Dan Olinger

On Protest, Part 1: Initial Thoughts

November 13, 2023 by Dan Olinger 2 Comments

I’ve lived all my life in an environment of protest. I came of age in the 60s, so it started early. Activist writers in those days noted that public protest is a way to get on the political agenda; it’s a way to overcome government inertia and stimulate otherwise uninterested authorities to pay attention. Just as Jesus described a presumably fictional unjust judge (Lk 18.1-8)—I guess governmental inertia was a thing in his day too—politicians will often be unmoved by citizens’ problems unless the citizens find a way to make inertia inconvenient in the lives of the leadership.

So people protest. This is de rigeur in democratic societies, of course, where officials face the prospect of being voted out of office, and where the protesters find it reasonably safe to raise their voices. But it happens in totalitarian societies as well, where the risk is considerably higher. The Soviet Union saw public protests in Czechoslovakia in 1968—that didn’t turn out well for the protesters—and in East Berlin in 1989. (That turned out better.) The Chinese Communists saw a confrontation in Tiananmen Square that same year. The people of Iran rose up against the mullahs just last year. And there are many, many more examples.

Over the course of my life I’ve seen many causes promoted by protest: civil rights (both racial and women’s rights), war and peace, economic policy, criminal justice, right to life (as considered in both abortion and capital punishment), terrorism, tax policy, environment, and others. Most recently there have been protests worldwide against Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel on October 7 and Israel’s response in Gaza. Many have expressed the opinion that this one seems bigger, more volatile than what has typically preceded; some are talking seriously about the end of the world.

Well, I don’t know when the end of the world is coming, and neither does anybody else. I think it would be unwise to try to predict it even if Jesus hadn’t told us not to. (If he didn’t know the date when he was walking amongst us, how likely are we to get it right?)

But the protests are ubiquitous, and they’re intense. People are expected to take a side.

Sometimes—often—taking a side is precisely the right thing to do. As an acquaintance of mine commented decades ago, the middle of the road is where the yellow stripe is.

I don’t think the protests are going to get quieter, or the issues simpler, as time rolls on. It’s our duty, I’d suggest, to think through a philosophy of protest, something that can guide us through emotional, murky, and rapidly moving times. As a Christian, I need to base my philosophy of protest, like anything else, on the Scripture. I’d like to take a few posts to offer some suggestions and to invite feedback.

I’ll begin with the overarching biblical principle: we live for the glory of God (1Co 10.31). We pattern our thinking after his, as expressed in his Word; we decide our actions, from choosing a vocation to deciding whether to speed up or stop for that deeply pink traffic light, on the same basis. And we establish our priorities, including the decision to join a particular protest movement, based on his. Only he is worth all our love, all our loyalty, and all our devotion. God is the only person we can follow blindly—and He doesn’t ask us to (Is 1.18).

Next time, we’ll tease out other biblical principles that we need to consider in developing our philosophy of protest.

Photo by Teemu Paananen on Unsplash

Part 2: Biblical Principles | Part 3: What Now? | Part 4: Tactics | Part 5: The Long View

Why the Reformation, Part 4

November 9, 2023 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

But corruption brings weakness, and political leaders—kings, dukes, electors—see an opportunity to gain more independence from Rome. Whereas in earlier days Henry IV, the Holy Roman Emperor, had knelt for 3 days in the snow seeking the forgiveness of Pope Gregory VII at Canossa, now a mere elector, Friedrich the Wise, will grant the heretic Luther sanctuary in his Wartburg Castle. Whereas Huss and Savonarola died early and painful deaths, Luther will die a natural death at the ripe old age of 62.

The Renaissance will bring a love of learning that begins to spread beyond the wealthy, and literacy rates will begin to rise. Scholars will begin to write in languages the masses can read. Soon more and more people are realizing that the Church and its own Bible are not saying the same things.

Can the Church be reformed?

There have been reforms before, a notable one under Gregory VII and at points along the way with church councils, most recently at Constance in Germany, after the embarrassment and disaster of the “Babylonian Captivity of the Papacy” in Avignon, France. But reforms have made mostly surface changes, and temporary ones at that. Now the corruption runs too deep, the money is too great, and the power structures are too deeply entrenched.

