NOVEMBER 2019

In this edition . . .

Welcome to the November edition of The Eclectic Kasper! After a bit of a hiatus, were back with some great cultural, historical and theological content to encourage thought and dialogue.

This month we continue to study through Romans, and we have a two part article about Christ’s self-claims to be God. We provide more ideas for how we can reduce the national debt, and we discuss more fall-out from the Peasant’s War of 1525.

We love your feedback! Send your compliments and critiques of any of these articles to feedback@eclectickasper.com. Or you can give our The Eclectic Kasper Facebook page a “like” and feel free to leave some feedback there.

Thanks for reading, and stay eclectic!

DEITY OF CHRIST: Christ’s Clearest Self-Claims, Part 1

This article brings us full-circle in this series about the deity of Christ.

One of the clearest indicators about one’s character is what that individual says about herself or himself. If someone today says something deceptive, like that they are a lawyer or a doctor, when in fact, that they are a janitor, then we would call them a liar. If someone claims to be Moses or Napoleon, we would consider them to be delusional. Having determined that the individual in question was either deceptive or delusional, we then would not concern ourselves with what they asserted about politics, or morality, or about anything else. If they are a liar or a lunatic, then they could not possibly be a competent or reliable teacher.

We would need to make a similar judgment if someone claimed to be Savior, Redeemer, and God, or allowed others to make that claim about them. We would either claim that they and their followers are delusional, or deceptive. In either case, we wouldn’t care what they said about religion, or ethics, or worldviews, or even carpet cleaning.

This takes us back to C. S. Lewis’ “trilemma,” or the three choices we need to make when evaluating Jesus Christ’s self-claims to be God. He is either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. But if He is a liar or a lunatic, then who cares one lick about what He taught? And if, and only if, His claims are true, and He is neither a liar or a lunatic, then He is not just a great teacher who should command our attention, but fully God, who should receive our reverence and worship, also. Or as Lewis put it: “I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse” (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, p. 54).

Some suggest that Jesus never claimed to be God, but that these assertions were imposed on Him by others in the first centuries of the Christian church. But why would someone who claims to revere Jesus write stories about Him and intentionally place deceptive self-claims in His mouth? Also, how can people who believe that Jesus’ great discourses, like the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, were authentic, but that His claims to be fully God were not? Many of us approach the Bible believing that it is not only inspired and inerrant, but that these authors who wrote about Jesus truly convey His words and claims.

So here are just a few places where Jesus Himself claims to be God. Our interpretative options are limited to three, specifically, that He was lying in regards to what He said about Himself, that He was crazy, or that He is entirely and completely right, and thus, is entirely and completely God.

We have discussed some of these passages elsewhere in this series, so I will just mention them briefly (you can click the hyperlinks and see more of an exposition on these passages).

For instance, in John 8:58, Jesus claims not only to be older than Abraham, but He claims to be the great “I AM” of the Old Testament (Exodus 3:14). In John 5:17, He treats God the Father as uniquely His Father and He puts His own work on par with those of the Father. As if this weren’t enough He later simply claims, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30; see also 10:38; 17:11, 21).

We noted in a previous article that Jesus also forgives sins (Matt 9:6 [parallel verses in Mark 2:10; Luke 5:24]). While all believers have the prerogative to forgive sins that are committed against us (Matt 6:12; Eph 4:32; Col 3:13), only God can forgive sin in the general way that is being discussed in these verses. When asked if He were “the Christ, the Son of God” (Matt 26:63), He responded unambiguously that He was and even applied an OT quote about God (Dan 7:13-14) to Himself (Matt 26:64 [par. Mark 14:62]). As we will discuss more below, the accusations of blasphemy afterward indicated that His original audience clearly understood that He was claiming to be undiminished deity.

