August 16, 2005

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Casting around the world from the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is The Dividing Line.
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The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.
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Our host is Dr. James White, Director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an Elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.
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This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll free across the
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United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is
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James White. Well good morning, welcome to The Dividing Line on Tuesday, August the 16th.
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That gives us a very small amount of time, a week from tomorrow is my last day home for a while.
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I leave on Thursday, the conference begins on Friday, and the debate is on Saturday, the cruise begins the 29th on Monday, and the second debate is on Tuesday the 30th.
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I think that's what it is, that's what I think it is. Whether that actually meshes with reality,
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I will find out in time I suppose. But it is here.
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We are in the stretch run, shall we say, and it is definitely, definitely exciting.
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And I have a couple, when I was in Georgia last weekend,
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I spent Sunday afternoon beefing up my Da Vinci Code presentation, expanding it out, and I expanded it out to deal also with both
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John Dominick Croston and Robert Funk. One of the things I thought of at the time, if I had time,
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I don't think I actually had this stuff on my laptop at the time so I couldn't have done it, but for the conference I'm going to add in some of the audio from a 1989 radio program.
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And in that 1989 radio program, myself and some others were asked to come into a secular radio station, in fact this talk show host is still on the air here in Phoenix, all those years later, and to talk with Robert Funk.
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Now you get toward the end of what I'm going to play here and you'll see that he claims that the station had promised him that he would not have to talk to any fundamentalists.
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And you know, when you read Robert Funk's 21 Theses of the Coming Reformation, and you sense the venom flowing through Dr.
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Funk's words, his utter detestation of quote unquote fundamentalism.
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I don't know if he just had some bad experience or just what. But anyway, he, actually
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I'd forgotten, I'd completely forgotten this is 1989, you know you forget details about stuff from 1989, and you definitely forget what your hair looked like and what your glasses looked like in 1989, but I think you forget that for a different reason.
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But anyway, I'd forgotten, he was on for 90 minutes, we went back and forth for like 90 minutes, and there was only, as I recall, 30 minutes left when
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Robert Funk hung up on us and told us to go to hell, and we'll play that section too, but it was interesting listening to the back and forth, he had been going on and on and on, no one had really said much, and so if I recall correctly, the fellow in the studio was sort of asking me to sort of get in there, get things going, and I had already done a lot of radio, not only working on radio from the time
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I was in high school, but I had been on KFYI a lot. I had been on with Tom Lycus 16 times when he was on KFYI, and I had been on with Barry Young before who was the talk show host here, and once or twice with some other folks on there, but on the other station, there's two talk stations here in the valley that compete with each other, well now there's three, but no one knows about the third one yet.
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And anyway, so we finally started doing some interaction, and it's really interesting to listen to now,
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I remembered portions of it, but this is probably the first time I've listened to this in, I don't know, a good decade or more, but anyhow,
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I wanted to play a couple of the sections, they're not overly long, from the 1989, what had happened was the
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Jesus Seminar had met, this was their fourth year, they started in 1985, and they had just come up with the conclusion that Jesus did not say any of the sayings about his coming back, so he wasn't coming back,
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Jesus didn't say he was coming back, so he was not coming back, and of course all the newspapers picked this up, and it was all over the place, they've never shied away from publicity, let's put it that way, and so that's what prompted this, and there were some other pastors in the room with me, but no one who really,
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I mean I was at Fuller Seminary at the time, I was just about to graduate, I was taking a class at the time where I was having to read the very material that this guy says
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I don't know anything about, and having to interact with a lot of this stuff, and so it was quite interesting, so that's the background, and finally we got into a discussion, it's interesting,
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I had forgotten that one of the main things I raised was the presuppositions, the assumptions upon which
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Dr. Funk and his form of theological inquiry shall we say, functions, which of course now that I've been spending all this time preparing to debate
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John Dominic Crossan, is still the same issue, that's where you have to start, and even though, think about 1989, how many books that are central to dealing with GSM didn't even exist at that time, the vast majority of the literature that you'd be looking at today has come out since then, so in some ways much better prepared to deal with this today, obviously just simply from the literature, than back then, but anyways here's the first section of the three.
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Moreover I don't know of a single critical scholar who really mounts an argument that any of the Gospels were written by followers of Jesus, immediate followers of Jesus.
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Excuse me, would you consider Dr. F .F. Bruce as being a close scholar? Well he's really marginal to the modern
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Christian movement, he's the only one. Marginal? Wait a minute, now he's just about the only one that can be cited.
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How about Dr. Leon Morris? Dr. Morris? How about that?
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Same character, you see what you're talking about are people that are really on the fringes of modern
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Biblical scholarship. I'd like to point out that for example my graduate work is at Fuller Theological Seminary and individuals such as that would be considered very mainline.