If change will come, it will shake the world itself and bring a new beginning.

And it will come. It will upend the ecclesiastical world by bringing to the forefront 3 significant ideas:

The authority of Scripture rather than the church
The central importance of faith rather than mechanical works
Direct access to God for the person in the pew

And when Reformation comes, it will come because, in the providence of God, it is spurred on by two divinely orchestrated developments:

The renaissance of interest in classical ideas and languages, which will lead, among other things, to the rediscovery of the Greek New Testament; and
The printing press, which will explode the spread of these ideas

And out of all this ferment will spring a renewed understanding of the gospel:

that we are indeed sinful, and that no church can forgive our sin;
that God himself, in the person of Christ, has completely paid the penalty for our sin through his death on the cross, and has removed his own wrath against us;
that faith, not works, appropriates Christ’s work to us as individuals and makes us the very sons and daughters of God;
and that, wonder of wonders, the righteousness of Christ himself is given to us, freely and abundantly, so that now God sees his believing children through Christ-colored glasses.

The Church tried Law, and it only led to lawlessness. The Reformation reintroduces the masses to Grace, God’s grace, which is truly greater than all our sin.

Interestingly, the discovery of the New World, by Columbus, in 1492 will providentially provide a place for a few Protestants to seek greater freedom of worship—and everyone reading this today has benefited from that.

All of this is one part, a significant part, of the story God is telling. He won’t let his images languish in ignorance and sin. He will rescue them. Further, he will not let you languish either. He will pursue you; he will break down barriers between you and him; he will draw you to himself.

And then he will make you part of the story he’s telling, till all is ready and done.

That’s who he is.

Photo by Wim van ‘t Einde on Unsplash

Why the Reformation, Part 3

November 6, 2023 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1 | Part 2

As the wealthy rise higher in the circles of power and influence, they can get the pope to appoint their sons—legitimate or illegitimate—to other church offices, if the price is right. King James V of Scotland, grandfather of the more famous King James, got his illegitimate sons appointed abbots; there’s a good living in that, after all. In about 20 years, in 1513, Leo X will become pope, saying, “Let us enjoy the papacy.” One observer said that Leo “would have been a good pope, if only he had been religious.” A Catholic historian described Leo’s court as filled with “extravagant expenditure in card-playing, theatres and all manner of worldly amusements. … The iniquity of Rome exceeded that of the ecclesiastical princes of Germany.”

And with organizational cynicism comes moral cynicism. If you’re powerful enough, you’ll be rich. And if you’re rich enough, you can do anything you want and simply buy forgiveness.

More than 200 years before Leo X, Dante had put popes in the lowest circle of hell. And now, 20 years before Leo X, in 1492, the very month Columbus sets sail for the Indies, Rodrigo Borgia becomes pope under the name Alexander VI. His corruption and immorality seem unending. He appoints his relatives cardinals, including an illegitimate son, and he appoints another son, aged 16, as archbishop of Valencia. He readily acknowledges other sons and daughters; his daughter Lucretia Borgia is the embodiment of immorality and corruption. He has several mistresses, including the sister of a cardinal. He appoints wealthy men as cardinals in return for huge sums of money. He sponsors orgies in the Vatican itself. To him, nothing is sacred. And he is the pope, the vicar of Christ, the servant of the servants of God.

After Alexander, Pope Julius II will turn the papacy into a military power, enriching the church through acquisition of lands and political intrigue.

So the leaders have given up being seriously religious. With their riches they buy forgiveness—they call that indulgences—and many of them just quit trying to be the right kind of person. In his History of the Christian Church, Philip Schaff writes,

“The story ran that a Saxon knight went to Tetzel and offered him 10 thaler for a sin he had in mind to commit. Tetzel replied that he had full power from the pope to grant such an indulgence, but that it was worth 80 thaler. The knight paid the amount, but some time later waylaid Tetzel and took all his indulgence-moneys from him. To Tetzel’s complaints the robber replied that thereafter he must not be so quick in giving indulgence from sins not yet committed.”