We could also acknowledge that some of Jesus’ claims in Revelation about Himself are claims usually reserved only for God. These include His self-assertion to be “the first and the last” (Rev 1:17, 2:8, 22:13; cf. Isaiah 41:1; 44:6; 48:12), the one who holds “the keys of death and Hades” (Rev 1:18; cf. Job 38:17), the “Alpha and Omega” (Rev 22:13; see Rev 1:8; 21:6), and “the beginning and the end” (Rev 22:13; 21:6). It does no good to dismiss these verses: Well, that’s just Revelation, which is full of symbolism and metaphor! The problem is that when it comes to the canon of God’s Word, we don’t have the liberty to chose which sections or books to take seriously and which ones to dismiss so cavalierly.

On several occasions Jesus equates Himself with God and others accuse Him of blasphemy (Matt 9:3 [par Mark 2:6-7; Luke 5:21]; Matt 26:65 [par Mark 14:64]; John 5:18; 8:59; 10:31-33; 19:7). This is not a casual accusation, but one that is theologically loaded and potentially fatal! For instance, in John 5:18, the Jews recognize that He was “making himself equal with God” (see 10:33, as well). That is, they interpreted what He said as a self-claim to be God. As we have pointed out many times before, Jesus never denies their interpretation and never attempts to correct it as though it were a misunderstanding. They rightly interpreted His claims to be God, but they just didn’t believe Him.

There more ways in which Jesus asserts that He is fully divine and accepts that claim as well. What are the implications of these claims by Him and His followers? We’ll tackle that question in Part 2 of this article below.

SOCIETY/ CULTURE: Popular Opinion and 2019 MSN Polls

Note: This article was written several months ago before we realized that we were going to take a few months off, and therefore it is a bit dated. The polls represented here do not take into account changes to public opinion that may have resulted from cultural and political activity since August. Nonetheless, it still reflects attitudes and opinions, many of which have probably not shifted too much in the last few months.

Would you like to know what people actually think about Trump, the democratic candidates, and other hot button topics?

Occasionally we note the result of some polls that we see on MSN. We like these polls because, unlike what you see on CNN or Fox News, the sample size tends to be huge, upwards of the hundreds of thousands rather than just hundreds or thousands.

We have noted some caveats about these before, specifically, that though MSN is quite liberal, these polls tend to lean slightly conservative. Nonetheless, they can give us fascinating insights into the opinions of large portions of the population.

Let’s start from a few months ago to see what people were saying about a Republican vs. Democrat presidential election. One poll that we captured on April 26 had a third-of-a-million (333,336) respondents: not a bad sample size! The question was, “Who are you most likely to support in the 2020 presidential race?” Half of the respondents signified that they would vote for “A Republican.” This seems to indicate that the other half would vote for a democrat, but in actually only 36%, just over a third, said that they would. The remainder, rather than throwing their vote enthusiastically at either party, indicated that they would vote for “Someone from another party” (3%), or they simply responded “I don’t know,” a significant 11%. Again, these polls may lean a bit toward the right, but on its face, it’s still a bad indicator for the Dems. This poll suggests that the GOP has about half the vote of the electorate, and the democrats would need to win all of the “someone from another party” people and the “I don’t know” vote just in order to tie.

We actually captured some head-to-head polls from April, and some of these fare even more poorly for the Dems. For instance, in a Trump v. Biden face-off, Trump gets 51%, Biden gets 28%, 16% wanted “Neither of the above,” and 5% said “I don’t know” (out of a total of 206,140 votes). It gets even worse from there:

Trump 55%, Kamala Harris 22%, Neither 20%, I don’t know 3% (151,134 respondents)
Trump 55%, Elizabeth Warren 17%, Neither 25%, I don’t know 3% (173,378 respondents)
Trump 56%, Bernie Sanders 22%, Neither 20%, I don’t know 2% (162,287 respondents)
Trump 56%, Pete Buttigieg 22%, Neither 19%, I don’t know 3% (155,916 respondents)

Trump fans can be encouraged by some other polls that were taken more recently. A May 30 poll asked, “Should the House [of Representatives] move forward with hearings on possible impeachment [of Trump]?” Of almost half-a-million respondents (433,082), 59% said no, just over a third (36%) said yes, and 5% said that they didn’t know. The public opinion tide seems to be breaking in Trump’s favor, however. A similar question was asked on July 25: “Should Congress continue to investigate President Trump?” With well over a quarter-of-a-million respondents (287,842), this poll showed that only 35% said yes, 63% said no, and 2% said that they had “No opinion.” Lest we lose the significance of this, that rise from 59% in late May to 63% in late July represents some ten to fifteen thousand voters.