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I'm afraid that this is a hopeless kind of conversation, I want to point out to you the very obvious fact that you don't have anybody representing any of the mainline churches in this conversation other than myself.
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What do you mean? That says an awful lot about the kind of people you have to find. I'll pick it up,
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I just want to pause there. The kind of people you have to find. Up to this point, 89 is when
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I went from a Southern Baptist church to a Reformed Baptist church, so you'll hear me mention the Southern Baptist Convention here, but it's just the kind of people, he's going to get even more animated as it goes along.
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Who can champion this sort of view? Do you think we're kind of scratching the bottom of the barrel here? Excuse me,
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Doctor, who would you identify as mainline churches? Would you consider, for example, the 14 million members
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Southern Baptist Convention to have anything to do with... You're being dominated by a very small group, I'm sorry to say, most of the
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Southern Baptists I know would like to be a part of this process, but are being forced by many people in the
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Southern Baptist Convention who are on a whip -shunt these days out of this conversation, and I think that's really very unfortunate that we're having the
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Inquisition all over again. Well, I'm not a part of any kind of Inquisition, sir, and I...
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But you were just referring to that as something which you approve, I take it? No, I don't necessarily approve of that at all, but I am pointing out that, for example, individuals such as Dr.
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F .F. Bruce or Dr. Leon Morris are not in any way, shape, or form fringe element scholars at all.
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Your definition of scholarship... Yes, I'm afraid they are. I'm afraid you just don't know the scholarly literature you... I do, sir.
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I do, sir. No, I'm afraid you don't. So, one thing that had definitely stuck with me over the years was the fact that Dr.
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Funk defines, he feels he has the ability to define what scholarship is, and if you're not...
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If you're a quote -unquote fundamentalist, then you can't possibly be a scholar. It's just not possible, and when you put someone like F .F.
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Bruce... I mean, come on. There are times I look at F .F. Bruce and go, ah, where'd you come up with that?
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Most of the time, yeah, we're doing just fine, but F .F. Bruce is fringe? Obviously, the vast majority of folks identify the fact that it is
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Robert Funk who's on the fringe, but when you're on the fringe, everybody else looks like they're on the fringe, I guess, as far as you can see.
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Yes, I have been instructed to mention that this is part of number 429 on the
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MP3 list. Thank you very much. I'm a marketing genius, aren't I? Anyway, so that's the first clip
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I have. Here's the second clip we'll be adding into our PowerPoint presentation here.
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And obviously, you are in the minority amongst all Christians. Well, I'm not on a witch hunt, sir.
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I'm attempting to point out what you're actually saying. You're being stupid to say something like that. He called you stupid.
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I'm fascinated to find out why you feel this is an inquisition. I don't see it as that. It's just a discussion with three guys dressed in, you know, coat and tie sitting here, and I imagine you're probably the same way.
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The reason, it turns out, I mean, they kill people at an inquisition. That's what these people are doing around the country.
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I don't think they've threatened your life. I haven't heard that. Even the host, very young, is like, well, what is this inquisition stuff?
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Inquisition, witch hunt, you know, all this stuff to try to, you know, create this idea that we're the persecuted minority, we're the scholars, and these people are trying to kill us.
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And you're just like, wow, okay, there's a real persecution complex going on here.
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And so anyways, eventually what happened, and you can't hear this in the clips, but we are in a commercial break.
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And like I said, it was 90 minutes in. I had forgotten that. I thought it was like half an hour in, but now that I think back on it, yeah, we had been going for 90 minutes, which, you know, in radio is how many minutes of actual talk.
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It's not a whole lot when you do all the commercials and breaks and news and all that kind of stuff. So what happens is, you know, like I said,
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I've done a lot of radio, so I'm the first one to notice. I see Barry Young looking through the control room window, and I see him using his talk back, and something's going on.
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And pretty quickly I figure out, Funk's gone. He's hung up on us. And I see Barry going, he said what?
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He said what? Get him back. Get him back. And so we come back on the air, and you can, well, you'll hear exactly what happened.
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Dr. Funk, are you there? Oh, we're going to try to call him. Hello? All right. Dr. Funk, we lost the line here.
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Yes, you lost the line intentionally. Why is that, sir? Well, I really don't, this conversation is not a good conversation.
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I'm not interested in carrying it on. I'm sorry. Did you tell our producer to tell us to go to hell? Yes, I did.
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You lied to me yesterday. Your producer lied to me yesterday. Nobody lied to you, sir.
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Oh, yes, you did. Oh, no. You told our producer and our guest and all, and me, to go to hell?
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I did, indeed. And you're a biblical scholar? Yes, I did. Why do you want us to go to hell, sir?
