Why Jesus?

You would think that among those who call themselves "Christ-ians" the question, "Why did Jesus come to earth?" would be fairly simple. Stop a moment and ask yourself how you would answer this. Surprisingly, I find a huge amount of confusion and downright bad theology among evangelicals when it comes to answering such a foundational question.

Read what Brian Fikkert concluded in his research: "We have asked thousands of evangelical Christians in numerous contexts this most basic question -- why did Jesus come to earth? -- and fewer than 1 percent of respondents say anything even remotely close to the answer that Jesus himself gave. Instead, the vast majority of people say something like 'Jesus came to die on the cross to save us from our sins so that we can go to heaven.' While this answer is true, saving souls in only a subset of the comprehensive healing of the entire cosmos that Jesus' kingdom brings and that was the centerpiece of his message" (When Helping Hurts 33).

In high school, I remember seeing a fellow evangelical wearing a t-shirt that said, "Born to Die" in reference to Christ's mission. And at the time I thought there was nothing wrong with that theology. But think of the ramifications of this view for a moment. What significance would there have been to any of Jesus' ministry? Why did he spend time healing, casting out demons, speaking prophetically to the religious power structure, and training disciples in his ways? Why did the gospel writers use so many words to write about such events? And, more importantly, does the resurrection even matter? I once heard a Sunday School teacher in a rural Free Methodist church say, "Jesus came to die for our sins. That was the only thing he did that mattered. Even if he hadn't been resurrected it wouldn't have mattered because what needed to be done was accomplished through his death." Our truncated theology has led us into unorthodoxy.

Perhaps we ought to allow Jesus himself to answer the question. Why did he come? Jesus believed his own mission could be summarized by the words of the prophet Isaiah:

"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,

because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor." (Luke 4:18-19)

Objection, your honor! Jesus, that doesn't make any sense! Didn't you come to make an ETERNAL difference rather than a TEMPORARY difference? I mean, in the grand scheme of things, isn't it more important that you go about saving people's souls rather than making blind people see? What good is it for a blind person to see if he doesn't confess you as Savior and Lord and have a personal relationship with you and thereby avoid hell? Pardon my boldness, but isn't this "releasing inmates from jail" and "introducing the year of Jubilee" stuff LESS important than paying the price for our sins on the cross so that we can all go to heaven? Why didn't you say that THAT was your mission?

To put this another way, when Jesus encountered the blind man of Luke 18 who cried out for mercy why didn't Jesus say to him, "I am the fulfillment of all prophecy. I am the King of kings and Lord of lords. I have all the power in heaven and earth. I could heal you today of your blindness, but I only care about your soul. Believe in me." (Fikkert 35)?

I get the impression from some of my conservative evangelical friends who look from afar at my ministry in the inner city that they think much of what I do is a waste of time. I get questions like, "Why do you spend so much energy talking about things like healthcare? What does economics have to do with the gospel message (by which they mean the inculcation of information about Jesus' vicarious atonement)?" Some have even asked, "Why do you spend so much money giving people physical food when what they really need is spiritual food?" All this time I spend being a "do-gooder" is wasteful in their minds because the ONLY thing that matters in light of eternity, according to them, is the salvation of a soul which is accomplished by saying the sinner's prayer. Anything else is a distraction. Some are a bit more open-minded and are willing to tolerate social justice, but only as a means to an end. That is, yes, sometimes you have to feed people, but you do that only so that they'll listen to you when you share the real gospel with them.

Well, if such thinking is correct, then Jesus was off his rocker. Jesus should have been doing Billy Graham crusades instead of eating with tax collectors, giving sight to blind men, debating with the Pharisees about the Sabbath, and feeding a crowd of 5000 (with apparently more concern for their stomachs than for their souls).

This is the big gaping hole in most evangelical theology: they have become so obsessed with the King that they've completely forgotten about the kingdom. In fact, one pastor whom I deeply respect and want to emulate in many ways, shocked me by asking, "What exactly do you mean by always talking about 'the kingdom of God'? What is 'the kingdom of God'?" I wanted to scream! You mean to tell me you've been a pastor for how long and you don't know what the kingdom of God is!?! Well, it's only the central message that Jesus came to preach! It's only the reconciliation of all of creation including humanity into right relationship with the Creator! It's only the entire agenda of the the early church!