Popular opinion seem to be on Trump’s side when it comes to the Mueller investigation into the 2016 election. Another July 25 poll queried, “Do you believe there are grounds to impeach President Trump?” Of more than a quarter-of-a-million voters (254,723), 60% said no, 37% said yes, and 3% didn’t know. Another one that day asked, “Do you accept or reject Mueller’s conclusion that there was no collusion with Russia?” Of 367,877 voters, 64% said that they “accept” it, 28% voted “reject,” and 8% had “No opinion.” Even with a bit of a conservative slant, this 64% is significantly high. A few other polls that we captured on MSN here in 2019 broaden out into other social issues. A March 27 poll asked, “Do you believe free speech is in danger on college campuses?” Out of 427,336 respondents, 57% said yes, 36% said no, and 7% had “No opinion.” Another poll that same day asked, “Should college campuses ban speakers whose views some students find offensive?” Anybody who thinks on any regular basis will be encouraged by the results. Of 370,807 respondents, 60% said “No, never,” and 33% said “Yes, in some cases.” Unfortunately, as many as 4% said “Yes, always,” and oddly, 3% said that they “didn’t know.” That seems like a strange topic to not have a discernible opinion about.

Do you get tired of having to get your emissions tested every year before your birthday? An MSN poll on June 18 wanted to know: “Pennsylvania may end emissions testing on newer vehicles. In your state, you’d:” Of well over a half-million people (605,845), 51% said “Support this,” 26% said “Oppose this,” 16% noted that “My state doesn’t test,” and 7% had “No opinion.”

Another issue that is surging in attention lately is capital punishment, or executing individuals who have committed especially heinous crimes. Many states still utilize the death sentence now, but this question pertained to the federal government. A July 26 poll asked, “Would you support or oppose resuming capital punishment on the federal level?” Over a half-million people voted (579,665). A whopping 73% indicated that they support the federal government using capital punishment. Only one-fifth (20%) opposed the idea, and 7% had “No opinion.” These are, of course, not the only polls that we saw, but these gave us some hope that the majority of the country still utilizes common sense, and that the country is more conservative than the liberal media wants us to know.

ROMANS: The Blessings of David, Romans 4:4-8

There are several misnomers today about salvation and the blessings of Christianity. Many labor under the assumption that as long as we strive to be good enough, we will be saved. The Apostle Paul was clear from Romans 3 that nobody is inherently righteous enough to be saved (3:10). Rather we receive the righteousness of God (a process called justification) when we trust in Christ alone as our Savior (3:21-24).

But another misnomer is the idea that Old Testament people were saved by obeying the Law while those who are Christians today are saved by faith. Paul attacks this falsehood using two Old Testament individuals, one born before the Law, and one born after the Law was instituted.

Our last article on Romans covered Romans4:1-3, which described how Abraham was saved by believing in God. He was not justified by works, but by faith.

But what about those who were born after the giving of the Law? Paul turns from the pre-Law Abraham to the post-Law King David to verify that he, too, was not saved by works or Law, but by faith.

In Romans 4:4-5, Paul uses the illustration of a paycheck, or “wages” to verify that works and faith are mutually exclusive in terms of justification. The word “wage” (the Greek word misthos) points to the end goal of the works that are accomplished. Wages are “credited to” or “reckoned” to the one who works, and thus, there is no faith, but only obligation. This verb for “credited” or “reckoned to” (logizomai) permeates this chapter; though appearing 40 times in the NT, the verb appears 11 times in Romans 4. Paul makes the strong contrast that the “wage” or “reward” is therefore not “grace.” It was rather earned and the worker is obliged to receive it. Paul will later remind his audience of the only “wages” that we can receive in this life: “For the wages of sin is death” (6:23a). In the spiritual sense, one hint or iota of contribution toward salvation on the part of humanity means that grace is merited rather than given freely by God.e

Verse 5, then, contrasts this with “the one who does not work,” referring to someone who adheres to a faith-without-works system. That is, while works are a significant element of our post-conversion life, works are non-meritorious, and do not earn us salvation. Specifically, Paul says that this individual believes – which is a non-meritorious act – in the One who justifies, that is, in the One whose opinion and perspective counts. We are not saved like wages that we earn, but we are saved by grace that is given to us as a gift, and we receive that gift by faith (Eph 2:8-9).

