Bonhoeffer's "Religionless Christianity"

Needed is Bonhoeffer's works and a good historical theologian's brain to pick. Alas, I'll settle for a brief meditation and any feedback my off-the-cuff remarks get. Keep in mind that for me this post stems very much from a preunderstanding.

Relevant reading.

There's a large bit of semantics involved in this discussion, but semantics are not the issue for Bonhoeffer. There are substantive issues for which I believe Bonhoeffer articulated with the most appropriate semantics options. They are not particularly misleading per se, rather misreadings kinda seem the fault of his readers' faithless interpretive reads. They either downplay his anti-religious or pro-faith themes. So his writings are difficult to read cause we are not ready to read them and because...well he's wrong, or he says a lot of right things for the wrong reason.

In trying to understand Bonhoeffer, Barth's basic understanding of religion seems to bring us to a close approximation of Bonhoeffer's meaning.

[R]eligion is the contradiction of revelation, the concentrated expression of human unbelief, i.e. an attitude and activity which is directly opposed to faith....

Religion is never true in itself and as such. The revelation of God denies that any religion is true, i.e. that it is in truth the knowledge and worship of God and the reconciliation of man with God. For as the self-offering and self-manifestation of God, as the work of peace which God himself has concluded between himself and man, revelation is the truth beside which there is no other truth, over against which there is only lying and wrong. If by the concept of a ‘true religion’ we mean truth which belongs to religion in itself and as such, it is just as unattainable as a ‘good man’, if by goodness we mean something which man can achieve on his own initiative. No religion is true....

This judgement means that all this Christianity of ours, and all the details of it, are not as such what they ought to be and pretend to be, a work of faith, and therefore of obedience to the divine revelation. What we have here is in its own way – a different way from that of other religions, but no less seriously – unbelief, i.e. opposition to the divine revelation, and therefore active idolatry and self-righteousness....

It is therefore a fact that we can speak of the truth of the Christian religion only within the doctrine of the iustificatio impii. The statement that even Christianity is unbelief gives rise to a whole mass of naïve and rationalizing contradictions. Church history itself is a history of this contradiction. But it is this very fact which best shows us how true and right the statement is (source; embolding mine).

BTW - iustificatio impii means justification of the ungodly. This is going to be disappointing to some, as it essentially means that Bonhoeffer is a hyper-Protestant (i.e. sole fide fanatic) and secularist. For the record, Barth counter-balances these insights. The point of bringing them up and not contextualizing them is that with Bonhoeffer you can't. Hence why in the letter he states that Barth started off good, but arrives at a religious restoration.

The value of secularism is while it does not nor can eliminate the divine revelation, it provides a scathing critique of religiosity. Secularism in this regard is a natural ally of revelation, not so much in its commitment to truth per se, but in its commitment to neutralizing religious expression. Bonhoeffer as is apparent by other remarks could care less about making the church relevant to his contemporary world and is highly critical of attempts to do such. Indeed, cultural relevancy is a type of religious renewal, even in a secularized form. Rather he sees a secular lifestyle and approach as genuinely better, in that it is both more honest and accurate to our human condition. It also opens the possibility of churches fulfilling their mission, which cannot be done with religion's inherent individualism. If anything secularism as is commonly espoused does not go far enough for Bonhoeffer, as it merely wishes to repress religious expression in the public life whereas Bonhoeffer wishes the secularizing effect to be more thoroughgoing.

The ideal then becomes for Christians to live etsi deus non daretur, as if there is no God. This notion for Bonhoeffer does need to be contextualized though for a proper reading, as he isn't betraying the gospel, making an attack on the institution of Church's existence, minimizing the authority of Scripture, or downplaying Christianity's myths. He's advocating a secularization, not godlessness. The implications of etsi deus non daretur move though beyond critiques of Christianese, religious displays, shared understandings, and other markers to a theological understanding of the relation of God and humans that is both profound and disconcerting, as well as humans' own self-understanding. Hopefully I'll write more of these two implications before the end of the world.