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Well, hell is a good place to go. Hell is a good place to go. Yes. Why is that? Well, I'm sorry.
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I'm not interested in pursuing the conversation. Well, why is that, sir? Well, because it's not a profitable conversation. Have you been mistreated in some way?
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Have you been mistreated in some way? I'm not interested in pursuing the conversation. Only I was misled. You were misled in what way?
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Well, I was told I would not carry on the conversation from people who represented the fundamentalist point of view.
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No, sir, you were not. Yes, I was told that. No, of course you weren't. I was guaranteed that. You were not.
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And, sir, if you were guaranteed that, why did you go on the air for 90 minutes? You were not guaranteed that.
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All right. Well, I'm going to cease right now. Thank you very much. So you want us to go to hell. Okay. Well, there you have it.
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The biblical scholar, Dr. Robert Funk. Definitely one of the more entertaining experiences
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I've had on radio. I wanted to replay this.
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Listen to what... Now, remember, these guys know how to work the media.
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You know, I mean, they just know how to get out. They're on the radio all the time. And Funk likes to throw these hand grenades out there that he knows is going to, you know, grab all this attention and it's going to make everybody mad.
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But he clearly does not like fundamentalists. And listen to what he said there. Well, I was told
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I would not carry on the conversation from people who represented the fundamentalist point of view. No, sir, you were not.
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Yes, I was told that. No, of course you weren't. I was guaranteed that. You were not. Or I said
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I wouldn't go on the air. You know, if this is so compelling from his perspective, then why not go on the air with him?
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If he was beating us up and showing us to be the stooges that he obviously believes, quote -unquote, fundamentalists are, whatever he thinks that means,
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I think from his perspective, I mean, if FF Bruce is fringe, then you can see where his mindset is on these things.
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And, you know, once I read his 21 Theses of the Coming Reformation, it was pretty clear, you know, how that ended up coming to fruition.
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But anyways, I was guaranteed I would not have to talk to a fundamentalist. Now, you know,
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I don't know what happened with KFY. They just called me up. As I recall, I only had one day notice.
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I think I got called in the afternoon. It was the next morning. So, boom. That's just how it is.
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I guarantee you, if this debate was with him, with Funk, it would be a whole lot different.
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We'd have to have bouncers and stuff like that. It would be very different. But anyway, moving very much from there to a completely different attitude, shall we say.
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I have yet to play – well, at least I think I have yet to play any – oh, no, no.
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I did last week. I'm sorry. I apologize. Last week, or last dividing line, we played a section with Marcus Borg and N .T.
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Wright going back and forth on Q and on John 11, which left a lot of people really confused as to why
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N .T. Wright would be saying that John 11, that Lazarus didn't actually die.
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He was resuscitated, that it was sort of the Swoom theory type thing. And everyone who's commented on it is like, what on earth is he talking about?
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Remember, this is the same N .T. Wright that is so popular at certain formally reformed book distribution places and so popular with so many people for brilliant insights.
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And there are times he does have brilliant insights. I remember the first time I read some comments he made on the
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Carmen Christie in Philippians 2, 5 -11. It was great. But then you turn the page and you run into this.
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You just never know what you're going to get when you're reading Tom Wright. And so anyways, we listened to that last week.
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And so I wanted to play a section where it's just Borg without Wright.
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This is a different year. It's not a dialogue type thing. And he's talking about his view of allegory and myth and the
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Bible, issues like that to give you more of an insight into this mindset.
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Because I spoke on some crossing issues, shall we say, in regards to the gospel on Sunday morning at Phoenix Foreign Baptist Church in the adult
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Sunday school. And I could just tell, no matter how hard I was trying, as I watched the expressions on people's faces, for the majority of them, they're just looking at me like, no way.
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I mean, how can he say that? Because then that would mean this and that would mean this.
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And there's just such a huge chasm between where the folks at my church are, thank
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God, and where John Dominick Crossan is theologically that trying to bridge it is pretty difficult to do.
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It really is, no matter how often I tried to illustrate the thought process that was involved.
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And so maybe this will help just a little bit. If you're still wondering, how can people come up with these types of conclusions?
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This is from a lecture on the Bible and tradition by Marcus Borg.
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It starts off with, I think, a very illustrative saying from a
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Roman Catholic priest that really helps you to get an idea of where these folks are really coming from.
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The second one is a line from a Catholic priest that was forwarded to me by a Catholic friend of mine in an email.
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And the email said, our priest said a great thing in his sermon last Sunday. What he said was, quote, the
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Bible is true and some of it happened. There.
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Now, that's the disconnect that you have to work through to be able to, quote, unquote, hear these folks in their own context.
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The Bible is true and some of it happened. Now, the first thought in the logical person's mind is, well, it doesn't sound like what he's saying, is the
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Bible is true and it contains different kinds of literary devices such as parables.