It is on account of this faith placed in the Justifier that righteousness is imparted, or “credited,” from the Justifier to the sinner needing justification. Through faith in Christ, the righteousness of God is transferred to the unrighteous sinner, making that sinner fit to achieve the glories of heaven which he could not reach on his own (3:23). This notion of being justified by grace through faith and not trying to earn it by works was true of Abraham (vv. 1-3) and Paul found evidence for this in Genesis 15:6. But does this same notion of being saved by grace through faith apply to someone born after the Law was given? In Romans 4:6, Paul brings up David. While a much admired king, and an individual after God’s own heart, nobody doubted that David was also a sinner (remember that “Bathsheba” incident?). What kind of works does a sinner like David living after the giving of the Law need to do in order to be saved and justified? What kind of “blessing” is there for a sinner like David or for sinners like us?

The quote in verse 7 comes from Psalm 32:1, one of the many Psalms attributed to David. The quote here begins with the word “blessed,” a state of joy, spiritual satisfaction and contentedness. The same word here (makarismos) occurs in Plato’s Republic of a general blessedness for a wise person that transcends, but does not necessarily exclude, material possessions (Book 9, section 591d). Given the complete and total fallenness of humanity established in Rom 3, the ideal and happiest state for the sinner is to be forgiven by God and to have his or her sins no longer counted against him. Paul sees in David’s Psalm 32 evidence that salvation and the blessing of faith in God has always been granted by God, by His grace through faith, and that works are not only unnecessary, but are totally ineffective in this transaction.

The quote from Psalm 32 highlights the blessed status of an individual who has been “forgiven.” The word aphiemi means to forgive, but also means “to cancel” and the semantic field of the word includes meanings such as “to leave,” “to dismiss,” or “to neglect.” Here the idea clearly is to forgive, and to not hold the eternal consequences of sin against the sinner who deserves punishment.

The second phrase of v. 7 includes the verb epikalupto, “to cover,” specifically that God’s forgiveness and mercy covers the one who has broken the law such they are now characterized by God’s righteousness rather than their own lawlessness. As the flood waters covered the mountains such that mountains could no longer be seen (that same verb is used in the LXX of Gen 7:19, 20), so also God’s mercy covers the sins of the one who trusts in Christ such that our status as sinner is obscured and changed by the righteousness of Christ (Rom 3:22; 5:17; 10:4; 1 Cor 1:30; 2 Cor 5:21; Phil 3:9; 1 Pet 3:18; 2 Pet 1:1).

Verse 8 continues with a parallel line that includes the idea of blessedness and reckoning, again, connecting this OT quote from Psalm 32 with Paul’s point in Rom 4:6. It focuses on that word “to reckon” or “to consider” (logizomai) discussed above. The Lord does the reckoning here. Also unique to this phrase is the strong negative phrase ou me, which combines two negative particles for emphasis rendering “not ever” or “certainly not.” This phrase is used 94 times in the NT, usually by Jesus in the gospels. In fact, this gives us a clue for why people were drawn to Jesus’ teaching, specifically, because of His powerful and definitive rhetoric. Paul himself only uses this phrase five times (here in Rom 4:8 and also in 1 Cor 8:13; Gal 5:16; 1 Thess 4:15; 5:3). Of course, Paul is quoting directly from the LXX, but the point is clear; for the blessed one who has God’s grace through faith in Christ, God will in no way eternally count their sins against them. As stated previously, the forgiveness and mercy of God completely cover that individual and thereby define them as a new being in Christ (2 Cor 5:17; Eph 4:24; Col 3:10).