But I need to back up. For those who may not be aware, the kingdom of God, simply stated, is "the renewal of the whole world through the entrance of supernatural forces such that things are brought back under Christ's rule and authority and are restored to health, beauty, and freedom." (Timothy Keller, an evangelical who gets it).

Explaining why evangelicals have abandoned kingdom theology would take far too long and this entry is long enough already. Suffice it to say that they have bought into a false dichotomy between body and soul which was foreign to the Jews of Jesus' day (see my note called "What Does It Mean to Be Human?"). Furthermore, they have so emphasized their nice, neat "road to salvation" that they've completely forgotten about what Jesus did when he was on earth.

Why did Jesus come? It was more than just to die. It was to inaugurate a new kingdom breaking into the world in which all of creation -- humanity included -- would be liberated from decay in both physical and spiritual ways. It was to show humanity a glimpse of what the future kingdom will look like and to invite a new community called the church to participate in it ahead of time. It was to meet a blind man on the road, heal him, and leave it at that.

What does it mean to be human?

I began reading an excellent new book by Joel B. Green (my former Asbury prof) entitled Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible. It occured to me as I read this that many of the theological and even political disputes I have with my fellow Christian brothers and sisters are rooted in a vastly different anthropology, or understanding of what it means to be human. Green points out the practical questions that are rooted in our how we define humanity:

- Given contemporary experimentation and innovation in the area of Artificial Intelligence, can we imagine anything about humans that our mechanical creations will be unable to duplicate?

- If, like sheep and pigs, humans can be cloned, will the resulting form be a "person"?

- On what basis might we attribute sacred worth to humans, so that we have what is necessary for discourse concerning morality and for ethical purposes?

- What view of the human person is capable of funding what we want to know about ourselves theologically -- about sin, for example, as well as moral responsibility, repentance, and growth in grace?

- Am I free to do what I want, or is my sense of decision-making a ruse?

- How should we understand "salvation"? Does salvation entail a denial of the world and embodied life, focusing instead on my "inner person" and on the life to come? How ought the church to be extending itself in mission? Mission to what? The spiritual or soulish needs of a person? Society-at-large? The cosmos?

- What happens when we die? What view of the human person is consistent with Christian belief in life-after-death? (Taken from pg. 20).

Obviously, these are HUGE questions and the answers to such questions are not agreed upon by all theologians. But there are two main schools of thought which will determine how we answer almost all of these.

The first is called the "dualist" mentality and this is certainly the most predominant view in popular evangelical theology. Dualism dates back to Plato who drew a sharp distinction between the body and the soul as two separate entities. Plato's legacy and influence lived on and strongly impacted early Christian thinkers like Tertullian, Augustine, and Justin Martyr. In modern circles it emerges in devotional literature that exhorts us to deny this world and focus solely on the next. I pick up on it strongly in Thomas A Kempis, Oswalt Chambers, John Piper, and so on. In fact, this dualism of body and soul so permeates our thinking that to question it is viewed by many as completely unorthodox and contrary to biblical anthropology.

The alternative to this view is called by many names, but more often referred to as "monism." In monism the body and soul distinction is a fiction. "We do not have a soul; we are a soul" as C. S. Lewis stated. Thus, the physical and spiritual aspects of our lives are intimately connected with one another. Monism generally values the here-and-now more than the then-and-there. I've come across holistic spirituality in the writings of Matthew Fox, C. S. Lewis, and even Rob Bell.

Above I highlighted one question because I think it is so critical to the many disputes I've had in person and online with fellow evangelicals about the nature of what God wants us to do here on earth. Does God want us to focus simply on "saving souls" or is it bigger than that? Is doing social justice among the poor an essential element of our mission or is it a distraction from what is really important (i.e. the work of the heart, the inner person)? What will heaven look like and are humans in any way responsible for the bringing of it? Is heaven far off or will it be here on earth? The answer to all of these questions will determine how we judge the importance of various Christian activities.