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And the parables didn't, quote, unquote, happen. They're not being recorded as a historical event.
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They are parables, and hence that's the whole point of a parable is to tell a story and so on and so forth.
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That's not what he's saying. What he's really saying is that, you know, there are some elements of the biblical story and primarily the gospel stories that took place.
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I mean, Jesus was born. It's just that all the stories about how he was born aren't true. They, okay, see, they are not historical.
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They are true, but they didn't happen. What does that mean? Well, they are true in that they communicate concepts that we can embrace and be better people.
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So the gospel stories, as long as they communicate to us, the idea that we should seek social justice are true.
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When we miss that, then they're not true. So truth and false, whether something is true or false, is not a historical issue.
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It is a metaphorical issue. If you can make a metaphorical application, then you can call it true, whether it actually happened or not.
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See, that's the concept. So the Bible is true, and some of it actually happened.
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That gives you at least a peek into the mindset which allows someone to say, no,
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Jesus did not rise from the dead physically. Nothing happened to the corpse of Jesus.
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But I'm a Christian, and I celebrate the resurrection. And you go, eh?
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And the whole point is, well, I live in the light of Jesus' teachings, so his teachings are a continuing element of my spiritual experience, and therefore he's resurrected.
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So obviously the same would be true of Buddha. A Muslim who lives in the light of Muhammad's teachings, then evidently
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Muhammad rose from the dead, too, in the same context, in the same way as Jesus did.
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That's like, and I should have cued this one up, and I apologize for that, and I need to find this so I can transcribe it myself, but when someone in the audience asked
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John Dominic Crossan about the deity of Christ, one thing that has been very troubling listening to these
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Chautauqua lectures, listening to these very, very, very, very, very left -wing liberal audiences, is to hear people who say, you know,
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I was raised to believe these things, and now I've been enlightened, and I've come to realize just what the truth is.
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And this one person was asking about, well, what about the deity of Christ? What about the divinity of Jesus?
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What do you do with that? And he says, well, of course, the Jesus of faith is divine.
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All he's saying there is, is that the history of the Church presents a divine
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Savior in the creeds. That's all he's saying. The Christ of faith does not exist in the real world.
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That's what you need to understand. He's not, there, you, it's just a concept.
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It doesn't have, he doesn't have existence in the real world, or in the spiritual world, or anything else, for that matter, from that perspective.
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And so as he's talking about Jesus as divine, as a son of God, you know, he talks about how we are particular, but to be particular does not mean that we have to be exclusivistic.
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We say Jesus is everything to me. Jesus is the only
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Savior for me. But, of course, what he finds to be extremely reprehensible is when we say, and he's the only
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Savior for anybody else, and therefore, if you don't know him, you're not going to be saved. Oh, that's horrible. That's terrible. No, that's not what
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Jesus intended. See, that's what he's trying to say.
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And so, at one point, it really comes out clearly. Because what he's saying is,
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Jesus was divine because people saw in his face what God wants us to be.
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And the things that he did, and remember, he doesn't believe that Jesus ever healed anybody. That means actually changed a disease.
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When he touched the leper, that healed the leper by breaking the social taboos about the leper.
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The leper was still a leper. Well, actually, he argues that it wasn't leprosy anyways, but it was some sort of skin disease.
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But it made him socially unacceptable. And since Jesus broke the taboo, he healed him, but it was psychological.
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Nothing actually happened to the man physically. But he felt acceptance, and so that's what healing is.
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And so he was saying, you know, the words that Jesus said, so on and so forth, that these were so spectacular to the people, so unusual to the people, that that's why he was considered, quote -unquote, divine.
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But then he gives you a real insight by saying, and if Michael Jordan had lived in the first century, he would have been considered divine in the same way, because of what he is able to do.
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So that's what divine means, is out of the ordinary. Not divine as in deity.
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And don't think for a moment that Dr. Crossan doesn't know the difference. He was a Roman Catholic priest, and at the very least, he knows what the creeds are.
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He knows what the hypostatic union is. He knows what Nicaea said. And so, when you hear these folks speaking, one of the advantages to the
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Chautauqua lectures is that they're speaking in their own context.
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They're speaking in family, shall we say. And they tend to say things a little more freely.
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And, in fact, I'd have to confess that there does seem to be, with the
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Jesus Seminar, they do try to sort of figure out what their audience is, and they do tend to somewhat, you know, shape their presentation to the audience.
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And so I'm sort of wondering, you know, I remember listening to the debate that Dr.
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Crossan did against William Lane Craig at Moody Church, and it was different, shall we say, certainly different, than his conversation with N .T.
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Wright. Now, does that mean he's changed his viewpoint? I don't think it does mean he's changed his viewpoint.