Back to our original misnomers about salvation and the blessings of Christianity: Relative to the notion that people can be saved as long as they are “good,” these verses clearly demonstrate that no matter how subtle or serious our sin is, we all need to believe that Christ’s righteousness can be credited to our account as sinful individuals. Then we will be truly forgiven and we will be able to know that God will not account our sin against us and punish us with eternal separation from Him.

Also, these verses remind us that there was not a different means by which people were saved in the OT. People in Old Testament times, in the first century, and even in the twenty-first century all need to believe in God’s provision for forgiveness and righteousness. For us today, faith in Christ’s sacrificial death and resurrection means that we can have the blessing of forgiveness from our sins and also the hope of future bliss with God forever.

POLITICS: Dealing with Debilitating National Debt, Part 2

In part 1 of this series from the June edition, we discussed some ways to begin to turn around our national debt problem. It will take thousands of ideas and efforts to reverse the debt trend let alone to fully pay down the $22 trillion debt. But the future stability and solvency of our country depends on at least trying.

We mentioned some ideas previously for chipping away at this debt Armageddon, and we’ll mention a few more here in part 2.

Want to hear a fun, though perhaps slightly unrealistic, method for dealing with debilitating national debt? How about a contest!

Sponsor Debt Reduction Contests. We’re Americans, we’re in debt, and we love to compete. What if we combine these into ongoing efforts to encourage people to voluntarily help reduce the debt? I envision a few ways to do this. We could have the different political parties engage in a month-long contest to see which could raise the most amount of money to help reduce the debt. Any individual, group, or corporation could donate into whichever fund they wanted to: Republican, Democratic, Libertarian, or whatever.

The contest would be managed by a bi-partisan house committee who guarantees that every dollar donated would go directly toward the debt. The amount of money that each party donates would be updated daily, and the winning party would be announced after a month. We spend so much time hating one another in this country – it makes me wonder why they call them “parties” – that perhaps we should have some friendly competition, instead. This could help us appreciate that we’re all in this together, and I bet that we could raise several tens of billions of dollars from this kind of an effort.

We could do a competition like this every other year. Maybe we could have a month-long competition between large companies in the country, Amazon, Apple, Google, and Ford, to see which would donate more to the national debt. What if two years after that, we had another contest among the different regions of the country to see if the Northeast, Southwest, Midwest, Southeast or the Western states could raise more money to alleviate the debt. What about pitting the NBA against the NFL, and encouraging players, coaches and owners to compete to reduce our debt. These kind of high-profile competitions are not only fun, but they also highlight the problem of the national debt. They also make the desire to bring it down to a more manageable level cool and socially desirable.

Do these kind of competitions between political parties or athletes or celebrities sound too silly or childish? Well, so does insolvency!

Eliminate Government Reduplication. The redundancy and reduplication of functions and tasks in the federal government is notorious. But, more to the point, it’s also very costly. I am glad to see more attention given to deregulation under the Trump administration. However, there are redundancies and wasted efforts that simply need to be eliminated. Dozens of departments and agencies should be abolished. Hundreds of people could be taken off the federal payroll, and these funds could be directed toward paying down the debt. Many of those individuals, then, would have to get public sector jobs, and would, thereby, supply more tax revenue to the federal government. It’s kind of a win-win!

Make Major Cuts to Foreign Aid. We have preached from this soapbox before, such as in our March 2011 article called “A Global Welfare State.” For some specific solutions to this problem, you can see our follow-up article in the January 2012 edition called “A Simple Solution to Global Welfare.”

In 2017, the United States sent $50 billion of foreign aid to about 20 countries. Spending cuts to foreign governments should not be optional, but mandatory. After all, what are those countries going to do if America becomes insolvent? In the meantime, maybe this global welfare system is actually preventing some of these countries from advancing the way they should, specifically, they should do so on their own.