Once the indulgence money starts pouring in, the church is not inclined to discourage it. Under Leo X and his successors, the indulgence money helps build St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.

Perhaps the worst of it is that power brings arrogance, and arrogance brings tyranny. The church will tolerate no rivals; its people must conform. Heretics are dealt with harshly, as an example to others who might get unapproved ideas.

John Huss, the preacher of Prague around 1400, argues, among other things, that a church leader who is in mortal sin has no authority from God. He is promised safe conduct to the Council of Constance and then nearly starved in prison before being called to the cathedral at 6 am, expecting to offer his defense. No defense is allowed; after waiting outside for several hours, he enters the cathedral to hear his condemnation read. No one present objects. Huss says, “I commit myself to the most gracious Lord Jesus” before he is escorted to the public square, chained to a stake, and burned to death.

Beginning just a few years ago in 1478, the infamous Spanish Inquisition will condemn alleged heretics at will, with or without proof, burn them alive, and take their property to enrich the inquisitors and their friends.

Savonarola, the popular preacher of righteousness in Florence, calls out the corruption of the Roman church and Pope Alexander in particular. The pope orders him tortured, hanged, and his body burned and the ashes thrown in the river.

Photo by Wim van ‘t Einde on Unsplash

Part 4

Why the Reformation, Part 2

November 2, 2023 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1

The church is as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside; there are huge brownish columns holding up the arched ceiling, which seems to reach all the way to the Milky Way itself. There are stained-glass windows, some with pictures in them, and there are statues of people in places around the building, but you don’t know much about the stories behind them, because you can’t read, and even if you could, your family couldn’t afford to buy a book. Until about 50 years ago, all books were copied by hand, and only churches or monasteries or very, very rich people had even one. Now books are being printed on machines, but they’re still very expensive, and you’ve never even seen one.

So you’d like to know about God, but you can’t read, and at church they speak a language you don’t understand. So you ask your father and mother, but they don’t understand the church language, and they can’t read either, so that’s that.

It occurs to you that if the church is the only way you can get to God, they ought to make it easier to find out how. They have the paintings, but they hardly ever talk about them, and the homilies are all about saying prayers and doing things, most of which you can’t afford to do.

Is that what God is like? Does he only like rich people? Is there no way you can get to him?

You wouldn’t know this, but the problems go a lot deeper than you’ve observed, and the situation is seemingly beyond reformation.

For centuries now, church scholars have been focused on highly impractical speculations—such as, famously, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. Philosophy has overwhelmed theology, and the sheep have been fumbled in the process. Little of what comes from the scholars is of any practical use. There is certainly nothing resembling the gospel.

The church has tried to make salvation simple for the poor illiterate peasants, so it’s reduced the way to God down to some simple, objective, countable things: you tell them what you’ve done wrong, and then they tell you how to be forgiven: you say memorized prayers, you do a list of mechanical things the priest tells you to do, you give money to various church-related causes. And when you do enough of the things, you’ll be forgiven. The church seems more interested in the quantity of your works than their quality.

But here’s the problem. You keep doing wrong things—in fact, you do the wrong things faster than you can do enough good things to make up for them, and you just get further and further behind.

Even worse, the leadership realizes this, because they see it in their own lives too. Even though the good things are fairly simple to do—anybody can say 100 Hail Marys or Our Fathers—they don’t change your heart, and you keep going back to the dark side, and you keep falling behind, and eventually it’s all just pointless.

For centuries the church has held pretty much all the power, and as someone’s going to say someday, absolute power corrupts absolutely. Rich people see the church’s power as more important than its forgiveness or even its access to God, and they become unremittingly cynical. They buy positions in the church—for a healthy fee, you can become a bishop, or an archbishop, or even a cardinal! In fact, you can buy several offices at once, and be bishop in multiple cities at the same time! Of course, that means that the bishop isn’t going to be in most of his cities most of the time, and that’s a recipe for bad administration and further corruption.

And with their riches they buy all the things they want—lands, castles, servants, clothing, jewels, amusements. Cardinal Wolsey was said to march in procession followed by a train of 500 servants.

