Auss20070401 V45 01
Auss20070401 V45 01
Auss20070401 V45 01
SEMINARY
STUDIES
Volume 45
Spring 2007
Number 1
ManagingBoard Denis Fortin, Dean of the Seminary, chair; Jerry Moon, secretary; Lyndon
G. Furst, Dean of the School of Graduate Studies; Ron Knott, Director,
Andrews University Press; Richard Choi; Ken Mulzac; and John W. Reeve.
Phone: (269) 471-6023
Fax: (269) 471-6202
Electronic Mail: [email protected]
Web: http://www.auss.info
Communications:
$40.00
22.00
16.00
Spring 2007
Number 1
CONTENTS
ARTICLES
NEW TESTAMENT
TONSTAD, SIGVE. The Revisionary Potential of "Abba!
Father!" in the Letters of Paul
CHURCH HISTORY
COHICK, LYNN H. Virginity Unveiled: Tertullian's
Veiling of Virgins and Historical Women in
the First Three Centuries A.D.
19
35
45
OLD TESTAMENT
COLE, H. ROSS. Genesis 1:14Translation Notes
63
69
ARCHAEOLOGY
YOUNKER, RANDALL W., DAVID MERLING, PAUL RAY, MARK
ZIESE, PAUL GREGOR, CONSTANCE GANE, AND
KATHERINE KOUDELE. Preliminary Report of the 2000,
2004, and 2005 Seasons at Tall Jalul, Jordan (Madaba
Plains Project)
73
THEOLOGY
CANALE, FERNANDO. Absolute Theological Truth in
Postmodern Times
87
101
123
131
DISSERTATION ABSTRACT
BAUER, STEPHEN. Moral Implications of Darwinian Evolution
for Human Preference in Christian Ethics: A Critical
Analysis and Response to the "Moral Individualism"
of James Rachels
143
BOOK REVIEWS
Brode, Douglas. From Walt to Woodstock: How Disney
Created the Counterculture (LAEL CAESAR)
144
145
147
148
149
151
153
154
156
157
159
160
TABLE OF CONTENTS
* * * * *
* *
* *
The articles in this journal are indexed, abstracted, or listed in: Elenchus of Biblica;
Internationale Zeitschrzftenschau fur Bibelivissenschaft and Grenzgebiete; New Testament
Abstracts; Index theologicus/ Zeitschrifteninhaltsdienst Theo/0,0; Old Testament Abstracts;
Orientalistische Literatueitung; Religion Index One, Periodicals; Religious and Theological
Abstracts; Seventh-day Adventist Periodical Index; Theologische Zeitschnft; Zeitschriftfiir die
alttestamentkche Wirsenschaft
Copyright 2007 by Andrews University Press
ISSN 0003-2980
answer: "Did you receive the Spirit by doing the works of the law or by
believing what you heard?" (3:2). Circumcision, the opponents' sign of
authenticity, clearly played no part in the Galatians' reception of the Spirit.
Irreconcilable perceptions and incommensurable notions are clashing on this
point, quite possibly justifying the translation, "Having started in the Spirit, are
you now ending with a piece of severed human foreskin?" instead of the more
dignified "ending with the flesh" (3:3).12
Paul counters his opponents in Galatia by a series of arguments that are
probably less systematic than Betz makes it appear, arguing his case on the basis
of the Galatians' prior experience (3:1-5), Scripture (3:6-14)," human practice
(3:15-18), the temporary function of the law (3:19-26)," baptism (3:27-29), and
their own exclamation, "Abba! Father!" (4:6). If there is a conscious design in
Paul's logic, it might be that he draws ever larger circles as he proceeds, moving
from the complex to the simple, from the rare to the familiar, and from the
argumentative to the experiential. To the extent that inclusion of the Gentiles is
the overriding concern, the cry "Abba! Father!" in the mouth of the Gentile
believer pulls the rug from under any attempt to preserve the line of demarcation
between the elect and those left on the fringes in the old paradigm. On this point,
too, "Abba! Father!" is organic to the issue at hand and to Paul's theological and
pastoral concern, and it is legitimate to read the phrase as the climax of his
argument's
The Meaning of "Abba! Father!"
Why would Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, a man who by his own admission
would rather speak five words with his mind than "ten thousand words in a
'The plausibility of such a wording depends on what kind of rhetoric is thought
to be at work, including a rather sarcastic connotation of "flesh"; cf. Martyn, 290-292.
I 'Martyn, 249-250, argues persuasively that the juristic language commonly
attributed to Paul in Western translations should be adjusted in the direction of more
relational usage. Thus, where the NRSV has "no one is justified before God by the law"
(3:11), Martyn, 6, prefers "before God no one is rectified by the Law." The crucial point
at issue, he, 250, suggests, "is that of God's making nght what has gone wrong."
"Having noted Martyn's proposed attenuation of Paul's "justification" language,
one's reading of Paul's argument in Galatians cannot ignore the calls for a similar revision
in the perception of Paul's "faith" language away from the objective genitive reading of
pistil Christou ("faith in Christ") to a subjective genitive reading "the faith of Christ," or
"the faithfulness of Christ." In Galatians, this revision affects the translation of 2:16; 2:20,
3:22, yielding the possible wording "in order that the promise might by given by the
faithfulness of Jesus Christ to those who believe" (3:22b); cf. Morna D. Hooker,
"nirriz xpirmv," NTS 35 (1989): 321-342; Martyn, 251; Sigve Tonstad, "irictic
Xpiotoil: Reading Paul in A New Paradigm," AUSS 40 (2002): 37-59.
'Paul's letters do not necessarily follow a linear trajectory in which the conclusion
comes at the end. He has theological, pastoral, and practical concerns in most of his
letter. But the "Abba Father" expression in Galatians and Romans comes where the
strands of theological exposition and practical exhortation meet.
tongue" (1 Cor 14:19), resort to the Aramaic word Abba in these letters?' Why
would he do so knowing that the majority of his readers were mostly of Gentile
extraction? And what would be his reason for using this word in what by many
criteria appears to be the end-point of his message? That the expression "Abba!
Father!" is not an accident is clear from the fact that we find it in two of his
most substantial letters and in parallel contexts in both instances. Moreover, the
expression has the ring of familiarity, indicating that Paul is conjuring up an
image, the significance of which would not be missed by his readers.
The evidence supports Joachim Jeremias's contention that the early Christian
communities "used the cry `Abba, ho pater' (Abba, Father) and considered this an
utterance brought forth by the Holy Spirit.' As noted, this phrase was current
in the Pauline (Galatians) and the non-Pauline (Romans) communities alike, and,
according to Jeremias, "there can be no doubt at all that this primitive Christian
cry is an echo of Jesus' own praying."' Some of Jeremias's other claims on behalf
of this expression are less certain, but Ernest De Witt Burton also considered it
likely that the Aramaic word originated with Jesus and became part of the early
Christian experience through the telling of the passion story. These witnesses,
writes Burton, "used this word with a sort of affectionate fondness for the term
that Jesus had used to express an idea of capital importance in his teaching."'
The suggestion that "Abba! Father!" represents a vital idea to Jesus
indicates that this view also carried over into the teaching of Paul and the
experience of the Christian community. But what is the nature of this idea?
Its Use by Jesus
On the assumption that the use of this expression in Paul's letters overlaps with
its use in the Gospel of Mark, as noted by Burton and others,' the search for
"In the absence of a deeper rationale, leaving "Abba" untranslated "is not very
different from a devout Roman Catholic saying Paternoster, but Paul will not allow even one
word of prayer in a foreign tongue without adding an instant translation" Q. Moulton, A
Grammar ofthe New Testament Greek,vol. 1, Prologomena (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1908), 10.
'Joachim Jeremias, The Central Message of the New Testament (New YOrk: Scribner's,
1965), 18.
"Jeremias, 18. Some commentators, notably Ernst Kasemann (Commentary on
Romans [Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1980], 228), disagree that Paul's use of the
expression should be related to the one in Mark 14:36. Kasemann says that "naturally
Jesus did not address God in two languages," a fact that is readily granted, but if Mark
attempts to give the most authentic rendition of Jesus' prayer, then Al3Pa would be the
word and not the Greek, 6 trarijp."
19Ernest De Witt Burton, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the
Galatians, ICC (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1959), 224. According to Burton, a direct link
to Jesus is "more probable than that it was taken over into the Christian vocabulary
from that of the Jewish synagogue in which the idea of God as Father had so much less
prominent place than in the thought and teaching of Jesus" (Galatians, 224).
20Cf. William Sanday and Arthur C. Headlam, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary
10
this motif must pay attention to Mark. In the Markan version, reflecting the
tradition that likely gave rise to the expression, the trail leads to the prayer of
Jesus in Gethsemane. In his hour of supreme distress, Jesus exclaims: "Abba,
Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what
I want, but what you want!" (Mark 14:36). Even though Jesus used the
expression "Father" on many occasions in his prayers and discourses, this is the
only instance where the Aramaic address is preserved. In the Markan context,
Jesus is seen to be in a state of intense mental agony, and this connotation gives
the phrase "Abba, Father" an intensifying quality. Noting that the setting is the
preliminary stage to Jesus' crucifixion; "Abba, Father" is the phrase that recalls
and distills the meaning of Jesus' Gethsemane experience, to use Hays's
terminology. Most likely this background catapulted the expression into
common usage among the early Christians. The allusive force of "Jesus Christ
crucified" parallels that of "Abba! Father!" These terms are historically related
in the early Christian narrative ofJesus and contextually intertwined in the letter
to the Galatians.
Old Testament Background
As with many other terms in the Pauline correspondence, it is likely that this
expression has an OT antecedent beyond the designation of God as Father in
OT prayer language (Isa 63:16; Jer 3:4.19). Any search for such a corollary
should take linguistic as well as thematic parallels into consideration. On these
grounds, at least one scholar has found suggestive evidence for an allusion to
the Akedah, the story of the binding of Isaac in Gen 22. According to Joseph
Grassi,
there are indications to suggest that the meaning of Abba in Mark 14:36 is to
be found in the light of its whole context and Gen 22. Jesus' final trial in
Gethsemane appears to be modelled on the supreme trial of Abraham and
Isaac. Despite the horror and anguish before the prospect of an imminent
sacrificial death, Isaac calls Abraham his Abba and, as a faithful son, obeys
the voice of God speaking through his father. Parallel to this, Jesus says Abba
to God in the same way that Isaac does to Abraham. In this context, Abbe
has the meaning of "father" in the sense of a relationship to a devoted and
obedient son."
on the Epistle to the Romans, ICC (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1992), 203. E. A. Obeng
fords it quite plausible that "Abba" "was a distinctive characteristic of Jesus' own
prayer; for it will be difficult to explain how the disciples and the early Christians would
have dared to address God so intimately if Jesus had not used it and encouraged his
disciples to use it as well" ("Abba, Father: The Prayer of the Sons of God," ExpT 99
[1988]: 364).
'Joseph A. Grassi, "Abbe, Father' (Mark 14:36): Another Approach," JAAR 50
(1982): 455. The subject of God as Father continues till the end of chap. 8 in Romans.
In Paul's highly allusive language, Rom 8:32 also echoes Gen 22 and the Akedab.
Speaking of God, Paul writes Oc ye tot) t8Coi) ulot.1 oSic ickfactro. Speaking of
Abraham, the LXX says, Kai am( Etkiato rob blob oou tou liyairorob Si' Ei.th (Gen
11
Grassi's focus is primarily on the trust and obedience of the Son, but the
trust of the son, whether Isaac or Jesus is in view, is predicated on the
trustworthiness of the father in the respective narratives. It is important not to
leave out the father's trustworthiness because it goes to the heart of the
expression and because it is often left out. The force of the phrase in Paul's
letters has little to do with a quality in the believer and everything to do with
the quality of the person to whom it refers. Neither in Galatians nor in Romans
is there any hint of distress on the part of the believer, aligning the phrase with
the affective tenor of Isaac's unqualified confidence in his father. When Paul
tells the Galatians that "God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts," the
cry of "the Spirit of his Son" is intended to convey a relation between the
believer and the Father that is identical to the relation between the Father and
the Son. As Douglas J. Moo notes perceptively, "in crying out `Abba, Father,'
the believer not only gives voice to his or her consciousness of belonging to
God as his child but also to having a status comparable to that of Jesus
himself."' Not only has the believer become the adopted and obedient son of
the Father, but he has also adopted Jesus' view of the Father.
Experiential Quality
While we cannot pinpoint with certainty how the expression "Abba! Father!"
was used among the early Christians, the weight of evidence favors baptism.'
