All posts tagged Christianity

  • Christianity: A Tree Growing Up From the Soil of Scripture

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    Christianity: A Tree Growing Up From the Soil of Scripture
    Brian Zahnd

    This summer I spoke to a group of teens at our youth camp. My assigned topic was, “What’s the Deal with the Bible?”

    I began my talk by reading this passage from the Bible.

    “When a slaveowner strikes a male or female slave with a rod and the slave dies immediately, the owner shall be punished. But if the slave survives a day or two, there is no punishment; for the slave is the owner’s property.” (Exodus 21:20, 21)

    First I made sure the teens understood what this Bible passage said. If a slaveowner beats a slave and the slave dies immediately, there is to be some form of unspecified punishment. But if the slave clings to life for a day or two and then dies, there is to be no punishment. Why? Because, as the Bible says, “the slave is the owner’s property.”

    Then I asked the teens, “How many of you disagree with this?” Slowly and a bit hesitantly every teen raised their hand. (I say slowly and hesitantly, but I do remember some African-American teens shooting their hands up instantly and confidently!)

    I then addressed one of the youngest, saying, “So you disagree with the Bible?” She responded a bit cautiously, “Yeah, I guess so.” To which I said, “Good! You should!”
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  • End of the Line (Five Years Later)

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    In May 2010 Charisma Magazine asked me to write this op-ed. Five years later I feel it’s perhaps even more relevant. What do you think?

    END OF THE LINE
    By Brian Zahnd

    Western Christianity is at a critical juncture. Those who care deeply about the church are aware of this. Things are not as they once were. Things are changing. Dramatically so. Even if we don’t understand what is happening, we can certainly feel it. There is an uneasy feeling throughout evangelicalism that everything is changing. Long-held certitudes are being challenged from both within and without the Christian faith. The way things were even ten years ago is no longer the way things are today. It’s easy to be disconcerted by it all.

    In the midst of pronounced uncertainty it is tempting to succumb to nostalgia and pine away for some point in the past that we identify as the “glory days.” But we cannot go back. The healthy practice of recognizing the contributions of the past and building upon them is not the same thing as a regressive attempt to return to a bygone era. This is the problem with revivalism. Too often it is a naive attempt to recapture a particular past. It’s like a Renaissance fair — nice entertainment for a Saturday afternoon but you can’t live there. An idealized memory of the past is not a vision which can carry us into the future. Nostalgic reminiscing about the past is for those who no longer have the courage to creatively engage with contemporary challenges and opportunities. All of this is related to the critical juncture we have come to in the course of Western Christianity.
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  • The Last Testament of a Beheaded Christian

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    The Last Testament of a Beheaded Christian
    Brian Zahnd

    Christian de Chergé was a French Catholic monk and the Trappist prior of the Tibhirine monastery in Algeria. With the rise of radical Islam in 1993, Father Chergé knew that his life was in danger. But instead of leaving Algeria, Father Chergé chose to stay and continue his witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. On May 24, 1996 Father Chergé was beheaded by Muslim radicals. Anticipating his death, Father Chergé had left a testament with his family to be read upon the event of his murder. The testament in part reads:
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  • Jesus Is What God Has To Say

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    Jesus Is What God Has To Say
    Brian Zahnd

    One of the most mysterious aspects of the Transfiguration is the appearance of Moses and Elijah — these two giant figures from the Old Testament — conversing with a glorified Christ. Of course Moses the Lawgiver and Elijah the Prophet are representative figures signifying the Law and the Prophets. On Mount Tabor, Moses and Elijah are summoned from the Old Testament past to give their final witness.

    The goal of the Law and the Prophets was to produce a just and worshipping society. Jesus and his kingdom is where that project finds its fulfillment. The new society formed around Jesus was what the Law and the Prophets were aiming for all along. The Transfiguration is where Moses and Elijah find their great successor. The Transfiguration is where the Old Testament hands the project of redemption over to Jesus. The Transfiguration is where the old witness (testament) yields to the new witness (testament.)

    But initially Peter misinterpreted what the presence of Moses and Elijah meant.

