, including the fact that He took Genesis as an accurate and reliable account of human origins. 

When the limitations of the evidence at hand – both regarding our knowledge of dinosaurs and the few literary details given about the creation event and the pre-flood world – we recognize that there is limitless potential for yet-undiscovered evidence to fill in the gaps in such a way that confirms both the existence of dinosaur life and a literal creation as described in Genesis. 

Inns, Stables, Upper Rooms, and the Holy Family

My article for this week's newspapers answers a question about the details of the stories of Jesus' birth:

Q:  How accurate is the Christmas story that we hear read and see performed in churches around this time of year?  Does the Bible say anything else about the events of Jesus’ birth? 

The Bible offers a surprisingly small amount of information regarding Jesus’ birth, preferring to devote more attention to the crucifixion and resurrection than to the birth stories.  Mark simply quotes three Old Testament prophesies, then moves directly to talking about Jesus as an adult.  Rather than telling a birth story, John provides a chapter-long theological discourse about the fact that Jesus is True God in human flesh. 

Matthew provides some information on the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ conception, along with telling the story of the Three Wise Men (which, contrary to popular art, probably occurred well after Jesus’ birth) and the family’s escape to Egypt to flee from murderous King Herod, but he only casually mentions Jesus actual birth in less than a half-sentence.

Luke’s Gospel stands out in its detailed description regarding the events of Jesus’ birth, and thus, is the source for our well-known version of the Christmas story.  It also stands out for its reliability, because, while we honor all of the Bible as accurate and true, we can have a particularly high degree of confidence in Luke’s historical account, because he would have obtained it by interviewing Mary herself – as he mentions when he lays out his method of collecting the historical facts in the first verses of His Gospel.

However, much like when a book is made into a movie, things often become distorted; our perception of the birth story often tends to differ from the version actually authored by St. Luke. 

An excellent example of this is the way we often think of the “inn” in Luke’s story, as we imagine an inn-keeper (a common Christmas pageant character who isn’t actually mentioned in the story) stoically turning away Jesus’ mother and Joseph because there was no place to stay.  Instead, though, the “inn” mentioned in English translations of the story is not what we would think of.  Instead of an establishment that commercially rents rooms to several travelers, the word Luke records indicates the second-story guestroom of a private home – the same sort of room Jesus would use later in life when He gathered with His disciples for the Passover the night before He was crucified. 

Similarly, the place where Jesus was born was not a barn, stable, or cave as popular imagination would suggest.  Instead, homes in that part of the world at that point in history were typically composed of 3 rooms – the main room where the family would cook, eat, and spend the night, the guest room mentioned previously, and a third room, often a half-story lower than the rest that would be used for living space during the day and a shelter for the family’s animals during the night.  Because the guestroom was already taken, this unnamed family would have tied up the animals outdoors and allowed Mary and Joseph to lodge in this room, where Jesus would be born, and the manger that is mentioned would be a ledge dug out between the home’s main room and the lower room where Mary and Joseph would have been staying.

It is highly unlikely that the real events included an overwhelmed Joseph alone with his wife in inadequate shelter as she goes into labor promptly upon arriving in town.  Instead, from what we know of the customs of the time and Luke’s text, Joseph and Mary probably arrived as much as two weeks prior to Jesus birth, found lodging with a relative of Joseph or another citizen who was willing to treat Joseph well because of his royal heritage as a direct descendant of David, and the women of the household and their neighbors – common people like the Luke’s shepherds and their wives - likely assisted Mary with Jesus’ birth. 

Those shepherds would come back from the fields to worship Jesus at the angels’ invitation, Jesus would have been circumcised on his 8^th day of life, and they would then travel to the temple for His presentation and Mary’s purification from childbirth when He was 40 days old before returning home to Nazareth. 

Information in this article was summarized from the interview with Ken Bailey found at:

http://issuesetc.org/2013/12/24/the-first-christmas-dr-ken-bailey-1314/

Love the Sinners; Hate the Pharisees? - 4 thoughts on responding to departures from Scriptural sexuality

For this week's newspapers, I responded to a question about Christian responses to those whose behavior is not consistent with the Lord's creation regarding gender and sexuality:

Q:  How should Christians respond when they are confronted with demands and behaviors that are in conflict with their Scripturally-informed convictions on marriage, sexuality, or gender identity?