In the context of baptism, the past experience of coming to faith in response
to Paul's preaching (Galatians), the figurative dying and rising with Christ in the
waters of baptism, and the indwelling of the Spirit all would come together in
the sharply focused and deeply etched memory of the baptismal experience. On
this basis, we are looking at a phrase that was familiar to Jewish and Gentile
churches alike, and "Paul would only have had to allude to it, as he does in
Galatians and Romans, and its full and profound significance would have
registered immediately in the hearts of his readers, or hearers. They had all
uttered it at their Baptisms, and had witnessed it frequently at the Baptism of
others."' But even if the expression did not primarily belong in the context of
22:12.16). The verbal parallel seems intentional, especially the use of 4)(.450p.ai. in both
instances.
'Douglas J. Moo, The Epistle to the Romans, NICNT (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1996), 502.
"Cf. Betz, Galatians, 210; Obeng, 365; Martyn, 391. John A. T. Robinson sees the
baptismal connection substantiated by a series of themes coming together, where
"Abba! Father!" is invoked by Paul. This applies to the relationship between baptism
and the Spirit and also to the notion of sonship. "In Gal 4:6 the correct translation
should in all probability run: 'And to declare that ye are sons of God, God sent forth
the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father.' Christian Baptism simply
reproduces in the life of the Christian the one Baptism of Jesus begun in Jordan and
completed in the Resurrection" ("The One Baptism," SJT 6 [19531: 262-263).
'T. M. Taylor, "`Abba, Father' and Baptism," SJT 11 (1958): 70.
12
baptism?' its vividness and exclamatory nature would still furnish a treasure of
shared experience that Paul uses to his advantage.
Theological Significance
"Abba! Father!" has a comprehensive scope in the theological vision of
Galatians. Paul invokes the phrase as a representative metaphor for the
relationship between God and the new Gentile believer, assuming that the
Spirit-inspired cry has the ring of ultimacy and that inclusion of the Gentiles is
a foregone conclusion. This view accords well with the immediate and remote
context in Galatians and Romans alike. In both letters, Paul argues for the
inclusion of the Gentiles on the basis of God's faithfulness (Gal 3:1-14; Rom
4:9-17). "Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also?"
Paul asks rhetorically at one point, cognizant of the only possible answer within
a theological outlook that is grounded in the conviction that God is truly
"Abba, Father" for both groups (Rom 3:29). Favoritism and preferential
treatment are explicitly repudiated because the God who is addressed as "Abba!
Father!" shows no partiality (Rom 2:11). In Galatians and Romans, the theme
of baptism is explicit, and the baptismal metaphor is part and parcel of the
larger theme of dying and rising with Christ (Gal 3:27; Rom 6:3-11).26 As Paul
moves closer to the phrase under consideration here, the legal language of
"righteousness by faith," as it has been understood traditionally, gives way to
terminology that belongs in the category of "participation" (Gal 3:28-29; Rom
8:9-11). Along this route of mental travel, hallowed bastions of discrimination,
distinction, and subservience must fall: "there is no longer Jew or Greek, there
is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are
one in Christ Jesus" (Gal 3:28). Moving to the more immediate context, there
is another striking change of metaphor as the participation theme finds
expression in father-child language (Gal 4:1-7; Rom 8:14-17). "Abba! Father!"
is the concluding statement in this sequence and the most sharply focused
metaphor for the new relation.
The Revisionary Potential of "Abba! Father!"
On the basis of the foregoing, I suggest that the expression "Abba! Father!" has
at least four potential consequences for the reading of Paul, each of which
21(asemann, 228, does not deny a connection to baptism, but considers it an
acclamation with a confessional character that was not specifically baptismal. The
element of exclamation is clear from the use of Kpce(ew, but neither the present active
participle xpei.Cov in Galatians nor the present active indicative Kpci(ouet, in Romans
is distinctive enough to decide whether "Abba Father" was used only on the specific
occasion of baptism or in other connections as well. Joseph Fitzmyer concurs with
interpreters who regard the Abba as an instance of ipsissima vox Iesu. He makes the point
that although the phrase "could reflect some liturgical usage," Paul is not speaking of "a
mere liturgical usage" (Romans, AB [New York: Doubleday, 1992], 498).
6Cf. Martyn, 391.
13
14
15
This point deserves a further note because the fear that marks the
beginning of human alienation from God is itself the result of a false picture
of God. If fear in the Gentile experience relates to capricious deities and
threatening cosmic forces, the existential crisis of Gentiles in Paul's day has not
strayed far from the initiating encounter with evil in the biblical narrative. In an
essay on Paul's narrative world, Edward Adams demonstrates that Paul in Rom
7 echoes the Genesis narrative of the fall.' According to Adams, "sin/the
serpent found its opportunity in the commandment, exploiting God's decree
to the primal pair to further its malicious ambitions."' The account in Genesis
is generalized and made existential for a specific purpose in Romans, but it
preserves a causal relationship that operates as much in the experience of the
human condition in Paul's day as in the Genesis narrative. The capricious
nature of the Unseen in the prefaith perception of reality is the corollary of the
primal pair's acceptance of the charge that the Creator is an arbitrary and
unreasonable despot (Gen 3:1). The Gentiles, "enslaved to beings that by
nature are not gods" (Gal 4:8), are in this respect no worse off than human
beings who take a distorted view of the Being who by nature is God. If
capriciousness is the common attribute, there is little advantage to the God
who is over the gods that are not. Fear would be the consequence of such
misapprehension even of the true God. The privilege of the believer in Paul's
Galatian narrative, having "come to know God" (Gal 4:9), is deliverance from
subservience to a capricious deity, beginning with the elemental forces of the
cosmos that are specified in Paul's letter.
"Abba! Father!" embodies a third revisionary potential that owes to its
simplicity and clarity. In the Galatian context, the believers were initially stirred
by Paul's preaching, entering into the believing fellowship through baptism.
Subsequent to that a disturbance arose with the arrival of the "teachers" and
their insistence that the new believers needed to be circumcised. Paul's effort
to set the record straight in Galatians is a complex and tangled argument,
perhaps making Galatians the best place to look for the roots of his reputation
of "things hard to understand" in his letters (2 Pet 3:16)." Even if we grant that
the Galatians were exceptionally interested and adept in matters relating to their
faith, sitting at the edge of their chairs when Paul's letter was read, it is not
"0 God, my Father" or "0 God, our Father," holding that "Abba was a loan-word
which no longer meant 'the Father' or 'my Father' in this idiom, but simply God. This
made it possible to write `Abba, Father' without being conscious of tautology" ("Abba,
Father," JBL 72 [1953]: 90). Even a "minimalist" reading such as this one, however,
preserves the essential element, that is, the believer's experience of God.
'Edward Adams, "Paul's Story of God and Creation," in Narrative Dynamics in Paul,
ed. Bruce W. Longenecker (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2002), 19-43.
37Adams, 28. rl yap alluvia el)opirilv AccI3obacc Sta tfjc ivrcafic al-met-ma& tiE
1.1,E in Gen 3:13 (LXX).
in Rom 7:11 echoes (!) (5(Ing
'Scholarly support for this early and "canonical" assessment of Paul is not hard
to find.
16
likely that all the listeners grasped his arguments in every particular." Perhaps
not a few, tired from the day's hard work, found their thoughts drifting to more
mundane subjects or struggled to stay awake when the messenger read the
analogy about Abraham and of Paul's complex view of the law (Gal 3:6-14). If
such people were among the initial hearers of Galatians and Romansand
there are clearly such hearers in our enlightened timesit is conceivable that
they could only be needled back to the apostle's message by something relating
to their experience, a word that had unmistakable recognition value because
they had been there and because it was as unambiguous as anything was likely
to get.
The expression "Abba, Father," charged with an exclamatory and
experiential connotation,' answers to such a need. This phrase was familiar not
just as a favorite theme of Paul, but also as a word from their experience.
Moreover, even if nuances of the phrase eluded some, be they echoes from the
OT or allusions to the prayer life of Jesus, it was for them and still is an
expression that carries a reassuring and liberating connotation quite apart from
any theological conditioning. In the context of the Galatian controversy, it is
fair to claim that no element in their mental picture was more comprehensible
than this one. Not unlike the many people who have climbed and are climbing
the Pauline mountains and never make it to the top, there are believers who can
only reach the top on the wings of a simpler metaphor. If such people were
present in the Galatian or Roman congregations, this would be the solution for
them. Indeed, if such readers of Paul exist today, one owes it to them to point
out this option and work to restore to it its simplifying revisionary force
theologically and experientially. Moreover, such a view is not a cop-out from
tackling difficulties in Paul's letters. It is likely that Paul chose this metaphor
chiefly because it was the most representative and adequate among the options
available to him. Those who make it to the top of the mountain by this method
are not cheating. "Abba! Father!" is the view from the top of the mountain,
even for people who make it there by the more strenuous path of Paul's
complex arguments and logic.'
39In connection with the growing interest in Paul's use of the OT, Christopher D.
Stanley asks how much new believers understood of Paul's theology ("Pearls Before
Swine': Did Paul's Audiences Understand His Biblical Quotations?" NovT 41 [1999]:
124-144). The literacy rate was low, books as we know them today did not exist, and
knowledge of the OT was probably quite limited. Did people understand Paul's OT
quotations? Did they grasp the more subtle allusions and echoes? Stanley believes that
modern expositors are too sanguine with regard to the literary sophistication of the
Gentile converts, a possibility that raises the significance of "Abba! Father!" as an
element of an appropriated faith to an even higher level.
'lames D. G. Dunn, The Epistle to the Galatians, BNTC (London: A. & C. Black,
1993), 221.
41To Burton, 223, the full significance of Paul's view, exchanging legal language for
the language of family relations, belonged to this metaphor "precisely in the fact that
... a truly filial relation and attitude of man to God shall displace the legal relation that
17
18
use of Abba in Paul's letters are replete with cognitive overtones; the binding
of Isaac or the surrender of Jesus to the Father's will in Gethsemane become
caricatures unless they are seen as examples of trust that is based on insight and
confidence in the person in whom one's trust is placed. Such insight also goes
to the heart of the experience of the believer and is reflected in the utterance,
disclosing the core value of his or her faith. If, in an adapted version of the
language categories of Wittgenstein, in which language I is the language of
relationships, language II the language of information, and language III the
language of motivation, then "Abba! Father!" clearly belongs in the category of
First Language, the language of intimacy, relationships, and prayer.' But its
notion of intimacy is, in this context, predicated on understanding.
Conclusion
I conclude that the expression "Abba! Father!" holds a reserve of revisionary
power with respect to the theological priorities in Paul's letters. This applies to
the center of Paul's theology, to his understanding of the ultimate basis for the
inclusion of the Gentiles, and to his conviction that the God who is addressed
as Abba is a Being who "shows no partiality" (Rom 2:11). Above all, this
expression speaks to the challenge of appropriating Paul's message, offering
welcome relief to readers who find in his letters "things hard to understand"
(2 Pet 3:16). Something along these lines must have been the view of Alfred
Loisy, who long ago wrote that Paul "succeeded in drawing out of the
invocation '0 Father', his entire theory of salvation."'
'Eugene H. Peterson, "First Language," Theology Today 42 (1985): 211-214. A
comparative-religions' evaluation of the expression "Abba Father" has not been
attempted here. Sanders, 549, has hinted at its direction, but anticipates limitations and
results that most likely would be quite different if his view that Paul has "nothing new
to say about God" turns out to be exaggerated.
'Alfred Loisy, L'Epitre aux Galates (Paris: Nourry, 1916), 166.
20
21
Not only were women and men separated into different spheres in
Tertullian's day, with men's public realm more highly valued, but also women
were seen as the Other by men. Male authors exploited these perceptions,
attacking their opponents as Other and giving them feminine traits. The
opponent/enemy was depicted as irrational, unstable, lacking in courage, and
self-controlhe was, in short, a "woman." These charges were broadly
accepted stock accusations, often delivered with no regard to actual
circumstances. Ross Kraemer detects this phenomenon across pagan, Jewish,
and Christian writings,' citing Chrysostom as a clear example of such practice.
In his sermons Against Judaizing Christians (2.3.4-6), Chrystostom attacks
husbands for their failure to control their wives' behaviors: "Now that the devil
summons your wives to the Feast of Trumpets and they turn a ready ear to his
call, you do not restrain them." Not only are they unable to control "their"
women, these inadequate husbands display feminine traits. He declares that
those Christian men who attend the synagogue are effeminate (malakot) and
resemble the softness characterized by women.'
For the church fathers such rhetoric could result in a special dilemma
because the church portrayed itself as the virgin Bride of Christ.' Male
members of the church negotiated between the gendered female image of
submission in relation to God and the masculine ideal of their world. These
concerns, however, focus specifically on how the category of "virgin" was used
to explain real and ideal Christian women in the ancient world.
Images of Bride and Virgin
The church fathers and their audiences did not create the categories of "bride"
and "virgin," nor did they employ these categories in a vacuum. We should
suppose that what they said was understandable to their audience, even if they
were reconfiguring or redefining those social roles. The larger cultural picture of
marriage must come into focus in order to properly appreciate how the church
fathers manipulated the categories of "virgin" and "bride" for their own purposes.
