All posts in Uncategorized

• May 31, 2013

  Credo

  
  Credo
  Brian Zahnd

  I hold a high view of Scripture. I accept as authoritative for faith the canon of Holy Scripture. Scripture forms and informs my faith. But why? Why do I believe the Bible?

  I know very few Christians who can adequately answer this question. If they are challenged by a skeptic as to exactly why they believe the Bible they find themselves on uncomfortable ground; their hands break out in a sweat as they fumble for a defense. Perhaps they go home, dig out a Josh McDowell book , cram for the “test”, try to memorize a few apologetic facts, and then head back the next day ready to explain why they believe the Bible…based on the arguments they read and tried to memorize the night before.

  But the problem with this defense is that it is disingenuous. As true as the apologetic arguments for the veracity of Scripture may be, it is not why they believe the Bible. The truth is, they believed the Bible before they knew a single apologetic argument. I doubt that one in ten thousand Christians believes the Bible because of historical, archeological, textual, literary, philosophical evidence. They believe in the Bible for a completely different reason, though they probably have never consciously understood this reason.

  I believe the Bible because I believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ and because I believe in the Church.

  Here’s how it works…
  Read more

  10 Comments / Uncategorized / Brian Zahnd

  Like / Tweet

• May 23, 2013

  Radical Forgiveness

  

  Radical Forgiveness
  Brian Zahnd

  When Jesus calls his disciples to take up their own cross and follow him, he means that his disciples are not merely to admire him, but to actively imitate him. And what did Jesus do? He voluntarily abandoned the option of violent retaliation, responding to deep injustice with nothing but forgiving love. On the cross Jesus absorbed sin that was violently sinned into him, refusing to call for the “twelve legions” of retaliation. Instead, Jesus prayed, “Father, forgiven them, for they know not what they do.” With this act of radical forgiveness Jesus broke the bloody cycle of violent revenge. Jesus shed his own blood rather than shed the blood of his enemies. By the blood of Jesus we have been redeemed from sin — the sinful way that Cain and his successors organized human civilization. This act of cruciform love is the epicenter of Christianity. The cross gives the world a new organizing principle. Instead of being organized around an axis of power enforced by violence, the world has now been re-founded around an axis of love expressed in forgiveness. This is what we mean when we speak of the salvation of the cross.

  Our own imitation of this kind of cruciform love is demanding, but nothing less than this is authentic Christian discipleship. Sadly, for the most part, the world is still waiting to see this kind of radical discipleship taught and lived out with any consistency by the Church. This should also make it clear why any talk of being a “Christian nation” — whether claimed by Russia, Spain, England, Germany, the United States, or any other body politic — is sheer propaganda. For if as a matter of policy an institution is committed to violent retaliation, whatever else it may be, that institution by definition cannot be called Christlike.

  BZ
  Read more

  2 Comments / Uncategorized / Brian Zahnd

  Like / Tweet

• May 22, 2013

  Windbag Speeches: The Cruelty of Talking Too Much

  

  Windbag Speeches: The Cruelty of Talking Too Much
  by Brian Zahnd

  The only detailed story of the satan in the Old Testament is found in the tragedy of Job. In the first two chapters the satan accuses Job before God and trouble shortly ensues. In three thunderclaps of horror Job loses his wealth, his health, and his children.

  After the first two chapters in the Book of Job the satan disappears from the narrative. Or does it? What actually happens is the satan is channeled through Job’s three annoyingly religious friends: Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar.

  Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar initially come to comfort Job, but end up tormenting Job’s already shattered soul. I think the three amigos intended well, but in their obsession to explain they became satanic agents of accusation and cruelty.

  Basically, Larry, Moe, and Curly had a “Proverbial Theology.” One of the dominant themes of the Book of Proverbs is that if you fear God and live righteously good things will happen. And this is true. We all know it’s true. To fear God and live righteously leads to a blessed and happy life. It’s true. Except when it isn’t.
  Read more

  5 Comments / Theology, Uncategorized / Brian Zahnd

  Like / Tweet

• May 13, 2013

  The Mark of the Beast

  

  “I will give him a new NAME.” -Jesus (Revelation 2:17)
  
  “It causes all to be marked with the NUMBER.” -Revelation 13

  The Lamb gives you a NAME.
  The Beast gives you a NUMBER.