    Peter’s first impulse was to build three memorial tabernacles on Tabor, treating Moses, Elijah, and Jesus as approximate equals.

    But Peter’s idea received a strong rebuke when the voice from heaven said, “This is my beloved Son, listen to him!”

    Jesus is the true and living Word of God. Jesus is what the Law and Prophets point toward and bow to. Jesus is what the Old Testament was trying to say, but could never fully articulate. Jesus is the perfect Word of God in the form of a human life. God couldn’t say all he wanted to say in the form of a book, so he said it in the form of Jesus. Jesus is what God has to say!
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  • Would You Choose Christ Over the Truth?

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    Would You Choose Christ Over the Truth?
    Brian Zahnd

    “If someone proved to me that Christ is outside the truth and that in reality the truth were outside of Christ, then I should prefer to remain with Christ rather than with the truth.”
    –Fyodor Dostoevsky

    Dostoevsky said that if he were forced to choose, he would choose Christ over the truth. That is a very bold and provocative claim.

    What do you say?

    Yes, I know, we don’t have to choose. I get that. I agree. Of course.

    But for a moment entertain the matter as Dostoevsky intends it — as a kind of thought experiment. If it were conclusively proven that the central claims regarding Jesus Christ were outside of the truth, what would you do? Would you continue to worship and follow Jesus Christ or not?

    I’ve pondered this question a lot and I have a few thoughts.
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  • Christianity In the Age of Nuclear Weapons

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    Christianity In the Age of Nuclear Weapons
    Brian Zahnd

    Today is the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. Saturday we will mourn Nagasaki. As we remember Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and the quarter of a million casualties suffered, I would like to share a few words from A Farewell To Mars.

    It’s easy to imagine that the world doesn’t really change — that it simply marches around the maypole of violence, trampling the victims into the mud same as it ever has. But as true as that may be, something has changed. We are post-something. If nothing else, we are post-1945 when the enlightenment dream of attainable utopia went up in smoke — literal smoke! — from the chimneys of Auschwitz and a mushroom cloud over Hiroshima.

    After 1945 we lost our blind faith in the inevitability of human progress. A threshold was crossed, and something important changed when humanity gained possession of what previously only God possessed: the capacity for complete annihilation. In yielding to the temptation to harness the fundamental physics of the universe for the purpose of building city-destroying bombs, have we again heard the serpent whisper, “You will be like God”?

    When Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb, witnessed the first atomic detonation at Los Alamos on July 16, 1945, he recalled the words of Vishnu from the Bhagavad Gita…

    “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.”

    When the monstrous mushroom cloud rose over the New Mexico desert, did the human race indeed become Death, the destroyer of worlds? It’s more than a legitimate question. We’ve now lived for over a generation with the most haunting post-Holocaust/Hiroshima uncertainty: Can humanity possess the capacity for self-destruction and not resort to it? The jury is still out. But this much is certain: If we think the ideas of Jesus about peace are irrelevant in the age of genocide and nuclear weapons, we have invented an utterly irrelevant Christianity!
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  • For The Common Good

    Ahmed, Brian, and Samuel w.border

    A few years ago I drafted a statement to explain the friendship and cooperation I have with Ahmed El-Sherif, an Arab Muslim scientist, and Samuel Nachum, an Israeli Jewish artist, as we work together for peace in Israel and Palestine. This seems like a good time to share it again.