Noble Women: Gender and Honor in Ascetic Texts," Semeia 57/1 [1992]: 42-43).
'Ross Kraemer, "The Other as Woman: An Aspect of Polemic among Pagans,
Jews and Christians in the Greco-Roman World," in The Other in Jewish Thought and
History, ed. Laurence J. Silberstein and Robert L. Cohn (New York: New York
University Press, 1994) , 122-144.
9See Kraemer, 135-137, for a full discussion.
Burrus explores the development of the Christian male's self-image as
reflected in the masculine/male portrait of the Trinity: "If the horizon of human becoming
is named in terms of Father, Son, and Spirit, this does not in itself make of God a male
idolbut it does, as a matter of fact, construct both an idealized masculinity and a
masculinized transcendence. For the Fathers, femaleness is allied with the stubborn
particularity of created matter, against which the unlimited realm of supposedly ungendered
divinity may be defined by theologians who have risen above their gender as well" (Begotten,
Not Made: ConceivingManhood in Lat Antiquity [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000],185).
22
23
Second, and somewhat ironically, Cooper adds that the social dynamic
underpinning this rhetoric actually served to empower women. Discounting as
anachronistic the Enlightenment's fixation on both individual autonomy and
the public/private social dichotomy, Cooper argues that as the domus was the
center of community life, and as women were at the center of the home, they
therefore had tremendous, albeit informal, power" to shape the family's honor
socially, politically, and economically. She notes that concentrating "on these
distortions, . . . will afford a more accurate picture of how ancient women
understood themselves."'
Cooper's discussion of the ApocophalActs raises important questions,' and
her analysis is not without its critics. I am not convinced that we can discern
these ancient women's self-understanding as mediated through a male author.
Moreover, Shelly Matthews warns that Cooper's methodology, in fact, reduces
women to mere signs or metaphors serving male rhetorical purposes in the
texts.2 Cooper's focus on textual representation of women, influenced by
poststructuralist claims, relegates historical women to the margins. Matthews
counters with Claude Levi-Strauss's conclusion that women are both signs and
producers of signs. She maintains that women are not only acted upon, but also
are actors affecting their environment.'
In addition, Cooper fails to address adequately Tertullian's claim that "those
women" read the Acts of Thecla as supporting the position that women could
function as preachers and baptizers. Tertullian disagrees that women are eligible
for teaching and baptizing positions in the church and he attempts to discredit the
Acts of Thecla by asserting it was a later work written by a presbyter to honor Paul
the Apostle (De baptismo 1.17, CC 1.291). Yet the phrase "those women" is not
textually secure. Even if we could establish this reading, it is entirely possible that
"Margaret Y. MacDonald, Early Christian Women and Pagan Opinion (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1996), 41-47. Karen Jo Torjesen ("In Praise of Noble
W omen,"Semia 57 [1992]: 50-51), points to Elizabeth Clark, who builds on Weber's theory
of three types of power. Women were assigned that power based on their personal status,
wealth, and family, not on their office or function. Weber called this traditional authority,
which does not distinguish between public and private roles, and which works well in the
ancient patronage system. See Elizabeth Clark, "Authority and Humility: A Conflict of
Values in Fourth Century Femail Monasticism," in Ascetic Piety and Women's Faith, Studies
in Women and Religion, 3 (Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1986), 214.
"Cooper, 13.
"Virginia Burrus uses folklore techniques as a methodological entrance into the
historicity of Apocryphal Acts (Chastity as Autonomy: Women in the Stories of the Apocryphal
Acts [Lewiston: Mellon, 1987]). Most recently, she has explored identity construction
from a postcolonial perspective in her "Mimicking Virgins," 49-88.
'Shelly Matthews, "Thinking of Thecla: Issues in Feminist Historiography,"Journal
of Feminist Studies in Religion 17/2 (2001): 50.
21 Ibid., 51. She quotes Levi-Strauss: "For words do not speak, while women do; as
producers of signs, women can never be reduced to the status of symbols or tokens"
(Claude Levi-Strauss, Structural Anthropology [New York: Basic Books, 1963], 61).
24
25
26
head. He claims that his call to veil the virgin's face has precedence in the Arab
woman's veiling of her face and is found among other people groups, including
those found "beneath this (African) sky" (chap. 2). His vagueness increases the
suspicion that Tertullian is promoting a minority position.'
Tertullian's program encourages the virgin to cover her head and part of
the face. He speaks about covering the virgin's forehead (chap. 3) and describes
her hair as "being massed together upon the crown, it wholly covers the very
citadel of the head with an encirclement of hair" (chap. 7). He maintains that
when a girl comes of age and is a virgin, she must veil herself, that is, cover her
head and face (chaps. 3, 7, 15, 17).
He puts forward that for some virgins his suggested type of covering
matches their preference. He speaks about women having choices in marriage,
and proposes that virgins might have the same choice in their attire. He writes
that "the matter has been left to choice, for each virgin to veil herself or expose
herself [or prostitute herself],' as she might have chosen, just as (she has equal
liberty) as to marrying, which itself withal is neither enforced nor prohibited"
(chap. 2). But female autonomy is far from his mind; rather Tertullian is at
pains to demonstrate female subordination to men. This sentiment is clear from
his language vilifying the woman as a prostitute who makes a choice contrary
to Tertullian's ideal. Nor would Tertullian have been dissuaded from his
position if no virgin veiled herself; their acceptance of his position does not
ultimately affect its truth, as far as Tertullian is concerned.
It is difficult to tell from Tertullian's work whether the virgin has any
special functions within the church, but he does speak about a widow's
functions in his denunciation of a bishop's "promotion" of a young virgin to
the office of widow (chap. 9).31 He describes a widow as an older woman (at
least sixty years old), who was previously married and probably with children.
He remarks that they are qualified to counsel and comfort other women in that
they too have "traveled down the whole course of probation whereby a female
can be tested" (chap. 9). For Tertullian, a virgin is not qualified to give this
counsel and comfort, and he concludes "nothing in the way of public honour
is permitted to a virgin" (chap. 9).
In his condemnation of the bishop's decision to advance a virgin to the
'Dunn, 141, concludes that Tertullian is not speaking about a covering similar to
the modern burka worn by some Muslim women. Instead, he is referring to the Roman
shawl, which could be pulled up over the wearer's head but left the face exposed. I agree
that Tertullian in places seems to reference only the Roman shawl or palla, but he also
speaks about the face needing covering.
'Dunn, 181 n. 27, remarks that "this verb more commonly meant 'to be exposed
to prostitution' or simply 'to prostitute oneself ' Tertullian's choice of words is very
revealing."
n Tertullian hints that the bishop was searching for a way to offer relief for the
woman. Tertullian also does not remark directly on the theological irony of declaring a
virgin, wed to Christ, a widow!
VIRGINITY UNVEILED .
27
28
VIRGINITY UNVEILED . . .
29
differs depending on a woman's social status. For a virgin, the veil hides her from
the world of men and all the temptations therein, protecting the glory of her
husband, Christ. Tertullian is especially concerned over the role the sense of sight
plays in male lust. If the virgin covers her face, then the man cannot lust after her.
Tertullian adds that the covered virgin is also prevented from the sensual sin of
enjoying being looked at! The veil also prevents the sin of ostentatious behavior.
For wives, it preserves their vows and modesty, reinforcing the fact that they are
in submission to their husbands, their "head" or "power."
Tertullian makes the audacious claim that physical rape would not be as
bad as the removal of the veil for a virgin, as the former comes of "natural
office" (chap. 3). But removing the veil violates the spirit of her virginity, for
"she has learnt to lose what she used to keep" (chap. 3). He claims that the
virgin will feel exposed as she stands unveiled; this belief that she has already
been sexually compromised by her uncovering will set her on the path to
wantonness and impiety.' Church writings down through the centuries,
however, have praised women who protected their purity/virginity on pain of
death,' so I wonder whether Tertullian's female audience might have accepted
his cavalier posture toward physical rape.
Tertullian further alleges that many unveiled virgins are in fact sexually
active.' He spills much ink on their pregnancy, delivery, and the numerous
healthy children they produce. He laments: "God knows how many infants He
has helped to perfection and through gestation till they were born Sound and
whole, after being long fought against by their mothers! Such virgins ever
conceive with the readiest facility, and have the happiest deliveries, and children
indeed most like to their fathers!" (chap. 14). His concern is that by not
mandating the veil, no one can tell if the woman is faithful to her virginity vow.
"Is Tertullian describing a female's orgasm when he writes in On the Veiling of
Virgins, chap. 14, "she is tickled by pointing fingers, while she is too well loved, while
she feels a warmth creep over her amid assiduous embraces and kisses. Thus the
forehead hardens; thus the sense of shame wears away; thus it relaxes; thus is learned the
desire of pleasing in another way!"? Is Tertullian revealing a commonly held
understanding of female sexuality in which a woman's head represented her genitals, or
was even a part of her genitals? Did the covering of the hair on her head symbolize the
covering of her pubic hair? For a discussion on this issue, see Troy W. Martin, "Paul's
Argument from Nature for the Veil in 1 Corinthians 11:13-15: A Testicle Instead of a
Head Covering," JBL, 123 (2004): 75-84. See also Dale B. Martin, The Corinthian Boob,
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995).
'Norris, 186-205.
"Tertullian indirectly makes this charge in On the Veiling of Virgins, chap. 3 when
he describes the "virgins of men" as going about with their "front quite bare" that is,
with their forehead exposed. Even more, these so-called virgins have the power to ask
men "something," and this may have to do with requesting sex, if the mention of
"forehead" parallels this vague statement. These "virgins of men" are apparently
requesting that other virgins be restricted from wearing the veil, as it offends those who
do not don it.
30
If the virgin broke her vow, Tertullian is convinced she would avoid at all costs
revealing her lapse by taking up the matron's covering.
Tertullian plays on the gender stereotypes accepted in his world, that
women have uncontrollable sexual appetites and cannot be trusted to maintain
sexual purity. However, his main fear with unveiled virgins is that status
boundaries are crossed without public evidence of the change. He wants
matrons to look like matrons, and virgins like virgins, thus both groups must
be veiled. The implicit charge to his opponents is that they permit a custom
which allows "their" women to be sexually promiscuous without penalty. At
bottom, Tertullian is not merely (or even primarily) attacking women, but the
men who create and perpetuate dangerous social custom. By shaming their
women, Tertullian is bringing dishonor on their leadership.
Would such accusations stick? Would an ancient audience be convinced
that Tertullian's opponents are part of an "immoral" congregation? Given that
image is reality, and that gendered social constructs assumed that women were
promiscuous, it is entirely possible that his audience would be moved by his
rhetoric against his opponents. Let me add, however, the possibility that
Tertullian was writing to his own group and that his opponents never saw or
heard his argument. Tertullian might be practicing a bit of self-identity building,
wherein he is distinguishing himself from other "orthodox" communities,
which, nevertheless, do things differently and are therefore suspect.
Furthermore, Tertullian is inconsistent in his attitude toward and rhetorical
use of custom. He first admits that those churches "with whom we share the law
of peace and the name of brotherhood" (chap. 2) differ on this issue of veiling
virgins. Then he decries the custom as not based on Truth. But he goes on to
defend his position by pointing to apostolic custom, and by noting that pagan
social custom insists on at least covering the head, if not veiling the face. So he is
selective in choosing among the various customs. He validates his interpretation
of custom from his reading of 1 Cor 11 primarily (chaps. 4, 7, 8), from his claim
of apostolic authority for his custom (chap. 2), and from a vision sent by the Holy
Spirit (chap. 17).
In. a treatise written probably just a few years before On the Veiling of
Virgins, Tertullian uses an argument from custom to defend the behavior of a
Christian soldierbut this time he applauds custom as pointing to Truth." In
On the Military Crown, he defends a local Christian soldier's refusal to don the
victor's wreath as supported by Christian custom. Equally as interesting, in the
work he cites the practice of biblical Israelite women veiling themselves as
proof that custom is a guide for true practice. He highlights both Rebecca and
Susanna as proper models of women covering their heads.' The examples of
Rebecca and Susanna make it "sufficiently plain that you can vindicate the
keeping of even unwritten tradition established by custom; the proper witness
"Dunn, 135.
Tertullian, On the Military Crown, 4.
46
31
32
superior to women: "Sure we are that the Holy Spirit could rather have made
some such concession to males, if He had made it to females; forasmuch as,
besides the authority of sex, it would have been more becoming that males
should have been honoured on the ground of continency itself likewise" (chap.