To the question of how he positively understands a religionless Christianity outside of God's relationship to humanity, it seems safe to say that Christianity is a hyper-Biblical Judaism. There's a stressed continuity for Bonhoeffer's historical hermeneutic, acknowledging obvious discontinuity as well. How he understands Judaism though is anti-metaphysical, and it is in a non-believing world with God. Religionless Christianity is participating in the life of the Church, but discarding its rot.

To the question of how he positively understands what it means to be a Christian, it is participating in the suffering of Jesus in the world. Again, I'll hopefully unpack this later, but briefly in contrast to piety or creedalism, Bonhoeffer understands it as existing for others without the hope of God's comfort. This includes engaging the status quo (which is godless) as well as actively ministering to others.

I think some of his claims and critiques are valid, but the ones influenced by his secularism are not, and don't get textually supported. Unfortunately Bonhoeffer didn't make it far enough to textually support some of these arguments, whereas others have who don't share his secular commitments have. The chapters to his book that he did write were lost, and before he could follow through with the project he was executed. I'd love some feed back especially from those familiar with his work as I'm probably wrong on a lot of points.

"How to Read Philosophy" - Ben Myers

Letter of Dietrich Bonhoeffer to Eberhard Bethge

April 30, 1944

Dear Eberhard,

Another month gone. Does time fly as fast with you as it does with me here? I’m often surprised at it myself—and when will the month come when you and Renate, I and Maria, and we two can meet again? I have such a strong feeling that great events are moving the world every day and could change all our personal relationships, that I should like to write to you much oftener, partly because I don’t know how much longer I shall be able to, and even more because we want to share everything with each other as often and as long as we can. I’m firmly convinced that, by the time you get this letter, great decisions will already be setting things moving on all fronts. During the coming weeks we shall have to keep a stout heart, and that is what I wish you. We shall have to keep all our wits about us, so as to let nothing scare us. In view of what is coming, I’m almost inclined to quote the biblical dei, and I feel that I “long to look,” like the angels in 1 Peter 1: 12, to see how God is going to solve the apparently insoluble. I think God is about to accomplish something that, even if we take part in it either outwardly or inwardly, we can only receive with the greatest wonder and awe. Somehow it will be clear—for those who have eyes to see—that Psalm 58: 11b and Psalm 9: 19f. are true; and we shall have to repeat Jeremiah 45: 5 to ourselves every day. It’s harder for you go to through this separated from Renate and your boy than it is for me, so I will think of you especially, as I am already doing now.

How good it would seem to me, for both of us, if we could go through this time together, helping each other. But it’s probably “better” for it not to be so, but for each of us to have to go through it alone. I find it hard not to be able to help you in anything—except by thinking of you every morning and evening when I read the Bible, and often during the day as well. You’ve no need to worry about me at all, as I’m getting on uncommonly well—you would be surprised, if you came to see me. People here keep on telling me (as you can see, I feel very flattered by it) that I’m “radiating so much peace around me,” and that I’m “always so cheerful,”—so that the feelings that I sometimes have to the contrary must, I suppose, rest on an illusion (not that I really believe this at all!). You would be surprised, and perhaps even worried, by my theological thoughts and the conclusions that they look to; and this is where I miss you most of all, because I don’t know anyone else with whom I could so well discuss them to have my thinking clarified. What is bothering me incessantly is the question what Christianity really is, or indeed who Christ really is, for us today. The time when people could be told everything by means of words, whether theological or pious, is over, and so is the time of inwardness and conscience—and that means the time of religion in general. We are moving towards a completely religionless time; people as they are now simply cannot be religious any more. Even those who honestly describe themselves as “religious” do not in the least act up to it, and so they presumably mean something quite different by “religious.”