Photo by Wim van ‘t Einde on Unsplash

Part 3 | Part 4

Why the Reformation, Part 1

October 30, 2023 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Tomorrow, October 31, is a landmark holiday in our culture: Halloween. But it is another holiday as well: it’s the anniversary of the day that the Reformer Martin Luther nailed his famous Ninety-Five Theses to the cathedral door in Wittenberg, Germany, an act viewed by many as the official start of the Protestant Reformation.

Some years ago I was asked to speak in my university’s chapel about the reasons for the Reformation. I’d like to take four posts to share what I presented there.

—–

The year is 1492. You live in central Europe, near the center of the Holy Roman Empire, in the area that will someday be called Germany. This is your life.

Your city, Frankfurt, is large, prosperous, and growing. It’s becoming a trade center, and the rich are developing fortunes. There are lots of people, but only two kinds, rich and poor. The rich own the land, and the poor live on it and do the best they can. There are lots more poor people than rich ones, so you’re poor. Your father is a cobbler; he makes shoes. And someday you’ll be a cobbler too, because that’s how life is; you work with your hands, and you learn a trade from someone willing to teach you, and your father is the closest teacher at hand. So you’ll be a cobbler, like him.

School? That’s funny. Hardly anyone goes to school. Oh, the children of rich people do—or at least some of them do, those who show some aptitude for learning. Many wealthy families want one of their sons to be a priest or a monk, and they’ll choose one to learn what he can in a monastery or an abbey. If the rich man is associated with the new banking industry here in northern Europe, his sons might learn to read and cipher so they can go into that. But you? No, school’s not in the cards. You’ll help your father in his shop, and you’ll learn his trade. You’ll make enough money at that to support a wife and children with food and other very basic needs.

Your schedule is pretty much ruled by the sun. When it rises, and the roosters crow, you get up, break your fast, and get to work. When it goes down, you fall into bed and sleep the deep sleep of the weary. Day after day, week after week, the ritual is the same.

Sometimes at night, when you can’t sleep, you look up at the sky. It’s quite a sight. There’s no light at night, of course, except the glimmer of a few torches here and there, and the night sky is a wonder. Thousands of stars—thousands of them—blanket the sky, with many of them clustered in a band. There are so many of them, and they are so close together, that it looks like a path of milk that stretches from the northeast to the south. A milky way. What a sight. And some of the stars are brighter than the others, and oddly, they change positions as the nights progress. People have given them names: Venus, Mars, Jupiter. You don’t know why they move among the other stars—the wise ones call them “wandering stars”—but you love to watch them parade along the Milky Way at night.

And you wonder who made them. God? Who is he? What is he like? Does he know about you? Does he care? Does he want to be friends? How can you find out?

There are churches in your town. The biggest one, St. Bartholomew’s, is right in the center of the city. It’s a very important church; the kings have been crowned there for more than 100 years, and everyone in the city is very proud of it. Its tower is almost 300 feet tall, and you can see it from anywhere in the city. It’s beautiful.

Your family goes to mass there on Sundays; your father says that you have to because God likes you better if you do. You think the mass is boring—it’s mostly in some language you can’t understand. It’s a long ways from where you sit to the front where the priest stands, but you can tell that he talks for a while—your father calls it a “homily”—and sometimes that’s in your language, but it’s so far away, and the church echoes so much, that it’s hard to make out much of what he says. Sometimes you hear him talking about giving alms to the poor, but you don’t have any alms. You guess that means you’re poor, but nobody ever gives your family any alms, either. And sometimes he talks about going on a pilgrimage to see holy places, but your father says there isn’t any money for that either, so the homilies don’t seem to say much to you. There’s a choir that sings in a kind of a chant, and you like that part, and then the priest says something in the other language, the one you don’t understand. It sounds like “hocus pocus,” and he holds something up with both his hands, and somebody rings a bell, and then everybody goes up to the front, row by row, for what your father calls the eucharist, but again, it’s all in a language you can’t understand, and when you ask your father to explain, he says he doesn’t really understand it either. You ask him to ask the priest, and he says he did, but the priest can’t read, so he can’t explain much. But it’s all very important, so your whole family goes every Sunday.