10). Tertullian's biting rhetoric that male celibacy is more honorable than
female virginity intimates his fear of social dislocation or reversal of proper
gender roles latent in the practice of honoring virgins. Tertullian aprioti accepts
that God will give more honor to the man than to the woman. Since God did
not give the male celibate a public sign or token indicating this honor, God
would certainly not think to bestow upon women such a sign, in this case, the
permission to go about in church without the customary veil. He shores up his
claim with what is, in his mind, irrefutable evidence. He proclaims that
continence for men is much harder to maintain than virginity for women: "The
more their sex is eager and warm toward females, so much the more toil does
the continence of (this) greater ardour involve; and therefore the worthier is it
of all ostentation, if ostentation of virginity is dignity" (chap. 10). Apparently,
men have a harder time resisting women and sex, but virgins who have never
known sex's sweetness do not desire after it. Thus for Tertullian, "constancy
of virginity is maintained by grace; of continence by virtue" (chap. 10).
At first blush, it may seem as though Tertullian is contradicting
himselfstating that men have a harder time resisting sex, and in the same breath
decrying the woman's propensity for promiscuity. Both are true, and are related
to virtue and gender. For him, women are weak by nature, lacking the inclination
toward virtue and rarely able to resist temptation. But men can aspire to virtue as
they battle against their passions.
Conclusion
To conclude, I suggest that Tertullian opposes the practice of virgins unveiling
themselves in the church for several reasons. First, he faults the practice as
being inconsistent since the virgins veil themselves in public, but are unveiled
at church. Second, he is offended by the potential for immorality he sees
stemming from this practice. His concern is twofold, focusing on women's
attire as being a reflection of their characters as women, and on men's
threatened honor. He judges unveiled virgins to be contrary to God's discipline
in that women are taking the lead in establishing practice. He insists on clear
gender demarcation within the church; to step outside these heavily drawn lines
is to invite sin and decadence. Third, Tertullian takes the opportunity afforded
by the situation to promote his understanding of "male" and "female." He
clarifies that all men are above all women by applying the categories of "glory"
and "humility." He declares it discourteous (inhumanum)' that a woman would
be given a special honor denied to men, and that men would "carry their glory
in secret, carrying no token to make them, too, illustrious (chap. 10).
'Loeb translates inhumanum "sufficiently discourteous," while Dunn, 155, has
"extremely rude."
33
34
devotion to husband and children, earned their reputation as spiritual guides were
replaced by those who had never married, raised children, or cared for families.
Charlotte Methuen notes that "as the orthodox church became more established
. . . the spiritual authority of senior members of a congregation who had proved
their faith over a number of years was assumed by those who had gained stature
through the successful pursuit of the ascetic life."' Tertullian insists gender
hierarchy must be maintained; a woman must not be awarded a high status simply
because she is a woman, i.e., virgin. Only "real" widows may earn the privilege of
high status.
Tertullian argues against male leaders of churches who fail to follow his
rigorous agenda. But he also pleads with his female audience to listen to his words
for the sake of the men in their lives because, he notes, "you are a danger for
every age group" (chap. 16).' Thus Tertullian awards women tremendous (albeit
informal) power even as he strips them of honor. Kathleen Norris recognizes this
in the tales of virgin martyrs and remarks: "Once again (or, as ususal), a virgin
martyr gives witness to a wild power in women that disrupts the power of male
authority, of business as usual."' Tertullian sensed this disruption and sought to
cover it up, literally.
52 Methuen,
53Dunn's
297.
translation, 160.
54Kathleen
36
37
laws as do not conflict with the word of God. In the carrying out of this
principle we render tribute, customs, reverence, etc.
May 1868, the sixth General Conference declared
That we feel called upon to renew our request to our brethren to abstain
from worldly strife of every nature, believing that war was never justifiable
except under the immediate direction of God, who of right holds the lives
of all creatures in his hand; and that no such circumstance now appearing,
we cannot believe it to be right for the servants of Christ to take up arms to
destroy the lives of their fellow-men.
Some works of Adventist history' do make mentionusually of the
firstof these resolutions. They do not, however, seem to see much
significance in the fact that the church made definitive and repeated
declarations of pacifism' during its first decade of organized existence. I
propose that the resolutions of 1865-1868 support the generalization that
Seventh-day Adventism began as a peace church.'
The two contemporary Adventist historians who have written with the
greatest skill and acumen on this topic, Ronald Graybill and George Knight,
conclude that beneath the unequivocal resolutions of the 1865-1868 General
Conferences, Adventists remained quite unsettled about questions of war and
military service. In their accounts, expedience seems much more prominent
than ethical conviction in prompting Adventists to go on record with their
emphatic, sweeping statements against participation in war.
'The historical treatments by Adventist writers that I have most utilized for this study
are: W. C. White, D. E. Robinson, and A. L. White, "The Spirit of Prophecy and Military
Service" (Ellen G. White Estate [hereafter EGWE] document, June 15, 1956, DF 320);
Arthur Whitedeld Spalding, Origin and History of Seventh-day Adventists (Washington, DC:
Review and Herald, 1961), 1: 312-33; Ron Graybill, "This Perplexing War: Why Adventists
Avoided Military Service in the Civil War" (manuscript in EGWE DF 320, incorporating
minor corrections and additions made to an article of the same title published in Insight,
October 10, 1978, 4-8); idem, "Thoughts on Seventh-day Adventists and the American
Civil War" (manuscript in EGWE DF 320); Richard W. Schwarz and Floyd Greenleaf,
Light Bearers: A History of the Seventh-dig Adventist Church (Silver Spring, MD: General
Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, Department of Education, 2000), 95-99; George
R. Knight, "Adventism and Military Service: Individual Conscience in Ethical Tension,"
in Proclaim Peace: Christian Pacifism From Unexpected ,Quarters, ed. Theron F. Schlabach and
Richard T. Hughes (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 157-171.
'Peter Brock includes Adventism in the category of "separational pacifism," in which
renunciation of violence is one of the features that distinguish their community from the
general society (Freedom From Violence: Sectarian Nonresistance from the Middle Ages to the Great
1Var [Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991], 270-272). In an analysis that identifies
at least twenty-five different types of religious pacifism, Yoder, 96-98, cites Seventh-day
Adventists as the foremost example of the "pacifism of cultic law"absolute,
unquestioning adherence to the letter of divine law. I hope to show that this categorization
does not do justice to the Adventists of the Civil War era, at least.
'That is, they did bear "official witness that peace is an essential aspect of the
gospel" and explicitly renounced "the use of force and violence."
38
39
'My perspective owes much to the work of Brock, esp. pp. 230-258.
"Compilation or Extracts, from the Publications ofS eventh-dg Adventists Setting Forth Their
Views of the Sinfulness of War, Referred to in the Annexed Affidavits (EGWE DF 320).
15 The support for the New England Non-Resistance Society and other radical
reforms among the Millerite Adventists suggests a deeply held pacifism that carried over
to the early Sabbatarian Adventists. Graybill discusses Millerite pacifism in "The
Abolitionist-Millerite Connection," in The Disappointed: Millerism and Millenarianism in the
Nineteenth Century, ed. Ronald L. Numbers and Jonathan M. Butler (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1987), 139-152. The pacifism of non-Sabbatarian Adventists
during the Civil War yields further evidence of its pervasiveness in the roots of the
Advent movement; see Peter Brock, ed., Liberty and Conscience: A Documentary History of
Experiences of Conscientious Objectors in America through the Civil War (New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002), 185-187. Brock describes a strong inclination toward
nonresistance from the beginning in the Seventh-day Adventist fellowship as "a legacy
of the Garrisonian era" (ibid., 232). In "Radical Witness: The Political Stance of the
Earliest Seventh-day Adventists," an unpublished paper presented at Association of
Seventh-day Adventist Historians Conference, Andrews University, 13 April 2001, I
pursue this point, drawing particularly on the insights of Henry Mayer, All On Fire:
William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998).
40
41
"much research and study" and thus still was not done!'
The fact that the project was not complete was not due to a lack of effort
on Andrews's part. Earlier in the year he had sent a letter asking Butler for his
views on the subject. Butler's reply makes a case from the Bible for war as
necessary and proper in some instances as an instrument of the divinely
ordained institution of government. Graybill and Knight both lean heavily on
the Butler letter as evidence for a much-divided state of Adventist belief on the
issue at the end of the 1860s, the resolutions adopted at the General
Conferences notwithstanding.
The letter does show that the subject was not closed and that desire existed
for a fuller and deeper biblical exposition on which to ground the church's
position. Indeed, the fact that it seemed necessary to reaffirm the church's
position on the sinfulness of war at the 1867 conference and yet again in 1868
must mean that questions continued to be raised.
I do not believe, however, that Butler's letter sustains Knight's conclusion
that the Seventh-day Adventist community came out of the Civil War era in a
fragmented and uncertain state with regard to war. Rather, it provides valuable
evidence for the genuine prevalence of a consensus at this point.
In the first place, Butler regarded his own theories to be on the margins of
Adventist thought, recognizing "that the mass of our people are leaning rather to
the non-resistant side of this subject." He opened his lengthy epistle with a teasing
affectation of surprise that Andrews would request light from hima known
skeptic about the prevailing view. "I wish I could have seen whether there was
not a roguish twinkle in your eye when you penned that sentence," he wrote.
The future General Conference president congratulates himself for having
succeeded in urging that Andrews be appointed to write the article on war rather
than someone such as Roswell F. Cottrell, who would have "treated" readers "to
a rehash of non-resistance theories with no consideration of the other side." It is
here that Knight sees conclusive evidence that unanimity did not exist.
Unanimity was indeed lacking, particularly on how to work out the biblical
rationale for the refusal to bear arms. However, Butler's letter takes as a starting
point that a consensusa basic position agreed upon by delegates duly elected
as representatives of the church bodyhad been established. He does not
expectI doubt even hopedthat Andrews's research would show that
Adventists had gotten it all wrong three years before in declaring themselves
noncombatants or that the Bible actually does approve participation by the
remnant in warfare for a just cause, so they need not have worried so much
about the draft after all.
Rather, Butler dissents from the general acceptance of the "non-resistance
theories" that had been set forth as a definitive basis for the Adventist position.
He wanted Andrews commissioned to write on the subject because he was
confident that Andrews would give thorough and fair consideration to all sides
of the issue, and was the one best positioned to formulate a convincing case
21
GC Session Minutes, May 16, 1866; May 14, 1867; and May 12, 1868.
42
43
46
Sandord Durst, 1997), 106-114. Full text of the 1929 Lateran Treaty can also be found
at <www.aloha.net/mikesch/treaty.htm>.
'James A. Corden, Thomas J. Gree, and Donald E. Heintschel, eds., The Code of
Canon Law: A Text and Commentary (New York: Paulist, 1985), 301.
4Avro Manhattan, The Vatican in World Politics (New York: Gaer, 1949), 26.
'Waldemar Gurian and M. A. Fitzsimons, eds., The Catholic Church in Work 1Affairs
(South Bend: University of Notre Dame Press, 1954), 40.
'U.S. Embassy at the Vatican Website: <www.usis.it/usembvat/Files/
background.htm>.
47
political, and spiritual conditions.' The 2001 Catholic Almanac reported nearly
a half-million priests worldwide: 211,827 in Europe, 79,542 in North America,
40,755 in South America, 41,456 in Asia, 26,026 in Africa, and 5,000 in
Oceania.' Thus the Vatican's intelligence-gathering capacity compares with that
of the most sophisticated world power.
World membership of Catholics is equally far-reaching. Despite the fact
that Vatican City consists of an area slightly more than one-sixth of a square
mile, with fewer than one thousand residents, managing a budget the size of a
small-to-medium-size company,' worldwide membership of the Catholic
Church far exceeds that of the population of the United States and Russia
combined. This vast international community ensures an elevated level of
recognition by political leaders.
Yet the substantial political influence wielded by the Holy See is derived,
in large part, from its efficient structure of governance. The Vatican's
constitution, as promulgated in February 2001, an update of the 1929 Basic
Law, Article I, states that "the Supreme Pontiff, Sovereign of Vatican CityState, possesses the fullness of legislative, executive, and judicial powers."'" Not
a government of populist voice, nor of parliament, the Pontiff speaks and acts
as sovereign, with sole and supreme powers to command, decide, rule, and
judge. As Pope Leo XIII wrote: "The spiritual and eternal interests of man are
surely more important than their material and temporal interests. . . .
Emphatically, then, the church is not inferior to the civil power.'
United States and Vatican Relations: The Early Years
When, in 1783, Pope Pius VI sent good wishes to the United State of America'
upon its newly gained independence, the nation was firmly committed to
separation of church and state. One of the earliest expressions of this belief
came from John Adams, then America's Commissioner to France. In his report
to the 1779 Continental Congress on the matter of recognizing sister nations,
Adams wrote: "Congress will probably never send a minister to His Holiness,
who can do them no service. Upon condition of receiving a Catholic legate or
nuncio in return, or in other words, an ecclesiastical tyrant, it is to be hoped the
'Manhattan, 26.