It seems that a false dichotomy exists regarding how Christians should interact with people whose behaviors do not match up with their standards or who advocate for causes with which they disagree. 

One stereotypical response is represented by those who surrender the question and modify their articulation of morality to accommodate the standards of the time and place in which they live, while the opposite stereotyped response is to be committed to defense of a historic Christian positions, but do so in a manner that is argumentative and inflammatory. 

Ultimately, neither of these responses is helpful, because both extremes avoid the question rather than engaging it with the honest inquiry it deserves.  One response merely concedes the question to the surrounding world while neglecting the possibility that divine commands could differ, while the other prefers isolation and vocal opposition over genuine interaction with people who are different and who might be in need of compassionate support. 

Some might respond that the middle ground is “Hate the sin; love the sinner,” but besides being a quote from Gandhi rather than a Christian proverb, it is still too simplistic to handle such deeply-felt and potentially sensitive questions.  I am convinced that a genuine Christian response to these sort of questions is both less polarized and more thoughtful than any of the above. 

The first principle that Christians must remember when engaging those with whom they differ in these issues is that they are dealing with people – real humans with whom we share a Creator.  Even though there are times when it may be necessary to act in defense of children or the innocent, and even though Christians must stop short of becoming accessories to immorality, it can be far too easy to diminish opponents into rivals with whom we must do battle rather than real people who face equivalent – although different – spiritual struggles, and deserve to be treated with dignity and compassion. 

Second, it is necessary to distinguish between fellow Christians in need of correction and people outside of the Church whose behavior is not within our sphere of concern.  When Paul deals with an issue of an illicit relationship in 1 Corinthians 5, he clearly articulates to the Corinthians that while they must admonish and correct their erring brother, that they are not to exercise the same judgment outside of the Church or ostracize sinners in daily, secular life. 

For too long though, American Christians have expected non-Christian neighbors to clean up their act before Jesus will receive them, when the reality is precisely the opposite.  We may live more righteously because our Lord forgives us, but we could never be forgiven based on how righteously we might live. 

Third, respectable defense of Christian morality requires a distinction between Biblical command and culturally-conditioned customs.  Matters of style, preferences in recreation, and other auxiliary details are not equivalent to divinely-established callings.  Because a person does not conform to the expectations and appearances that tradition or local culture dictate does not mean that they are in sin.  Instead, a great deal of diversity in such details is still possible while remaining faithful to Biblical commands regarding these issues. 

Finally, the outcomes of national politics, the victory or defeat of a particular party, or even how well national laws reflect Biblical ones is not determinative of Christianity’s health and vitality.  While it might be expedient for legislation to confirm one’s church’s ideals, the church does not stand or fall based on acts of congress or the decisions of the judiciary.  In fact, Christianity has typically seen its greatest advances when it is surrounded by a culture and government which are a contrast to it rather than which confirm it. 

So Christians live in the hope that their Savior has taken their place in life and death and sealed His promises with resurrected victory, so that regardless of the culture that surrounds His Church or the behavior of its neighbors, their role while they wait for His return is not merely to make the world a more moral place, but to both boldly proclaim and compassionately apply His reconciliation to a world in need. 

Do Christians Fast and Why?

This week's article for the newspapers answers a question about fasting among Christians:

Q:  What place does fasting have in Christianity?  How and why would a Christian fast? 

Fasting—the practice of reducing or ceasing the consumption of food for spiritual reasons—takes on a variety of forms, both among Christians and non-Christians.  While the term fasting has sometimes been used metaphorically to speak of abstaining from any number of things, it historically refers only to food. The concept also includes the idea of hunger, so it is not merely to refrain from a particular item while indulging in an equal or greater quantity of something else. 

Probably the most well-known example of fasting among the world’s religions is that Muslims fast from all foods during daylight hours one month of the year.  Another method of fasting, engaged in by many communities of Buddhist monks, is to eat a single meal prior to noon, then to fast for the remainder of the day. 

Fasting in the Christian tradition actually dates to before the time of Christ, as fasts were common practice for the Old Testament people, and the Pharisees, who lived at the time of Jesus, fasted two days a week—on Monday and Thursday.  Many Jewish Christians continued to fast two days a week, although on Wednesday and Friday, during the first centuries of Christianity. 