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I think what it means is he recognizes that he's going to be in a very different context in Moody Church than he's going to be in a dialogue with N .T.
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Wright at a seminary. And so there's a difference in presentation. It does come out.
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Now, obviously, I'm not saying there's something wrong, necessarily, with making sure you're communicating with your particular audience.
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But when you recognize your audience isn't going to like what in the world you have to say, that's a little bit different.
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Okay? It's just a little bit different. Let's continue on with this, then we'll take our break in just a moment. And let me try to make the same point yet one more way.
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And I begin by noting that in popular English today, we sometimes use the word literally in an emphatic way to mean really.
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As in the expression, he literally blew his top. Think about that.
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He literally exploded. And that's a helpful realization because I wonder sometimes when
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I am asked, do you think the Bible is literally true? Is the person really asking me, do
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I think the Bible is really true? They might be asking, do you think it's literally true? And sometimes people will say,
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I believe the Bible is literally true. What they're really saying is, I really believe it's really true.
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And it's always worth exploring that. The point being, something can be really true without being literally true.
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Fourth point on your metaphor. When we don't recognize metaphor in the
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Bible, we risk making parts of the Bible incredible. Again, because myths that are literalized become incredible.
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Let me stop right there because this is a little bit longer section and it's important to understand that from their perspective, honestly, they really, really believe that if you read the historical portions of the
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Gospels as being historically true, you know, the sections where they actually talk about historical people, historical places, historical events, if you actually read them as if they're actually trying to tell you something happened in history, you're emptying the text of its meaning.
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They really believe that the quote -unquote higher meaning, and again, folks who've studied church history are going, wow, origin lives again.
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This is the kind of allegorical, metaphorical interpretation that plagued the church in the
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Middle Ages that can never ever give you a consistent body of divine revelation because it's all just up to whatever you see in the metaphor.
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Yeah, you got it. It's come back around from a completely different perspective now.
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And that's the same thing we're dealing with. But anyways, we will continue with Dr. Marcus Borg right after we take our break.
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We'll be right back. Do your best and nothing lasts. Is the
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Bible true? Never before in history has the authority and inspiration of the
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Holy Scriptures been so viciously attacked by those outside the pale of orthodoxy and within the walls of traditional evangelicalism itself.
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Join us August 27, 2005 at the Sea -Tac Marriott for an historic debate between Evangelical Christian apologist
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Dr. James R. White and world -renowned Jesus Seminar co -founder and Bible skeptic
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Dr. John Dominic Crossan as they debate a topic which every Christian should be concerned about.
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Is the Bible true? Seating and tickets are limited, so call today 877 -753 -3341 or visit
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AOMIN .org to reserve your seat today. That's 877 -753 -3341 to be a part of this historic event that will illuminate the fault lines of faith between conservative and liberal
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Christians alike. More than any time in the past, Roman Catholics and Evangelicals are working together.
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They are standing shoulder to shoulder against social evils. They are joining across denominational boundaries in renewal movements.
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And many Evangelicals are finding the history, tradition, and grandeur of the Roman Catholic Church appealing.
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This newfound rapport has caused many Evangelical leaders and laypeople to question the age -old disagreements that have divided
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Protestants and Catholics. Aren't we all saying the same thing in a different language? James White's book,
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The Roman Catholic Controversy, is an absorbing look at current views of tradition in Scripture, the papacy, the mass, purgatorian indulgences, and Marian doctrine.
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James White points out the crucial differences that remain regarding the Christian life and the heart of the
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Gospel itself that cannot be ignored. Order your copy of The Roman Catholic Controversy by going to our website at AOMIN .org.
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We are listening to Dr. Marcus Borg discussing the Bible and tradition right now, asserting that when you read what was meant, now remember, the authors, whoever they were, and you heard
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Funk saying he doesn't know of a single critical scholar that would argue that anything in the test was written by an eyewitness to the events of Jesus, which tells you, again, how he defines who scholars are.
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But the concept is that these authors intended what they were writing to be interpreted in an allegorical, metaphorical fashion.
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That's what they intended. Evidently, the churches just missed it all along, even though they do favorably refer to the allegorical interpretation of Origen and others.
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But anyone who would follow a grammatical historical interpretation and examining context and so on and so forth, you've just missed the boat.
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You've just completely missed the boat. And it's obvious from their perspective that's not how you should interpret these things because, look, folks, people don't walk on water.
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So, in other words, you assume a naturalistic presupposition and then read them from there.
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So, anyways, that's where Borg was starting here. Or irrelevant. And what I mean by irrelevant is that a literal factual reading of a story can often flatten the meaning of the story.
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Quick example. The wedding at Cana. You're all familiar with that story in a general way.