'Greg Erlandson, ed., 2001 Catholi c Almanac (Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor, Inc.), 343.
'David Willey, God's Politician: John Paul at the Vatican (London: Faber & Faber,
1992), ix.
l 'EWTN, "Vatican City-State Has a New Constitution," Vatican Information Service,
February 1, 2001.
"John A. Ryan and Francis J. Boland, Catholic Principles of Politics (New York:
MacMillan, 1940), 321.
'William J. Schmidt, "Roswell P. Barnes, Religious Freedom and an Ambassador
at the Vatican," American Presbyterians 65/4 (1987): 259-273.
48
United States will be too wise ever to admit into their territories.'
Yet, in 1797, less than two decades later, the U.S. government designated
a consul to the Vatican. Giovanni Sartori, an Italian citizen, offered his services
to help direct commerce between the United States and the Papal States, and
to assist American tourists in Rome. He was the first of eleven consuls to serve
in this position." As such, consuls lacked official government recognition and
financial support; rather, their fees were paid by those for whom services were
rendered.
The first documented proposal exploring official diplomatic relations
between the United States and Vatican City is contained in a dispatch to the
U.S. Secretary of State, June 1847. This correspondence reveals that high
officials of the Papal hierarchy, including the Pope, had expressed interest in
formalizing ties. By November, the New York Herald caught wind of these
trans-Atlantic discussions and printed its editorial support, claiming the idea to
be "the fittest manifestation of American sympathy and admiration.'
Likewise, the Louisiana legislature expressed that it "would take keen pleasure
should America open diplomatic relations with Rome." And in his message to
the Thirtieth Congress, President James Polk (1845-1849) remarked: "The
interesting political events now in progress in these [Papal] States, as well as a
just regard to our commercial interests, in my opinion, renders such a measure
[i.e., closer ties with. Rome] highly expedient."'
Congress resisted Polk's proposal to establish diplomatic relations with the
Vatican on the grounds that, under the U.S. Constitution, the government
could have nothing to do with ecclesiastical matters and, furthermore, argued
legislators, America had no commercial interests to protect in the Roman
States. Yet surprisingly, a majority in both the House and Senate voted to
finance the placement of a charge d'affaires in Rome.' With this act, the U.S.
government abandoned its original position, according some level of official
status, by appointing a paid envoy to the Vatican.
However, Secretary of State James Buchanan's April 1848 note of
instructions to the United States' first diplomat to Rome, Jacob Martin,
reflected the caution of the hour:
There is one consideration which you ought always to keep in view in your
intercourse with the Papal authorities. Most, if not all the Governments
which have Diplomatic Representatives at Rome are connected with the Pope
"Charles Francis Adams, ed., Works of John Adams (Boston: Little, Brown and
Company, 1852), 4: 109-110.
"Reuben G. Johnson, "A Survey of the United States' Diplomatic Relationship
with the Vatican" (MA. thesis: Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, 1952), 13.
'Editorial. New York Herald, November 1847.
'James D. Richardson, Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, 17891897 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1896-1899), 5:2401.
'Schmidt, 259-273.
49
as the head of the Catholic Church. In this respect the Government of the
United States occupies an entirely different position. It possesses no power
whatever over the question of religion. All denominations of Christians stand
on the same footing in this country, and every man enjoys the inestimable
right of worshiping his God according to the dictates of his own conscience.
Your efforts, therefore, will be devoted exclusively to the cultivation of the
most friendly civil relations with the Papal Government, and to the extension
of the commerce between the two countries. You will carefully avoid even
the appearances of interfering in ecclesiastical questions, whether these relate
to the United States or any other portion of the world. It might be proper,
should you deem it advisable, to make these views known, on some suitable
occasion, to the Papal Government, so that there may be no mistake or
misunderstanding on this subject."
Buchanan's caution to "avoid all appearance of entanglement with religious
powers" properly reflected the American public's reservations about forming
an affiance with Rome.
Two Papal pronouncements, in particular, had excited anti-Catholic
sentiment: the first, the 1864 Syllabus ofErrors, condemning the position held by
some that the Holy See had no temporal power, and the second
pronouncement of 1870, declaring Papal infallibility." Ultimately, however, it
was rumors about Scottish Presbyterian diplomats being prohibited from
worshiping within Vatican City proper that caused a cessation in diplomatic
relations between the United States and the Holy See in 1867,20 the mission of
American consuls coming to an end in 1870.21
Congress was up in arms over the perceived lack of religious tolerance'by
the Pope, although the rumors turned out to be exaggerated. Others argued
that relations between the U.S. and the Papacy might well be terminated, as
there was no demonstrable need for assistance with commerce. The Honorable
Thomas Williams argued:
I never could understand the reason for this mission. There might have been
some ground for it when the Pope exercised temporal jurisdiction over all the
Roman States, but he has not any such jurisdiction now, being "sealed up"
as I believe he is, in the city of Rome, by the Kingdom of Italy, and if he is
confined to the City of Rome our relations there now are purely spiritual and
not diplomatic; not political; unless for the benefit of a particular church and
a particular party.22
"Anson P. Stokes and Leo Pfeffer, Church and State in the United States (Westport,
CN: Greenwood, 1964), 274.
Ibid.,
328-329.
20Dragan
R. Zivojinovic, The United States and the Vatican Policies, 19141918 (Boulder: Colorado Associated University Press, 1978), 1.
''Michael Williams, The Catholic Church inAction (New York: MacMillan, 1934), 172.
22Michael Williams, The Congressional Globe, 39th Congress, Second Session, December
03-March 02, 1866-67 (Washington, DC: Congressional Globe Office, 1967), 885.
50
Zivojinovic, 142.
'Ibid., 4.
'Ibid., 182.
'Papal Encyclicals: Pascendi Dominici Gregis (On the Doctrine of the Modernists),
September 8, 1907; Praestantia Scripturae (On the Bible Against the Modernists),
November 18,1907; and The Oath Against Modernism, September I , 1910. All documents
are found at the website of papal encyclicals <www.geocities.com/papalencyclicals>.
'Russell Hittinger, "The Future of the Papacy: A Symposium," First Things: The
Journal of Religion and Public Life (March 2001): 28-36.
'George Q. Flynn, Roosevelt and Romanism: Catholics and American Diplomacy, 19371945 (Westport, CN: Greenwood, 1976), 112, 113, 117.
51
52
Repeatedly, Truman called- for "men of good will" to renew their resolve to
reset the foundation toward an "enduring peace organized and maintained in
a moral world order."'
The President thought to underscore his commitment toward world peace
by making permanent and official America's relations with the Vatican. On
October 20, 1951, Truman sent the name of Mark W. Clark to the Senate for
confirmation as Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United
State to the State of Vatican City. Yet Congress adjourned that same day,
having taken no action on the appointment. An informal survey of the Senate
revealed that only nine of the ninety-six members would have supported
confirmation' and, more likely, the nomination would have died in the Foreign
Relations Committee.' The Senate held apprehension over the position,
disdain for the person having been nominated, and, accordingly, never did act
on the nomination.
Truman keenly felt what he described as "sectarian rebuffs" and
Congressional controversy over the idea. Moreover, the nomination of a U.S.
ambassador to the Vatican haunted his 1952 presidential race,' just as it had
in the election of 1884 between candidates Grover Cleveland and James
Blaine," and would become a central, overriding issue when Roman Catholic
candidate John F. Kennedy bid on the presidency.
United States and Vatican Relations: The Cold War Era
Opposition to formal ties with the Vatican persisted throughout subsequent
administrations. The Southern Baptist Convention sent word to the newly
elected Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953-1961) that its seven million Baptists in
twenty-two states and the District of Columbia "unanimously join in the
34Letter, Harry S. Truman to Myron C. Taylor, July 15, 1950 (Folder Confidential
Files, Box 83, Myron C. Taylor Papers [1], Dwight D. Eisenhower Library).
"Letter, Myron C. Taylor to Pope Pius XII, December 13, 1949 (Folder
Confidential Files, Box 83, Myron C. Taylor Papers [1], Dwight D. Eisenhower Library).
"George J. Gill, "The Truman Administration and Vatican Relations," Catholic
Historical Review 73 (1987): 408-423.
'Gerald Fogarty, The Vatican and the American Hierarchy from 1870-1965 (Germany:
Anton Hiersemann, 1985), 330.
"Roland Flamini, Pope, Premier, President: The Cold War Summit That Never Was (New
York: MacMillan, 1980), 32.
"Stokes and Pfeffer, 330.
53
earnest hope, based on the conviction that religious liberty and the separation
of church and state are the foundation stones of our democratic way of life,
that the new Administration will not renew any form of diplomatic relations
with the Vatican or any other ecclesiastical body."'
Despite these sentiments, there were a few who voiced support for the
initiative. David Beck was one who urged Eisenhower to appoint a United States
diplomatic representative to the Vatican. Although a non-Catholic, this
Teamster's Union President stated, in an August 11, 1954, meeting with the
President, that America was failing to take advantage of the Vatican's remarkable
intelligence system. Eisenhower agreed that "the United States has more to gain
from Vatican recognition than did the Vatican itself' yet, he concluded, "the
political problems associated with such an action are too great."'
The international community was confronting countless challenges, and
with these crises, the need for closer collaboration. There was the U.S.
engagement in the Vietnam War beginning in 1955, Fidel Castro's 1959
takeover in Cuba, and Cold War tensions building in Europe, eventually leading
to the 1961 construction of the Berlin Wall.
Eisenhower's position was concretized in a March 26,1954, letter from his
Special Counsel, Bernard Shanley, to William Lipphard of the Associated
Church Press. "You will be interested to know," wrote Shanley, "that at present
there are no plans to establish representation at the Vatican."' And throughout
his administration, Eisenhower held firm to his position, never engaging the
Vatican in discussions beyond perfunctory ceremonial duties, such as the
October 1958 funeral of Pope Pius XII and the subsequent enthronement of
Pope John XXIII.
It was one thing to contemplate U.S. relations with the Vatican and quite
another to accept the idea of a Catholic moving into the White House. John F.
Kennedy's pursuit of America's highest political office framed religion as a
tough and persistent theme throughout the whole presidential campaign. A
group known as Protestants and Other Americans United for the Separation
of Church and State demanded that each of the candidates declare their
positions on the diplomatic recognition of the Holy See.
In a statement in LOOKmagazine in early 1959, John F. Kennedy articulated
his views. He saw diplomatic relations with the Holy See as counterproductive
because of the divisiveness that would result from the nomination of an
ambassador. Further, Kennedy expressed the belief that present methods of
40Letter and Resolution, Executive Committee of the Southern Baptist Convention
to Dwight D. Eisenhower, December 18,1952 (White House Central Files, OF144-B-2A, Box 736, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library).
'Tapers of Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1952-1961 (Ann Whitman Diary Series, Box
3, Folder: ACW Diary, August 16, 1954 [2]).
42Letter, Bernard M. Shanley, Special Counsel to President Dwight D. Eisenhower,
to William B. Lipphard, Executive Secretary, The Associated Church Press, March 26,1954
(White House Central Files, OF 144-B-2-A, Box 736, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library).
54
communicating through the Embassy in Italy would serve him well.43 These oftsought and repeated assurances throughout the campaign proved sufficient to win
Kennedy the election (1961-1963), and he struck one as remaining seemingly
committed to his campaign position on U.S.-Vatican relations.
But, as Kennedy made his way to his first audience with the newly elected
Pope, Ralph Dungan, a veteran of Kennedy's presidential campaign, proposed the
return of Roosevelt's personal representative to the Vatican. "You know, Mr.
President," chimed in Secretary of State Dean Rusk, "I think the time has come
when we should certainly think about establishing diplomatic relations with the
Holy See. It would be beneficial." Kennedy made the rather terse reply: "Maybe
the time has come for someone else, but it isn't right for me, the first Catholic
president. If Harry Truman, a Baptist, didn't feel he could do it, I certainly
don't.' The Pope had hoped otherwise. As Roland Flamini describes it,
Pope Paul VI summoned the archbishop of Boston to the Vatican Palace to ask
him what topics President Kennedy would want to discuss at his papal
audience. . . . The Pope was full of praise for Kennedy and expressed great
pleasure that his first official visit should be with the President of the United
States. He said he wanted to discuss world peace with the President, and to
make a statement on racial discrimination. He also wanted to transmit words of
encouragement to [Catholic] Church schools in the United States which were
then in the throes of a congressional battle to win federal funding. . . Well,
Cushing replied, such subjects . . . carried strong political implications. "I
strongly recommend that any problem of national significance be avoided.""
Following Cardinal Cushing's advice, Pope Paul VI only hinted in
conversation with Kennedy about the idea of reestablishing diplomatic ties, but
it was Diulio Andreotti, the Vatican's Minister of Defense, who unhesitatingly
pursued the subject. While accompanying Kennedy to place a wreath at Italy's
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Andreotti questioned: "You feel you cannot
take the step [to establish diplomatic ties] because you are a Catholic, a
Protestant president would have little interest in doing so because he is not
Catholic, so who will?" To this Kennedy rejoined, "If I'm re-elected in 1964,
I'll do it in my second term."'