To be continued …

Photo by Wim van ‘t Einde on Unsplash

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

On “Literal” Interpretation, Part 2: Sometimes You Shouldn’t Translate

October 26, 2023 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

Part 1: Nobody Does That

There’s an argument among conservative Christians over whether we should translate the Bible “literally”—by which the proponent usually means “word for word, so much as is possible in translating from one language to another”—or “loosely”—by which the proponent means “concept for concept.” The technical term for the latter is “dynamic equivalence.”

Of the popular English translations today, the most “literal” is, in my opinion, the NASB, while the most representative of dynamic equivalence is the NIV—though I hasten to say that the NIV frequently goes beyond dynamic equivalence to interpretation, seeking to “clarify” ambiguous original language. That makes the NIV in some respects more of a commentary than a translation.

Some may be surprised that I didn’t identify the KJV as the most “literal.” Well, I didn’t because it isn’t. The KJV translators did occasionally render in dynamic equivalence, although the term wasn’t around in those days. Probably the clearest example is the way they translate the Greek exclamation μη γενοιτο (me genoito), which literally means “May it never come to pass!” The KJV translates this expression “God forbid” in all 16 occurrences, thereby introducing the name of God where it does not appear in the Greek. I’m not criticizing this translation choice; I think it’s a perfectly good one for the culture of 1611. But it’s indisputably not a literal translation.

I think there are advantages and disadvantages to both “literal” and dynamically equivalent translations, and a I make a point of consulting multiple translations, across the spectrum of translation philosophy, when I study a passage.

I ended the previous post by promising a consideration of when we shouldn’t translate the original language at all—when translating is to miss the whole point. I would direct you to a passage that may sound familiar:

For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept;
Line upon line, line upon line;
Here a little, and there a little: …
But the word of the Lord was unto them
Precept upon precept, precept upon precept;
Line upon line, line upon line;
Here a little, and there a little;
That they might go, and fall backward, and be broken,
And snared, and taken
(Is 28.10, 13).

But what if Isaiah’s point isn’t the words?

Here’s the transliterated Hebrew. (I need to show it to you to make the point.)

tsaw ltsaw tsaw ltsaw qaw lqaw qaw lqaw

“line upon line, line upon line, precept upon precept, precept upon precept”

Do you see what Isaiah—and the Lord—are doing here? I’d suggest that there’s a strong possibility that the message is not about the meaning of the words; it’s about the sounds of the words. Blah, blah, blah. Yada, yada, yada.

It’s worth noting that the context bears this out. In verse 11 God says that he’ll speak to his people “with stammering lips and another tongue”; in verse 12 he says, “yet they would not hear.” God’s point is not that the Israelites are slow learners and need pedagogical scaffolding; his point is that they just don’t listen to what they already know—the Torah and the words of the prophets are just a bunch of noise to them.

Nearly all the English versions miss the point, I would suggest, by translating the Hebrew. There are a few that get it, in my opinion:

You don’t even listen— all you hear is senseless sound after senseless sound (CEV).

They speak utter nonsense (GW).

CEV is a paraphrase rather than a translation; GW is a translation originally designed to meet the needs of deaf readers and often used with ESL readers.

Some would caution against taking this approach, given the doctrine of verbal inspiration. I would agree that we should approach this idea with caution. But I also think that the evidence of sound and context are strong in this case.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

On “Literal” Interpretation, Part 1: Nobody Does That

October 23, 2023 by Dan Olinger 1 Comment

I’ve noticed that our culture seems to think that conservative Christians believe that the Bible should be interpreted literally. I say “our culture seems to think” this because the expression occurs frequently in popular media, whether journalistic or social. I’ve even seen some conservative Christians describe themselves that way.

That’s unfortunate.

Nobody today or in the past has ever interpreted the Bible literally. We’re not Amelia Bedelia.

I wonder sometimes whether those who question the authority of Scripture describe conservatives that way because it makes us sound, well, stupid. But I’ve learned over the decades that impugning motives is a bad idea for many reasons. Although it’s a question the critics should ask themselves.

