About Books, 5

7. One book you wish had never been written: Hmmm. Mr. Obvious suggests Mein Kamph, by Adolf Hitler. I think it was Bobby Valentine (a.k.a. the Stoned-Campbell Disciple, not the Mets’ former manager) who mentioned Why I Am a Member of the Church of Christ. Any book that collapses the way of Christ under the ecclesiology of one branch of the American Restoration Movement? Yep, that’s a good pick. Right after the Self-Help books, you’ll find it in the section labeled “Self-Serving.”

8. One book you’re currently reading: Regulars here at Frankly Speaking won’t be surprised. I’m reading the Qur’an, this edition.

About Books, 4

5. One book that made you cry: Billy, by Albert French.

The tears were unexpected. So when they came, it was like a dam had burst. Here’s a blurb I found at Amazon:

“1937. Mississippi. Two teenage girls. Two young boys, ages ten and twelve. A fight ensues and one of the girls ends up dead. The community is outraged and more interested in revenge than justice. Why? The girls are white and the boys are black. Should that matter? Regardless, it does. French unapologetically drops the reader right into the times with all its prejudices glaring. It's impossible to avoid an emotional reaction to Billy. The grief of the families' losses, Billy's confusion about what's happening to him as well as what happened during the fight, and the blatant racism all serve to make the reader question whether things have really changed since 1937 or whether all that racism really just boiling under the surface searching for any excuse to break free.”

6. One book you wish had been written: The Authority of the Old Testament, by Alexander Campbell.

Several years ago, Everett Ferguson argued that after Campbell preached and published his “Sermon on the Law,” others ripped some of his statements from their polemic context, absolute-ized them in ways that Campbell never would have, which gave rise to the borderline (or downright) Marcionism of the Churches of Christ.

And don’t tell me it ain’t that bad. Several years ago--to cite just one example from my experience--a deacon in the congregation where I was preaching at the time asked me, “Why do we need the Old Testament at all?”

Oh, and then there was the time when my fellow Bible major at Freed-Hardeman asked me if the O.T. was inspired. After thinking about it for a minute, I told him I thought it was, but wasn’t sure why I thought that.

Ferguson also said that in order to find out how Campbell himself thought of and used the Old Testament for the church one should read his book, Familiar Lectures on the Pentateuch. I get the impression they’re not so familiar, Alex.

Qur'anic Backgrounds to Osama bin Laden

Could a true expression of Islam hope and bring harm against non-Muslims, especially Jews and Christians?

“Fight against such of those to whom the Scriptures were given as believe neither in God nor the Last Day, who do not forbid what God and his apostles have forbidden, and do not embrace the true Faith, until they pay tribute out of hand and are utterly subdued.

“The Jews say Ezra is the son of God, while Christians say the Messiah is the son of God. Such are their assertions by which they imitate the infidels of old. God confound them! How perverse they are!” (Qur’an 9:29).

Why has Osama bin Laden financed the mujahideen and al-Qaeda and, more-recently, lived in caves? What are (some of) his religious reasons?

“Believers, why is it that when it is said to you: ‘March in the cause of God,’ you linger slothfully in the land? Are you content with this life in preference to the life to come? Few indeed are the blessings of this life, compared to the life to come.

“If you do not fight, He will punish you sternly, and replace you by other men. You will in no way harm Him: for God has power over all things.

“If you do not help him [i.e., Muhammad], God will help him as he helped him when he was driven out by the unbelievers with one another. In the cave he said to his companion: ‘Do not despair, God is with us.’ God caused his tranquility to descend upon him and sent to his aid invisible warriors, so that he routed the unbelievers and exalted the Word of God. God is mighty and wise.

“Whether unarmed or well-equipped, march on and fight for the cause of God, with your wealth and with your persons. This will be best for you, if you but knew it.” (Qur’an 9:38-41).

About Books, 3

3. One book you’d want on a desert island: Hmmm, this one’s a tuffy. If there was a Complete Idiot’s Guide to Raft Construction, I’d want that. But there is no such book. . . . I checked. Of books that actually exist, and assuming that I’m stranded on that desert island, with no phones, no lights, no motor cars, etc., I’d have to go with The Best Short Stories of O. Henry. I haven’t read them all. But being stranded would give me plenty of time to finish up and then read them again and again.

4. One book that made you laugh: Juvenal’s Satires. Some people have this really insightful and wicked sort of wit. I’m not one of them. Juvenal was. If you ever get the impression that human nature has changed, this guy will cure you.