  Is the Lamb analog and the Beast is digital?

  The Lamb is personal
  The Beast is impersonal.

  The Lamb is all about persons.
  The Beast is all about numbers.

  (One of the few direct mentions of the satan in the Old Testament is when the satan moved King David to number the people.)

  Be suspicious of things that are too obsessed with numbers.

  Be nervous when churches are too obsessed with numbers.

  Be wary of dehumanized forms of communication that turn everything into 1’s and 0’s.

  (Is this why it’s so easy to behave beastly on Facebook and Twitter?)

  A “virtual” world is a Gnostic world — not the good Creation of God.

  I use digital communication. A lot. Obviously.

  But I’m also suspicious of it. I think it’s inherently dangerous.

  Turning names into numbers. It’s a kind of mark of the Beast.

  Calling things by their names is the way of the Lamb and the first vocation of man. (Genesis 2:19)

  So go for a walk. Outdoors. See some birds and trees. Learn their names.

  Have a conversation. With a human being. Face to face.

  We are names, not numbers.

  The Beast gives us a NUMBER.
  But the Lamb gives us a NAME.

  BZ
  Read more

  6 Comments / Uncategorized / Brian Zahnd

  Like / Tweet

• April 22, 2013

  God and Genocide

  

  Let’s play a little game. I’ll ask some questions and you answer them. OK?

  First question: Did God tell Abraham to kill his son?

  You say, yes? (Adding that God didn’t actually require Abraham to go through with it.)

  Next question: Did God tell Joshua and Saul to kill children as part of the “ethnic cleansing” of Canaan?

  Is that a hesitant yes I hear — like walking in untied shoes?

  My next question is simple and straightforward: Does God change?

  No?

  Well then, since God doesn’t change — and you have already acknowledged that in times past God has sanctioned the killing of children — is it possible that God would require you to kill children?

  You say you don’t like this game? I understand. I don’t really like it either. But stick with me, I have one more question.

  If God told you to kill children, would you do so?

  I know, I know, I know! Calm down.

  Of course you answer without hesitation that under no circumstance would you participate in the killing of children!

  Yet in answering with an unequivocal no to the question of whether or not you would kill children are you claiming a moral superiority to the God depicted in parts of the Old Testament? After all, God commanded the Israelites to exterminate the Canaanites, including children…didn’t he? Yet you obviously find the very suggestion of participating in genocide morally repugnant.
  Read more

  69 Comments / Uncategorized / Brian Zahnd

  Like / Tweet

• April 15, 2013

  Gitmo Is Killing Me

  

  Gitmo Is Killing Me
  By SAMIR NAJI al HASAN MOQBEL
  Published April 15, 2013 in the New York Times

  GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba

  ONE man here weighs just 77 pounds. Another, 98. Last thing I knew, I weighed 132, but that was a month ago.

  I’ve been on a hunger strike since Feb. 10 and have lost well over 30 pounds. I will not eat until they restore my dignity.

  I’ve been detained at Guantánamo for 11 years and three months. I have never been charged with any crime. I have never received a trial.

  I could have been home years ago — no one seriously thinks I am a threat — but still I am here. Years ago the military said I was a “guard” for Osama bin Laden, but this was nonsense, like something out of the American movies I used to watch. They don’t even seem to believe it anymore. But they don’t seem to care how long I sit here, either.

  When I was at home in Yemen, in 2000, a childhood friend told me that in Afghanistan I could do better than the $50 a month I earned in a factory, and support my family. I’d never really traveled, and knew nothing about Afghanistan, but I gave it a try.