There’s been a lot written throughout the centuries of church history on the topic of hermeneutics, or biblical interpretation. The preferred approaches have varied considerably over that time, from the imaginative allegorical approach common in earlier times—an approach that is often and rightly ridiculed (see Epistle of Barnabas 9.7)—to word-based approaches common in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to the more linguistically mature thinking thankfully more common since James Barr published his seminal work The Semantics of Biblical Language forty years ago.

But for centuries, no conservative Christian author on hermeneutics has advocated interpreting the Bible literally. Rather, the standard approach has been to read the Bible the same way you read any other written work: with understanding of stylistic practices, of the idiosyncrasies of translated works, and with attention to the culture from which the document comes—as well as, obviously, the context in which isolated biblical statements are presented.

Thus instruction in hermeneutics routinely includes these sorts of caveats:

Context is king. You know what the author intended a statement to mean by studying and evaluating its context. It’s not legitimate to claim that the Bible says that Judas “went and hanged himself” (Mt 27.5) and “Go, and do thou likewise” (Lk 10.37). Aw, come on, Dan; nobody would actually do that! Well, actually, I’ve seen perversions of context every bit as bad.
The Bible contains false statements. “Ye shall not surely die” (Ge 3.4) is a lie, spoken by the serpent in the Garden of Eden, and is contextually identified as such.
The Bible contains phenomenological language, which describes things as they appear to the human senses. Solomon, the wisest man in history, says, “The sun also rises” (Ec 1.5)—and is cited by no less an authority than Ernest Hemingway!—and that is not a scientific error but a figure of speech. A figure, incidentally, that the weatherman uses every day without being characterized as a scientific ignoramus.
The Bible uses pretty much all the recognized figures of speech. (Note that the linked volume runs 1160 pages and was first published in 1898! Nobody takes the Bible literally.) As just one example, Isaiah says that when God consummates history, “all the trees of the field shall clap their hands” (Is 55.12). Now this clearly does not mean that one day trees will have hands (Ents? Baum’s trees along the way to Oz?) and will also have emotions of joy that they express by clapping. It also doesn’t mean that the wind will blow the leaves of the trees together in ways that sound like clapping. Rather, it’s metaphorical language on multiple levels:
- It uses anthropomorphism in speaking of trees as having hands.
- It uses anthropopathism in speaking of trees having emotions and expressing them by clapping.
- It then uses synecdoche in presenting trees as representing the whole of creation. Paul expresses the idea of the verse in Romans:
  - ¹⁸For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. ¹⁹For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. ²⁰For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope ²¹that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. ²²For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now (Ro 8.18-22).

So we interpret the Bible like any other work of literature—though that does not imply that it is merely an ordinary work.

Next time: when translating at all is to miss the whole point.

Part 2: Sometimes You Shouldn’t Translate

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Up the Down Staircase, Part 2

October 19, 2023 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

On Conscience, Legalism, Loving Your Brother, and the Fear of Man

Part 1

Is it OK to go up the down staircase?

If it violates the spirit of the law, no it’s not. If it doesn’t, it’s fine.

But as I noted last time, when it doesn’t violate the spirit of the law, there are other things to consider.

Conscience

In 1 Corinthians 8, Paul deals with a Christian who thinks it’s wrong to eat meat that’s been sacrificed to idols. In the previous paragraph Paul has already said that there’s nothing wrong with eating the meat in itself. But this person is a new Christian, fresh out of idol worship, and to him that sacrificial meat carries baggage with it. (Now there’s an odd metaphor.) His conscience bothers him if he eats the meat.

Paul says, he must not eat the meat, and more mature Christians must not encourage him to eat it.

Why? Isn’t his conscience being unnecessarily narrow? Yes, it is. But his conscience doesn’t know that, and nobody ought to tell his own conscience to shut up. You want a conscience that speaks up, and one that knows it will be heard. If you tell your conscience to shut up enough times, eventually it will. And then you’re in serial killer territory.

So you’re at the bottom of the down staircase. It’s empty. The halls are quiet. Can you go up it?

Sure—provided your conscience doesn’t bother you about it.