About Books, 2

The Labor Day weekend came and went way too fast.  It was a nice break, though.  This part of Texas saw a slow, soaking rain on Saturday, exactly what we needed.  Today it’s back to classes where, this week, the subjects are:  

(1) African religions (which I know next to nothing about)

(2) Pauline chronology (which is harder to handle than a greased pig, not that I have or plan to)

(3) Overviewing the life of Jesus (Why didn’t we do this in any of the Bible classes I attended growing up?)

(4)  Surveying Numbers and Deuteronomy. (Survey courses are tough in that, in order to keep pace, you’re constantly deciding what not to cover).

Now back to the book list:

2.  One book that you’ve read more than once:  Again, I just have to mention two books.

Generation to Generation: Family Process in Church and Synagogue, by Edwin S. Friedman.  I still don’t exactly understand Bowen theory.  But I’m convinced it contains a lot of truth.  I have Ken Danley to thank for telling me about this one.  Thanks, Ken.

And then there’s Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World’s Religions, by Huston Smith.  In a Genesis class at Harding Graduate School, Dr. Jack Vancil referred to this book with obvious admiration.  I wrote down the author and title in my notes.  A few months later, I came across a paperback copy in a used bookstore in Memphis.  It’s been with me ever since.  This is the sort of book that a modern-day Paul would want to read before preaching a modern-day Mars Hill sermon.  All genuinely-religious outlooks have more in common with each other than they have with philosophical materialism.

About Books, 1

Hey! Look at me! I got tagged! Ooh, and by someone whose blog is listed in the sidebar at Mike Cope’s, no less.

Actually, this is the second time I’ve been tagged. The first time, tagged by Steve Duer, I was so out of commission, and I didn’t respond for the longest time. Finally, I started putting together my wise and wonderful response. But that was before I had discovered the straight-from-Word-to-Blogger trick. Of course, I was predestined, working on revision #5 I think it was, to completely lose the post. So I did the mature thing: I cried and quit.

This time, I’m going to respond and tag in installments not for fear of loss (although that would be reason enough), but for the same reasons I haven’t posted anything in the last three weeks. My excuses for the downtime are many and myriad. But they’re mainly about the following:

1. Trips to Oklahoma and New Mexico

2. New and returning faculty stuff. (And because of odd circumstances, I’m both new AND returning).

3. The flurry associated with the first two weeks of school.

The above sort of looks like a syllabus, doesn’t it? That’s significant. Oh, which leads me to ask, Where did we get that weird form where nouns that end in “us” go to “i” in the plural? I’m guessing that came from folks who thought that saying syllabuses sounded silly. Anyway, don’t you know ESL students lvoe that sort of exception to English noun endings.

Okay. Now for that first part of the response to the tag:

1. One book that changed your life: Like most readers of books, I want to say, “Which time?” What I mean is, it seems like different books come along at different times in your life and change the way you think and look at things from that time on.

But if I had to pick only one book, I’d have to say, Jesus—God and Man, by Wolfhart Pannenberg. It was assigned to me during my student days at Harding Graduate School in Memphis. At the time Dr. Doug Brown was the Theology Department there and I signed up for his course on “Christian Evidences.” What a mind-expanding drug that was.

Anyway, I picked the topic “Christology,” and was told by Dr. Brown to read and report on what was then Pannenberg’s magnum opus.

What it did for me? It led me to realize that a Christian--even one who was intellectually-engaged—didn’t need to check his or her brain at the door before worshipping the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

I can’t begin to express what a joyful relief that was to me. But when people walk up to authors they’ve never met before, and hug them? I know what that’s about.

I suspect that Jesus—God and Man isn’t read as often as it was before the publication of Tom Wright’s newer book, The Resurrection of the Son of God.

Trust me, if you manage to wade through either one or both of those books, you’ll be glad you did.

Keepin' Religion Real

(What an interesting time to be teaching about World Religions! The observations and comments I offer in this post were put together before the events of the last few days).

As I prepare to teach a course on World Religions for the first time, one thing I frequently meet up with is the attempt to sidestep or gloss over those parts of the Qur’an that deny the legitimacy of Judaism and Christianity, and that express divine judgment against everything but Islam.

As a Christian, I might not start out with Jesus’ words, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father, except by me.” Maybe I would. I probably wouldn’t start with Paul’s assertion that when Christ returns, the Lord “will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus.”

But the fact is, even after our analyses, interpretations, and “yes, but”s, those passages invariably draw lines. Better yet, they identify lines that were drawn by Christ himself. If the Christian gospel is true, then those lines are decisive.