Furthermore, a question of human identity emerges. Most of my politically conservative friends assume a post-Enlightenment, modernist, western view of the self. Philosopher and theologian Robert Di Vito summarizes this view: Many understand the modern sense of the human in terms of "the location of dignity in self-sufficiency and self-containment, sharply defined personal boundaries, the highly developed idea of my 'inner person,' and the conviction that my full personhood rests on my exercise of autonomous and self-legislative action" (12). Wow! How often have I heard arguments from the right that swallows such a presupposition without even being aware of it!?

Di Vito offers an alternative he finds far more biblical: the person "1) is deeply embedded or engaged, in his or her social identity, 2) is comparatively decentered and undefined with respect to personal boundaries, 3) is relatively transparent, socialized, and embodied (in other words, is altogether lacking in a sense of 'inner depths'), and 4) is 'authentic' precisely in his or her heteronomy, in his or her obedience to another and dependence upon another." (Di Vito, "OT Anthropology," 221).

If this alternative anthropology truly is more biblical, then this has radical implications about the mission of the church, the goal of the nation-state, our ecclesiology, and our spirituality -- just to name a few.

I will post more on this later, but suffice it to say that we need to be better informed about the presuppositions we bring to the table as we debate theological and political matters. I embrace the monist position and, as a result, and holistic missiology. I am aware the my holistic missiology is unpopular and even offensive to those who have been raised in the church to believe that the soul and only the soul matters in light of eternity. Such people are well-meaning, but I believe ultimately misinformed about the nature of man as it is outlined for us in the scriptures. To name just a FEW implications of this anthropology: 1) it is ever bit as important to care for a person's physical needs as it is to care for his spiritual needs, 2) the mission of the church ought to involve the redemption of creation (i.e. "creation care") rather than treating it as though it's all going to burn soon, 3) among the various roles of the state is the obligation to care for the common good (even at the expense of the modernistic ideals of "autonomy and self-determination"), 4) "salvation" can no longer be viewed through purely individualistic and postmortem lenses; it must involve radical social change on the family, city, state, national, and global levels because the gospel is much, much bigger than "Jesus gets your butt into heaven."

Enough for now...

Op-Ed on Healthcare

I have recently worked with Sojourners to submit the following editorial to several important newspapers (see the list at the bottom). Whether or not they will publish it is to be decided, but here is a peek of what I've submitted for my blog readers to enjoy!

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Despite what many may say, reforming our broken healthcare system is a moral issue. It is an outrage that nearly 12% of Indiana residents live without health insurance. Over 744,000 residents of our state are currently uninsured – that is almost the size of Indianapolis! By next year, in the richest nation to ever exist in the history of the world, fifty-two million Americans will not have health coverage.

Some have tried to say that the faith community should stay silent, clergy should stick to spiritual matters – but for me, it is immoral to stay silent.

As a minister, I believe this debate is much more personal than statistics about the uninsured. Statistics fail to tell the heartbreaking human story of suffering that I witness in my church every day. A report can’t reveal the anguish of a mother unable to afford a doctor’s visit for a sick child, or the pain of a husband ignoring a debilitating injury because missing work means losing his job, or the woman who spoke to me recently about her treatable form of cancer which is going untreated due to its unaffordable cost.

While the Bible does not outline specific public policies around the provision of health care, it does make it clear that protecting the health of each human being is a profoundly important personal and communal responsibility for people of faith. Throughout the Bible, God shows a special concern for the vulnerable and sick and acts to lift them up.

The Bible also teaches that society organize in such a way that all have genuine access to the resources needed to live a dignified life, as well as provide for those who are unable to care for themselves.

The Hebrew prophets consistently say that the measure of a nation’s righteousness and integrity is how it treats the most vulnerable. And Jesus says the nations will be judged by how they treat “the least of these” (Matthew 25:31-45).
While all people of faith will never agree on every aspect of health-care reform, there is an overall agreement on a few key principles.

1. Health, not sickness, is the will of God. We can see this from the story of the garden, in Genesis, where sickness never was, and from the vision of a city, in Revelation, in which death will be no more. When we are instruments of bringing about that good health, we are doing the work of God.

2. United we stand, divided we fall. The division between those who can afford adequate coverage and those who cannot is a threat to our unity and a threat to the health of our neighbors and our nation. 46 million in our country are uninsured and millions more who are, still can't keep up with their bills. The common good requires a system that is accessible to all who need it.