    For the Common Good

    We are Jews, Christians and Muslims.
    And we are friends.
    We seek to follow our respective religions faithfully.
    We do not believe all religions are the same.
    We recognize the reality of our religious differences.
    But we are friends.
    We are devout in our faith and respectful of our friendship.
    Our faith and friendship need not be mutually exclusive.
    We recognize that we share common space — the common space of a shared planet.
    For the sake of the common good we seek common ground.
    We do not share a common faith, but we share a common humanity.
    In our different religions we do not practice the same rituals or pray the same prayers.
    But in our shared humanity we hold to a common dream: Shalom, Salaam, Peace.
    We hold to the dream that our children may play in peace without fear of violence.
    And so…
    We pledge not to hate.
    We pledge not to dehumanize others.
    We pledge to do no harm in the name of God.
    As individuals we do not compromise the truth claims of our respective religions—
    But we will not use truth claims to fuel hate or justify violence.
    We will practice our respective faiths: Judaism, Christianity, Islam.
    But we believe our faith can be practiced in the way of peace—
    We believe our faith truly practiced need never be at odds with humanitarian ideals.
    Our religions share a complex and intertwined history—
    A history of interaction that has too often been tumultuous and bloody.
    We believe there must be a better way and we seek that better way.
    The way of peace.
    We are Jews, Christians and Muslims.
    And we are friends.
    We seek common ground for the common good.
    Shalom, Salaam, Peace.

    Ahmed El-Sherif
    Samuel Nachum
    Brian Zahnd

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  • Jesus Trumps Biblicism: A Tale of Sticks and Stones

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    Jesus Trumps Biblicism: A Tale of Sticks and Stones
    Brian Zahnd

    This morning I was reading Scripture. From the Old Testament I was reading Numbers and in the New Testament I was reading John. In Numbers chapter 15 we find this story…

    An Israelite guy was gathering sticks on the Sabbath. This was forbidden. The guy got caught and was taken into custody. Moses inquired of Yahweh what should be done. Yahweh told Moses that the guy had to be killed. So the stick-gathering Sabbath-breaker was taken outside the camp and stoned to death by the congregation of Israel. Sticks and stones. (Number 15:32–36)

    Next I read from the Gospel of John chapter 5. This is what happens…

    Jesus meets a guy who has been paralyzed for 38 years. Jesus tells the guy to take up his bed and walk. The man is healed, takes up his bed, and heads for home. But this was the Sabbath. And the guy gets busted for breaking the Sabbath. When the Judean Torah enthusiasts find out that it was Jesus who was behind all this Sabbath breaking, they are prepared to kill Jesus. (Like Moses did in the Bible.) John concludes the story like this…

    “This is why the Judeans were persecuting Jesus, because he was doing these things on the Sabbath. But Jesus answered them, ‘My Father is working until now, and I am working.’ This is why the Judeans were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.” (John 5:16–18)

    Look at what we have here. In Numbers a guy gets caught picking up sticks on a Saturday and is stoned to death. The text tells us that Yahweh instructed Moses to do this. This is the Moses who spoke to God face to face. (Exodus 33:11)

    But in the prologue to his gospel John says this…

    “The Torah was given by Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. The only begotten God who is near the Father’s heart, he has made him known.” (John 1:17–18)
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  • The X-Files Is Better Than Scooby-Doo

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    The X-Files Is Better Than Scooby-Doo
    Brian Zahnd

    Fundamentalism was born as the wrongheaded reaction to the crisis of modernity. Ironically, fundamentalism is an approach to faith that accepts modernity’s now discredited claim that empiricism is the sole source of knowledge. Feeling intimidated by the Scientific Revolution, fundamentalism takes a “scientific” approach to the Bible — which is perhaps the worst of all ways to approach Scripture. The Bible is not interested in giving (or even competing with) scientific explanations. What Scripture gives us is inspired glimpses of the Divine Mystery. The point is never to “prove” the Bible, but to enter into the mystery through the portal of Scripture. The Bible has no interest in “proving” itself — it has no need to do this and makes no attempt to do so. What the Bible is, is the Spirit-inspired sign that points us to the true Word of God — the Word made flesh. And the Word made flesh is the greatest of all sacred mysteries. Any approach to the Incarnation that does not treat it as a sacred mystery is an act of desecration. If we insist on explaining the mysteries of faith — the bane of fundamentalism — mysteries like the Trinity, the Incarnation, the Resurrection, the Ascension, the Parousia, the new birth, baptism, the Eucharist — we inevitably reduce rich mysteries to cheap certitudes. In the search for certitude and a penchant for Bible-Answer-Man explanation, the intrinsically artistic nature of the Christian mystery is turned into gift shop simulacra. Fundamentalism is to Christianity what paint-by-numbers is to art.
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