Again, those wouldn’t be the statements I’d start out with in talking about Jesus and his kingdom, or in teaching a unit on “Christianity” in a World Religions course. But neither would I try to hide them. And why would I try? What they say explicitly is something the New Testament says implicitly many times. And why would I want to? C. S. Lewis wrote to the effect that there’s a “Great Divorce” between heaven and hell, between what’s true and what isn’t. The New Testament says that the dividing line is Jesus. As a Christian, as a teacher, would I do someone a favor by pretending it was some other way?

Judging from the politically-correct versions of Islam being foisted onto the American public, though, one would get the impression that no straight-thinking Muslim ever thought the Qur’an had anything bad to say about non-Muslims and their differing beliefs.

Exhibit A: I have a packet of material titled, “Teaching Islam and the Arab World.” Its author evidently hopes that no one will ever read sections of the Qur’an other than the ones the author quotes. Here’s how he works. He quotes from the Qur’an 2:136 as follows:

“Say: We believe in Allah and that which is revealed to us, and in what was revealed to Abraham, Ishma’il, Isaac, Jacob, and the tribes, to Moses and Jesus and the other prophets from the Lord. We make no distinction between any of them, and to Allah we have surrendered ourselves.”

Then the author comments: “Thus, in Islam, the prophets are seen as spiritual brothers to one another. Some commonly known figures who are considered prophets in Islam include Noah, Jonah, Abraham, Ishmail, Isaac, Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon, and Jesus.”

Sweet, isn’t it? And true enough. But why doesn’t the author quote the statement that prompts the Muslim to “Say” what he says? In the Qur’an, here’s what immediately precedes the “Say” section quoted above:

“They say: ‘Accept the Jewish or Christian faith and you will be rightly guided.’ Say: ‘By no means! We believe in the faith of Abraham, the upright one. He was no idolater’.”

The way the passage is cropped and quoted in the study packet seems to be motivated by a desire to avoid the very point of the text: Christianity and Judaism are not along side of Islam. They are superceded by Islam. My question is, Why not just acknowledge that that’s what the Qur’an says?

In our study of Islam this semester, I won’t attempt to portray Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as some sort of happy trinity of Abrahamic religions. Why? Because it ain’t so.

Writing Tests

If you want to get an education, try putting together a test.  One of my projects this week is to complete writing the pretests for the following courses:  

1.  World Religions
2.  Introduction to the Old Testament
3.  Life of Paul
4.  Introduction to the New Testament

Each test will be made up of 12-20 multiple-choice questions over the broad, basic knowledge that students should certainly have acquired by the end of the course of study.  (Wow, that sounds so professorial).  I want to get an idea of the knowledge level that students are starting out with.  

Of course, I’m starting with the final tests from last semester.  But in many cases, the information is too detailed and/or advanced for a pretest I think

In writing these tests, I’m learning once again how hard it is to come up with good, even test questions.  Any suggestions?  Ideas?  An already-produced test? (with answer key, please)

On a related note, sometimes I wonder about the place of tests in the learning process.  It seems that everything has to be quantified anymore.  And the value assigned to testing has gone up in recent years.  So, we’re stuck with tests, I suppose.  Hey, maybe I should make them write tests; I said it was learning process.

When I was a student at Freed-Hardeman, Clyde (that’s “Doc”) Woods sometimes told about an old rabbi who taught at Hebrew Union College, but who detested giving tests. (I get the impression that yeshivas don’t use written tests like we do).  The rabbi would register his rejection of testing as follows:  “Vy should I ask you vat-choo know?  I know vat-choo know!”

Reflections on the Rally

Ever since last Saturday’s Klan rally and my own participation in the anti-Klan protest, two passages of Scripture have been swirling around in my mind:

The first part of Psalm 97:10 says, “Let those who love the Lord hate evil.” I wonder, what does it look like when people who love God embrace the other side of that?

According to the immediate context, hating evil includes some sort of outward expression. As the verse goes on, the command is accompanied by this assurance: “for he guards the lives of his faithful ones, and delivers them from the hand of the wicked.” Clearly then, godly anger isn’t some tricky blend of two emotions, anger and reverence. The passage obviously implies that because of their hatred of evil, the “faithful ones” eventually say or do something that consequently and necessarily incites the wicked.

I went to Saturday’s rally mainly because as a Christian I didn’t want the Ku Klux Klan, a group with a reputation for murderous racism, to stand at the front of City Hall and spew their ugly rhetoric without some sort of repudiation. By the way, I reject the opinion piece in today’s Amarillo Globe-News that suggests that if protesters had only stayed away from the rally, the Klan would have had an audience of maybe two or three clueless teenagers. The on-line edition includes photos of grown men standing with the crowd, wearing Confederate head scarves, and proudly returning to the KKK their Nazi salute! At one point Saturday afternoon, it dawned on me why we couldn’t build the cheer, “Go away, KKK!” At least some of those around us were Klan sympathizers. The protest was significant.