  I was wrong to trust him. There was no work. I wanted to leave, but had no money to fly home. After the American invasion in 2001, I fled to Pakistan like everyone else. The Pakistanis arrested me when I asked to see someone from the Yemeni Embassy. I was then sent to Kandahar, and put on the first plane to Gitmo.

  Last month, on March 15, I was sick in the prison hospital and refused to be fed. A team from the E.R.F. (Extreme Reaction Force), a squad of eight military police officers in riot gear, burst in. They tied my hands and feet to the bed. They forcibly inserted an IV into my hand. I spent 26 hours in this state, tied to the bed. During this time I was not permitted to go to the toilet. They inserted a catheter, which was painful, degrading and unnecessary. I was not even permitted to pray.

  I will never forget the first time they passed the feeding tube up my nose. I can’t describe how painful it is to be force-fed this way. As it was thrust in, it made me feel like throwing up. I wanted to vomit, but I couldn’t. There was agony in my chest, throat and stomach. I had never experienced such pain before. I would not wish this cruel punishment upon anyone. Read more

  8 Comments / Uncategorized / Brian Zahnd

  Like / Tweet

• February 18, 2013

  Narrative Arcs and Jumping Sharks

  

  Narrative Arcs and Jumping Sharks
  A Lenten Meditation
  by Brian Zahnd

  What I am doing you do not understand now. -Jesus

  .
  .
  .

  We all wear the same thorny crown. -Dylan

  The call of Christ is simple, primal even: “Follow me.”

  Either we do or we don’t. Either we will or we won’t.

  It takes real faith to believe in Jesus enough to actually make your way through the darkness of this world illuminated by the light of Christ.

  As we believe the gospel and begin to follow Jesus, our story becomes enfolded into Jesus’ story. There is a merging of stories. Our life becomes an original adaptation of the Passion Play.

  The transformation that occurs as our story begins to take on elements of Jesus’ story is what salvation looks like. We’re not conformed to the image of Christ until our story roughly simulates the contours of Jesus’ story.

  So remember the narrative arc of the Jesus story (so pronounced in the synoptic gospels). After his baptism and initial testing, Jesus experiences a steady rise in influence and popularity. We would call it success. This steady rise reaches its zenith with the miracles of the loaves and fishes (when the crowd wanted to make him king) and the Transfiguration (when his divine glory is fully seen).

  But then there is a change.
  Read more

  No Comments / Uncategorized / Brian Zahnd

  Like / Tweet

• February 12, 2013

  Why Ashes?

  

  (This was originally posted in 2013.)

  Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent — the forty days of fasting the lead us to Easter. It is a time to recall, retell, relive Jesus’ journey to his crucifixion and death. But why Ash Wednesday? Of course it’s because on this Wednesday millions of Christians around the world from different denominations will have an ashen cross imposed on their forehead. (I even know of some Baptist churches that have adopted this practice!) But what’s it about? Why this ancient Christian practice?

  Ashes speak of two things: Repentance and Mortality. These are the dual themes of Ash Wednesday.

  The Bible frequently speaks of “repenting in sackcloth and ashes.” Jesus himself spoke of repenting in sackcloth and ashes. (Matthew 11:20-21) A person grieving or repenting would cover themselves in ashes as a public expression of their inner state. But you say, “We don’t do that sort of thing anymore.” Precisely! But why not?

  Read more

  4 Comments / Uncategorized / Brian Zahnd

  Like / Tweet

• February 11, 2013

  Lenten Scripture Reading Guide

  

  Lent is a time for us to revisit, recall, retell, relive Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem and especially his suffering and death. I would like to share with you the scripture reading guide I’ll be following during Lent. Read it slow and in a contemplative manner; try to fall into the story. Be there with Jesus. I pray this Lenten journey through the second half of the Gospel story will help you to encounter Jesus in fresh new ways.

  (As you will notice the Sunday readings depart from the narrative course to recall the resurrection.)

  BZ

  (The artwork is The Procession to Calvary by Pieter Brueghel The Younger) Read more

  5 Comments / Uncategorized / Brian Zahnd

  Like / Tweet