Our whole nineteen-hundred-year-old Christian preaching and theology rest on the “religious a priori” of mankind. “Christianity” has always been a form—perhaps the true form—of “religion.” But if one day it becomes clear that this a priori does not exist at all, but was a historically conditioned and transient form of human self-expression, and if therefore man becomes radically religionless—and I think that that is already more or less the case (else how is it, for example, that this war, in contrast to all previous ones, is not calling forth any “religious” reaction?)—what does that mean for “Christianity”? It means that the foundation is taken away from the whole of what has up to now been our “Christianity” and that there remain only a few “last survivors of the age of chivalry,” or a few intellectually dishonest people, on whom we can descend as “religious.” Are they to be the chosen few? Is it on this dubious group of people that we are to pounce in fervour, pique, or indignation, in order to sell them our goods? Are we to fall upon a few unfortunate people in their hour of need and exercise a sort of religious compulsion on them? If we don’t want to do all that, if our final judgment must be that the western form of Christianity, too, was only a preliminary stage to a complete absence of religion, what kind of situation emerges for us, for the church? How can Christ become the Lord of the religionless as well? Are there religionless Christians? If religion is only a garment of Christianity—and even this garment has looked very different at different times—then what is religionless Christianity?

Barth, who is the only one to have started along this line of thought, did not carry it to completion, but arrived at a positivism of revelation, which in the last analysis is essentially a restoration. For the religionless working man (or any other man) nothing decisive is gained here. The questions to be answered would surely be: What do a church, a community, a sermon, a liturgy, a Christian life mean in a religionless world? How do we speak of God—without religion, i.e. without the temporally conditioned presuppositions of metaphysics, inwardness, and so on? How do we speak (or perhaps we cannot now even “speak” as we used to) in a “secular” way about “God”? In what way are we “religionless-secular” Christians, in what way are we the “ek-klesia,” those who are also called forth, not regarding ourselves from a religious point of view as specially favoured, but rather as belonging wholly to the world? In that case, Christ is no longer an object of religion, but something quite different, really the Lord of the world. But what does that mean? What is the place of worship and prayer in a religionless situation? Does the secret discipline, or alternatively the difference (which I have suggested to you before) between penultimate and ultimate, take on a new importance here?

I must break off for today, so that the letter can go straight away. I’ll write to you again about in two days’ time. I hope you see more or less what I mean, and that it doesn’t bore you. Goodbye for the present. It’s not easy always to write without an echo, and you must excuse me if that makes it something of a monologue.

I’m thinking of you very much.

Your Dietrich

Science vs. Faith, Subterfuge?

We all heard it commonly said, or said frequently science the main producer of knowledge has replaced the role in explaining the world that faith previously held. And there are a whole host of discussions on this topic.

My contention is if anything it's a later development of what drove and continues to drive the abandonment of religious faith: the problem of evil coupled with the silence of God. Ignoring the silence of God...

The allegedly poor design of the universe was evidence of God's piss-poor design qualities, and such a blasphemous sentiment was the reason troubled followed these folks around.

The defenses of God's goodness though took the form of arguing that in fact the world was much better designed than we give it credit for, something Copernican astronomy and Newtonian physics readily attested too. Their depiction of God though, argued against His interfering with the natural order, which in turn especially shifted the blame from God to an inevitable consequence of the natural order, when those predisposed to question God's goodness were forced by science to readily accede.

What this did though was strengthen a deistic impulse, one which is felt by even the most fundamental of religious observers. Even those who still interpret spectacular natural evils (acts of God) are loathe to do such with common incidents.

Small Change

Ran across the first quote on Leithart's blog.

“Social networks are particularly effective at increasing motivation,” Aaker and Smith write. But that’s not true. Social networks are effective at increasing participation—by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires.... A spokesperson for the Save Darfur Coalition told Newsweek, “We wouldn’t necessarily gauge someone’s value to the advocacy movement based on what they’ve given. This is a powerful mechanism to engage this critical population. They inform their community, attend events, volunteer. It’s not something you can measure by looking at a ledger.” In other words, Facebook activism succeeds not by motivating people to make a real sacrifice but by motivating them to do the things that people do when they are not motivated enough to make a real sacrifice. We are a long way from the lunch counters of Greensboro (source).