Now, if you’re in an empty building, and you’re staring at the “Down” sign, and you look both ways down the hall, to make sure nobody’s watching, and you run up the stairs, pulse pounding, exhilarated that you’re getting away with something,

First, you’re one oddly troubled kid.

And second, yes, you’re sinning. God calls that rebellion, and he says it’s worse than witchcraft.

Oh, and one other thing …

Edification

Paul also says that you should refrain from doing things that might cause spiritual harm to your brother.

So here I am at the bottom of the down staircase. There are students around. I’m a teacher. A Bible teacher. (Actually, in a well-designed Christian liberal arts university, all the teachers are Bible teachers.)

Do I go up the down staircase, or do I walk a few extra steps to use the up staircase?

I don’t want to encourage my students to violate their own consciences, and I don’t want them to get the impression that regulations don’t matter.

So I walk the extra steps. Even if the down staircase is empty.

The principle of edification.

Now it’s at this point that somebody alleges, “Fear of man!”

Au contraire, mon frere.

I am not altering my behavior because I’m afraid of what they’ll think of me. God is my judge (that’s what my name means, actually), and I stand before only him, with Christ, my Advocate, at my side. Fearless, because Christ has given me promises, and I believe him.

I am altering my behavior because I love my students and want God’s best for them, including spiritual health. No fear in that. Perfect love casts out fear.

A closing thought.

Yeah, this is a tempest in a teapot. It’s a lot of obsessive thinking over a relatively trivial decision.

But that’s what I like about it. It gives us an opportunity to think through the biblical principles that should drive all our decisions, including the really big ones, and to do it in an environment that’s less complex, emotionally fraught, and consequential.

I hope it helps to clarify your thoughts on the matter.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Up the Down Staircase, Part 1

October 16, 2023 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

On Conscience, Legalism, Loving Your Brother, and the Fear of Man

Ah, that “doubtful things” issue again.

Yep.

There’s been some really good material written on the Christian conscience lately. One of my favorites is this book, written by a long-time missionary and a former student of mine (that’s two people, not one). I think they handle the issue well.

I don’t plan to add anything to, or correct, anything they’ve said. But it occurred to me that an illustration I use for this concept in my teaching might be useful for a general audience. Which you are.

So here goes.

The Bible says that we should never violate our conscience—even when it’s misinformed, and unnecessarily restrictive (1Co 8.7-13). I’ve written on that before, so I won’t go over those concepts again. It also gives Christians a fair amount of liberty to disagree on what kinds of activities they can engage in (1Co 8-10; Ro 14). I think it’s delightful to interact with other believers—the thoughtful ones, anyway—to learn how they think about such matters and how they make their decisions. It’s too bad that many Christians see these disagreements as occasions for combat or for disdain. I think we can all learn a lot by calmly interacting over our disagreements.

When those arguments occur, the word legalism often gets thrown around. Like a hand grenade. The term suffers from a general lack of definition in the current culture; most people use it as a pejorative for behavior that they think is unnecessarily narrow. (It used to mean the belief that your good works will get you to heaven, but I haven’t heard anyone use it that way in a looong time.)

I like to use an illustration when I’m teaching on these matters. It’s one my students understand well, because it’s right down the hall from us.

In the classroom building where I teach, there’s a staircase at the center lobby. The “up” staircase is on the right of the lobby, and the “down” staircase, as you might expect, is on the left. Each side has a sign. Up. Down.

Perfectly clear.

Do you need to follow the signs? Is it a sin to go up the down staircase?

Well, it depends. And while this particular illustration is relatively trivial—the decisions you make while driving your car are exponentially more important—it does provide an opportunity to think through the larger biblical principles in a way that encourages objectivity and discourages raw emotionalism.

Authority

The first principle that presents itself is that of authority. There are behavioral requirements of the students—and of the faculty—and the Scripture does say that we should obey those in authority over us: government (Ro 13), church (He 13.17), family (Ep 6.1), employment (Co 3.22). It doesn’t specify “teachers and administrators in a university setting”—universities didn’t exist in those days—but our culture widely recognizes that educational institutions act in loco parentis, and in any case students at my school, like many others, sign a statement that they will conform to the rules of the institution, so here it becomes a matter of personal integrity.