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It's at the very beginning of the second chapter of John. It's that story in which Jesus changes roughly 150 gallons of water into wine.
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Now, to say something about its literary context in the Gospel of John, this is the opening public scene of the ministry of Jesus in John's Gospel.
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The inaugural scene. Each Gospel writer, by the way, uses the inaugural scene of Jesus' public activity to say what
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Jesus is most centrally about. Mark, for example, the opening public scene is
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Jesus saying, the kingdom of God is at hand. And Mark's story of Jesus is about the nearness and the coming of the kingdom of God.
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Well, John does that with the wedding at Cana. So, John is saying, you want to know what the story of Jesus is about?
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It's about a wedding banquet. Now, let me remind you of how that story begins. The opening words of that story are,
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On the third day. Already the resonances, you know.
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And then the next words, On the third day there was a wedding.
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And all the rich resonances of the wedding of heaven and earth, the mystical resonances associated with that language, plus, of course, the resurrection resonances.
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And then it goes on to describe a wedding banquet. What is this story about?
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What is the story of Jesus about? What is the Gospel about? The story of Jesus is about a wedding.
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And it's about a wedding banquet at which there are copious amounts of food and wine.
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Indeed, it's about a wedding banquet at which the wine never runs out.
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And the best is saved for last. That's what this story is about.
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Now, a literal, factual reading of that text would probably go something like this. You know, Jesus changed 150 gallons of water into wine.
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He must really have been something. He must have been the Son of God if he could do stuff like that. And you end up with some kind of proof of the divinity of Jesus.
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And you miss all those metaphorical resonances if you think John is simply reporting something that happened.
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Now, let's stop it right there. Aside from the breathless of what it means that the wine...
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You know, I'm sorry. I say that on TV all the time. You can read the stock report that way and make it sound exciting.
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But aside from that, doesn't John 2, verse 11 say,
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This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Canaan in Galilee, and manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
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Now, unless there's going to be some argument made that that's a later emendation, that's a later redaction, then the text says this was a sign.
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It was a sign connected to the manifestation of his glory, and it resulted in his disciples not metaphorically thinking about something down the road.
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It didn't metaphorically result in disciples going, Ah, there's going to be a lot of food in the kingdom of heaven.
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Yes, we see... None of that took place. Instead, the text itself and they can't come up with a shred of evidence that verse 11 wasn't written by the exact same person who wrote verses 1 through 10 interprets this to mean this is the beginning of the signs that Jesus did at Canaan in Galilee and manifested his glory.
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And let's remember, again, let's look at the text in a meaningful fashion, this comes after chapter 1, which has the
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John the Baptist material in it, and, of course, it has the prologue, the first 18 verses, which are truly meant in this context to function as the interpretive lens through which you are to read the entirety of the gospel.
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How can you read manifested his glory in a Jewish context without going back to in the beginning was the word?
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I mean, it all fits together, it's wonderfully harmonious when you take it in its whole, but that's what these folks never do.
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You have this... And did you catch the language? Catch the...
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Let me play it for you again. Listen to Marcus Borg doing Fundamentalist.
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That's what this story is about. Now, a literal factual reading of that text would probably go something like this.
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You know, Jesus changed 150 gallons of water into wine. He must really have been something. He must have been the
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Son of God, if he could do stuff like that. And you end up with some kind of proof of the divinity of Jesus, and you miss all those metaphorical resonances if you think
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John is simply reporting something that happened. See, Fundamentalists can't even say the word something.
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Stuff like that! You can just tell that the picture here is of someone in Alabama, evidently.
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And that's what, quote -unquote, Fundamentalism is. Is that seriously dealing with the text?
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Just because you look into it and say, Oh, I see this, and I see that, and this makes me special.
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That's what Origen did. Anybody can do that with anything.
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It takes no special effort at all to forget about what the original writer communicated in his context, in his own words.
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It takes no effort whatsoever to just simply forget all that, and then go,
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Oh, I feel it means this. Does that work? That's not hard. The problem is, no two people are going to come up with the exact same reading of it.
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Okay, I'll take that back. Obviously, a lot of people would rather let you do the work of looking through that, and they'll go,
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Oh, so that's what it's about. Oh, cool, I'll believe you. So what you get is you get certain writers, and you get certain scholars that get their following.
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That's been one of the problems with this whole movement to begin with, is all the, quote -unquote,
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Jesuses that the historical Jesus scholars come up with happen to look a whole lot like the people who are writing the books about Jesus.
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They are self -reflections. And the reason they're self -reflections is once you abandon the historical material, then you just, you don't have anything else that you can do but to fill in from yourself.
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That's the best you can do. And so it's not overly shocking. A metaphorical reading most often enriches the meaning of a text rather than undermining it in some way.
