Embedded Files
( - previous issue - )
Apologia Report 12:4
January 25, 2007
Subject: New "Gospel of Judas" book due from E. Pagels & K. King
In this issue:
CHRISTOLOGY - a new "major theologian" rejects standard model for understanding Christ's atonement
GNOSTIC GOSPELS - Pagels and King join forces in stump for Judas
HOMOSEXUALITY - Ralph Blair rejects conclusion of Ravi Zacharias staff member, finds all but RZIM's viewpoint on gays laudable
ISLAM - new book looks at shari'a law and its contrasts in multiple countries
PROSPERITY - a secular analysis on happiness and how to measure it
-------
CHRISTOLOGY
Saved from Sacrifice, by S. Mark Heim [1] -- the idea of Christ dying to put humanity right with God is certainly falling out of fashion. Consider this review by William C. Placher, who observes that "theologians today are less in agreement that it is Christ's death that has put us right with God.
"Most Christians probably think of a 'satisfaction' or 'substitution' model of Christ's work as the standard story, even if they don't believe that story themselves. ...
"One scholar who rejects that model is Rene Girard, who may be the only thinker alive today with a vision as grand as Marx's or Freud's, a theory to explain nearly everything. A practicing Catholic born in France who has spent most of his life teaching literature in the United States, Girard puts the Bible at the center of his thought, and he has therefore attracted the interest of many Christian theologians, especially with regard to how to understand the work of Christ.
"In his brilliant new book Saved from Sacrifice, S. Mark Heim argues that substitutionary atonement is a bad idea and that Girard offers the basis for a better model. ...
"Girard's grand theory goes roughly like this: Human culture is possible only because human beings learn to imitate each other's desires. ... Since only one person can have what all desire, the imitation of desire that created human culture inevitably leads to competition and hence to violence, and society is at risk of disintegrating into a war of each against all.
"What comes to the rescue, according to Girard, is scapegoating." And the Bible, Girard says, "tells the truth that scapegoats are innocent." There you have it. (Well, kinda. We hardly have the space here to do the argument justice.)
"Other theologians have made use of Girard's theories.... But no one presents it more clearly or more persuasively than Mark Heim, whose reputation as a major theologian this book establishes beyond doubt." Nevertheless, our reviewer remains unconvinced.
"It all still sounds too much like gnosticism to me," he complains. "Our problem, according to Girard and Heim, was that we did not understand something. ...
"Few questions are as important to contemporary Christian theology. I cannot imagine the Girardian case being stated any more persuasively than Heim has stated it, and yet I am not persuaded. I finished Heim's book more convinced than ever that though Rene Girard might provide some help, he cannot centrally define the answer." Christian Century, Dec 12 '06, pp38-40.
---
GNOSTIC GOSPELS
Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity, by Elaine Pagels and Karen L. King [2] -- just when you thought the hype about the Gospel of Judas was dying down, liberal advocates Pagels and King unite to milk it all a little bit longer.
The February 2007 cover of book distributor Baker & Taylor's Forecast monthly includes this description: "The two leading, bestselling experts on the Gnostic Gospels weigh in on the meaning of the controversial newly discovered Gospel of Judas and its ramifications since it was published by the National Geographic Society in April 2006. Pagels and King illustrate how the text provides a window onto how Jesus' followers understood his death, and why Judas betrayed Jesus, and why God allowed it." Due in March. <http://www.btol.com/ps_details.cfm?id=11>
---
HOMOSEXUALITY
Is the Bible Intolerant?: Sexist? Oppressive? Homophobic? Outdated? Irrelevant? by Amy Orr-Ewing [3] -- our reviewer is Ralph Blair, founder (1975) and president of Evangelicals Concerned, which champions the idea that "evangelical homosexual" is no oxymoron. Blair has studied at evangelical seminaries (Westminster and Dallas) and is a psychotherapist in private practice with The Homosexual Community Counseling Center in New York City, which he founded in the early 1970s.
In response to the book's title questions, Blair writes: "Most evangelical reviewers say her book is 'excellent'. But they fail to note that, on homophobia and homosexuality, her book is not excellent. They're as unprepared to review what she writes on these matters as she was unprepared to write it.ÊI'm sorry she fails to measure up here to her usual acumen, for her apologetics work is otherwise well done. I've always enjoyed Founders Weekends with her and the rest of the Ravi Zacharias International Ministries team and I heartily endorse RZIM's ministry."
