Embedded Files
( - previous issue - )
Apologia Report 14:39
October 22, 2009
Subject: Reading between the lines in K. Armstrong's Case for God
In this issue:
ATHEISM - the controversial case for Karen Armstrong's God
FREAK FILE - is widespread evangelical anxiety over demonic influence accurately portrayed by a fringe Pentecostal sex manual?
INTERNATIONAL CHURCHES OF CHRIST - an autobiographical history
NEW TESTAMENT CRITICISM - a biographical look at two unlikely female sleuths for ancient biblical manuscripts in the late 1800s
UNIVERSAL CHURCH OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD - authorities bring charges
------
ATHEISM
The Case for God, by Karen Armstrong [1] -- a brief, but telling, clip from Lisa Miller's review in Newsweek (Sep 11 '09, n.p.): "'Jews, Christians, and Muslims all knew that revealed truth was symbolic, that scripture could not be interpreted literally, and that sacred texts had multiple meanings, and could lead to entirely fresh insights,' [Armstrong] writes. 'Revelation was not an event that had happened once in the distant past, but was an ongoing, creative process.' This critique has not been articulated often or clearly enough: the new atheists are, in effect, buying into one particular modern, Western fundamentalist notion of God in order to make God look ridiculous and knock him (or her or it) down. For them to fail to concede that what William James called 'religious experience' is far more complex than what certain contemporary believers preach is extremely disingenuous." <www.newsweek.com/id/215180>
---
FREAK FILE
"'Born Again Is a Sexual Term:' Demons, STDs, and God's Healing Sperm" by Amy DeRogatis, who, despite disclaimers, appears to assume that her bizarre discovery in a fringe Pentecostal book is representative of the entire evangelical movement. Prepare yourself for a fresh confusion of terminology as well.
The abstract reads: "In this article I examine the intersection between sexuality and spirit-filled bodies in American Evangelicalism. I am interested in investigating two issues: the sexual body as a site of spiritual battle and the use of popular science, especially the domain of genetics, as material evidence for this spiritual warfare. Specifically, I trace the increasingly spiritualized framing of marital intercourse in evangelical literature. To follow this trajectory, I highlight the spiritualized dangers of transgressive sexuality as well as the sexualizing of spirituality in evangelical sex manuals and deliverance manuals. This article centers around one text, Holy Sex: God's Purpose and Plan for Our Sexuality [2], whose authors contend that sexually transmitted diseases are, in fact, demons lodged in genetic material that can be transferred through body fluids and bloodlines. The assertions about biology and demonic affliction made throughout the book are extreme and would be rejected by most readers of mainstream evangelical sex manuals. I argue that this book, though marginal, is not an irrelevant text. It reflects deep-seated anxieties about sexual bodies, spiritual concerns, and disease. Idiosyncratic though it may seem, Holy Sex taps into wider uncertainties about the spiritual vulnerability of the physical body found in contemporary evangelical literature." Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 77:2 - 2009, pp275-302. [7]
---
INTERNATIONAL CHURCHES OF CHRIST
In Search of a City, by Thomas A. Jones [3] -- Nicholas J. Zola begins his review: "Observers typically identify three modern branches of the Stone-Campbell Restoration Movement: the Churches of Christ (COC), the Independent Christian Churches (ICC), and the Disciples of Christ (DOC). Yet the last generation has witnessed the rise of a fourth branch of the tree: the International Churches of Christ (ICOC). An offshoot of the COC campus ministry movement of the 1960s and 70s, the ICOC has made headlines for both its rapid growth and controversial methodology, and most recently for its sudden internal disintegration."
Zola explains that Jones "recounts his own journey as the fledgling campus group made the transition from the Crossroads Movement to the Boston Movement to *the* movement of God. Part history and part biography, the book is a well-told story that blends narrative, memoir, historical artifacts, biblical instruction, and lessons learned. ...
"Within the ICOC fellowship, Jones is best known as the long-time editor of the church's publishing branch, Discipleship Publications International. But before aligning with the Crossroads Movement, Jones was also editor of the COC publication Campus Journal.... Thus Jones has the rare advantage of having been a continuous witness of the movement's history from its inception....