Perhaps the most familiar form of fasting among present-day Christians is Lenten fasting, where Christians fast to varying degrees from simplifying their diet, to giving up meals on a certain day or at a certain time of day, to even a full 40-day fast which imitates what Jesus endured while He was tempted in the wilderness.  In fact, the name for Lent in many languages is often related to the word for fasting. 

Jesus addresses fasting two times in the Gospel of Matthew.  On one occasion, a question is raised of Jesus about why His disciples do not fast.  He replies, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast.”  From this, it appears that Jesus’ disciples did not fast during His earthly life, although some did later, as seen in the book of Acts. 

The other occasion on which Jesus addresses fasting is in Matthew 6, when He instructs that those who fast should do so quietly, not telling others or looking miserable, but rather to keep their fasting between God and themselves. 

Jesus does not give any instructions how often or how intensely His followers ought to fast, though, nor do the other New Testament authors.  In fact, no text of the New Testament ever commands fasting of any kind as mandatory for Christians.  This is one characteristic that is unique to Christians regarding fasting.  While fasting has a strong history in Christianity and there are occasional references to it in Scripture, it is never required of Christians. 

In fact, fasting is never to be given credit for advancing a Christian’s status before God or earning them anything from God.  It cannot earn salvation or merit any kind of blessing from God for the Christian.  Instead, Christian fasting is a practice used to build discipline by removing distractions or using hunger as a reminder of our Spiritual poverty before God and the needs of less-fortunate neighbors. 

In addition, the Christian who is not burdened by the necessity to prepare and consume food will then have additional time to devote to prayer, and because they have reduced their expenses for food, they are free to give greater gifts to benefit their neighbor who suffer from poverty or offerings to further the Church’s mission of proclaiming the Gospel.

So it is that Christian fasting is not mandatory, nor is it a method of compensating for sin or gaining status with God, but rather a beneficial exercise which a Christian might choose to perform for the sake of devoting Himself more fully to Scripture and Prayer and the assistance of his neighbors. 

Did Christians Steal Pagan Festivals?

My article for this week's newspapers answers a question about the accusation that Christian holy days were imitations of pagan festivals:

Q:  Is there any validity to the claim that Christian holy days like Christmas and Easter were borrowed from pagan festivals, or that religious leaders designed them to replace pagan festivals?

These accusations have taken several shapes over the years.  The least accusatory of these claims assert that Christians created new holy days to replace the pagan festivals of the people who had converted in new lands.  More aggressive versions claim that the Christians simply recycled the pagan festival by making them about Jesus, but using the same traditions as the pagan festival and giving them new meaning. 

The most offensive of these accusations construct a scenario in which the authors would have us believe that even the person of Jesus and the events of His life were lifted from previous Egyptian or Middle Eastern religious systems rather than being genuine historical events. 

This most severe accusation is the simplest to answer.  The first people to make such claims were two 19^th century authors named Gerald Massey and Godfrey Higgins.  Prior to their assertions, there is no evidence that anyone had ever drawn these connections.  Additionally, there is no evidence that early Christians had access to any information about Egyptian mythology in order to imitate it. 

In addition, there is ample evidence to the historicity of the events of Jesus’ life and that His disciples began teaching and believing the familiar teachings about Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection during the generation who witnessed His crucifixion.  This evidence comes from both Christian and Roman historical documents.  When putting the events recorded in the Gospels about Jesus on an even playing field with any other event or person of the Greek and Roman world, we find that the evidence relating to Jesus is superior both in quantity and consistency. 

Regarding the proposed links between Christian holy days and Roman or other pagan festivals, we find that the evidence is similarly lacking.  No accusation of these links existed during the times contemporary with their initial celebration by the churches, but only arose, like Massey’s and Higgins’ assertions, only in the 19^th century. 

In fact, prior to the reign of Emperor Constantine around 313 B.C. the Christians were well-documented to avoid all things Roman rather than to imitate them.  So, since we have documented evidence that Christmas was observed by the churches at least a century prior to this date, it certainly would have caused enough controversy if Christians were imitating the Roman Saturnalia what we would have record of it, which we do not. 