United States and Vatican Relations: The Vietnam War
An assassin's bullet prematurely ended Kennedy's chance at a second term and
Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the presidency. The Johnson
administration (1963-1969) was particularly sensitive to the Pope's open
criticism of U.S. fighting in Southeast Asia. Papal encyclicals had frequently
spoken out against global military aggression. Thus, in the spring of 1965,
'Flamini, 24.
"Ibid., 194.
45Ibid., 189-190.
'Ibid., 197-198.
55
Johnson sought an audience with Pope Paul in an effort to gain the Pontiff's
support of America's position in the Vietnam War or, at least, to gain his aid
in easing international tensions. Unbeknown to the President, the Pope had
already begun activating prelates in Cambodia, the United Nations, and
elsewhere in an effort to bring about a cease-fire."
Neither Johnson nor his staff underestimated the key role that the Vatican
played in international affairs and, as such, the issue of diplomatic ties with the
Vatican resurfaced. The National Security Council's declassified memos provide
Nathaniel Davis's arguments in favor of establishing relations based on the facts
that:
(1) Increasingly the Vatican is an active force, pressing for peace negotiations in
Vietnam. . . . (2) Relations with the Vatican would strengthen America's
worldwide peace image. It would be a demonstration of America's concern for
the moral opinion of mankind. (3) Relations would remove the anomaly of the
United States, along with the Soviet Union and Red China, being among the
very few powers which fail to maintain relations [with the Vatican]. (4) With the
increasing ecumenical spirit in American Protestantism, relations with the
Vatican would have considerable support among the Protestant churches
associated with the National Council, although not with the Southern Baptists
and fundamentalists. (5) Recognition would be welcomed by the American
Catholics as an important step, taken by a Protestant President, and the removal
of a long-standing and senseless indignity. (6) Relations with the Vatican would
facilitate cooperation in matters like the Cardinal Mindzenty case. There is no
doubt that the Vatican is involved in political situations throughout the world
where United States interests are deeply affected. (7) The Vatican would be a
source of information about conditions in Eastern Europe and elsewhere. We
would have access to one of the important diplomatic capitals of the world. (8)
The President's decision would be historic, a landmark among the overall
accomplishments of this Administration."
According to Davis, "the Holy See is prepared to become fully engaged in
world affairs."' Reasons against establishing full diplomatic ties with the
Vatican, he claimed, were few. They included:
the anticipated opposition from Baptist stronghold states: channels of
discreet communication with the Vatican already exist by way of Ambassador
Rhinehart in Rome; it might compromise the Vatican's neutrality in the Cold
War; the American Catholic hierarchy might see the proposed formalization
of diplomacy as a downgrading of their intermediary work between the U.S.
and the Vatican; and a U.S. diplomatic office at the Vatican would need to
assume the arranging of approximately 65,000 Papal audiences each year.5
'Ibid., 216-218.
48Memo, Nathaniel Davis to W. W. Rostow, October 13, 1966 (National Security
File, Country File, Vatican, Volume 1, Box 231, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library).
56
Although the facts seemed to support a move toward formalizing ties with the
Vatican, Johnson never took any such action, relying rather on personal visits
and communiques.
The Vietnam War persisted and three months into his presidency, Richard
Nixon (1969-1974) visited the Vatican. Like Johnson, he hoped to gain support
for further intensification of America's military engagement in the war.
However, on that occasion, the Pope blamed the lack of a regular and official
channel with Washington as a reason for his failed attempts at resolving the
Vietnam conflict. But Nixon was keenly aware of persistent public sentiment
at home against formal engagement with the Holy See.
Nixon's audience with the Pope generated a bevy of correspondence from
religious groups, among them, the Baptists. With measured forethought, they
transmitted their dissent of U.S. representation to the Vatican via "the President's
personal friend, Billy Graham."' Both the American Lutheran Church' and
Seventh-day Adventists' spoke out in opposition. President Frank Gigliotti,
National Vice-Chairman of the National Association of Evangelicals, representing
forty-four Protestant denominations, weighed in as well against the appointing of
a U.S. representative to the Vatican.' The United Church of Christ's Mayflower
Church Bulletin questioned, "Why doesn't the President send an envoy to the
World Council of Churches' headquarters in Geneva?"'
Other voices of dissent from the religious community included Henry Van
Dusen, President Emeritus of Union Theological Seminary, New York. During
a speech at Princeton, Van Dusen claimed: [W]e thought that the matter [of an
envoy to the Vatican] had been settled once and for all in 1951 when, you will
recall, President Truman nominated General Mark Clark for such an
appointment but withdrew the nomination before congressional consideration
File, Country File, Vatican, Volume 1, Box 231, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library).
slLetter T. W. Wilson, Associate to Billy Graham to Dwight L. Chapin, Special
Assistant in Charge of White House Appointments, June 23, 1970 (White House Central
Files FG 1-2, Country File, Vatican, Richard M. Nixon Library).
'Telegram, Fredrik A. Schiotz, President of the American Lutheran Church, to
President Richard M. Nixon, March 3, 1969 (White House Central Files FG 1-2,
Country File, Vatican, Richard M. Nixon Library).
'Letter, Kenneth H. Wood, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists and
Editor, Review and Herald Magazine to President Richard M. Nixon, June 10,1970 (White
House Central Files FG 1-2, Country File, Vatican, Richard M. Nixon Library).
'Letter, Rev. Frank B. Gigliotti, Vice-Chairman, National Association of
Evangelicals, to President Richard M. Nixon, June 15,1970 (White House Central Files
FG 1-2, Country File, Vatican, Richard M. Nixon Library).
'Letter along with church bulletin from Pastor Philip W. Sarles of the United
Church of Christ, to President Richard M. Nixon, July 8, 1970 (White House Central
Files FG 1-2, Country File, Vatican, Richard M. Nixon Library).
57
Ibid.
"Letter, Floyd R. Kea, Secretary of the Masonic Temple Norview Lodge No. 113,
to President Richard M. Nixon, June 18, 1970 (White House Central Files FG 1-2,
Country File, Vatican, Richard M. Nixon Library).
'Letter, G. F. Middlebrook Jr., County Judge of Nacogdoches, Texas, to President
Richard M. Nixon, June 25, 1970 (White House Central Files FG 1-2, Country File,
Vatican, Richard M. Nixon Library).
"Letter, The Honorable H. R. Gross of Iowa, to President Richard M. Nixon,
March 19, 1969 (White House Central Files FG 1-2, Country File, Vatican, Richard M.
Nixon Library).
'Speech, Most Reverend Jean Jadot, Apostolic Delegate to the United States of
America, upon his arrival in Washington DC, July 12, 1973 (White House Central Files
FG 1-2, Country File, Vatican, Richard M. Nixon Library).
'Memo, Patrick J. Buchanan to President Richard M. Nixon, March 21, 1969
(White House Central Files FG 1-2, Country File, Vatican, Richard M. Nixon Library).
58
paid to the Pope by Nixon's cabinet members." But this system proved
ineffective, which might explain why the President ultimately requested Henry
Cabot Lodge "to undertake periodic visits to Rome in order to maintain some
continuing of our contacts with the Vatican. This will enable us to obtain its views
on important international and humanitarian questions and to explain ours."'
Henry Cabot Lodge was thought to be an ideal choice for the time. As
Nixon's running mate against Kennedy and Johnson in 1960, Lodge could
properly represent the President's position on issues. He was also serving as
U.S. ambassador to South Vietnam, and thus was the best informed regarding
the current conflicts in Vietnam. As with Taylor, Roosevelt's personal
representative, Lodge agreed to receive no salary for his services, nor have any
title or rank conferred upon him, and to maintain no permanent office nor
residence in Rome."
Two years into the association, at a June 26, 1972, White House Press
Conference, Lodge acclaimed the Pope as being "a definite factor" in helping
make possible an increase in the amount of mail that U.S. prisoners sent and
received in Vietnam. He further recognized the Vatican as being of "utmost
help" in curbing worldwide drug trafficking.' Other U.S.-Vatican deliberations
at that time included the problems of Biafra and the attempts to alleviate
starvation in that country;" the mutual concern with regard to political
assassinations in developing and advanced societies;69 the political trend toward
communism in Italy's 1970 regional, provincial, and communal elections;7 and
Middle East pressures between Israel and Lebanon as noted in appeals from
Egyptian President Nasser to the U.S. funneled through the Vatican.'
"Memo, Peter M. Flanigan to President Richard M. Nixon, December 12, 1969
(White House Central Files FG 1-2, Country File, Vatican, Richard M. Nixon Library).
"Letter, William E. Timmons, Assistant to President Nixon, to the Honorable
William H. Ayres, House of Representatives, July 7, 1970 (White House Central Files
FG 1-2, Country File, Vatican, Richard M. Nixon Library).
"Letter, Henry A. Kissinger to Reverend Frank B. Gigliotti of the National
Association of Evangelicals, July 3, 1970 (White House Central Files FG 1-2, Country
File, Vatican, Richard M. Nixon Library).
'White House Press Conference of Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Special
Representative of President Nixon to the Vatican, June 26, 1972 (National Security
Briefing Book [4], Ron Nessen Papers, Box 63, Gerald R. Ford Library).
"Memo, Peter M. Flanigan to President Richard M. Nixon, January 16, 1970
(Country File, Vatican, Richard M. Nixon Libary).
6 Ibid.
'Memo, Peter Flanigan to Henry Kissinger, March 19, 1970 (White Central Files
FG 1-2, Country File, Vatican, Richard M. Nixon Library).
71Memo, Conversation of Archbishop Agostino Casaroli, Secretary of Public
Affairs at the Vatican, Peter Flanigan, Special Assistant to President Nixon, Richard D.
Christiansen, Second Secretary at the American Embassy, and Monsignor Luigi Dossena
of the Council for Public Affairs at the Vatican, May 15, 1970 (White House Central
59
60
Baptist President who appointed David Walters, the first Catholic, as his
personal representative to the Holy See. Up to this time, U.S. presidential
couriers to the Vatican had been Protestants. Then another Catholic and
former mayor of New York, Robert Wagner, succeeded Walters in 1978.
Further dismay was uttered by some, given the unlikely sight of the President
shaking hands with Pope John Paul II on the South Lawn of the White House
in October 1979. While the Protestant clerics found this expression of
familiarity with the Pope unconscionable, the news media claimed this
openness to have been "nothing short of a miracle."'
Despite all these expressions of solidarity and friendship, there still was
little indication that the President was ready to establish formal diplomatic ties
with the Vatican. Thus, at a time when the Vatican held diplomatic ties with
107 nations, including all the Western nations, the United States remained
virtually alone. Even Great Britain had reestablished ties with the Vatican in
1980 after a lapse of 448 years.'
United States and Vatican Relations Become a Reality
By the time of Ronald Reagan's presidency (1981-1989), the issue of U.S.
relations with the Vatican had ceased to be a nationally divisive issue, or so it
seemed to America's newest leader, as well as to the Congress. The Congressional
Quarterly identifies Senator Richard Lugar, a Methodist, as sponsoring the
amendment that repealed the 1867 law barring U.S.-Vatican diplomatic
relations. The amendment was added to legislation authorizing State
Department funding for the fiscal year 1984-1985 and President Reagan signed
the measure into law on November 22, 1983.76
For Reagan, the U.S. government required some measure of cooperation
from the Vatican in relation to the threat posed by grass-roots Catholic
liberationists in Latin America. Here the nation's political discussions turned from
ideological issues about church-state separation to more pragmatic questions such
as how to deal with turbulent Catholic-majority states found in America's
backyard.
Beyond this, more favorable public response to U.S. representation at the
Vatican might have been attributable to the popular and martyred Kennedy, the
rising spirit of ecumenical tolerance among mainline Protestants, the growing
ethical solidarity of Roman Catholics with evangelicals, particularly over issues
such as abortion, homosexuality, and growing secularizing tendencies in Western
society. Of equal importance were the positive statements promulgated in canons
'Fogarty, 400.
'Gerald Fogarty, "Congress Repeals 1867 Ban," Congressional Quarterly (December
17, 1983), 2678.
'Gerald Fogarty, "Religious Organizations Urge Administration Not to Name
Ambassador to the Vatican," Congressional Quarterly Weekly Report (December 17, 1983),
2677-2678.
61
259-273.
64
in meaning, even when they don't have an article.' Sailhamer may thus be correct,
but his case remains unproved. Likewise with the second and third assumptions,
the best that can be said is that Sailhamer has raised some interesting possibilities,
but has not established them with any degree of certainty.
