Archives for October 2025

On the Big Story, Part 1: Introduction

October 9, 2025 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

I think it’s time for something different here on the blog. I often write about theology—by my count 518 (65%) of the 800 (!) posts so far, with 266 (33%) focusing on systematic theology and 25 (3%) on biblical theology. (I’ll confess that my recordkeeping has been imperfect; there’s another project for my retirement.) While I’ve taught academically in a university environment, I’ve determined to keep this blog on a popular level, simple enough that even I can understand it. No theological nerditude here.

But I’d like to get a little more academic in this brief series—still simple and clear, Lord willing, but sounding more like a teacher than an opiner—because I think this topic is worth addressing in this venue.

I’d like to talk about the theology behind The Big Story. It’s often been observed that the Bible, while a book of commandments and morals as well as a collection of stories, most of which we like to tell our children, is at its most basic a Big Story, and a story not so much about Adam and Noah and Abraham and David and Peter and Paul as about God: who he is, what he’s like, and what he’s doing here on earth and beyond for his own purposes. In light of that, it’s worth taking a look at the big picture so we can accurately place all the little ones.

What God is doing in this Big Story is gathering a people for himself—a people to be his sons and daughters (or whatever we’ll call people in eternity, where there is apparently no sexual identity; Mt 22.30), to know him, to love him, to serve him perfectly and successfully, and to glorify him forever. How he’s been doing this is a lesson in wisdom, power, and grace.

He began by including everyone; both of the two original humans were in his image, after his likeness (Ge 1.26-27), and they have multiplied and filled the earth (Ge 1.28). But as we know, those first humans opted out of God’s family, rejecting his plan and going their own way (Ge 3.1-24). Maybe God drew them back to himself later; though there are rare hints, we’re not told whether or when.

Now, God knew this would happen; this is just the beginning of his plan, and one way he is showing his wisdom and goodness in that plan.

Over the next few centuries there are individual people who walk with God. The Scripture mentions Abel, and Enoch, and Noah, and a line of “sons of God” (Gen 6.2; and no, I don’t think those were angels; don’t even get me started on the current fascination with the Nephilim).

But God’s plan goes well beyond just a few individuals. He has in mind an eternal nation, a people for himself.

His first step toward that great goal is to designate an earthly nation, Israel, as his own people. As we know, they proved to be highly erratic and unfaithful, though they were also an avenue for God’s Word and for the Coming King, in whom God permanently embodied himself as a man. And even in this early stage, God makes it clear that Gentiles—proselytes, converts—are welcome in this nation, if they will follow him.

But when the King comes—the first time—God expands the vision. He begins at Jerusalem and Judea, but then expands to Samaria, and to a Roman centurion and his family, and by commission to the ends of the earth. The family is now not one nation, but representatives from every nation—all who will come. And Jesus uses a word the Jews already know well—ekklesia, assembly—to describe this new “nation,” the church.

The Scripture uses a third term for the people of God, one that envelops both Israel and the Church and looks ahead to the eternal state. All of this is “the kingdom of God.”

There’s a lively discussion about these entities and how they relate to one another. I don’t intend to answer all the questions and solve all the problems, because that’s well beyond my ability. But I would like to take a few posts to lay out the land, so to speak, and to identify the questions. I have a position on the questions, but I hope to be reasonably objective.

Next time: Israel and the church. Wish me fair winds and following seas.

Photo by Carlos Magno on Unsplash

On Memes

October 6, 2025 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

This past week I came across a link to an interview about memes. It sprang from a news story about something—I’ll just say, um, edgy—that the president did, posting a meme that portrayed Hakeem Jeffries, the House Minority Leader, in a sombrero and stereotypical moustache. It wasn’t exactly high art, just a sloppy cut-and-paste job—it was, after all, a meme, and one of the defining features of memes is sloppy cut and paste. The White House released it in both photo and video form; The Guardian and numerous other outlets called the latter a “deep-fake video,” but I don’t think the production values of the video nearly rise, or sink, to that level, though it did put words, including vulgar ones, in Sen. Schumer’s mouth.

The conversation in the podcast—I assume that’s what this interview was part of—turned to the social significance of memes in the current culture, in conjunction with a discussion about whether this particular meme was racist. The guest observed that when he was a young journalist, he would have thought that it was, but that now he’s inclined to see it as a form of political satire. In the process he seemed to be defining memes as a new, creative literary form, combining kitschy art (that was not his term) with creative social comment. I took him to mean that they are an ironic combination of lowbrow graphics with much more nuanced implied commentary.

I don’t think I agree with him—about the novelty, I mean. It seems to me that memes are simply another form in a long tradition of cartooning. This meme, I think, is an example of a specific form of cartooning, the political cartoon, in the tradition of Thomas Nast, but many memes have no political content at all, thus falling into the general category of cartooning. This “new” art form has been birthed by a couple of social factors: the fact that the internet has made everyone a publisher (there was lots of commentary on that 25 years ago or so), and the rise of simple and efficient computer-aided graphics in association with word processing. These factors were new 25 years ago with the advent of the web, but they’re common now; and as I say, the art form of social commentary through graphic design goes all the way back to the ancients.