I’ve also been meditating on James 1:19-21: “My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man’s anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you.”

Last Saturday, I relearned something about anger. Like the child who grows up, breaks free from and overwhelms the good parent, anger quickly outgrows even righteous indignation and begins to act on its own.

Many people in the protest group wanted to do more than simply make noise and drown out the words of the Klan. At certain points during the rally it became necessary for lines of policemen, dressed in riot gear, to approach the crowd and keep things from escalating. The animosity was infectious and at times I felt like a shark that had caught the scent of blood.

Just after arriving at City Hall, I asked a black man standing nearby me what he thought and how he felt about what we were witnessing. He talked about how he was surprised that we still had visible expressions of the Klan. Then he said, “But one thing’s for sure: only God can straighten this out.”

We Went to the KKK Rally

Last Saturday morning, my two teenagers and I talked things over and decided to go and protest at the Ku Klux Klan rally that afternoon. I’ll write about some of our experiences and reflections later today or first thing tomorrow, plus maybe a photo or two.

The Sunday edition of the Amarillo paper included two front-page stories and a reflection piece on the KKK rally at City Hall, and the alternative rally, which was held at the Martin Luther King Jr. Park in another part of the city. To access the stories and photos, you may have to register at the Globe-News website. For some reason, the linkage from this site isn't woking so well, so you might have to take the long way around to the website, www.amarillo.com

Another Plan for the Klan

According to a front-page story in today’s Amarillo Globe-News, a group called Go Away KKK! is planning to be downtown tomorrow “to counter the Ku Klux Klan’s rally by drowning out its speakers with noise.” A KKK group from San Angelo, Texas has been issued a permit to demonstrate on the steps of Amarillo’s City Hall from 3-5 p.m. this Saturday.

Milissa Milam, a spokesperson for Go Away KKK! noted the Klan’s reputation for all kinds of violence and racism, and is calling for residents of Amarillo to show up at the Klan rally with “pots, pans, drums, guitars, whistles, air horns, radios—anything that makes noise.”

A Go Away KKK! poster that accompanies the story in the paper claims that at a recent KKK rally in Austin, TX “protesters got the Klan to leave in just 20 minutes by overwhelming them with noise!”

Today’s editorial in the Globe-News frequently quotes Martin Luther King Jr. and continues the paper’s endorsement of the “Community Unity Day Celebration,” planned by the local NAACP and scheduled for 3-5 p.m. at the MLK Park in Amarillo, far from City Hall.

As I mentioned in a post two weeks ago, other local voices have suggested that people here should completely ignore the Klan’s rally and go on as usual. At least one local pastor has planned a church prayer service to coincide with the rally.

By the way, I have no idea of the source of the photo in this post. But as I was looking through images on the Web, this one fascinated me. I can't get it to post any larger (without serious blurring); the white in the background is a Klansman. The face of a child, the competing principles, life lessons learned early . . . This one’s worth well more than a thousand words.

So, if you lived in Amarillo, Texas, where would you be tomorrow afternoon? Why? I’ll keep you posted.

The Legacy of Burton Coffman

This month’s issue of The Christian Chronicle came in the mail just the other day.  I think I mentioned that “the Chronicle” is on a short list of periodicals I’m sure to read.

Page 3 of the latest issue includes an article about Burton Coffman, a “minister, teacher and prolific writer” among the Churches of Christ, who died on June 30 at the age of 101.

I never met Coffman.  But for many years now, I’ve heard of him and his work, especially his building up of flagship congregations in Manhattan and Washington, D.C.

Then, I came to this:  “In 1952, he initiated an effort to increase the number of U.S Air Force chaplains with Church of Christ backgrounds.  At that point only one Air Force chaplain was affiliated with the Church of Christ.”

The paragraph absolutely jumped off the page because my parents were baptized in the late 1950s by a U.S. Air Force chaplain, Mac Bartee, who also served as a preacher in the Church of Christ.  I can only imagine that Bartee might have been one of those chaplains brought into the Air Force as a result of Coffman’s initiative.

Can anyone out there confirm that hunch?  Does anyone else know something of the life and service and whereabouts of Bartee?

Dear Lord, thank you for the life of our brother Burton.  For your name’s sake, please continue to bless the legacy of his dedicated service to you and your people.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Then I heard a voice from heaven say, "Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on."   "Yes," says the Spirit, "they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them."  --Revelation 14:13