3. Patients not profits. No one should be discriminated against in their health care because they are sick. Our faith mandates that we give extra consideration and help to those who are sick, but every time an insurance company denies coverage for "pre-existing conditions," excluded ailments, or confusing fine print, their profits go up. Every doctor I know decided to pursue medicine to help people. The health insurance industry makes a profit by not helping, but our faith requires it.

4. Life and liberty must both be protected. The health-care system should protect the sanctity and dignity of life in accordance with existing law and the current rules; and the prohibition on federal funding of abortions should be consistently and diligently applied to any legislation. Strong "conscience" protections should be enacted for health-care workers to ensure they have the liberty to exercise their moral and religious beliefs in their profession. Evidence suggests that supporting low-income and pregnant women with adequate health care increases the number of women who chose to carry their child to term, so if we do reform right, we can reduce abortion in America.

5. For the next generation, health care reform should be based on firm financial foundations. Health care is a vital and wise investment for the future of our families and society. But, the way we pay for it should be fair and equitable and seek to lessen the burden on succeeding generations--both in bringing everyone into the system and by bringing the costs of health care under control over time. Our religious traditions suggest that social justice and fiscal responsibility must not be pitted against each other, but balanced together in sound public policy that is affordable for individuals and for society.

We need bold actions, political will and the moral urgency to pass comprehensive health care reform now. The guardians of the status quo will surely make this a tough fight. But inspired by faith and hope, together we can make whole that which is broken. The spirit of change is on the move.

Grace and Peace,
Greg Coates

Pastor, First Free Methodist Church of Indianapolis

This has been submitted to the following papers: Indianapolis Star, Herald-Times (Bloomington), Journal & Courier (Lafayette), The Star-Press (Muncie), The Courier-Journal (Louisville), Tribune-Star, Hoy, Daily Journal, Herald-Bulletin, Daily Ledger (Noblesville), USA Today, The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, South Bend Tribune, Chicago Tribune, Kalamazoo Gazette, Chicago Sun-Times, Post-Tribune, The Journal Gazette, Elkhart Truth, The Herald-Palladium, Goshen News, Evansville Courier & Press, Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer, The Gleaner, Vincennes Sun-Commercial

You all need to see this video. Wow! Quite eye opening.

Russ

He struck me as unusually clean-shaven and well-kept to be sitting week after week in our Monday food pantry. Upon introducing myself, I met a friendly, educated, and articulate young man probably in his late thirties or early forties. Not only does he speak well and appear to be responsible, Russ* is also white -- which made me all the more curious as to why he sat in this food pantry which typically attracts the uneducated and the disenfranchised minority peoples who are unable to thrive in our racist society.

Russ, it turns out, has a story. As we all do. He was abandoned as a baby and brought up in a state institution for most of his childhood. In his early teens, he found some foster parents who took him in and cared for him, but "we didn't always see eye to eye," Russ adds. Immediately after finishing high school, Russ found a decent job and eventually became the co-manager of his organization. But then Russ found Vicodin.

Vicodin was for Russ more appealing and addictive than any substance he'd ever come across before (and he had tried many). He told me, "I don't know why, but Vicodin just makes me feel happy. Alcohol never really did that for me like it does for some people, but Vicodin does. When I started to get sad and depressed, I would just take some and then I'd be okay. It became my best friend." Perhaps because of his feelings of abandonment having grown up as an orphan or perhaps because he just wanted to escape his depression, Russ started buying Vicodin off of the street for $3-a-pop. Eventually his habit grew completely out of control and he was taking up to 25 or more each day.

At first, it wasn't a problem. Russ could balance his work with his addiction and could manage well in both worlds. "It isn't like alcohol," he said, "you can smell it on the breath of someone who is drunk, but the one who's high on pills appears completely normal." But then the economy went south and his business folded. His one and only friend -- the other co-manager of his business -- became very depressed and blew off his head with a shotgun one night after they'd had a pleasant dinner together.