Gladwell goes on to point out:

[I]t is simply a form of organizing which favors the weak-tie connections that give us access to information over the strong-tie connections that help us persevere in the face of danger. It shifts our energies from organizations that promote strategic and disciplined activity and toward those which promote resilience and adaptability. It makes it easier for activists to express themselves, and harder for that expression to have any impact.

For Gladwell, activism that effectively challenges the status quo has both a heirarchical organizational structure and social relations formed with a strong bond between members. He believed that the civil rights movement was provided both by the black church, enabling it to become paradigmatic for societal transformation.

Gladwell point is not to deny social networking possibilities for change, but take them for what they are and damper some of the more unbounded interpretations with realism. He's also not providing an anatamy for activism, but he's pointing to some interesting aspects.

Quote from Susan Neiman's Evil in Modern Thought

It is as shortsighted as it is condescending to explain the international rise in religious fundamentalism by suggesting that people want easy answers to the problems of a complex world. No doubt, sometimes, they do. But they just as surely want worldviews that express moral standpoints: that human dignity is a good which cannot be bartered, that some actions are so vile they cannot be redeemed. Clarity should never be confused with simplicity, moral clarity least of all. But a view that has no means to express legitimate needs for moral clarity will leave people to seek it elsewhere, and to settle for moral simplicity instead. Scruples about using moral language responsibly should lead us to use it responsibly, not to abandon it entirely - leaving moral ammunition in unscrupulous hands.

Sherlock, pilot

Brilliant.

Dr. Watson: That... was amazing.
Holmes: Do you think so?
Dr. Watson: Of course it was. It was extraordinary, it was quite extraordinary.
Holmes: That's not what people normally say.
Dr. Watson: What do people normally say?
Holmes: Piss off!

Go watch this pilot. 88 minutes long.

Hmm...

Let's see here. Gotta post on Socrates need to finish up, one on "Farwell to Descartes", one on religious violence, and a really cool blues vid my friend Skyler turned me on to. Write/post, write/post, write/post?

Hmm...looks like the Muddy Waters cover wins...

Bible Translations

Passing on two posts by Charles Huff:

For a more technical discussion, there are two important distinctions in Bible translations: the texts which the translation uses and the translation philosophy they employ.

For the NT, there are three textual options: the Textus Receptus or Received Text, which is the collection of Greek New Testament manuscripts edited by Erasmus, the Majority Text and a Critical Text. Both MT and CT use textual criticism on all known manuscripts to determine which variant is correct, but whereas CT uses critical methodology (e.g. what's oldest, what's most likely to be original based on text critical criteria), the MT asks what variant has the most manuscript support. Since most NT manuscripts are medieval and thus similar to Erasmus' collection, the Majority Text is nearly identical to the Textus Receptus.

The KJV and NKJV are based on the TR; no translation I know of is based on the Majority, and all the rest are based on a Critical Text (usually Nestle-Aland's). All modern versions use the Hebrew Masoretic Text for the Old Testament.

There are two major translation philosophies: literary/literal and dynamic equivalent. The distinction between the two is more complicated than "literal" and "non-literal." No translation is word-for-word; all must adapt Hebrew/Greek words and sentence structures to English words and sentence structures. Dynamic equivalence uses linguistic methodology of "deep structure" to replicate the parent language in the receptor language, and so is less concerned about replicating sentence structures and retaining idioms. This does not mean they translate "loosely" or "according to sense;" it's far more rigorous than that.

A translation like the ESV is concerned with allowing as much of the Bible's own idiom to transform English as possible. It still must wreak havoc in some ways, but it's far more willing to accept something awkward in English for the sake of the Hebrew trope. The ESV also accepts the heritage of the KJV in the English language, and seeks to keep as much of the rhythm and style of the KJV as possible - that's an explicit part of their translation philosophy. They're not only hoping to retain the Hebrew/Greek literary sense, but the KJV literary sense.

For a more rigorous literary/literal approach than any English translation of the entire Bible, check out Everett Fox's translation of the Pentateuch and Robert Alter's translation of the Pentateuch and the Psalter.