"Along the way, Jones also offers some critique of what went wrong in the ICOC and suggestions for how the fellowship might recover from its recent collapse. The primary audience is current members of the ICOC....
"Jones' journey with the ICOC begins at a 1968 seminar sponsored by Campus Evangelism, an early COC version of Campus Crusade for Christ led by Jim Bevis and Rex Vermillion. ... The song leader at this seminar was none other than Chuck Lucas, who would later emerge at the forefront of the Crossroads Movement and as mentor to Kip McKean, the leader of the ICOC. ...
"Jones writes in vivid detail as the controversy that followed that first seminar spread next to the National Campus Ministers Seminar, which became so dominated by Crossroads' influence that by the 1986 meeting the message was clear: those who were not aligning with McKean's movement in Boston were no longer part of the same fellowship. ...
"The weakness of Jones' work is in his lack of detail depicting his years in Boston, an omission he admits. ... [The book] is not a stand-alone history of the ICOC, but rather a stand-alone journey of one man who lived the ICOC history. ... Combined with a more traditional telling of ICOC history, such as C. Foster Stanback's recent work Into All Nations [4], Jones' additions are fascinating and vital." Restoration Quarterly, 51:3 - 2009, pp185-187. [8]
---
NEW TESTAMENT CRITICISM
The Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels, by Janet Soskice [5] -- reviewer Caroline Alexander explains that Soskice tells the story of "Agnes and Margaret Smith, identical Scottish twins [and who in the late 1800s, as adults, became Margaret Gibson and Agnes Lewis], whose travels to St. Catherine's Monastery in the Sinai desert resulted in the electrifying discovery of one of the oldest manuscripts of the Gospels ever found."
Soskice writes that after much preparation, "the twins had not stumbled into Egypt, but had come on a carefully meditated and prepared mission: to find manuscripts of interest in the legendary library of St. Catherine's. As Soskice writes, 'the latter half of the 19th century was a time of anxiety over the Bible,' an anxiety that, in an age of escalating scientific interest and discovery, pertained not only to the soundness of some of the Bible's claims - manna from heaven, for example - but the soundness of the very text upon which believers pinned their faith."
Their discovery, "the Sinai Palimpsest, or Lewis Codex, as it came to be called, would prove to date to the late fourth century; the translation it preserved was even older, dating from the late second century A.D. - 'very near the fountainhead' of early Christianity.
"Soskice follows the aftershocks of this extraordinary discovery as they reverberate both through the twins’ lives and through the world of biblical scholarship...." New York Times Book Review, Sep 6 '09, n.p.
---
UNIVERSAL CHURCH OF THE KINGDOM OF GOD
"Leader of Brazilian sect charged with fraud" (no byline) -- in its entirety, this brief news item reads: "BRAZIL: Prosecutors accused the leader of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God in August of diverting over $2 billion in offerings to personal real estate, cars, and businesses. Observers have long criticized Bishop Edir Macedo for convincing Brazil's poor to donate money in order to receive healing and provide for the Pentecostal sect, which boasts millions of followers, branches in 170 countries, and a major broadcasting empire." Christianity Today, Oct '09, p8. [6]
-------
Sources, Monographs:
1 - The Case for God, by Karen Armstrong (Knopf, 2009, hardcover, 432 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/yaahw5l>
2 - Holy Sex: Gods Purpose and Plan for Our Sexuality, by Terry Wier and Mark Carruth (Whitaker House, 1999, paperback, 413 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/yzk8rm8>
3 - In Search of a City: An Autobiographical Perspective on a Remarkable but Controversial Movement, by Thomas A. Jones (DPI, 2007, paperback, 224 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/ygww9c2>
4 - Into All Nations A History of The International Churches of Christ, by C Foster Stanback (IPI, 2005, hardcover, 245 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/yh6hroc>
5 - The Sisters of Sinai: How Two Lady Adventurers Discovered the Hidden Gospels, by Janet Soskice (Knopf, 2009, hardcover, 336 pages) <www.tinyurl.com/yz2vzp9>
( - next issue - )
Page updated
Google Sites
Report abuse