Russ turned to his old friend again for comfort. Without an income, soon he had to take out a second mortgage on his house, sell his big screen TV and his new car, and cut back on groceries in order to maintain his pill habit. But a year after this, Russ found himself evicted from his home and penniless. Desperate to find shelter, he came upon a group of Latinos who took him in and let him stay in one of their closets. Russ doesn't know Spanish and none of his housemates know English, but they've managed to work out a suitable arrangement: the Latinos let Russ sleep in their closet and, in return, Russ gives them all of his food stamps every month.

Which is why Russ comes to our food pantry. Without us, he would have nothing to eat.

I asked him, "So what do you do all day?" and he laughed, "I dunno. Watch TV. I give plasma twice a week and get 25 bucks each time. But I don't really do anything else." "And you're satisfied with that?" "I guess so. There ain't any jobs in this neighborhood and I ain't got a car. Besides, even if I got a job, I'd just spend all my money on Vicodin."

"So once you lost your job and your house, you had to cut back on your drug habit, right? What was that like?"

"Oh it was awful. I don't even want to talk about it. I just curled up on the floor for days all by myself, sweating from head to toe, passing out and going into seizures. I can't believe I'm still alive."

"Why didn't you call an ambulance and go to the hospital?"

"Well, I don't have any insurance and I don't have any money. I didn't want to go into debt for a trip to the ER."

"Do you still take Vicodin?"

"Yes. Whenever I get the money to, I buy some. Somedays I don't get to get any... like today (which is why I'm fidgety and scratching myself all the time). But usually I like to try to get at least three Vicodin a day to make myself feel better."

"Why do you take these things? I mean, they have ruined your life."

"Yep. They are my worst enemy, but they're also my best friend. When I have them, they make me happy and they are my best friend. When I run out, they turn on me and make me miserable. I guess they are a demon dressed up like a friend."

"So if you realize that, don't you want to get off of them?"

"No. Not really. I like them. I don't want to quit. They're the only things that make me happy and make me want to keep living."

"Have you ever thought of going into rehab?"

"My adoptive parents want me to do that, but I don't want to. You can't force someone to do rehab that doesn't want to go."

"Right. But are you happy living in a closet and giving away your food stamps and living like this?"

"No, but I can't get out of it. I'm stuck. So I guess I should just make the best of it and deal with it. I mean, I know I can't quit the Vicodin so why try, ya know?"

I sat there in silence for a long time, not sure what to say. I wanted to tell him that I could help him to get well, but here was a man who didn't want to get well. I thought of Jesus words in John chapter 5 to the invalid at the pool: "Do you want to be made well?" Here's a man who would look Jesus in the eye and say, "No. Go away." So what does Jesus do in that case?

I don't judge Russ. I mean, if I had no family and no friends and was raised as an orphan in an institution, I might be just the same. I might be willing to trade in my life for a few moments of happiness... a few hours of feeling like there's nothing wrong with the world. Like Russ told me: "For about 5 or 6 hours after popping some Vicodin nothing bothers you anymore. People can say mean things to you that would normally hurt, but they don't hurt. You just don't feel anything bad at all. You're just happy for a little while. Then it all crashes down later."

So I'll see Russ next Monday. Nothing will have changed. He'll still be sleeping in a closet and paying his rent with his food stamps. I'll still be a pastor trying to help people out of hell. And I'll sit down and ask Russ how his week was and he'll say the same thing he says every time I see him: "It's a tough world out there."

You're right, Russ. It is a tough world out there.

*Russ is not his real name, but I'm ashamed to admit that for a long time I thought his name was Russ until he corrected me a few weeks ago. God forgive me.

Podcasting

Just a short note to say that I'm now posting my sermons as podcasts. You can see them on the right column of this blog or go to the original source at http://gregcoates.podOmatic.com/.

Melancholy

What do I do with my melancholy? Do I embrace it? Do I turn it into a poem? Should I feel guilty for experiencing it so regularly? Is it compatible with my faith?

For so many years I heard the testimonies in church: "My friend asked me, 'Why are you always so happy?' and I told him, 'It's because I have Jesus in my life and he fills me with such joy and peace. You can know him too if you'd like.' And then he prayed to accept Jesus." I knew I should rejoice upon hearing such a testimony, but instead I felt punched in the stomach. Tormented by guilt I asked myself, "What is wrong with you, Greg? Why can't you be that way? Why do you live life with such seriousness and such gravity? Why are you so melancholy? Is it because you yourself are not saved?"