I should add a third: English register. In language, register is how formal the language is. One expects a different type of language in the State of the Union than in the latest episode of the Office. Translations explicitly choose different registers.

NIV uses a literary register, but is as clear as possible. It's the New York Times of Bible translations (not the New Yorker).

The Message uses a folksy, homey register with lots of down to earth idioms (or cliches). It's the Rush Limbaugh of Bible Translations.

The ESV uses modern English with a high register. This is part of their keeping the style of the KJV without the thees and thous, since the King James Bible helped create the high English register as we know it. It's the New Yorker, or John Updike, of Bible Translations.

The KJV of course is the definition of high register, but it is also archaic. No one speaks this way anymore, no matter how formal the occasion, unless they're quoting the King James. It thus lends a super-formal and traditionist atmosphere to the reading of Scripture. It's the Vulgate of English Bible translations.

My advice about this is that if after reading the KJV all your life you feel sort of sacrilegious reading a text with a lower register - don't! One of the main points of translating the Bible into English rather than keeping it in Latin was to rid it of its exclusivity. Some sections of the Bible are formal, literary Hebrew and Greek and some are not, so why should our translation keep this special, formal, high-register quality in the main? That in itself obscures parts of the Bible and is thus not "literal" at all, which is a main reason people claim to read the KJV. While I appreciate the literary value of the KJV, the ESV and other translations are also literary in quality without making the Bible overly formal and archaic in style.

I don't care if anyone reads the KJV, but don't feel guilty for not doing so. Stand in your Reformation heritage and pick up an NIV.

Lawsuit ideas

It seems to me in this age where the principles of fairness and equity are spoken on the lips of those without the slightest clue as to their meaning, that if it is a copyright infringement to use the names of companies for such purposes as advertising (assuming it's not of the aforementioned company), then perhaps some brilliant lawyer will get it in their heads to sue over the use of our the people's, the actual objective persons of the world, names. After-all, it seems only fair. The first task of course would be to copyright some name, assuming it is possible and then sue the first internet corporation or solicitor to customize it in their propaganda. Before we know it there will be sign-up sheets and suing class-action style. Alas, I have a litigious dream where even a birth certificate could ensure no insidious act is protected when they spit out our names without even a thought, after-all it's automated now, for the pure purpose of scamming and manipulating us for a quick buck.

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Stolen from Zinn

Renea's Response

Keep in mind, she's responding to some stuff that didn't make it into the blog and says some other good stuff not included here.

When you say, "What I hear from the question is, is it okay to not be inconvenienced with religious obligations?" I see where you're coming from and how that's a viable interpretation. But it wasn't the gut feeling I had. What I intuited as I prayerfully read and responded to this guy was legalism. That was affirmed when he wrote back with this: "Hi. I'm a Christian who tries hard to live for God the best I can. I like to know whether certain things are sins that are unclear so I'll grow more in the Lord. I know I'm far from perfect." And then he proceeded to ask more questions on a different topic wanting blanket yes or no answers to questions that are a matter of personal conviction. This guy is looking for rules to get him closer to Jesus.

Now, when you say, "What I hear from you is, I'm uncomfortable with saying no, but really it is about being getting the 'important' matters right," I'm really not sure where you read that in my response. Perhaps you misread the intentions in my commentary about our busyness; but I assure you, I was coming from the same place you are when you talk about our mirroring the culture instead of imaging God.

Basically I misread the context in Sartrean proportions.

Anti-Americanism

"Simply compare [William] James and Henry Adams, his contemporary. Adams embodied the American who despaired of his own country and was ruined by Europe. James was built up by Europe, and believed in America" (Rosenstock-Huessy).

Wow. What a brilliant insight. Not into Adams or James, I have no clue about that, but into two enduring types that still embody those we know and love (hopefully) today.

Rules or Relationship?

Ultimately the Bible is not a book of rules. There most certainly are rules in the Bible, but their purpose is not to show us how good we are... because of course, none of us is good enough to be okay with God; only Jesus can fix our relationship with God. Rather, the instructions and commands and rules in the Bible, especially ones like this one in Hebrews, describe how life works best. For example...