And that means that the edginess, the acidity, the, well, meanness, of the art form is absolutely nothing new. I easily recall the Palatine Alexamenos Graffito, which pictures Christ on the cross with the head of a donkey; and I’m sure that those with wider expertise in the ancient world could cite numerous examples from the inscriptions and literature that are centuries older than that.

There is a power in cartooning that derives from the cleverness of the nonverbal art. All humans react, at some level or other, to the ironic twist, the “Gotcha!” of a new insight, a new take, especially when it involves a heated social controversy. It makes the proponents laugh, and it makes the opponents rage.

It occurs to me that this rhetorical power is accompanied by a counterbalancing danger, which is apparent in this specific meme. Any visual art, such as a political cartoon, is inherently subjective; it allows the viewer to impose a variety of meanings onto it, with what we might call a reader-response reaction; those who see it will interpret it in the light of their own experiences and ideologies. In this case, the president’s opponents will invariably see it as racist, and his supporters will invariably tell the opponents to lighten up—it’s just a joke.

And that will be followed by commentary on the sad socio-political situation of extreme polarization that gives everybody a hair-trigger, knee-jerk response.

Thus, I suppose, has it ever been.

The current situation gives us a frank look at the moral brokenness of humans. We treat our opponents without empathy, and then we criticize them when they respond as emotional beings with strong convictions—as I do to the Alexamenos Graffito. I don’t see mocking of the Son of God, in the act of dying for my sins, as anything near clever. And I ought to be able, therefore, to empathize with emotional responses to the mocking of the deep commitments of my fellow humans, even those with whom I have significant disagreements.

In every generation there are those who decry the lack of empathy. But if history is any guide, it is likely to remain part of our social fabric until Jesus comes.

I find comfort in Jesus’ promise of return and redemption. For those who see that as fiction, I’m afraid I have no realistic long-term comfort to offer.

On Greeting Strangers

October 2, 2025 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

This is an Old Guy Observation and Meditation.

I’ve noticed over the decades that the practice of greeting strangers is declining. When you pass someone on the sidewalk—or on the street if there is no sidewalk—fewer and fewer of those someones will look you in the eye, smile, maybe nod, and say “Hello!”

During my student days, my school encouraged a culture where you said hello when you passed someone on campus. Of course, there were logistical constraints; if the sidewalk was crowded (say, between classes), nobody felt the need to greet each of those people—though you might greet friends in the crowd as they came by. More recently I’ve noticed that the practice no longer seems to be part of that culture.

Now, I’m not going all “good old days” here; the old days had their imperfections and irritations, and I, like everybody else, noticed them and complained about them more than I should have. And cultural practices change over time, often for perfectly good reasons. I can think of a couple of reasons the practice of greeting strangers has declined.

The first, I think, is a consequence of the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s, which promoted sex as a simple biological function rather than a blessed consequence of a committed union. Anytime a culture rejects the purpose of a divine gift, that gift will become distorted, and the distorted practice will bring dangers and other harms.

In this case, it’s standard safety practice now for lone women to ignore men they don’t know. With the increase in sex-related crimes since the ’60s*, women don’t want to act friendly in situations they perceive as risky. You look straight ahead and ignore the guy. And that’s good thinking. I’m always conscious of when I’m alone and walking behind a lone woman; I don’t want to cause her anxiety, so I’ll typically walk slower to increase the distance between us or even change my course. And of course, if a lone woman doesn’t greet me on the sidewalk, I take no offense. She has no idea what kind of monster I might be.

A related matter is the increase in sex slavery in more recent years. In particular, children are warned about “stranger danger,” and those warnings are eminently sensible. So if kids don’t greet me, I take no offense at that either; in fact, I’m less inclined than I used to be to greet children I don’t know. Who’s this strange old man, anyway?

A second reason for the decline in greetings is technology—phones and earbuds, most commonly. Lots of people multitask with their walking time, listening to music or podcasts, or catching up on texts. Nothing objectionable about that. I’ve noticed a few occasions where I couldn’t see any earbuds, said hello, and the person just completely ignored me. I try to exercise the biblical principle of giving people the benefit of the doubt (1Co 13.4-7, most directly) and just let it pass. Maybe the problem’s more with my eyes than their ears.

But though I understand the forward march of culture, I miss the old practice of saying howdy.

Speaking of culture, something I’ve noticed in rural Africa is the good reason why hardly anything begins on time: when you’re walking to an appointment, you’ll likely meet someone you know, and of course you’ll stop and greet him, and ask him how his family is—each family member, by name—and take some time to demonstrate that you value his friendship. It’s not seen as rude to keep people at your destination waiting; wouldn’t it be even more rude to brush off someone who’s standing right next to you?

I love the sense that makes.

So Africans—and African-Americans—will talk about “Africa time” and laugh, and I’ve come to appreciate the laughter as a nod to a cultural valuation of grace and love for neighbor. Of course we’re not going to start on time—and that’s a good thing!

I’m not going to grouse about the “defects” of our culture like an old curmudgeon, but I am going to keep looking on-comers in the eye and say howdy if they return my look.

If they don’t, no judgment. But I think our world would be a better place if we were on Africa time.

* There’s complexity to the data, including varying legal definitions of rape and consent, and the question of a possible increase in reporting rather than incidence.

Photo by Weichao Deng on Unsplash