Instead, we know that the Church has observed the festival of the Annunciation (Jesus conception when Gabriel announced Jesus coming birth to Mary) on March 25 since very early times, making it only logical to celebrate his birth 9 months later – on December 25.  This is done not because anyone believes Jesus was born then.  In fact, most evidence would indicate his actual birth was in another season of the year, but this is ritual time that enacts Jesus life and its events in the course of a year, rather than celebrating the literal date of events. 

Likewise with accusations that Easter was an imitation of a festival to the goddess Oestre, because of the similarity of names and common time of year.  The weakness of this accusation is that it is only the English-speaking world that uses the word Easter to refer to the day we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus.  The rest of the Christian world uses terms related to Resurrection or Passover in their names for what we call Easter.  In addition, Resurrection Sunday was a well-established festival of the Church centuries before Christianity ever reached the English-speaking world. 

It is often said that every legend and false understanding has some grain of truth at its core, and that grain is this:  In lands where Christianity was being preached for the first time, people were often attached to the seasonal festivals and traditions that were related to their former gods.  In order to alleviate anxiety about leaving behind their former rituals, Christian pastors often pointed people to the already-existing Christian ceremonies that occurred around the same time of year, as an outlet for their natural desire to gather in communal celebration of common faith. 

Congri-presby-piscopal Church Structure and Governance

For this week's newspapers, I answered a question about different types of church government:

Q:  How does a church or denomination handle its business?  What is the meaning of all those unfamiliar words I see on church signs, like Congregational, Episcopal, or Presbyterian?

If we begin with the Bible, we find that the New Testament has very little to say about how a congregation or a group of congregations govern themselves.  While there are exhortations for Christians to unite with a single mind around the doctrine of the Apostles and to help support one another in times of hardship, there are no details of structure given to govern how this is to be administered. 

There are three traditional forms of structure that have been adopted by groups of churches, and these bear the labels of the three terms listed in the question above.  Often, if a denomination is convinced that one of these forms is Biblically mandated, they make the choice to include that term in their name. 

When the term Congregational is used this typically indicates that the congregation is externally independent of control from a larger national or regional authority.  Internally, this usually means that the congregation is operated as a true democracy with congregation members having equal influence over decisions of the congregation.  While Congregational churches may join together as a denomination, this is usually for the purpose of joint work like missions or seminary training and affairs are governed from the congregational level upward to the denominational leadership. 

The term Episcopal is derived from the Greek word for a bishop, and is used to refer to a structure in which one or more levels of bishops are given authority to govern a group of churches.  While bishops are given a great deal of influence toward the congregations over which they are assigned, they also bear a great deal of responsibility to exercise care for them as a pastor would his congregation, particularly by being a pastor to their pastors. This is the most top-down of the structures, and often the local clergy exercise a high degree of influence over congregational life just as the bishop exercises influence over the congregations under his care.  

The term Presbyterian refers to leadership by a group of elders and is derived from the Greek word for elder.  Presbyterian denominations typically govern each congregation with a group of elders, and each level of structure above the local congregation is usually governed by a group of authorities rather than a single individual.  If a single individual is named in a leadership role, his role would be primarily administrative, consisting largely of organizing and facilitating the work of the larger group that actually does the governing. 

Some denominations do not bear one of these words in their name, even though they do adhere to one of the above structures.  The most prominent example of this would be the Roman Catholic Church, which has an episcopal form of governance.  Other denominations do not fit into any of these categories of governance, but instead have a hybrid form of governance, which might embrace elements of two, or even all three structures.  Many times, several denominations in the same theological family, bearing the same name, might all have different forms of governance.  Lutherans, for example, can be found with any of the three traditional structures or a hybrid form of governance. 

Still other congregations consider themselves independent, or might prefer the term non-denominational.  If a congregation is truly independent, then they would have only internal governance and would not be accountable to a larger structure beyond the congregation.  They could also structure that internal governance in any way that they were convinced was proper. 

However, most congregations have found that there is great wisdom to having accountability beyond their own congregation, so even those that are not part of a formal denomination have begun to form "networks" in recent years.  These networks are considerably looser than traditional denominations, but allow their member congregations to provide accountability for one another and to work together on things such as mission work. 

Ultimately, it is what a congregation teaches, and not how it governs itself, that is of primary importance.  Each of the forms of governance has its benefits and its challenges, but when used properly they do not become the focus of attention.  Instead, their intended role is that of supporting and advancing the Church’s proclamation of Christ.