*Raises eyebrow*. I always thought there were rules in relationships. In fact, the only relationships where there are not are the relationships of imaginative projections of our fantasies. Alas, the Bible is a testament to humanity and Israel's unfaithfulness to the commands and callings of God with severe warnings to the Church. The rules serve many purposes, not least of which is to show us how to be faithful in our relationship. So while rules w/out relationship might get us nowhere, relationship w/out rules gets us a bag on the doorstep and a note saying "Have a good life".

I'm serious about that imaginative projection. Relationships take place in real world interaction; otherwise it's all in one's mind, despite what one may believe.

It's not like I'm personally comfortable with rules. In fact it's precisely my uncomfortableness which accentuates my awareness of their existence. It's my own violation of implicit ones which creates the need for "talks" where explicit ones are laid out.

In her post Rules or Relationship on the issue of Sabbatarianism, my friend Renea wrote that "we lose ourselves, largely because we lose sight of God, we forget to be with him."

The chief historical temptation has been to forget God. It is in forgetting God that we become unfaithful. The question is not though of us losing ourselves but of us "mirroring" the surrounding culture. Israel was judged for its lack of distinctiveness as the people of God by appropriating the practices of its anti-shalom neighbors.

We've found ourselves in a bizarre time, when being religious is looked down upon while being somehow nebulously "spiritual" is good and respected. If the Church has been called though to be a holy people, then we are called to participate in the life of that Church. This means being religious.

Today we find ourselves desperately struggling with the consequential inconveniences this might place upon us. Framing the issue in a legalistic/antinomian context allows some to provide a solution for avoiding these tendencies. My concern is that this is a miscatagorization of the problem. The problem is the question itself needs repentance of. What working out our faith(fulness) means for us today is not that we need to contemporize our faith and practices for "new realities" but need to sanctify contemporary culture.

Legalism is as much a perversion as an accommodating lifestyle. The solution is not for oneself to individually negotiate the tension in the name of not forgetting God. The solution is to remember the Lord your God who has called the Church to honor him and carry out his will. The diversity is not how one's religion plays out in one's personal life; the diversity is in how our personal lives play out in the life of the Church. Looking for the other solution is tantamount to reassurances that all God really cares about is cheap rhetoric and finding our own personal way to live a good life or worse, care that only that we believe a handful of doctrines.

While these ritualistic practices are no longer prescribed and regulated by the Law; they do somehow magically find themselves implemented by faith-communities. While the life prescribed and regulated by the Law might be the shadow, participating in the life of the Church is the foretaste.

The question is not if one is being good or bad Christian, it's if one is meaningfully Christian at all. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus. Without participation in the gift of Jesus within the church, "Christian" becomes just another label we use for self-description, albeit increasingly unpopular as we distance ourselves from from others for whom claim this label. Once "Christian" was a derogatory name for those believers practicing in the church of Antioch. If we're going to be applying labels, perhaps a more fitting one for these wishing to disassociate from Jesus' corporate body is a Christianist, a more purely ideological identification for believing in Christianism. If this sounds ludicrous, what is it about what it describes that makes sense?

This response ignores a lot of legitimate questions. What it's designed to do though is shift the theological impetus back to "Christ Resurrected" and "Repent, for the KoG is near".

And for the record I presently rarely go to church on Sundays.

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"Farewell to Descartes" - Leithart

Auden on Rosenstock-Huessy

Foreword

"A good wine needs no bush," and the same ought to be true for a good book. A foreword should be unnecessary. My reason for writing this one is that when The Viking Book of Aphorisms was published, in which Mr. Kronenberger and I had included a number of quotations from Rosenstock-Huessy, a reviewer complained that he had never heard of him.

I first heard of him in, I should guess, 1940, when a friend gave me a copy of Out of Revolution, of which two chapters are included in this selection. (The whole, I am happy to say, has been re-issued as a paperback by Argo Books.) Ever since I have read everything by him that I could lay my hands on.