Even as a young child, I can recall people asking me frequently, "What are you upset about, Greg?" and "Why so serious?" It annoyed me that they would ask me this. And then I would get annoyed at myself for getting annoyed. "Why am I angry?" I would think, "Because you think I'm angry when I'm not."

Here I am -- a 28 year old man, just as melancholy as ever. More than anything, I want to make my Daddy in heaven proud of me. I want to do something good for Him since He did so much for me. But do I have to be chipper every morning? Do I have to walk around with a plastic smile on my face each day? Do I have to tell everyone in my church that I'm okay when I'm not? Do I have to write facebook status updates like "Greg Coates is just so incredibly in love with Jesus today" even on the many days that I don't feel like it? And even if I could somehow magically change my personality so that I was funny and gregarious and bubbly and gleeful, would I still be Greg Coates? Would that make my Daddy in heaven happy?

I don't know. Maybe God made me melancholy and wills for me to be so. Maybe the naturally serious, dour look on my face is as natural as my pectus excavatum. Maybe it's a flaw or maybe God wouldn't want me any other way. But either way, I want to learn to be comfortable with who I am and I'm certainly not there yet.

The Letterman "Apology"

I'm not much one for celebrity gossip, but when I heard that David Letterman was making headlines on the front pages of newspapers across America, I checked out what was going on. Turns out that the Indianapolis native had had an affair with an intern several years before and that someone was attempting to blackmail him for $2 million with this insider information. So Letterman called the attorney general, wrote the man a fake check, and the blackmailer was caught, but Letterman still had to confess to his "sin." I watched a clip of Letterman's "apology" with great interest, wondering how this late night icon of television would present himself. I shouldn't have been surprised by what I saw, but I was. Here's the clip:

What a wonderful illustration of so many aspects of our culture. Notice the following:

1) There is no apology here. This story is just played off for humor.

2) Sex outside of wedlock is not considered "immoral" or "sinful" in any way.

3) Letterman expresses not even the slightest concern for his wife or child or others he may have hurt.

4) He communicates to all of America that sex outside of wedlock is funny.

5) The audience actually applauds his behavior.

This is all truly remarkable. America has not only rejected the old-fashioned notion of monogamy as normative, we have gone beyond this and come to applaud the failures and sins of one another. We do this because it assuages our own guilt. When we hear Letterman say, "I have had sex with women on this show," we do not expect a tearful penitence; we laugh. C. S. Lewis says that evil reaches its pinnacle when we not only accept it within ourselves, but delight in it when we see it in others in order to make ourselves feel less evil. I think he has pegged our nation perfectly.

Autumn

Autumn is here officially. Sixty was the high today and I reached back into my closet for a sweater I haven't worn since early spring. This is my favorite time of the year. October is hands down the best month -- carmeled apples, football, flannel, hot cups of java, hay rides, and love.

Why love? Because I fell in love in the fall nine years ago with a new freshman who had just arrived on the campus of Greenville College. I had overheard some guys in my dorm talking about who they were going to ask out and the name Courtney Probst popped up. "Not before I do" was my thought as I raced across campus to write a note on the dry erase board hanging on her door. I scribbled some nervous, banal comment like, "Hi, this is Greg. I hope you remember me. We should hang out sometime. Call me."

It all worked out in the end. We walked to the local Marathon station, drank some cheap pumpkin spice cappuccino, talked about our favorite books, and I fell head over heels in love. It's a good thing my classes were easy that semester in the fall of 2000 because I couldn't focus on anything but her. She made me chicken soup when I got a cold. I picked her up after her shift at Hardee's and we drove out to Patriot's park to look at the stars. It was a classic college romance that, if sprinkled with some unrealistic witty banter, would probably smell of a B-rated Jennifer Aniston movie.

Now nine years later I find myself with the same woman. We've graduated from college, lived in six different apartments/houses, taught English in China for a year, had two girls, weathered the storms of seminary finals, and moved to the inner city. But we're still going strong. She knows me very well -- too well -- since she's seen me at my worst. Yet she continues to love me. Likewise, I love her more than ever despite seeing her bad moments.