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Fifth and finally, a bridge comment. The metaphorical approach can be a significant part of a bridge between the earlier and emerging paradigms.
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Let me define the earlier and emerging paradigms. Earlier paradigm, that's you and I.
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That's historical Christianity. You believe the Bible's word of God. He even used the term God breathed. It is consistent with itself.
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The emerging paradigm is what we would call extreme left -wing religious pluralism, universalism.
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Bible is just one of many sacred texts, none of which are actually inspired by God, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, as represented by Marcus Bork.
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And that's because it's the metaphorical meaning of a text that has always mattered most in the history of the church.
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If you look at the medieval guides to exegesis, they speak of four levels of meaning, the literal, and then levels two, three, and four are the allegorical, the anagogical, and the tropological.
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And I'm not going to explain those except to say that levels two, three, and four are all the more than literal meaning of the story.
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And until the Enlightenment, the literal meaning was taken for granted so it was never emphasized. It was always the more than metaphorical meaning that was emphasized.
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Now, let me stop right there. But that is a vast difference from saying that people said these things never took place.
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The same quagmire was produced by saying there's this extra -spiritual level.
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But that does not mean they then said and these things never took place. That's a huge leap.
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And I sometimes say to my students, I have in my classes at Oregon State, my intro
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Bible class anyway, maybe 20 % of my students are from a conservative Christian background and I really admire them for signing up for the course and sticking it out.
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And they're always concerned about, well, didn't this really happen?
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And what I've started saying to them and what I want to say to you and to the church as a whole, is this.
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Believe whatever you want about whether or not, for example, the virgin birth happened.
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The virginal conception, I should say. Believe whatever you want about that. I don't care. Now, let's talk about what the story means.
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You know, that fussing around with whether or not it happened where conservatives say it happened and liberals say it didn't either.
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It happened, it didn't. It's such a sterile debate and it's such an enormous distraction because it distracts us from paying attention to what the story as story means.
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My third adjective, and it goes much more quickly than the previous ones in case you're wondering how long this is going to go on.
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The third element of the paradigm. A sacramental way of seeing the
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Bible and the tradition as a whole. So here I want to speak about the sacramental function of Scripture which is a major function of both
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Scripture and tradition. And I begin by briefly explaining what
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I mean by sacrament. And I'm using the word sacrament here with its broad meaning.
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Not just referring to the two sacraments of the Protestant tradition or the seven of the Catholic tradition but its broad meaning.
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A sacrament is a mediator of the sacred. To put the same thought only slightly differently.
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A sacrament is something finite that becomes a vehicle for God or the
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Spirit or Christ to become present to us. In the two sacraments water and bread and wine all of them finite become vehicles for the work of the
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Spirit. So a sacrament is a mediator of the sacred. And my suggestion is that we see the
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Bible and whatever parts of the Christian tradition are normative for you as having a sacramental function.
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Did you catch that? Whatever are normative for you. You get to define all this.
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That's the final analysis. You get to define all of it. Having a sacramental function that the
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Bible is a means whereby the Spirit speaks to us addresses us, comes to us even now in the present.
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Some of you are very familiar with this from the devotional use of Scripture. You know that lingering over a verse or a short passage of Scripture leaving lots of space and time around it and silence in the hope or the expectation that the
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Spirit of God may address you in the midst of the particularity of your dailiness.
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Not that rushed reading of Scripture to try to get it over with as soon as possible but that prayerful, meditative, contemplative sitting with Scripture.
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And when the Spirit speaks to us that's the sacramental function of Scripture. And I think this is a major function of the tradition as a whole.
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Let me illustrate this very briefly by reminding you for a moment of what is said after the lectionary reading in many mainline churches.
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The reader will say the word of the Lord and the congregation will respond with thanks be to God.
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I sometimes joke that if you take my understanding of Scripture as a human product seriously what the reader should say is some thoughts from ancient
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Israel. But to make the serious point Now, again, you see why listening to liberals talking to liberals can sometimes be somewhat useful because to me you're sitting here listening and he's saying some things where you go well, you know certainly the
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Spirit makes the word come alive in the heart and yes, the devotional reading of Scripture and I'm sitting here going
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I get the real feeling that what he's talking about here is very subjective and anything the Spirit says to you doesn't have to say it to anybody else la la la la la and then all of a sudden you hear something like that and you go, ah ha!