Get Serious About Entitlements. Admittedly, foreign aid is a very small percentage of our annual federal budget, most of which is taken up with entitlements. This one is going to hurt, but our solvency is dependent on controlling some of these sections of our budget. Maybe part of this is simply communicating to U.S. citizens that they should plan to not be so dependent on the government especially as they age. They may have to work a few more years, so that we can reign in entitlement spending, and some people may not get everything that they think they deserve. Gradually entitlement spending and entitlement expectations need to be pared down, otherwise, we are going to be in major trouble.

Demand Debt Forgiveness. I will be honest enough to admit that I don’t fully understand the nature of those to whom we are indebted. However, it is not that difficult to find some of this information online, especially information about foreign countries that possess U.S. treasury securities. For instance, as of August 2019, the largest foreign holders included Japan ($1.17 trillion), China ($1.10 trillion), the UK ($349 billion), and Brazil ($311 billion). Aren’t there some portions of debt that these countries could rescind or forgive?

One of my kids had a great idea: what if we tell China that we’ll relax some of our tariffs on their products if they could manufacture some debt forgiveness for us? At the moment, we have the economic upper hand in these discussions; China needs America more than America needs China. So, couldn’t we leverage this to get China and some of these other counties to reduce this debt or negotiate lower interest rates? And what about the billions that we owe to the UK. They would be speaking German now if it weren’t for the USA! So a little debt forgiveness, please?

A concern about asking for debt forgiveness is that this could make America seem weak and like it can’t be trusted to meet its obligations. This perception itself could have negative implications on our markets and on our economy. Asking for debt forgiveness would have to be done carefully and in a way that doesn’t compromise our strength as a nation.

Again, these are just a few suggestions, and we’ll follow-up with even more in a future edition. Dozens of similar plans would have to be considered and implemented to even begin to reverse this trend of out-of-control spending, let alone to actually begin paying off the debt. However, we need to communicate to our national leaders and legislators that we expect them to do something about the national debt, and to act soon, before it’s too late.

Thanks to Les Kasper and Martha Kasper for their contributions to this article.

What are your ideas for reversing the increasing national debt? How do you think that we can significantly reduce federal spending and be more aggressive in paying down the national debt? Let’s keep this dialog going: send your thoughts and ideas to feedback@eclectickapser.com, and we’ll anonymously publish your input in a future edition.

DEITY OF CHRIST: Christ’s Clearest Self-Claims, Part 2

In part 1 of this series above, we noted the places where Jesus claimed to be God and didn’t correct those who accused Him of blasphemy. But how did He respond to followers who asserted His deity through their affirmations and actions?

There are several verses that demonstrate someone else asserting Christ’s deity in His presence (John 1:49; 11:27; 20:28). In some cases, it is even antagonists who try to turn His claim to be “Son of God” against Him (Matt 4:3, 6; 8:29; 26:63; 27:43; Luke 4:41; 22:70; John 19:7). In a previous article, we discussed Thomas’ powerful assertion of Christ’s deity in John 20:28; despite his previous skepticism, he addresses the risen Christ with the phrase, “My Lord and my God!” (John 20:28).

There are also several places in the Gospels where Jesus’ first followers worshiped Him, not just bowing down in respect, but to worship as one would worship God the Father (Matt 14:33; 28:9, 17; John 9:38). In none of these instances does Jesus correct the claims of others about Him or tell them to stop worshiping Him. Accepting His followers’ claims and worship is tantamount to a self-claim to deity. If He wasn’t deity, and He accepted their worship and adoration, this would make Him so deceptive as to undermine any notion that He was merely a great moral teacher.

I recently finished reading a book by Eric Butterworth from 1968 called Discover the Power Within You. It is basically standard new age, liberal theology. But what I didn’t know when I first purchased the book is how much the author claimed to be recovering the true teachings of Jesus. Scripture clearly teaches the vast difference, morally, intellectually, and ontologically, between God and man. It furthermore asserts that Jesus is fully God, the second member of the Holy Trinity, and not just a great teacher.