So in the abstract, you shouldn’t go up the down staircase.

But the Scripture also speaks of “the spirit of the law” and “the letter of the law.” Why have the institutional authorities specified an up and a down staircase?

The intent of the regulation is pretty clear: efficiency. And maybe safety. When the stairs are crowded, everybody benefits if the traffic is flowing in one direction. So go with the flow, dude.

That’s called loving your neighbor.

Years ago, I was in a crowd going down the (down) staircase, and here came a male student, in the opposite direction, head down, engrossed in his phone, completely oblivious to the fact that he was turning the traffic flow chaotic. I put my hand in the middle of his chest, waited for him to look up, and said, “Turn around, go back down, and use the stairs over there.” He looked at me incredulously. “You’re kidding!” “No, I’m not. Love your neighbor. It’s the second most important commandment.”

I have no idea who that student was, or how he is now. But I hope he loves his neighbor.

Well, then, what about the slow times? Any problem with going up the down staircase then?

Given the intent of the regulation, none at all.

But in those cases there are other things to consider.

Next time.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Part 2

On Fun, Part 5: Question Everything

October 12, 2023 by Dan Olinger Leave a Comment

Part 1: It’s Good | Part 2: On Purpose | Part 3: Loving Your Neighbor | Part 4: Down with Slavery

As promised, here are some questions you can ask yourself as you decide how to get your entertainment, pleasure, and relaxation.

Will It Defile Me?

The Psalmist said, “I will set no wicked thing before my eyes” (Ps 101.3).

That’s good advice, even though it’s getting more and more difficult to follow in the present culture.

A little thought experiment.

When I was coming up in the 1960’s, pretty much all conservative Christians agreed that Christians shouldn’t go to movies—even the good ones, because even then you were supporting a corrupt industry. Now, I didn’t grow up in “fundamentalism,” so I’m not talking about the stereotypical “against everything” folks. These are Christians in the broad circle of evangelicalism. Today, of course, the percentages are exactly reversed: pretty much everybody agrees that it’s fine to go to movies. And in the 50 years between those two surveys, the movies have gotten a lot worse.

I promise you that I’m not making any point about going to movies; that’s not my purpose here. My point is that we are no longer repelled by the things that we used to be repelled by. Our consciences have gotten less sensitive, more leathery.

That’s what daily defilement will do to you, without your even being aware that it’s happening.

Will It Make Me Lazy?

Solomon said, “An idle soul shall suffer hunger” (Pr 19.15). And in case you need a New Testament verse to be convinced, Paul urges the Roman church not to be “slothful in business” (Ro 12.11).

Fun is refreshment to empower the return to work; it’s not a lifestyle. We can’t lie in bed all day just because it’s warm and relaxing and easy.

Will It Make Me Discontent?

The writer to the Hebrews urges them to “be content with the things you have” (He 13.5).

Playing the lottery doesn’t do that for you. Going to Vegas doesn’t do that.

That’s pretty obvious.

But some people will face the same result from less obviously tempting things, things that might well be fine for other believers: going on a cruise, following the lifestyles of rich people, even collecting things (again, if it becomes obsessive).

We’re all different, and that’s why it’s a good practice to ask yourself the question.

Will It Help Me Approve Excellence?

Let’s end with a positive one.

Paul urges the Philippians to “approve things that are excellent” (Php 1.10). And at the end of that letter, he famously encourages meditation on “whatever is true, … honorable, … just, … pure, … lovely, … commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise” (Php 4.8).

I note that this well-known list focuses on moral excellence. Nothing wrong with admiring the physical prowess of a top-notch athlete—that Simone Biles is remarkable beyond words—but in the end our most diligent observation and endeavor should involve being really good at being really good.

We ought to educate our moral standards, rather than finding enjoyment and passive relaxation in the degraded. The long view from the latter seat is nowhere you’d like to be.

Eat. Drink. Play. Love. Enjoy it all.

All to the glory of God.

Photo by MI PHAM on Unsplash