Autumn is upon us and as I watch the fall leaves change color and switch from drinking frapuccinos to cappuccinos, I fall in love again. And I thank God for my life partner that has been with me these nine autumns and counting.

Ex Nihilo?

As children of the Western Enlightenment and its subsequent devotion to empiricism and rationalism, we approach the ancient Hebrew Scriptures with certain presuppositions. Some of those presuppositions can be inbred so deeply within us that we become completely unaware of them. A prominent example of this appears in the way we speak about human origins. We ask a set of questions such as, "Where did the universe come from?", "Has matter always existed", and "Did God create the world we experience or did it come from the process of evolution?" Those who want to defend the authority of the Bible (and those who want to attack it) oftentimes approach the beginning of Genesis with similar questions since, Christian and non-Christian alike, we are all children of the Enlightenment.

However, what if these were NOT the questions of the ancient Hebrew people? What if their set of questions were entirely different? What if they didn't really even care about where matter came from? In his book The Lost World of Genesis One, Wheaton professor John H. Walton suggests precisely this. Walton, who has immersed himself in the original texts of the ancient near east, contends that Genesis 1 says absolutely nothing about the material origins of the universe. In fact, he points out, a close examination of Genesis 1:2 reveals that the author actually assumed matter (i.e. "stuff") already existed when God "created" the heavens and the earth. One wonders where "the waters" came from in verse 2. Answer: the writer didn't care about the question of material origins as we do. He was up to something totally different.

So what was he up to? Walton claims that the writers of Genesis 1 sought to explain the functional origins of the world, not the material origins as we would like to read the story. The question in their minds was not, "Where does everything come from?" but "How is there order and function in the world?" and "To what end is this world created?" This changes everything. If the writer of Genesis wanted to communicate how order was brought out of chaos (the literal implication of the Hebrew word bara which we translate "create") and did not intend to provide us with an orthodox doctrine of ex nihilo, then to ask the text to give us an account of material origins is a foreign imposition on the text and an anachronism.

So what does all of this mean? Well, its implications are radical. It means that when science produces an account of material origins (such as the "big bang" or "theory of evolution"), it cannot contradict the Bible since the Bible and modern science are addressing different questions altogether! It is perfectly rational to believe that evolution accounts for our material origins, but to also accept the authority of Genesis 1 as an account of the functional origins of the cosmos. The fundamentalist demand that we contort Scripture such that it answers our modern questions was an attempt made in good faith by people who wanted to cling to the Bible as a source for truth. Ironically, in their fervor for preserving the Bible, fundamentalists (and most evangelicals) actually did a great deal of damage to the Scriptures by making it less credible to the scientific community who came to believe that they had to choose between their scientific work and their religious beliefs.

To make this even more simple, Genesis one wants to tell us this: God made this world for a purpose and organized it to accomplish that purpose (which, by the way, was to serve as a temple for himself in which he could rest). Science, on the other hand, attempts to tell us where stuff came from. It's like we're arguing over which statement is true: does 2 + 2 = 4 or does a square have 4 sides? The answer is "yes!"

I find this liberating because I can accept the findings of modern science (yes, even evolutionary theory) and still hold to the authority, inspiration, and accuracy of the Bible. And doing so is not some sort of cop-out or desperate hermeneutical gymnastics. It is in fact being a faithful exegete of Scripture.

Now more questions come to my mind about theistic evolution such as "If God used survival of the fittest (a very bloody affair), then what does this say about God's nature?" or "At what point did evolving monkeys actually 'take on' the image of God?" But regardless of these quandaries, I am thankful to be able to read the Bible and accept it without having to turn off my brain and scream "you're wrong!" at 98% of the scientists in this world.

So the next time someone starts spouting off about how Christians who believe in evolution are subverting the faith and undermining Scripture, I will simply him them that "I believe you are imposing a set of foreign questions on a text which was never meant to field them. You've been handed a love letter from your wife and are reading it like a Toyota manual. Read it like it was meant to be read and you'll figure it out."

This post is a reflection on John Walton's book "The Lost World of Genesis One" which I highly recommend.