I should warn anyone reading him for the first time that, to begin with, he may find as I did, certain aspects of Rosenstock-Huessy's writings a bit hard to take. At times he seems to claim to be the only man who has ever seen the light about History and Language. But let the reader persevere, and he will find, as I did, that he is richly rewarded. He will be forced to admit that, very often, the author's claim is just: he has uncovered many truths hidden from his predecessors.

I was born and raised in England and always thought that I knew the history of my country between the accession of Henry VIII in 1509 and the accession of William III in 1688 fairly well, but it took a German to show me, what no English historian had done, the connection between the execution of Sir Thomas More in 1535 and the execution of Charles I in 1649, to explain the real meaning of the terms "Restoration" and "Glorious Revolution", and why the revolutionary and permanent changes made by Cromwell had to be concealed and denied by calling the years from 1640 to 1660 the "Great Rebellion."

Again, I am a poet by vocation and, therefore, do not expect to learn much about Language from a writer of Prose. Yet, half of what I now know about the difference between Personal Speech, based upon Proper Names, and Second and First Personal Pronouns, words of command and obedience, summons and response, and the impersonal "objective" use of words as a communication code between individuals, I owe to Rosenstock-Huessy. He has also clarified for me many problems of translation, for instance, the historical reasons why one cannot translate "Common Sense" literally into French or "Geist" into English.

Whatever he may have to say about God, Man, the Word, Time, etc., Rosenstock-Huessy always starts out from his own experience as a human being, who must pass through successive states between birth and death, learning something essential from each of them. For this reason I would recommend a reader of this selection to start with the two autobiographical pieces at the end. He will understand better, I believe, when he reads the others, exactly what the author means by his motto Respondeo etsi mutabor (I answer even though I have to be changed), and why he attaches so much importance to it.

Speaking for myself, I can only say that, by listening to Rosenstock-Huessy, I have been changed.

W.H. Auden

I Am An Impure Thinker - Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy

Note for Kevin

As I told you earlier, "the theological [aspects] I'm not so sharp on."

One of the problems I had when reading the section Why Sacraments Are Not Signs, I felt that Leithart was confusing who the players were. And he did distinguish, but then he collapses that distinction by infusing both senses in sacramental signs and through the backdoor brings God back in. Moses circumcises, Abraham circumcises at God's command. These are about what we do to identify with the people of God. Israelite kept the Sabbath. What we do to sanctify ourselves. The signs elsewhere are about what God does, and yes through people, to prove Himself. While I agree with Leithart's point about signs having to be enacted, there's nothing "awe-inspiring" about the signs that we enact, at least not in the same way. Sacred, yes; miraculous, no. So someone might want to suggest that there is awe in the sense of a spirit of reverence and humility, and yes. But I'm talking about the sense of David Blaine WTF wonder. "Mighty" might be a bit of an overstatement. For me, imperceptibly at work might as well not be at all. So while God might be at work in "all things", we don't call "all thing" signs. Jesus was "established" via the sign of baptism, but that involved dove-like Spirit-descending and a voice from the sky. Signs alludes to a special type of work when God is a player.

Leithart though was one step ahead of my ignorance. Pp. 38-41 he moved into 1 Cor. 12.13, where he attempts to draw continuity with both the water-baptism passage earlier in the letter and the water-typology in the Exodus narrative. This continuity stems from the similarity of efficacy. Leithart then shows a harmony of the interpretation with Galatians 3. Moreover, he offers a literary argument that if "made to drink into one Spirit" does reference the Eucharist, then it stands to reason that comparatively "baptized into one body" also references water-baptism. There's the contextual argument that since the passage is dealing with the Church, it is therefore discussing the authorized entry rite. Finally and persuasively, he connects Spirit-baptism to water-baptism by showing how the later was considered the means of participation in the former (Act. 2.38). It would have been helpful if he had tightened his identification of "the gift" to Spirit-baptism (Act. 1.5), but oh well.

For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit (1 Corinthians 12.13 NASB).