Butterworth, however, reverses these Biblical and historic Christian assertions. Jesus was not God, the author claims, but rather, He set out to help us see the divine in all of us. “This was the beginning of the Age of the Christ, the Divinity of Man” (page 7). Recklessly selecting and isolating certain verses from the Gospels, Butterworth claims, “The alpha and omega of [Jesus’] teaching was the Divinity of Man” (15). Butterworth says that Jesus was just a philosophical guru, a “great way-shower” (137). However, there is a monumental difference between showing the way, and being the way (John 14:6; see also John 10:9; Romans 5:2; Eph 2:18).

Commentary on Romans

See the other articles in our ongoing verse-by-verse commentary on Romans here in our “Eclectic Archive.”

Instead, Butterworth asserts: “We must carefully study and then emphatically reject our historical tendency to worship Jesus” (10). He later declares, “We have been misled by the focus on His (again, Jesus’) divinity” (20). Butterworth, completely misses all this evidence that Jesus claimed uniquely to be God, that He did not correct those who accused Him of blasphemy, and that He accepted the worship of His followers.

The Biblical account of Christ’s words is an all-or-nothing proposition. We cannot accept that the Bible records Jesus’ great teachings, but that His claims to be fully God are not true or were misleading. Either Christ and His followers who wrote about Him are true, or they are all false.

I will end with one more point that has increasing relevance in our own society. And I will admit that I saw this briefly on a video, but I don’t know where; I didn’t think much about it at the time, but more and more, it makes a lot of sense. Forgive me for not citing and crediting the source, but the point is still valid despite my sloppy journalism.

Many people today demand that we respect the way they identify themselves. A gay couple wants the rest of us to recognize that they identify as a married couple; we are expected to have the same respect for their self-identified marriage as they have for it. Caitlyn Jenner expects to be addressed with female pronouns like “she” and “her” and as “Caitlyn” rather than as “Bruce.” No matter what anyone thinks about transgenderism, most would agree that if we ran into Caitlyn at a party, it would be unnecessarily impolite to call Caitlyn “he” or “him” or “Bruce.” To mislabel Caitlyn in a public setting may get giggles of embarrassment or sympathy out of some, but would do very little to legitimately oppose the advance of the transgender movement. Many people expect those around them to honor the way they chose to identify themselves.

If people today think that the rest of us should respect how they identify themselves, why shouldn’t we take seriously how Jesus identifies Himself? Why should we honor Caitlyn’s wish that we use “her,” but then disregard Jesus’ self-claim to be the unique and eternal Son of God and to be the Savior of the world?

Additionally, we can take someone’s self-identification seriously, even if we don’t believe them. Consider the person who thinks that they are Napoleon; we may patronize them in their presence for a few minutes just out of kindness and pity. However, we take his self-identification seriously by seriously recognizing him as delusional. And again, in light of this delusion, we wouldn’t extend the delusion by claiming that this individual was also a great teacher.

To think of Jesus Christ merely as a great teacher is tantamount to not taking His self-identification seriously. He is either deluded about His identity, or He was trying to deceive others about who He is, or He is actually and fully undiminished deity. To deny His self-identification as God and Savior in deference to seeing that He is a great teacher is to profoundly miss the point of His existence.

In fact, it is difficult to summarize this point better than Lewis does, so we will just end this article with the remainder of the quote that we used toward the beginning of Part 1: “You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

HISTORY: The Results of the Peasant’s Revolution of 1525

In the June 2019 edition, we noted Martin Luther’s odd reactions to the revolt of many peasants of Southern Germany in 1525. They had written concise and thoughtful grievance documents such as the “The Eleven Mühlhausen Articles” in September 1524 and “The Twelve Articles of the Upper Swabian Peasants” in March 1525. These documents appealed to the doctrines and writings of Martin Luther and other Reformers.

Rather than sympathizing with the peasants, Luther’s response was curious. In a tract called, Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants, he suggested that the nobility and princes should “smite, strangle, and stab [the rebelling peasants], secretly or openly, remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, hurtful, or devilish than a rebel” (LW 46:50). In a follow-up piece called, “An Open Letter On the Harsh Book Against the Peasants,” Luther wrote of the rebelling German peasants: “It is plain that they are faithless, perjured, disobedient, rebellious thieves, robbers, murders, and blasphemers, and there is not one of them who has not deserved to be put to death without mercy” (LW 46:74).