The position taken in these notes is that Sailhamer is correct, although for
two reasons he does not consider. First, the sentence under discussion
introduces a semipoetic pattern that continues throughout Gen 1:14-15, with'
the next two sentences continuing the discussion of the lights, each beginning
with the copula rrn4 and containing at least one lamed prepositional phrase. In
both of these subsequent sentences, the first lamed used clearly introduces the
complement of the subject. The burden of proof is thus upon those who want
to argue that the case should be any different in Gen 1:14a. Second, the lamed
is used before the noun rir* ("signs") in Gen 1:14b and before the expression
o mum irpin innitm ("lights in the expanse of the sky") in Gen 1:15a as a "lamed
of purpose," which usually includes the idea of a changed status or form.' The
idea would thus be that of "the lights in the expanse of the sky" becoming "signs"
and becoming "lights in the expanse of the sky to light up the earth," rather than
coming into existence on the fourth day.'
The os-itnn ("Appointed Times") of Genesis 1:14
The noun nin is a cognate accusative of the verb 11r, of which one definition
is to "appoint a time, a place."' Thus, it is not surprising that -um should be
variously defined as an "appointed time, place, [or] meeting,' although in Gen
1:14 the word onirm clearly signifies "appointed times."
The term -Trin is frequently used as a technical term for an annual festival
(e.g., Lev 23; Num 28-29). Accordingly, it is no surprise that a number of
scholars have interpreted the word C2'11.71M in Gen 1:14 as a reference to annual
sacred times.' However, the term is frequently used as a designation for other
'Bruce K. Waltke and M. O'Connor, An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax
(Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1990), 250.
'Both these clauses begin with waw consecutive perfect forms of rrn, but this form
frequently continues the sense of an initial imperative, cohortative, or jussive (Waltke
and O'Connor, 530); see also E. Kautsch, ed., Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, trans. A. E.
Cowley, 2d ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 333.
Waltke and O'Connor, 209.
'Indeed, if the latter were the idea meant, one wouldn't even expect the preposition
lamed to appear before these nouns.
'Ludwig H. Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, Lexicon in Veteris Testamenti Libros
(Leiden: Brill, 1985), 388, citing 2 Sam 20:5; Isa 47:7.
'Jay P. Green, ed., The New Brown-Driver-Briggs-Gesenius Hebrew and English Lexicon
with an Appendix Containing the Biblical Aramaic (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1979), 417.
9 For instance, Sailhamer, The Pentateuch as Narrative, 30, 31; Solomon Gdanz, "The
Calendar of Ancient Israel," in Homenaje aMilkis- Vallicrosa (Barcelona: Consejo Superiore
65
wE.g., the word ilno is used of the designated time for a plague to fall (Exod 9:5; 2 Sam
24:15) and the designated time for offering sacrifices, including the daily sacrifice (Num 28:28). It is also used of prearranged meeting times (1 Sam 13:8,11; 20:35), the times allocated for
the completion of a task (2 Sam 20:5), an extended period of danger (Jer 46:17), and the
designated time for the fulfillment of a prophetic vision (Hab 2:13); see George V. Wigram,
The New Englishman's Hebrew Concordance: Coded to Strong's Concordance Numbering System, rev.
ed., ed. Jay P. Green (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1984), 672, 673.
"E.g., in Jer 8:7. See C. F. Keil and F. Delitzsch, The Pentateuch, trans. James Martin,
Biblical Commentary (Grand Rapids: Ecrdmans, 1949), 1:57.
"James B. Jordan, Christianity and the Calendar: A Syllabus (Niceville, FL: Biblical
Horizons, 1988), 81.
"Ibid., 79.
"E.g., see Shimon Bakon, "SignnItt," Dor lector 18 (1990): 241.
"E. A. Speiser, Genesis, AB 1 (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1969), 6.
"Ibid. That the copulative between "days" and the "years" is connective is
66
"In favor of translating d-ip trim as "proclamations of holiness" rather than "holy
convocations," see Ernst Kutsch, "K," ZAW 65 (1953): 247-253.
67
as the days and years of the natural cycle, rather than as special times of
worship.
The translation of Gen 1:14 here proposed would be as follows: "And
God said, 'Let the lights in the expanse of the sky be for dividing the day and
the night and let them be signs of appointed times, (that is) of days and years."'
70
be fulfilled rtrm oi'4 ("on that day") (v. 16); and a message of salvation, also to
be fulfilled 24171 oi'm ("on that day") (vv. 17-18). Attention is also due to the
AB:B'A' structure of v. 18:
A
because I will certainly rescue/save
you
B'
your life will be a prize
A'
because you trusted in me
Located as it is in the MT, the pericope links the fate of both Jeremiah and
Ebed-Melech. Significantly, both men were survivors of the fall of Jerusalem
precisely because of their faith. Jeremiah's purchase of a field in Anathoth in
the face of impending judgment (32:1-15) demonstrates his faith and strong
confidence that YHWH will effect rejuvenation. Indeed, "houses and fields and
vineyards will be possessed again in the land" (32:15). As such, he functions as
a proleptic representative of the remnant who will be revived because of their
faithfulness.'
The message for Ebed-Melech is that God will fulfill his purposes to
destroy Jerusalem. The word of judgment was fulfilled precisely "on that day"
(r41nrj cri,;). This expression functions to show that at the time of the delivery
of the message, its fulfillment was yet future. Nevertheless, the location of the
pericope in the MT functions to show that the message was indeed fulfilled:
judgment had come upon Jerusalem.
But judgment is not the last word; salvation is. The promise of salvation
is also fulfilled precisely "on that day" (rearm rzi,;) and provides for EbedMelech's protection. He is preserved from both the courtiers, who may have
intended his demise since he dared to rescue the prophet, as well as from the
Babylonian invaders. In this way, he is just like Jeremiah, who escaped from the
same two entities. What stands out clearly in this passage, however, is that this
salvation is for the Cushite because he trusts God, in stark contrast to the
Judeans who did not trust him.
Verse 18 forcefully demonstrates the divine intervention to ensure EbedMelech's safety. This is expressed by the emphatic:10pm thr sp ("because I will
certainly rescue/save you"). This promise is assured ; 17-1m;-,; ("because you
trusted in me"). Ebed-Melech will be a survivor of the imminent judgment
because of his trust in YHWH. Robert Carroll rightly comments:
Not his attitude towards-Jeremiah but his trust in Yahweh underwrites Ebed-melech'sfate.
In the fall of Jerusalem the Ethiopian will survive (i.e., have his life as a spoil
day,' says the Lord. 'And you shall not be given into the hand of the men of whom you
are afraid because I will certainly rescue/save you (10nrt o'n ,p) and you shall not fall
by the sword; and your life shall be a prize of war to you, because you trusted in me,'
says the Lord."
'See Mulzac, 217-219.
71
of war) because of his trust. Thus is the man who trusts in Yahweh blessed
(17:7), and Ebed-melech becomes an example of the pious whose survival in
whatever circumstances depends only upon their trust in Yahweh. Gone is the
option of 38:2, and now only trust in Yahweh is required.'
72
Indeed, "At a time when Judah was being judged because of disobedience and
covenant violation, a black Cushite was delivered because of his faith."' On
the one hand, the faithlessness of Zedekiah and Judah determined their fate:
judgment and death;16 on the other hand, the faithfulness of Ebed-Melech the
Cushite determined his fate: salvation and life.
'Daniell Hays, "The Cushites: A Black Nation in the Bible," BSac 153 (OctoberDecember 1996): 406.
16What a horrible fate it was for Zedekiah that the last thing he saw before being
blinded was the execution of his own children, in part because of his own disobedience!
That scene was to haunt him for the rest of his life. The stinging irony must not be
overlooked either: the same king, who had earlier chosen to "look the other way" and
allow his courtiers to try to kill Jeremiah, is now forced to look as the Babylonians killed
his own flesh and blood.
Andrews University
DAVID MERLING
PAUL RAY
Andrews University
Andrews University
MARK ZIESE
PAUL GREGOR
CONSTANCE GANE
Andrews University
KATHERINE KOUDELE
Andrews University
Since the last full season of excavation in 1999, the Institute of Archaeology at
Andrews University has undertaken three additional expeditions to Tall Jalul as
part of the Madaba Plains Project. The first expedition was a brief two-week
season, undertaken in 2000, in which a new field of four squares, designated as
Field E, was opened immediately north of Field B on the east side of the tall
(Figure 1). However, this was primarily intended as a field-training exercise for
a small number of graduate students from Andrews University and did not
penetrate below the first few centimeters of surface debris. Although only
surface debris was removed and no significant stratigraphic layers were
exposed, two ancient seals were, nevertheless, found in the debris that we will
report on here. A second field excursion was conducted in the spring of 2004,
but again the work in this season did not involve any significant excavation.
Rather, the goal was to remap both the topography of Jalul, as well as its
architectural features, using a new geographical positioning system known as
Z-Max. Our third excursion was undertaken between May 4 and June 16, 2005,
the first regular excavation season since the 1999 season. In this report,
therefore, while we will report on the results of all three of these expeditions,
since there were no significant excavations in 2000 and 2004, we will focus
primarily on the results of the 2005 season.
The 2000 Season
The 2000 season lasted from April 24 to May 6, and involved a small number
of students from Andrews University, who were participating in an
archaeological tour led by Jiri Moskala (Figure 2).i In order to give the students
'Staff for the 2000 season included Randall W. Younker and David Merling (codirectors), Paul Ray (field supervisor), and Efrain Velazquez, Patrick Mazani, Robert
Bates, and Elias Brasil de Souza (square supervisors). Jiri Moskala was in charge of field
73
74
field experience, it was decided to open up a planned new field north of Field
B. The new field, designated as Field E, was selected because it included a very
large mound, the highest point of Jalul's "lower city," which showed promise
of concealing a major architectural feature, perhaps a tower along Jalul's
northeastern wall. Four squares were laid out in a straight line along the eastwest axis of Jalul's excavation grid (Figure 1). Because excavation lasted only
two weeks, none of the squares penetrated much below surface debris. In the
eastern-most squares, Bedouin graves were exposed just below the surface (as
was the case in Fields A and B in previous seasons). The remains were
reinterred by local workers on the acropolis of Jalul, where a modern cemetery
has been maintained by the local village.
The ceramics found in the surface debris were unsurprisingly mixed,
coming from different periods, although the vast majority of sherds were from
the late Iron II Ageapparently close to the last period of major occupation
on the tell. Although no architectural features were exposed this close to the
surface, a number of small finds were recovered. The thirty-one recovered
objects included iron arrowheads, stone ballista, fragments of various basalt
vessels, stone beads, a ceramic pendant, a ceramic button or "buzz," a metal
fibula, a metal pin, a metal needle, a number of stone blades, a ceramic figurine
head, spindle whorls, and two seals.
Of the two seals, one was light blue (faience) with a geometric design. The
second seal was found just below the surface in Square 4 in an area that had
been heavily disturbed by nineteenth-century Bedouin graves (Figure 3). It is
of a whitish stone and is inscribed with Egyptian hieroglyphics. One of the
square supervisors, Robert Bates, provided a preliminary reading as follows:
"Amun-Re, Re of the Two Lands." It dates to the time of either Ramesses III
or Ramesses IV of the 20th Dynasty.
The 2004 Season
The goal of the May 10-22, 2004 season at Tall Jalul (5 km east of Madaba) was
to test a new Geographical Positioning System (GPS) known as "Z-Max"
(Figure 4). The Z-Max surveying system, produced by Thales Navigation, is a
precision GPS system originally designed for topographic and construction
survey. Z-Max is superior to other GPS systems because of ADAPT-RTK
(Automatic Decor Relation and Parameter Tuning for Real Time Kinematic).
This new system, which has the capability of locating three dimensional points
(latitude, longitude, and elevation) on the surface of the planet within an
accuracy of centimeters, had previously been shown to be extremely accurate
and reliable in plotting the specific location of individual bones of dinosaurs in
a paleontological excavation conducted in northeast Wyoming, U.S.A. by Art
Chadwick and Larry Turner of Southwestern Adventist University, Keene,
educationhe was accompanied by his wife, Eva and sons, David and Dan Moskala.
Paul Buchheim of Loma Linda University was the field geologist. Volunteers included
Eriks Galenieks, David and Carol Tasker, Ryan van Hook, and Terry Nenek.
75
Texas. One of the characteristics that makes this new system so attractive for
archaeological field work is that it is extremely fast. A given locational point can
be recorded literally by a click of a button, and the locational point is
immediately recorded. By way of illustration, Chadwick and Turner were able
to record thousands of locational data points at Tall Jalul in just two days to
create an accurate topographical map of the site at 1 m intervals (Figure 6).
These data points can be read on a small screen that is attached to the receiver
and are immediately recorded by the unit's computer.