While he arguably did successful argue for interpreting this as a literal baptism into the body of Christ, what he unfortunately left open was the portion about the Spirit's agency. The reason was that wasn't the focus of the section in the chapter, like it is here. I don't know enough Greek though or theology to argue one way or the other. *shrug* I got the sense though that we both interpret the agency issue similarly despite how he left it ambiguous.

Fyi - I dismissed his Reformed infighting arguments about Calvin and confessional arguments as annoying, insignificant, and a waste of ink. I don't think you're ever going to get me commenting on them from here on out except for their contributions to the history of ideas and interpretation.

Religious Violence: Jihad

The pattern I'm suggesting for understanding most early modes of warfare in Scripture is that Israel's primary moral consideration is whether to follows its Lord. God in turn fights the war. God conquers and delivers - the two most common motifs or "causes" for conflict. For the duration of fighting, God "proves" it is Him working and not the people through whom He fights.

So how do we know that the conflict we're reading about is in fact lead by God? What distinguishes a Biblical holy war from even say a God-sanctioned one? As mentioned God ensures the victory. There are signs enacted which demonstrate God's sovereignty. God also raises up or establishes leaders to communicate His will or execute his deliverance.

And prove Himself God does in the narratives through victory by Israelites walking around walls, bashing empty pots, seas parting and collapsing, the sun standing still, and slingshots. These are not merely improbable but defy our sense of the credible. Indeed, the Biblical interpretation is clear, the motif of "signs" serves to reinforce the theme that only by the power of God could these events transpire.

Holy wars though are fought in conjunction with God's chosen representatives, either godly kings, judges, or prophets, generally leading God's holy people. Typically there's a sign involved either in their calling or their establishment as leaders. One exception is Ehud who notably has nothing miraculous surrounding his story. He just shows up on the scene, assassinates by shoving a sword through the gut of the defecating Moab king, and then leads a revolt. The only allusion to any sorta God-connection is in a personal message from God to Eglon, which is not confirmed as such by the narration. While pretty cool, admittedly it does not fit the pattern with what I'm suggesting. *shrug* I think that's in part due to the shortness of the account, but you can imply it by the feel of the text. Make of that what you will.

If you're curious about Deborah, I'm not suggesting that the miracle was that Sisera eluded death by the Israelites only to be shamefully slain by Jael. The miracle was that Deborah prophetically laid it all out. Incidentally, Barak came to her under some kinda tree not a street corner like in the beautiful painting to your right. Her character though is introduced with the identity of a prophetess. So she has pre-established recognition as from God.

I don't think all the judges' warfare constitutes a religious jihad. I do think that the warfare of the 8 judges we have extensive accounts do (Moses, Joshua, Ehud, Deborah, Jephthah, Gideon, Eli, and Samuel). There are a few kings, David and Saul who meet these criterion as well as a few of the prophets. The prophets of YHWH are recognized as such by initially speaking in the name of God and then successfully predicting the unfolding of events, as opposed to those who merely presume to speak for the Lord (Deuteronomy 18.18-22). The false prophets though are always giving directives in contrast to God's true prophets. They say rebel when God says don't. They say we'll lose when God says fight. Both true and false prophets can operate as a sort of oracle. Some of these can simulate signs (the quintessential being Balaam), and are routed out due to their idolatrous directing (Deuteronomy 13.1-5).Notably all prophets are established via signs, although I can't really think of any war prophet who doesn't. The ones that don't tend to author books or be attributed as author and offer poignant social critiques. Also while signs establish the authority of a prophet, they never do so absolutely. Prophets are still humans and still step outside of God's will. They represent God but never perfectly, so switching off one's thinking cap in blind obedience is never commendable. If anything unthinking obedience is ascribed to listening to false prophets who tell the people what they wish to hear. Unthinking obedience connotes self-deception by God's people.

While we might know by the narrator which of conflicting perspectives is from YHWH, the people or leaders themselves have to sift through the ambiguity of competing claims. They have to made judgment calls with incomplete information. Typically though, a little bit of knowledge goes a long way in deciding whom to follow.

If you're wondering what the point of this post was, hopefully as events unfold it will be revealed. ;)