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There's the reality. The Spirit, who's the Spirit of Truth can say nothing true. He can say nothing true to two people that they can agree on unless they choose to agree on in other words
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It's just amazing the incredible incapacity of the
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Spirit of God to communicate truth in this context so listen to that again I sometimes joke that if you take my understanding of Scripture as a human product seriously what the reader should say is some thoughts from ancient
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Israel but to make the serious point the serious point now being
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Scripture as sacrament I love what the New Zealand Book of Common Prayer has done with what the reader says after the lectionary reading the
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New Zealand Book of Common Prayer of course being the Episcopal or Anglican Book of Common Prayer in its
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New Zealand version what the lector, the reader now says is hear what the
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Spirit is saying to the church that's the sacramental function of Scripture and my suggestion is that we see the
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Christian tradition as a whole its Scripture, its worship its rituals, its practices all of this is serving a sacramental function
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I move now to my probably two minute conclusion which anticipates what
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I will be talking about in the rest of the week as well as bringing today's talk to a close the emerging paradigm for seeing the
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Christian tradition a historical, metaphorical and sacramental way of seeing the
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Bible and tradition leads to a vision of the Christian life quite different from the earlier paradigm the earlier paradigm emphasized believing believing that all of this is true the emerging paradigm leads to a vision of the
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Christian life as living within the Christian tradition as a sacrament of the sacred now
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I stop it there because I just have to one of Dr.
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Borg's big issues is he had one of his entire lectures was an amazing discussion of what believe means and I don't know but evidently he's not read much
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Reformed material that discusses the various forms and understanding of faith he says us fundamentalists the old paradigm all we have is a census there's no fiducia there's no fidelitas he comes up with this idea of seeing and applies it to all sorts of wild and wacky stuff very much against the idea of believing these things are true as if you can have the other forms of faith without having a census you can have fiducia you can have trust without believing things to be true and of course you say
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I do believe they're true they're metaphorically true but again to try to read that kind of postmodern subjectivism back in the first century leaves me speechless this emerging vision is relational and transformational relational by that I mean the
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Christian life is not very much about believing in the tradition but about living in relationship to that to which the tradition both points and mediates now again wonderful sounding words but what do they mean?
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how can you have relationship with someone who doesn't actually exist? this relationship would only be existing inside your own mind there's no if there is no truth element how can you have a relational element to that which is not true or that which is only true because you think it to be true
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I mean that would mean that a person who believes in Santa Claus can have just as rich a relationship with Santa Claus in their own mind as a person who believes that Jesus rose from the dead that's the only final way you can look at this kind of stuff
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I mean how can you say I have a wonderful blooming, blossoming, growing relationship with my wife and who's your wife?
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you're asking the wrong question it doesn't matter who my wife is it doesn't matter if I know her name or if she even exists the point is that in my heart and in my soul
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I believe that I have this growing relationship with my wife but don't ask me anything about her because that ruins everything see?
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what kind of message is that? and you know tie this together because he does sort of talk about mainline churches and these people at Chautauqua are from mainline churches and what's the one thing we all know about quote -unquote mainline churches today?
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they're all dying United Methodists Liberal Presbyterians United Church of Christ what do they all have in common?
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they don't have to be building buildings is what they have in common they don't have to be dealing with growth is what they have in common because I'm sorry but unless you wear tweed jackets with patches on the elbows and Birkenstocks when it's warm and think certain political candidates are just the greatest things on the planet and you happen to live in Massachusetts those are the only people that find this kind of stuff at all interesting or compelling those and those who were raised in conservative
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Christian context and they're not regenerate and they hate the fact they're forced to listen to the gospel those folks find this to be wonderful because this allows you a way out
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I don't want to believe that stuff about the cross because I know that I'm not in subjection to that savior
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I know I don't want to live my life in light of what the word of God says I want to go my own way and therefore
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I need to find a way out of this I need to find a way to not believe this and so they go looking and oh are there is there a million different ways wasn't there an old song there must be 50 ways to leave your lover there must be 5000 ways to leave your conservative
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Christian upbringing and there will be people who will make it so oh very intellectually acceptable to do so and they will pat you on the back and they will say oh this is wonderful that you're becoming enlightened you're coming to understand these things and so on and so forth and that's why these books sell and that's why these lecture series take place but where is the where is the message that actually meets man's need here his real need if man's need is to get away from the gospel ok then it meets that need perfectly but if man's need is truly to have peace with God the holy
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God that is the offended holy God who has wrath against sin and of course these folks say oh how old school oh how old paradigm that's not postmodern well that's right it's not postmodern the gospel doesn't fit with postmodernism that's why all the people who are trying to make it fit into postmodernism it's not going to fit because the gospel speaks to man as creating the image of God and when you're creating the image of God you don't think in a postmodern fashion it doesn't work and that's why there's no power in that proclamation there can be none in any way shape or form well thanks for listening to Dividing Line today yes we will be here
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Lord willing on Thursday and then next Tuesday and then that's it for a while and yeah we'll probably still be talking about some of the same things how can
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I be thinking about anything else right now I'm going to go out for a long ride tomorrow and I'll be listening to more of this then if you can believe that so continue to pray for us and we'll see you