You may be thinking, "How can this be?" Blair used to be an InterVarsity staff member in the early 1960s before his failure to be "reappointed." He is well-versed on the subject of homosexuality. His web site includes a discussion of what he calls the ÒClobber Passages" used by many to argue that the homosexual lifestyle is biblically unacceptable.
In this review, Blair says something that will give you an idea of his perspective. Briefly, he explains that "we evangelicals have been slow to adopt more enlightened views in science and human rights (e.g., re: evolution's role in God's creation, racial integration and interracial marriage, women's rights, etc.).Ê Eventually, we do see that the Bible really doesn't say what we used to say it said."
Back to the book, Blair writes: "What Orr-Ewing calls the Bible's 'teaching on homosexuality' is her own confusion of contemporary same-sex love commitments with the ancient world's sex abuse of slaves, pederasty, rape of foreigners and rites of fertility. ...
"Orr-Ewing fails to understand both psychosocial findings on sexual orientation and so-called interventions for change." Review, 31:4 - 2006, p1. <http://www.ecinc.org/Reviews/rvfall_2006.htm>
---
ISLAM
Radical Islam's Rules: The Worldwide Spread of Extreme Shari'a Law, by Paul Marshall [4], a senior fellow at the Washington, DC-based Freedom House Center for Religious Freedom <freedomhouse.org/ religion> -- from the preface: "This book outlines the nature and spread in recent decades of [the] extreme version of Islamic shari'a law and details its effects, particularly on religious freedom, the status of women, legal procedure, and democracy. It does not try to give an overview of the nature and history of shari'a as such in all its schools and complexity. [Nevertheless, Marshall does summarize its origins and growth. - Ed.] It is not a treatise on Islamic history or law or theology. These are matters on which the authors may well disagree. Instead, many of the chapters are written by human rights specialists who have long documented the current effects of such laws in destroying religious freedom, repressing women, subverting legal safeguards, and undercutting other human rights and the possibility of democracy itself. ...
"To illustrate the spread, effects, and dangers of extreme shari'a, we have selected seven countries. They were chosen to give a geographical spread and also to show different stages of the effects of shari'a." Saudi Arabia and Iran are "two countries where the implementation of extreme shari'a has gone the furthest, countries that make major efforts to export their ideology and fund its promoters throughout the world." Pakistan, Sudan, and Nigeria are included as middle-ground states. Malaysia and Indonesia are "both democracies, if flawed ones, that have resisted the implementation of extreme shari'a and where, during 2004, Islamists suffered major electoral setbacks. However, both countries still face pressure from radical groups, and in Indonesia extremists are implementing shari'a at a local level."
---
PROSPERITY
"Happiness (and how to measure it)" (no byline) -- begins by noting that "the world economy is over half way towards notching up its best decade ever." Adding that, though one might think that this will "make people better off. Nowadays that's not so clear."
The author reports that "affluent countries have not got much happier as they have grown richer. ...
"People are stuck on a treadmill: as they achieve a better standard of living, they become inured to its pleasures. ...
"They work hard to afford things they think will make them happy, only to discover the fruits of their labor sour quickly. They also aspire to a higher place in society's pecking order, but in so doing force others in the rat race to run faster to keep up. So everyone loses." The one-page article concludes: "Capitalism can make you well off. And it also leaves you free to be as unhappy as you choose. To ask any more of it would be asking too much." The Economist, Dec 23 '06, p13.
-------
Sources, Monographs:
1 - Saved from Sacrifice: A Theology of the Cross, by S. Mark Heim (Eerdmans, 2006, paperback, 346 pages)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0802832156/apologiareport>
2 - Reading Judas: The Gospel of Judas and the Shaping of Christianity, by Elaine Pagels and Karen L. King (Viking, 2007, hardcover, 224 pages)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0670038458/apologiareport>
3 - Is the Bible Intolerant?: Sexist? Oppressive? Homophobic? Outdated? Irrelevant? by Amy Orr-Ewing (IVP, 2006, paperback, 142 pages)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/083083351X/apologiareport>
4 - Radical Islam's Rules: The Worldwide Spread of Extreme Shari'a Law, by Paul Marshall (Rowman & Littlefield, 2005, paperback, 256 pages)
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0742543625/apologiareport>
--------
( - next issue - )
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse