Theology in the Raw - 639: #639 - Christ or the Bible, Christians in Politics, and the Parkland Shooting

Episode Date: March 19, 2018

Should we follow Christ or the Bible? Should Christians be in politics? My thoughts on the Parkland shooting. And, what do I think of Pete Enns's recent interview with Jen Hatmaker?  Support Preston Support Preston by going to patreon.com Connect with Preston Follow him on Twitter @PrestonSprinkle Check out his website prestonsprinkle.com If you enjoy the podcast, be sure to leave a review.

Should we follow Christ or the Bible? Should Christians be in politics? My thoughts on the Parkland shooting, and what do I think about Pete Enns' recent interview with Jen Hatmaker? You're listening to Theology in a Row, old-timers, the young and old. This is Theology in the Raw, where I tackle your questions as best as I can. And a special shout-out of thanks to my Patreon supporters for selecting some pretty darn tough questions. And I probably spent maybe more time on these questions than I have in most questions

in the past because some of these required me to do quite a bit of research and thinking and listening to other podcast interviews of certain people. And I'm excited to dive in, though. This is going to be fun. So thank you to my Patreon supporters for selecting the questions. If you are a Patreon supporter and you're not aware, hopefully you get an email when I post these questions. I'm about to post another round of questions here in the next couple of days for you to vote on. But if you are a Patreon supporter, you get to vote up or vote on the different questions that are posted. Typically I'll post anywhere from 10 to 20 questions and I try to pick the top five or six that you vote on. I think I have

six here in front of me for today's episode. So if you want to be a patron supporter, you get different goodies in return, depending on the level of support that you contribute. And I'm always so grateful for the support that you can give, um, as, as much or as little as it is. So thank you so much for supporting me, my Patreon supporters. much or as little as it is. So thank you so much for supporting me, my Patreon supporters. Okay, let's dive into our first question. Should we follow Christ or the Bible? I'm just gonna say both. I think we should follow Christ and the Bible. But let's dig into this question and see what this questioner means. He says, I read your book, Chan, a while back, and I've been working through my own thoughts on hell over the last few years, and gives a little

background there. And then he goes on to say, I've been heavily influenced over the past couple of years by Bruxy Cavey, Greg Boyd, Brad Jerzak, Peter Enns, Brian Zahn, and multiple others. It's so great to see pastors and authors taking a stand on topics that take Jesus more seriously. Here is my two questions. Number one, God, or my assumptions, God does not change. And number two, God is most perfectly revealed in Jesus Christ. So, my question then is in light of that, how do we read scripture? Are we willing to put our Christology above our view of the authority of scripture? And if so, what does that look like? There's actually a couple of questions that are

very similar to this, and I kind of want to tackle both of them because they take slightly different angles, but this seems to be a growing conversation and there's different perspectives on this. And a lot of it has to do, well, a lot of it, especially in the authors that you cited, comes down to the discontinuity or the difference between the New Testament command to love your enemies and the Old Testament, let's just say perspective. Sometimes it's a command that there's times when you need to kill your enemy, like in the book of Joshua or some of the Psalms and so on. This conversation usually springs from or at least heavily involves the conversation about violence and whether or not God is a violent God and whether or not God

commands violence of his people. So let me tackle this from a few different angles. And I really mean it when I say, when I answered yes, that we should follow both Christ and the Bible. I don't, I understand the question. I understand what you're getting at, but I do think it is raising a false dichotomy. That would be an overarching perspective is that if you frame the question as an either or, I think you're not presenting the question fairly. Okay. Number one, you said God does not change. I agree, but that doesn't mean that his rules can't change. And if you ate a bacon sandwich for lunch, you agree with me. I mean, it's not just about violence. I mean, there's all kinds of things that were commanded or prohibited of Israel under the

old covenant that doesn't carry over to Christians in the new covenant. And there's some things that do carry over. And there's sometimes when God gives a command in the Old Testament that's not reiterated in its literal sense under the new covenant, but the principle driving it is reiterated. For instance, when the Israelites were told to not harvest the edges of their field, but leave it for the poor and needy. Well, in an agrarian context, like in Israel under the old covenant, your field is your livelihood, your business, your means of making an income. And so by not harvesting the edges of your field, the command, the principle driving that is

basically leave some of your income to the poor. Give some of your livelihood to the poor, to those in need, those who don't have fields to harvest. Well, that literal command does not carry over into the new. And in a multicultural church, which is the vision of the New Testament, not everybody is going to live in an agrarian context. And so, and today, you know, what would it look like for us not to harvest the edges of our field today? Well, if you take it literally, it's like, all right, I don't have a field, so it doesn't apply to me. Or you say, okay, well, I do have a livelihood. I do have income. So part of my income should go to help the poor and needy within God's community. So,, yeah, sometimes the laws, God doesn't change, absolutely,

but that doesn't mean that his laws can't change. For instance, let's just say that I'm a perfectly consistent father. Well, I don't let my six-year-old drive my car, but when he turns 26, When he turns 26, I almost said 16, but I probably wouldn't. Yeah, we'll see about that. But when he turns 26, he's allowed to drive my car. I don't let my 14-year-old drink a glass of wine with me. She'll take a sip every now and then. But when she turns 21 or whatever, then she's allowed to do that. So it doesn't mean I'm changing.

It just means that as people progress, as situations change, you can be an unchanging rule giver. And yet, that doesn't mean that your rules must stay the same always. So, I don't think it's logically or even biblically accurate to start with the premise God does not change and then say, therefore, He gives the same laws to all people and has the same expectations. Your second premise, God is most perfectly revealed in Jesus, so how should we read Scripture in light of this? Well, let's just go back to your original question. If we ask Jesus, should we follow you or should we follow the Scriptures? Well, it's kind of both. I mean, he gives the most perfect and authoritative

interpretation and climax of the scriptures. So, I don't think Jesus, while he gave some somewhat progressive or new interpretations of the Old Testament, I mean, he held the scriptures in very high esteem. I mean, read Matthew 5, 17 to 20, and look at how he submits to the scriptures in many ways throughout his gospel, his ministry in the gospel. So, I don't think Christ himself would pit himself up against either follow me or follow the Bible. He certainly presented some discontinuity between his interpretation of Scripture and the first century Pharisaic or Jewish interpretation of Scripture. That's what we see throughout Matthew 5, especially in other passages of Matthew 12

on the Sabbath law and Mark 7 on the dietary laws and several others. But he's not putting himself up against the Scriptures. He's putting himself up against a Jewish interpretation of the scriptures. So, here's the way I approach it. I mean, there are continuities and discontinuities between the ethical vision of the Old Testament and the ethical vision of the New Testament. Again, dietary laws are an example of discontinuity where we have some things commanded and prohibited under the old covenant. And we have some changes between the old covenant and the new covenant. It's a different covenant.

It's a different focus. It's a different group of people. It's a different geography. That's something that people don't often realize is that the old covenant was designed for people living in an ancient context in Israel. It's not designed. The old covenant law is not designed for 21st century America. It is very culturally and ethnically bound, whereas the vision of New Testament ethics is a multicultural, multi-geographical ethical vision. And so, certain things that are connected specifically to the geographical and ethnic context of the Old Testament are done away with or expanded or modified under the New

Covenant. So, all that to say, let's follow both Christ and the Bible, although I do like many aspects of what is called a Christological approach to biblical interpretation. I think sometimes it's taken too far. In fact, some of the authors you name here, I would disagree in how they frame a Christological hermeneutic, and we will get into that because there's another question that deals with some similar things. Number two, should Christians be in politics? I will save. It's a very long question, but you can probably get where the person is coming from. Long story short, he's wrestling with the tension that any Christian in politics

is going to have. And yeah, I think, dear questioner, again, I don't want to spend, you know, it's a very long question. I don't want to spend, you know, it's a very long question. I don't want to spend time reading it all. But in summary, just how do we, how can we be a Christian and be a politician? And the questioner is not saying it like negatively. It's a genuine question. Like, what about this? What about that?

He's really wrestling with the pros and cons of it. On one hand, if you're a Christian in politics, gosh, you are able to shine the light in that arena. And if there were no Christians in politics, then there would be no gospel witness in a very significant area of culture and influence. And so, you can make a case, I think, that Christians should be in politics. On the other hand, being in politics could make it difficult to live out the totality of a Christian ethic, especially, I mean, when it comes to things like nonviolence and loving your enemies and so on and so forth. it takes, and maybe any Christian in law, sorry, in, yeah, being a lawyer would probably be facing many challenges of living out a consistent Christian ethic and be able to do your job as it's expected of, you know, people that sort of own you or are running the company or whatever.

Same thing with Christians in the film industry. It's very, very difficult, very difficult to be a Christian in Hollywood, but there are some and they're wonderful lights. I think they are probably constantly faced with the tension of doing their job as expected or doing this or shooting this movie or being in this scene or whatever, or being around this person or that person and submitting to this person's contract requirements or whatever. I imagine there's all kinds of difficult situations where you find yourself in various moral tensions. So, I think I can see both sides of this argument. So, I don't want to come down super strong on

all Christians everywhere should never be in politics. At the same time, if somebody does want to go to politics, I would want to challenge them to take very seriously the higher calling to submit to Jesus and his way of living, even if it prevents you from maintaining a position in, say, politics or whatever. I think you will be faced with many, many unique challenges. And so, our allegiance is always to Jesus Christ and His ethic. I don't believe that there is sort of one ethic for those who are Christians, who are doing church ministry or other jobs like teaching or being a doctor. And then there's another ethic

for Christians who are in places where, well, we can't fully live out these ethics. Like, yeah, I think we should never sacrifice our ethical values on the altar of our job, whatever that may be. I think this question also comes down to your view of the government. Is the government morally evil? Is it morally neutral? Or is it morally good? Or maybe another way, is it intrinsically evil, intrinsically neutral? Or is it intrinsically good? And you can probably find verses to support every one of those, just individual verses.

So, I think you do have to kind of work through that a bit. It's a little more complicated than you might realize. you do have to kind of work through that a bit. It's a little more complicated than you might realize. I mean, you have passages like in 1 Peter 2 or Romans 13, where you could make an argument. I don't think it's the best argument, but I think you could make an argument that no, God's using the government for his good and it's a good thing and government is here to, you know, reward the righteous and punish the wicked. And it's almost like a very positive portrait of the government. But then you flip over a few pages to Revelation 17 and 18, and where John, the author of Revelation, just gives a castigating prophetic denouncement of the political powers to be. And even in passages

throughout Ephesians and Colossians and other Pauline letters, you have this phrase, the principalities and powers, where, and there's a debate about what this means. Is it earthly governing authorities? Is it demonic powers, just demons and angels, or is it both and? I think it's kind of a both and. I think it is overarching political and spiritual structures. I think it is overarching political and spiritual structures. It is Satan's influence that buries its head into various systems of thought, religious systems and political systems and governmental systems.

So I think it's an overlapping of anybody or any system trying to sort of govern God's good creation. And so, I think if you ask the question, is the government intrinsically evil? I think you at least need to consider the passages that talk about principalities and powers and read Marva Don, Marva Don's work in that area. So, I don't have, I don't, again, I don't think there is a clear yes or no question to this. So, I just hope I have thrown out at least some questions and thoughts to think through. I do think it would be very difficult to be a Christian and live out genuine Christian values of loving your enemy and not retaliating evil for evil and turning the other cheek and living out Matthew 5-7. I think that'd be difficult in politics, but I don't want to shut the door completely and say, no, I think that'd be difficult in politics, but I don't want to shut

the door completely and say, no, Christian ever should ever be in politics. Number three, what do I think about Pete Enns' recent interview of Jen Hatmaker? This one was a tough one for me, and I thought long and hard how to answer this question. There is a, um, well, you, the question, you reference, um, this, um, well, it's kind of short. Let me just read this. Are you aware of the controversy surrounding Pete Enza's recent interview with Jen Hatmaker on LGBTQ issues? If you haven't heard the interview, you can do so here. And he gave me the link and I listened to the entire thing. It's about 45 minutes. Uh, I would highly recommend all of you listening to it as a fantastic interview.

You say, now the really interesting thing is not only the insight into how the affirming, non-affirming camps are currently approaching the topic, but of even greater interest and importance is what this debate shows about disagreements within the faith and the establishment of or in our boundaries on both sides. And you reference another article and some other things that weighed into this. So let me just give you kind of a shotgun. That's kind of a bad metaphor in light of my previous comment, but an array of different thoughts here. Number one, I have huge respect for both Jen and Brandon Hatmaker. I consider Brandon a friend and we've known each other for a few years. I've never actually met Jen. Had some conversations kind of through Brandon and

as they were thinking through LGBTQ issues, me and Brandon had many long talks about LGBTQ questions. He's thoroughly read and marked up my book, as has Jen. So they know my perspective and they disagree with many of my conclusions in that book. And they would also agree with probably a lot of things as well. I have huge respect for them as people, as Jesus followers, as advocates for the poor and marginalized, as people who take their faith to the trenches, to the marginalized and oppressed. They're both incredibly brilliant and widely read. Jen and Brandon Hatmaker have read more on this issue than I would say 95% of my conservative friends.

I really mean that. So in light of that, and it took them years, they wrestled with this for years before they changed their view. And they did so very thoughtfully. And so I do not appreciate the sort of critiques of their change as, oh, you're just going on emotion or, oh, sort of critiques of their change as, oh, you're just going on emotion or, oh, you know, how could you like, um, you're not thinking hard or, you know, or people just attacking their character or pulling books off the shelf. Like they'd never written on this topic. Their books aren't about this. I haven't read Jen's, well, I haven't read any of her stuff, but it's books that came out by them after they changed their mind. You know, I I can't speak to, but the ones I have read prior to this, they're not about sexuality and gender. They're about being authentic Christians and loving the poor and being radical in your faith.

And I just don't understand why people would pull those books off the shelf. I would still highly recommend those books. I endorsed, I think, I think I endorsed it, Brandon's latest book, which was fantastic. And I would say even the dehumanizing backlash they've received has been not only unhelpful, but has, in a sense, pushed them farther into their new camp, if you will, if you even want to word it that way. And you can hear this in Jen in an interview, and part of me is like, yeah, I totally get it. Good job, conservatives, by attacking their character and just being so volatile in your attacks and online and slamming them. You have further pushed them away from the theological camp that you think they belong in because you

have been so dehumanizing. So well done, church. Good job. Now, having said all that, I significantly disagree with them on this, this issue, um, significantly. And I don't think that this is just a secondary matter. And this is where Brandon and I disagree. And we disagree obviously on the ethics of marriage and sexuality. Um, but I also disagree. I think he's like, why are people making a big deal out of it? Why can't we, can we just agree to disagree and still be fine or whatever why is it such a big deal well it is it is a big deal I mean redefining marriage that's been um a kind of important institution for humanity and society and the church and this has been the global multi-denominational consensus um for 2000 years up until, you know, a minority opinion in the West of largely white people in, you know, post-1960s, 1970s, you know, Western thought.

This has been the consensus in the church. And even now, the global majority world, marginalized Christians around the world, they still hold to the historically Christian view. So, yes, this is a big deal. And I'm not saying, well, what am I saying? Okay, so you studied it out, you changed your mind. And she even said, you know, I expected there to be, you know, this is when I expected her to be some, that this would raise some waves. And they were a little shocked at the, the ways some of their friends, some of their friends that stayed, their friends have been ostracized because they have stayed friends

with the hat makers. And I think that it's the, the, the volatile nature of the pushback that has been very, uh, very discouraging and man, that's my heart goes out to them. But at the same time, not, but, but at the same time, this is, this is, this is a very significant shift. This isn't just changing her view on the timing of the rapture or something, or, you know, the, the literalness of the millennium route, whatever. I mean, this, this is not a secondary issue. I don't think so. Um, so, and I guess during the interview, I really, again, I really appreciated hearing her heart. There were several statements during the interview that I was like,

oh man, I just do not think that's accurate or I don't even agree with it. But I, well, one of the things when they ask her to, you know, what is it in the Bible that sort of led you to change your mind? And like most people, they go to these prohibition passages and if the few handful of passages that say a man should not lie with a man as he does with a woman, whatever they focus on prohibitions on gay sex and they focus on there, but Jen never once even mentioned, and I'm not saying she doesn't have a view on this. I'm sure she'd be able to articulate what she believes about this, but it is typical that people jump to the don't have gay sex passages and think that that's kind of where the discussion begins. That's not where

the discussion begins. The discussion begins on the question of what is marriage, not can two people of the same sex get married? That's not the question. That's not the question. The question isn't, can two people of the same sex get married and have sex? Or, you know, what's wrong? They're not hurting anybody. Why do you care what they do in their bedroom? That's not the question. The question is not, can two people of the same sex get married? The question is, what is marriage? Is marriage the union between two consensual adults? And oh, by the way, we Christians also believe that it should be between a man and a woman. That's not the way, that's not the question. That's not the way to frame the number one question at the very foundation before we get to

the prohibition passages, before we get to contemporary relation, before we get to anything is what is marriage? Biblically and Christianly, marriage is not the union between two consensual adults. Marriage is precisely the coming together, the union between two sexually different persons. And I can show this clearly from Genesis 2.18 to 24, and Jesus refers back to that in Matthew 19.4-6. I think Paul would pretty much assume that in Ephesians 5. We even see it show up at the end of the story in Revelation 21 and 22. This has been the definition of the church Christendom, including the cults, including, let's just go monotheism. I mean, this sexual difference is part of what marriage is. So, if you say no, I'm going to define marriage as two people who are consensual adults

who aren't hurting anybody, regardless of sex difference. If you say sex difference is irrelevant to what marriage is, then I'm going to say, okay, why? Like, where did you get that definition from? Because that's not like biblically, Christianly, that's not how marriage has been defined for 2000 years. It's not what the Bible says. So where'd you get that definition from? And if you can't cite a source, um, or you just said, well, that's just, that's just self-evident. It's not self-evident. That's not how most societies have defined marriage. Marriage is the union between two sexually different persons. So if you're going to, and look, I'm all for open dialogue, lay it all out, and let's talk about it.

Let's go back and forth and not yell at each other, not scream, but let's present evidence. Then I need to know where did you get that definition of marriage from that says sex difference is irrelevant for marriage. And then if you cite a source, I mean, the earliest I can find is a 1973 Humanist Manifesto, If you cite a source, I mean, the earliest I can find is a 1973 humanist manifesto, humanist manifesto, okay, which kind of laid the ground for secular ethics in the contemporary age. They kind of look at it that way, like consensuality, don't hurt anybody, and then just go for it. Well, no, that doesn't capture Christian ethics. Christian ethics is way more multi-layered than that.

But if you say, okay, okay, well, here's why I define marriage that way to consensual adults, then I'm going to ask, how does scripture inform your definition of marriage where sex difference is irrelevant for marriage? That's where the discussion needs to begin, not to these five or six prohibition passages. Those are really secondary, a distant secondary. So I guess that whenever people get into the Bible and what does the Bible say, and now I'm rereading some of these passages and Leviticus 18 is cultural. It's not talking about marriage or whatever. And all these, those are all way down the road, secondary conversations. And so as far as, and I'm not even talking about Jen, because all Jen, I mean about Jen, because she's representing what so many other people I know believe. So it's not even really about her.

I mean, this is a standard affirming argument is you go to the prohibition passages, show that they're not talking about consensual relationships. And then you say, I've seen fruit in the lives of gay people. So therefore, those prohibition passages must not, those prohibition passages must not be talking about people who are bearing fruit. And that's another argument that often comes up. The, well, I've seen good fruit come from the lives of, you know, lesbian couples and so on. But biblical fruit is, at least partly, is obedience. Like when Jesus talked about good tree bears, good fruit, bad tree bears, bad fruit, he's talking about like obedience, which I mean, in any sort of Judeo-Christian ethical system is going to include sexual morality. In fact, Ephesians 5, where it

talks about the fruit of the spirit, where this argument comes from. Well, guess what? Some of the works of the flesh right before the fruit of the Spirit, some of the works of the flesh include sexual immorality. Now, if any Jew in the first century like Paul talks about sexual immorality, porneia are bearing good fruit, they're being loving, they're joyful, they're happy, they're generous. That logically and biblically, that doesn't justify the relationship. I know tons of non-believers, atheists, people, boyfriends sleeping with their girlfriends who may give generously to the poor, maybe incredibly kind, like kind to the most Christians. They can be, you know, housing tons of orphans in their house and whatever. That's beautiful. That's awesome. That's the image of God playing itself out, but that doesn't in and of itself, the fruit doesn't

in and of itself justify relationship. That's just not how Christian ethics work. What else? Oh gosh, I think I've already said too much here. So what do I think about, I guess you said the controversy surrounding Pete Enns' recent interview. guess i you said uh the controversy surrounding pete ends his recent interview i don't know what the controversy was this isn't i mean i i was kind of yawning my way through the whole interview because this is kind of old news i mean i know where pete ends is that on this question i know where jen's i know where jen's out on this question um she what she changed her view like a year and a half ago publicly and um and i've known before that just because i've i've known them and seeing them wrestle with this and um so i i it wasn't for me there wasn't really much i didn't hear any controversy really um and and let me come back around where i began

saying um you know she made she made a statement that almost i I don't want to say it hurt me, but, um, she said, she's seen almost universally, she said universally at first. And I think she qualified it that those who hold to a historically Christian sexual ethic are doing incredible harm and damage toward LGBT people. She said universally, like it's all damage, all harm, all. And that, She said universally, like it's all damage, all harm, all. And that, because that's me. I'm a historically Christian person. And I, I mean, I can't, I can't argue against the dozens and dozens and dozens, maybe hundreds of emails and letters I've gotten that, that, you know, my work in this area has, has prevented suicide and has, um, brought people back to Christianity. And I hate, I hate even tooting my own horn like this, whatever, but it's

just, I can't, when I personally hear that and I've got names and faces and stories, real stories, where that is simply not the case, it's not one or two. She kind of said, okay, there's one or two here and there. I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, I can't, you can, you can convince others of that, but I've been living in this world for a long time. And that's just, just not true. And it almost breaks my heart that, that that has been her experience that if you hold a historically Christian view, you must dehumanize gay people and increase the suicide rate. And I just, that is just not, it's not even not been my experience, but according to the largest study done on the religious background of LGBT people over 1,712 LGBT people were interviewed about the religious background and 83% were raised in the church. 51% had left the

church. And the main reason why they left, they asked, well, why did you leave? And only 3%, according to this study, it's recorded in Andrew Marin's book, Us Versus Us. So, this is from LGBT people themselves, that only 3% left primarily for theological reasons. Meaning, the theology of marriage and sexuality is not the main problem. Now, I will be the first one to say those who hold to a so-called traditional or historically Christian theology have, many of them have done damage, sometimes intentionally, sometimes unintentionally. But that's not intrinsic to the view itself. And I'm on a mission. This is what I do for a living is trying to help people understand that you can hold to this traditional view. You can also radically

care for and love and honor and include and reach out to and wrestle with and befriend and value and laugh with and eat with and drink with. And if you want to, smoke with LGBT people and breathe life into them as they're wrestling with faith, sexuality. And some will say, you know what, thanks for all the love, but I'm still out of here. I want to join an affirming church, and that's going to happen. But I've seen so much life come out of a posture shift in Christians who hold to an historically Christian sexual ethic. So that was, I guess, one specific statement that I'm glad she kind of qualified it, but it was still very, very one-sided. And I think it's not only not accurate with my experience, which is anecdotal, but it's

not just one or two people. And also according to the only study that's been done on what is their actual religious background of LGBT people. Yes, there's been done on what is their actual religious background of LGBT people. Yes, there's been a lot of damage and harm done. Absolutely. It's not intrinsically connected to the theology. It would be my argument. I don't think the theology, I mean, because I believe God said it, but I mean, just sociologically, we can say that theology itself is not intrinsically harmful. It would be like, you know, there's some statements in the New Testament where, you know, you Jews killed Jesus and God's going to judge rebellious Jewish people. And, you know, there's some statements that taken wrongly could be used to promote anti-Semitism.

Well, we would say, well, first of all, they're not intrinsically antisemitic. You can go back and read those statements and see that they're not getting that like, oh, Jewish people are intrinsically, you know, terrible or whatever. No, no. That is how some people, I guess I would say a lot of Christians have taken that throughout history, Martin Luther included, have taken these statements and wrongfully interpreting those statements has led them to have an antisemitic posture. But that doesn't mean the New Testament is intrinsically anti-Semitic. Quite the opposite. So that was one that did bother me a little bit. At the same time, I am just really, I take it to heart when she talks about these stories of so many people being harmed by

the church, and I get it. That's what I'm doing to try to reduce. So all in all, though, again, my view of Jen and Brandon, I think they're significantly off on this question, but man, huge admiration for their heart for the poor, the marginalized, and their contribution to Christianity has been very significant, and I think we should still celebrate and appreciate that while disagreeing significantly. I don't think because we want to value them, therefore, we shouldn't disagree significantly. And I don't think just because we disagree significantly, we should not value them. I just, I think we can do both. Say, man, this is a serious disagreement. value them. I just, I think we can do both. Say, man, this is a serious disagreement.

And I think they're very off on this question. But I can still appreciate the many other things that they are believing and doing that is a positive contribution to Christianity. Next question. Wow, that's a long one. Should you raise your kids with traditional views or raise them in more non-traditional views? Love this question. It's a quick answer. If you hold non-traditional views such as conditional immortality or theistic evolution, is it better to raise your kids up with your nuanced views that may disrupt what they are learning at church? Or should you allow your kids to be taught traditional views and then have a deeper discussion with them when they are ready? I'm going to give a bunch of background here, which I really appreciate. I would say pretty confidently, now this is my opinion. Do I have a verse for this?

I don't know if I have a verse directly to this, but I think just the whole tenor of the Bible would be speak truth. Raise your kids in the truth. That's your mandate as a parent. And you're your kid's primary discipler, not your pastor, not your youth pastor, not the person, the elders or people sitting in pews, whatever, youth volunteers. The primary discipler of your children is you. And as the primary discipler, you need to speak truth into their life. And I don't think it's helpful at all to sort of reiterate non-truthful things that churches believe. And then to, when they get older, try to say, okay, I know you've heard this all along, but this is actually not true. And here's the real case of what the Bible says. No, I say raise them heard this all along, but this is actually not true. And here's the real case

of what the Bible says. No, I say, raise them in the truth from the beginning and try to, I don't know if I've done this the best, but try to cultivate a posture of humility and openness and non-judgmentalism toward those who believe something different. And this is wholeheartedly, I think, you know, my kids, I think all kids, it's like, they want to know, is this person good or bad? Oh, that person, that pastor doesn't believe what you believe. Oh, so is he bad or is he good? I'm like, well, he's good. Like, you don't need to agree with me on everything to be good. And if you disagree with me on something, it doesn't mean you're bad. It doesn't mean he's not smart. Like, we can value them and honor them and listen to them and consider.

I would say, here's what I believe. Now consider the views of other people or what you want to do. For instance, like I don't pledge allegiance. You know, I give my allegiance to Jesus. And I told my kids that. I told them why. But I said, look, I want you to make that decision on your own. I want you to think through it, but I'm not going to say you're disappointing me if you pledge allegiance at school. You need to work through that.

And if I do hold to something that I know that our church, wherever we're at, doesn't agree with, then I want to – I mean, if I believe it's true, I'm going to teach it as truth. I'm not going to say, oh, here's just one option. But yeah, I'm going to say, yeah, I do disagree with our pastor on this question. And you know what? He's a good person. He's very smart. But I do want to say, here's why I believe it. And I do want to present it in a compelling way because I believe it's truthful.

So I want to, yes, I want them to believe it, but I don't want to force them to believe it. yes, I want them to believe it, but I don't want to force them to believe it. True belief must come from them believing, not just out of fear saying, I must believe what daddy says. So yeah, in fact, so I just, I guess, fully confirmed that I am in the camp of conditional immortality, like hook, line, and sinker. I think it's one of the clearest doctrines in all of scripture. I'm bewildered that we have missed this for so long, or at least not considered it as a biblical option. The text to me, the dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens and dozens of texts that in a very straightforward way teach conditional immortality are overwhelming.

And so out of allegiance to God and Jesus and the Bible and the Holy Spirit, and I don't mean to equate the Bible with the Trinity. Anyway, yeah, just last week I celebrated. I came up from my study and says, okay, I've been on a five-year journey, and here's where I'm at. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death. It says that when you go, that God has the ability to destroy both body and soul in hell. And that if you don't love Jesus, you will perish, John 3.16. And I believe that now. And

I think you should too. It's biblical, but you got to make up your own decision. Here's why I believe. And they were stoked. They were like, oh, good. That makes sense to me. Let's talk about it. So yeah, I would absolutely say raise your kids in the truth. And of course, that is truth according to your interpretation, whatever. But that's, you know, your church's truth is according to its interpretation, too. I mean, we're all in the same interpretive kind of dilemma here. But yeah, raise them in the truth and teach them to hold that with humility, openness, and respect of others who might disagree with them. Next question. Got two more questions here. This one has to do,

it's similar to the first question, only this one's specific to Brian Zahn's Christological Hermeneutic. You say, sorry for the long question. It is a very long question, so I can't read the whole thing. But basically, you have a question about the Christological hermeneutic that people like Brian Zahn and others promote as a proper lens to view scripture through. You say, as I understand it, this method builds its basis on the fact that the Bible is not the full revelation of God. Jesus is. Again, I just, first of all, I so appreciate Brian Zahn. So many things about him. We are in the same camp of nonviolence.

I don't know where he's at on the hell question. I can't imagine he believes in ECT. I love his willingness to go back to scripture and reread it freshly, especially he's older than I am. I mean, he's had a successful ministry. He could very easily just camp out with what he's always believed and he's chosen the hard path of going back to scripture and re-examining his beliefs. Now, you say, you know, his approach is essentially you're supposed to filter our understanding of the nature and character of God and how he relates to people through the person of Christ as he's revealed in the four gospels. More specifically, Zahn in his contemporary suggests that all of our reading of scripture needs to be centered, needs to center on the moment on the cross when Jesus said, Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

And just you skip down and talk about the differences between Old and New Testaments. And you say, for example, God has never in the past or at any point prescribed violence as a means of justice because that is contrary to his nature, because it was contrary to how Jesus was and God can never act or prescribe actions contrary to his nature, a nature that is fully and unconditionally loving at all times. And by the way, this comes from Cole, who's a second year student at Eternity Bible College. A little shout out to Eternity Bible College. Thank you, Cole, for your question. You do talk, you give a lot of great examples here. So let me just, Cole, I mean, you're thinking really well through this question and you give some reasons why you like this approach. You've already heard what I said earlier about the first question where it talked about Brad Jerzak and Brian Zahn and Pete Enns and Bruxy Cave and so on.

I still, you know, the one critique I would have with Brian, and I haven't read a lot of them. Okay. So let me be super clear. I've listened to him a little bit, read a little bit, a few blogs here and there, parts of really one of his book, his most recent one. And if there's one thing, and I like a lot of it, if there's one thing that I would maybe disagree or push back on, and I don't have specific examples, but you kind of give one here, is that there's just several times when I'm reading this stuff, it feels like he is presenting a false dichotomy. A false dichotomy between kind of like a conservative fundamentalistic reading of the Bible or this reading of the Bible, you know, it's not like either this or that. I'm like, oh man, there's a spectrum of different perspectives here. It's not either this or that. And I just, there's so many times just linguistically, I would see him make statements. It's like, it's not this, it's that, you know, um, the Bible's not the full revelation Jesus is.

And it's like, I just don't know if Jesus would say that. He seemed to not put the Bible in one corner over here, weighing in at 66 books is the Bible. And in the other corner is weighing in at, well, in most pictures, Jesus is super ripped and yoked out. So 225 pounds is Jesus. I just don't, Jesus was the fulfillment, the climax of the scriptural narrative. And yes, I do think that the ethic revealed in and through Jesus is the ethic for the church. Okay, so, but I want to put that under the larger discussion of continuities and discontinuities between the Old Covenant and New Covenant. So that there are things that are commanded under the Old Covenant that were commands of God for that people in that time and place that are no longer ethically binding on New Covenant Christians. Okay, so, yeah, violence would be one of them. So,

so he said, you know, and this is, this is the approach of, again, I haven't read a lot of Greg Boyd on this, his massive book that I haven't read, but I do know his approach where he, as far as I know, him and Brian Zahn would, would say that God didn't command violence even in the Old Testament. But he did. I mean, Deuteronomy 20, verse 16, this is put in the mouth of God. He says, Elsewhere, you have commands that Israel is to smash the idols, the idolatrous shrines of Canaan and drive out the people of the land. These are to say, well, I think they just kind of misunderstood God or this was kind of Moses or the author's

interpretation of what God, they thought God was saying, whatever. I've seen some of these arguments. It's like, well, that's, you can say that, but saying it doesn't make it true. Like, it's just not, it's framed in terms of this is what God told them, not this is what we understood God to say. And there's many, many, many, many passages that talk about that. And even the whole narrative of Jud, especially Judges 1 and 2, is framed around them not obeying God's command. And therefore, they got punished throughout the book of Judges. The whole book of Judges wouldn't make sense if you say, oh, God really didn't command this to drive out the Canaanites. They misunderstood it or whatever.

They didn't hear God rightly. or whatever, they didn't hear God rightly. I don't, to me, that approach just makes more, it just creates so many difficulties and how are you going to get around so many other things? And so, you know, I'm open to being corrected or to, you know, maybe I'm missing something, but when I did explore this question of continuity and discontinuity between Old and New Testaments

regarding divine, the command for violence, I did land on the side of, yes, God did command violence in some places in the Old Testament. Yes, God did command people not to eat bacon in the Old Testament. Yes, God did command them not to intermarry with people of the land. Yes, God did command them to, or at least allow them to divorce in much more lenient ways in Deuteronomy 24. Yes, God allowed a sort of system of slavery. It wasn't really ethnically based per se. You know, it's a different kind of slavery than what we talked about today, but nevertheless, okay, there's all kinds of stuff that God either sanctioned or even commanded in the Old Testament that does not reflect a new covenant vision for how to live. And that's okay. Like, that's just part of the

discontinuities between the old covenant and new covenant. It doesn't mean God changes. It does mean that depending on the covenant, people, time, and place, His rules for that covenant may change and may not. There's also a lot of continuities between those two. So yeah, I think it's just a bit of a false dichotomy. Again, I'm not a Brian's on expert, so I'm almost don't want to focus just on him, but I know the larger kind of hermeneutical paradigm. And so let me just more address that.

I just think it's a little bit too much of a false dichotomy and one-sided to say that Jesus, that because Jesus is a full revelation of God, therefore anything else that God commanded that might not reflect the teaching of Jesus, if God commanded it in the Old Testament, he actually never commanded it. No, I'm much more happy to live with the tension and progressive nature, not just of revelation, but progressive nature of covenantal ethics, if that makes sense. So, yeah, this question overlaps with the first one, so I'll leave it

at that. Hope that's helpful. Let's move on to my last question here, which I'm not actually going to answer very thoroughly because I already did in a Patreon-only podcast. What are my thoughts on the Parkland, Florida school shooting? I took 30, 40 minutes in a pod in a Patreon only podcast. And I guess you kind of threw me a softball here to promote my Patreon supporters. But if you support, I hate doing this, but I'm going to do it, I guess, because it kind of fits into the question. If you support this podcast at $25 a month or more, you get a once a month Patreon-only podcast. It's private to the few people that are supporting me at $25 a month. And in the last one, I recorded a 30, 40-minute episode, all my thoughts on the Parkland, Florida school shooting. So let me give you a really quick, truncated summary of what I said there.

But yeah, you got to go back and listen to the Patreon podcast if you're a Patreon supporter. If you're not, go to patreon.com forward slash Theology in the Rock. Okay, we'll leave it alone. My thoughts. I think as a Christian and as a Christian advocate for nonviolence, I have a Christian perspective on how to address this. And it does not include arming people or killing the bad person before he kills good people. And I just, I don't, I think fighting violence with violence is not the Christian way. It's not the way to defeat evil. And even in a worldly system, it's not nearly as successful as you may think. I think arming teachers is a horrible,

horrible thing to do. I would be freaked out if my kid is at a school where their teachers are packing. Do you know how difficult it is to respond with accuracy in split-second decisions in a high-pressure situation with a gun in your hand? Look, I don't care if they get 30 hours of training, 50 hours of training. Are teachers really going to get 50 hours of training? I know Navy SEAL snipers, experts who literally train hundreds, if not thousands of hours, and they say it's still difficult, difficult to respond with accuracy and precision in a high stress situation. I don't trust a teacher with a gun on his hip when some sixth grader in the back row wants to be goofy and jump up and say, I'm going to shoot you all. And the teacher freaks out and starts, you know, tries to

shoot him or whatever, because he's holding up a plastic gun and it's a split second decision. And he responded poorly and ends up blowing my kid's head off. Like that is a very, very real live possibility. You start putting guns in the hands of people who aren't experts. And by X, I mean like expert experts. Okay. Even if they have some training, I just think that that is not the best scenario to pursue here. I think that that's really naive. Um, Google Joe Klepper, good guy with a gun. It's on YouTube. It's hilarious. It's, it's, it's, it's, um, viewer discretion advised. Joe Klepper, good guy with a gun on YouTube.

10 minutes. It's worth every second of your viewing pleasure. It's, it's, it's funny. It's almost satirical, satirical, satirical kind. Not really. It's actually in a reallyirical kind. Not really. It's actually in a really comical kind of poking way. It's actually very informative too.

Very informative. So I don't think that's the route to go. Also, I'm not an NRA supporter. Okay. I think NRA is toxic in many ways. But seeing the reaction like the NRA caused this to happen, the NRA has blood on its hands, it's killing people. Those are just stupid statements. And that doesn't produce less crime. And there's, look, I've looked into this fairly extensively.

And if you just, let's just leave it aside Christian ethics, okay? Because I don't think it should kill people. So let's just leave that aside. Let's just think politically for a second. What's the way to reduce gun violence? It is not crystal clear that taking away all the guns or, yeah, taking away everybody's guns or changing the Second Amendment, it's not clear that that would necessarily reduce crime. It's not clear that increasing guns, putting guns in the hands of the right people will decrease crime so the debates about more guns more crime less guns less crime wait more guns less crime or more guns more crime the two kind of extreme sides of this i it's not crystal clear

i used to think it was clear like just reduce possession of guns and that'll reduce crime it's not it's not it's not that clear even like reducing the number of outlying you know uh semi-automatic rifles you know they call them like assault rifles now there's no any rifle can be used as an assault weapon like my little 22 is semi-automatic because you pull it you know it's not automatic but it's not like put a 22 round cock the barrel boom shoot now you got to do the whole thing over again kind of like a musket like yeah there's a lot of different kinds of semi-automatic weapons. The phrase semi-automatic just sounds very kind of, you know, like you got some machine gun in your hands.

So it's, you know, most gun violence happens with handguns. Sure, mass shootings are typically semi-automatic, you know, AR, what are they, AR-15s? Is that what it's called? like AR-15s, is that what it's called? So if we took all those away, that might reduce mass shootings. You can't just assume that it would. It's more complicated than that.

But most gun violence as a whole happens with handguns. So we would have to kind of take away all handguns. And then, of course, there is an argument to be made. If you just outlaw all guns, um, like we outlawed, you know, heroin. Does that mean there's no heroin in America?

Like who's, you know, so I just making more laws does not necessarily mean that's going to reduce gun violence. Maybe it will. I might even lean towards it. I think it probably will, but it's not a clear cut case. Um. So even people that are like, no, don't you dare touch our

Second Amendment, they're not pro-school shootings. They have an argument that if we take away everybody's guns, if we take away semi-automatic weapons, we ban all guns or take back the second amendment and change it. They're saying that that's not going to help the cause. Okay. So nobody is for school shootings, but I just hear some of the rhetoric. Like if you're not hyper pro gun control, if you even say you're supportive of the second amendment, you're like, you're a murderer and you're contributing to the deaths of people

that's, uh, you know people at your schools or whatever. That's an asinine statement. It's a very ignorant statement. It's way more complicated than that. People have different views on gun laws and gun control are all trying to reduce, I believe, school shootings. I've never heard anybody say, I can care less about school shootings. I just want my gun. I don't know anybody that would say that. They would just say

that certain types of gun laws aren't going to reduce school shootings that may decrease the number of guns in the hands of so-called good people. Now, having said all that, I don't think it's good to put more guns in the hands of good people in high-pressure situations. So even that, I would say, shouldn't be taken for granted. So what am I saying? All I'm saying is that it's complicated. There is no clear black and white way to reduce gun violence. There may be one way that's better than another. I don't think it's as crystal clear as some people make it out to be. And I just think it's stupid and sloppy to blame the NRA for the deaths of these people. Maybe they're not helping.

And I'm not an NRA fan at all. Some of the stuff they say makes me cringe. And, okay, so you ask about the Second Amendment too. I could care less about the Second Amendment. Maybe I lost some supporters there. Maybe I gained some, I don't know. It's a man-made law that happened to be a man-made amendment of the secular nation that I was born into. And I kind of shrugged my shoulders like, okay, if they change it, I'd say, okay, I don't, it's not, my allegiance is to God

and his values and his laws. It is not to man-made laws. Just like if I happened to be born in North Korea and they had some fourth amendment or whatever on their laws, like I would kind of shrug my shoulders and say, my allegiance is to Jesus, not to the secular nation, the Babylon, the Rome, in which I've been born into. Like I don't, I have zero passion for sort of secular laws, like any kind of government that's not under the authority of Christ is trying to govern, rule the world is in a sense sense a charade in some ways. Maybe that's going a little too far, but not too far. So I don't, you know, keep the Second Amendment, amend it, whatever.

And my mission for Jesus, my allegiance to God's kingdom and my focus here on earth and the short breath that I have is not affected by whether we have a second or third or fourth amendment. I will be a Christian. I will live out my Christian faith with a conviction and hopefully passion and accuracy and truthfulness. And I don't need man-made laws to do that. So yeah, I could, I don't, I, yeah. And I think the Christian concern about the second amendment, if you're like, no, I think it's a good law for the state. That's fine. Yeah. But maybe, yeah, maybe it is. Maybe it isn't. I, I don't know. Um, I just, I'm not too riled up about it. So, um, yeah, I hope that helps again. Uh, that, that was actually a shorter, longer than I thought, but a shorter version of a much larger discussion I had on the Patreon onlyonly podcast that I posted last week.

So I hope that's helpful for you guys. You can email in your questions to chris at pressandsprinkle.com, C-H-R-I-S at pressandsprinkle.com. And thank you so much to my Patreon supporters for your support. We'll see you next time on Theology of the Rock. Bye-bye. © transcript Emily Beynon