So, how did the Peasants’ Revolution of 1525 end? And how did Luther’s curiously caustic responses to the peasants’ efforts change the way people thought about him and about the Protestant Reformation?

Of the 300,000 peasants and burghers (citizens of cities) who participated in the various conflicts of the Peasants’ War, an estimated 100,000 lost their lives to the superior military might of the Habsburg Empire. Many villages were burnt and many crops were destroyed in the different battles. Many of the surviving peasants realized that their sacrifices and efforts would have minimal impact on their social standing. Yet, the peasants’ sacrifices and efforts were not quite for nothing; in some areas such as in Basal and Memmingen, local lords and leaders did make some concessions to their citizens.

But the peasants’ also suffered shattered eschatological expectations; in my own research I am investigating the perception that some Reformers and peasants may have had, specifically, that this war would be an apocalyptic war, in which God would defeat the peasants’ foes and create the kind of equitable society frequently discussed by the Old Testament prophets. This, of course, did not happen.

So, Do You Like Theology?

Theology is one of our specialties here at The Eclectic Kasper. You can see a whole host of theological topics here in our “Eclectic Archive,” including a series about the “essentials” of Christianity, some concerns about the emerging church movement, a series about charismatic churches, and several articles about Martin Luther.

The peasants also perceived that Luther had betrayed them by siding with the princes. Social concessions that the peasants gained did not change their soured perceptions of Luther. Luther’s alleged compromise with the princes seemed all the worse in light of the investment made toward the peasants’ cause by other Reformers. Zwingli had formulated his “The Sixty-Seven Articles,” which resonated with the peasants’ desire to apply Biblical and Reformation principles in social contexts. He died just a few years later in 1531 when he took up arms defending Zurich. Thomas Müntzer was a driving force behind the Revolt and the co-author of “The Eleven Mühlhausen Articles.” Also, despite minimal military experience he was assigned to lead several thousand peasants in the May 1525 Battle of Frankenhausen. The peasants suffered a crushing defeat under Landgrave Philip I of Hesse, and soon after Müntzer was tortured and beheaded. But, Luther had made no such investment for the peasants or their cause, but rather prescribed for the princes many lethal ways to dispose of a rebelling peasant. This, predictably, had negative consequences for the spread of Lutheranism into many rural areas. The peasants felt betrayed by Luther, and many, consequently, turned back to Catholicism.

After the War, the Reformation transitioned into more of an elitist, academic and princes’ movement, rather than one for the “common man.” Thomas Brady summarizes that “the Peasants’ War played a highly important role as a turning point in the transformation of the early evangelical movements into the Protestant reformation” (Thomas A. Brady, German Histories in the Age of Reformations, 1400-1650, 197).

Also, Catholic leadership recognized that Protestant doctrines were driving the peasants and, thus, they demonized Luther and other Reformers all the more for their socially subversive theology. Catholic ecclesiastical and civic leaders reasserted their resolve to stamp out the Lutheran “heresy” not just for religious reasons, but now, for political and social ones, as well. These hightened tensions between Catholics and Protestants would continue to haunt the German-speaking lands for the next century.

There’s a few more follow-up lessons that we can take away from the Peasants’ Revolt, but we’ll save that for a future article.

QUOTES FOR CONTEMPLATION: A Conversion to Joy

One of the greatest Christian thinkers of the Twentieth century began as a staunch atheist. Author C. S. Lewis explains his conversion from atheism to theism as follows:

You must picture me alone in that room in Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night the most dejected and reluctant convert in all of England. I did not then see what is now the most shining and obvious thing; the Divine humility which will accept a convert on such terms. The Prodigal son at least walked home on his own feet. But who can duly adore that Love which will open the high gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking, struggling, resentful and darting his eyes in every direction for a chance to escape? The words compelle intrare, compel them to come in . . . [when] properly understood . . . plumb the depth of the Divine mercy. The hardness of God is kinder than the softness of men, and His compulsion is our liberation (C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy, 228-229).