When the locational data from ZMax are downloaded into a computer
software program called ARCGIS, the recorded data can be combined with
digital images of various archaeological features (e.g., bones, rocks) to create
three-dimensional images of those features. The software has the capability to
compensate for any distortion created by the digital image and maintains the
precise spatial relationships of those features. Thus, for example, when several
locational datum points (length, width, depth) for each of several individual
paving stones in a street are combined with a digital image of those same
stones, it is possible to create a three-dimensional model of those stones that
are in precise spatial relationship to each other. The software can then be
manipulated to provide a view of those stones from any desired angle. Images
of architectural features and other objects generated by this software can be
viewed on a computer from any desired angle, greatly enhancing the ability to
analyze and understand any given feature. Such images can also be used in
publication.
The application of this new technology to archaeology is immediately
obvious. With ZMax and ARCGIS, any locus point on an archaeological site
can be quickly and accurately plottedincluding the parameters of individual
loci or features, such as a wall or street, as well as the precise location of any
find spot of a given artifact.
Results of the 2004 Season
In preparation for the replotting and mapping of Jalul, a dozen students and
teachers from Andrews University (Figure 5),2 along with four workers from
Jalul, cleaned the debris from all the previously excavated fields that had
accumulated since the last excavation seasons in 1999 and 2000. During the
cleaning process, they also removed a dangerously eroded balk in Field B so
that no visitors to the site would be endangered. The removal of the balk
exposed a few additional pavement stones from the eighth-century-B.C.E.
pavement that had been discovered in previous seasons. These new stones were
'The staff for the 2004 mapping project included Randall Younker, David Merling,
Paul Ray and Robert Bates of Andrews University, Art Chadwick and Lawrence Turner of
Southwestern Adventist University, Mark Ziese of Cincinnati Christian University. Also
from Andrews University were Michael Younker, Matt Grey, Matthew Meyer, Ralph
Hawkins, and Ron Wakeman. Kyle Jensen served as a volunteer. Reem Shqour, curator of
the Madaba Archaeology Museum was the representative for the Department of Antiquities
of Jordan.
76
77
Dustin Crothers, Jonathan Davisson, Bryan Edwards, Christie Goulart, Roy Gane,
Barry Howe, Trisha Ellison, Darrel Rohl, Dustin Hill, Edwina Rao, Mathilde Frey, Brad
Maris, Mathew Grey, Aren LaBianca, Celeste Voigt, Bryan Sisson. Volunteers included
Esperanza Alvarez, In Sun Kim, Chelsea Knowlton, Andrewa Moskalova, Petra
Moskalova, Toakase Moungaafi, Esther Paul-Emile, Carrie Rhodes, Joyce Rickman, Evelyn
Tollerton, Karen Ybanzez, Jodi Poole, Enrique Baez Garcia, Ariel Manzueta, Emil
Maravec, Josue Nico, Renato Balenzuela, Paul Vunileva, Audrey Hunt, William Hunt, and
Jiri Moskala.
'See Lawrence T. Geraty, "A Preliminary Report on the First Season at Tell elUtneiri (June 18 to August 8, 1984)," AUSS 23 (1985): 85-110; Lawrence T. Geraty,
Larry G. Herr, and Oystein S. LaBianca, "The Joint Madaba Plains Project: A
Preliminary Report on the Second Season at Tell el-' Umeiri and Vicinity (June 18 to
August 6, 1987),"AUSS 26 (1988): 217-252; Randall W. Younker, Lawrence T. Geraty,
Larry G. Herr, and Oystein S. LaBianca, "The Joint Madaba Plains Project: A
Preliminary Report of the 1989 Season, Including the Regional Survey and Excavations
at El-Dreijat, Tell Jawa, and Tell el-'Umeiri (June 19 to August 8, 1989)," AUSS 28
(1990): 5-52; Randall W. Younker, Lawrence T. Geraty, Larry G. Herr, and Oystein S.
LaBianca, "The Joint Madaba Plains Project: A Preliminary Report of the 1992 Season,
Including the Regional Survey and Excavations at Tell Jalul, and Tell el-'Umeiri (June
16 to July 31, 1992)," AUSS 31 (1993): 205-38; Randall W. Younker, Lawrence T.
Geraty, Larry G. Herr, Oystein S. LaBianca, and Douglas Clark, "Preliminary Report
of the 1994 Season of the Madaba Plains Project: Regional Survey, Tall al-'Umayri, and
Tall Jalul Excavations (June 15 to July 30, 1996)," AUSS 34 (1996): 65-92; Randall W.
Younker, Lawrence T. Geraty, Larry G. Herr, Oystein S. LaBianca, and Douglas Clark,
"Preliminary Report of the 1996 Season of the Madaba Plains Project: Regional Survey,
Tall al-'Umayri, and Tall Jalul Excavations (June 19 to July 31, 1996),"AUSS 35 (1997):
227-240. Oystein S. LaBianca and Paul Ray, "Preliminary Report of the 1997
Excavations and Restoration Work at Tall Hisban (June 18 to July 11, 1997)," AUSS
36 (1998): 231-244.
78
79
anticipated that parts of this road would continue into Squares B21 and B22,
but the road was destroyed in antiquity and disappears in the middle of Square
B20 (Figure 10). In Field C, Square 6, a small stretch of cobbled street and a
wall fragment of a building from the Iron II (eighth century B.C.E.) was
uncovered southeast of the later Iron II/Persian-period building found in
previous seasons.
Late Iron II (Seventh-Sixth Centuries B.C.E.)
In Field E, a small section of mud-brick wall was uncovered in Square E2 that
appears to date to the eighth-seventh centuries B.C.E. (Figure 11). An
Ammonite seal was also found in this field, which appears to date to the
seventh century B.C.E. The seal is made of light tan clay and divided into three
registers (Figure 12). The middle register depicts a galloping pony, while the
upper and bottom registers contain an inscription. While most of the letters are
easy to make out and appear to be seventh-century Ammonite, a few letters are
poorly preserved, making a definite reading difficult.
Late Iron II/ Persian Period (Sixth-Fifth Centuries B.C.E.)
In Field C, the north wall of a large Late Iron II/Persian-period (fifth century
B.C.E.) building was found. Most of the material from the Late Iron II/Persian
period was again found in Field D, where the collapsed roof debris was removed
from several rooms of the large building found in 1999. In Square D3, some
figurine fragments, as well as several whole vessels (e.g., whole-mouth kraters,
bowls), were recovered in situ on the floor of the southwestern most room.
Summary and Conclusions
While Middle and Late Bronze architecture has not yet been exposed at Jalul, the
presence of fills with pottery from both of these periods points to the possibility
that occupational remains from this time will be found. If so, Jalul would be yet
another site that overturns Nelson Glueck's original conclusions that Jordan was
basically an empty land during the Middle and Late Bronze Ages.' While not
much can yet be said about this central region of Jordan during these periods, the
material culture seems to conform to that of Cisjordan's Canaanite culture. Still,
the overall picture for the Middle and Late Bronze Ages does seem to point to a
lower point in the level of sedentary occupation for Jordan.
That picture changes dramatically with the onset of the Iron Age. The
ceramic horizons at Umayri, Hesban, and Jalul suggest that the earliest Iron Age
settlements in both Cis-and Transjordan occurred in our area. The appearance
of Manasseh bowls, collar-rimmed jars, and flanged cooking pots of the earliest
Iron IA point to a close connection with the slightly later appearance of these
forms to the west of the Jordan River. Does this support an east-to-west
movement of Iron I peoples, as suggested in the biblical tradition? Do we have
evidence of the Reubenites in central Jordan? The major ashy lenses of over 1
m in thickness that have been found under the early Iron II remains suggest
that a major conflagration occurred toward the end of the Iron Age I.
Whether or not an archaeological case can be made for Reubenite
'Nelson Glueck, The Other Side of theJordan, American Schools of Oriental Research
(Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 1970), 140-141.
80
occupation in the Madaba Plains region for early Iron Age I, inscriptional
evidence, such as seals and ostraca, iconographic evidence, and other aspects
of the material culture at Jalul, Hesban, and Umayri indicate that by the middle
of the Iron Age II, the Ammonites were in firm control of the Madaba Plains
Region. Indeed, during the Iron Age IIB, it would appear that Jalul was along
the southern most bastion of the Ammonite cultural spheresites such as
Khirbat al-Mudayna on the Wadi ath-Thamad, just a few kilometers to the
south, show a distinctive Moabite influence, as evidenced by ceramics and
inscriptions. The growing strength of the Ammonite presence is supported by
the settlement pattern, which shows a consistent increase in the number of
settlements from Late Bronze to Iron II, with the peak occurring toward the
end of Iron Age IIB.
Finally, excavations at Jalul and the sister sites of Umayri and Hesban, along
with recent regional surveys, show that after the Babylonian periodthat is,
during the Persian periodthe land was not abandoned, but continued to be
occupied. Indeed, inscriptional evidence from Umayri shows that like Judah,
Ammon had been incorporated as a province into the Persian administrative
system.
Future seasons of work at Jalul will not only help expand our knowledge
about what is already known about the site, but will also penetrate the earliest
chapters of its long history in the Madaba Plains Region.
Figure 1. Aerial photo of Jalul showing the location of the excavation fields.
81
82
Figure 4. Art Chadwick operating the "rover" for the Z-Max system at Tall Jalul.
83
84
Figure 8. Typical Middle Bronze and Late Bronze Age sherdswhite-slipped ware and
Chocolate-on-White wares were found in the fills.
Figure 10. Iron Age II (eighth century B.c.E.) approach ramp in Field B.
85
86
Figure 12. An Iron Age II (probably seventh century B.c.E.) Ammonite seal found in
Field E.
88
8
9
lbid., 47.
'Ibid., 37.
"Ibid., 35.
'Ibid., 47.
89
90
91
By the end of the twentieth century, philosophy finally came to realize the
failure of Kantian transcendentalism and scientific methodology as sources of
absolute truth. Moreover, in close relation to this discovery, postmodern
philosophy also came to discover the failure of the timeless metaphysical
ontology on which classical theology built its beliefs. In the absence of absolute
reality, human reason cannot produce absolute (changeless) knowledge and
truth. If reality changes so does knowledge. Consequently, postmodernity
replaced absolute reason with historical hermeneutical reason in epistemology;
and, timeless, changeless reality with temporal, changing reality in ontology.
Postmodernity proclaimed the end of absolute reason because it came to
realize that ultimate reality is not timeless and changing as Parmenides, Plato,
and Aristotle believed, but rather it is temporal and changing, as, for instance,
Martin Heidegger' and Jean-Paul Sartre' have argued. The epistemological
postmodern shift from classical absolute reason to hermeneutical reason
springs from the ontological shift from a timeless to a temporal ontology.26 In
recognizing that ultimate reality is not timeless but temporal, postmodernity
reversed the macrohermeneutical principle from which Christian theologians
produce absolute truth. For an introduction to the epistemological limitations of
scientific methodology, see, e.g., Fernando Canale, "Evolution, Theology and Method,
Part 1: Outline and Limits of Scientific Methodology," AUSS 41 (2003): 65-100; idem,
"Evolution, Theology and Method, Part 2: Scientific Method and Evolution," AUSS
41 (2003): 165-184.
'This radical ontological shift at the center of postmodern thought is clearly
present, e.g., in Heidegger's introduction to his Being and Time: "Do we in our time have
an answer to the question of what we really mean by the word 'being'? Not at all. So it
is fitting that we should raise anew the question of the meaning ofBeing. But are we nowadays
even perplexed at our inability to understand the expression 'Being'? Not at all. So first
of all we must reawaken an understanding for the meaning of this question. Our aim in
the following treatise is to work out the questions of the meaning of Being and to do
so concretely. Our provisional aim is the Interpretation of time as the possible horizon
for any understanding whatsoever of Being" (foreword, 1).
92
have interpreted Scripture and constructed their doctrinal systems for more
than two millennia.
On this ontological basis, postmodernity has correctly recognized that the
capabilities and function of human reason are relative to historical-cognitive
patterns and categories. Plato and Aristotle were incorrect in their convictions
that the capabilities and function of human reason stood on timeless,
immutable realities. Postmodern epistemological relativism, then, flows from
the conviction that reason and the reality it knows are temporal. Thus there is
no ontological or epistemological ground for universal and absolute truth.
When knowledge and reality are temporal, they flow and change with the times.
There is no longer an absolute truth. All truth is relative to the flow of temporal
subjects and objects.
Thus absolute truth stands on the belief that our knowledge springs from
timeless, changeless realities. Plato devised the timeless ontology on which the
absolute truth of classical and modern times was constructed.' Postmodernity
resulted from the conviction that in nature and history there is nothing
immutable or absolute on which truth could stand. Therefore, human reason
cannot produce absolute truth. Reason does not work "absolutely" from
timeless, ontological "foundations," as modernists believed. Instead,
postmodernity argues that reason works "hermeneutically" from the interaction
of temporal-cognitive subjects with temporal, changing realities.'
Revelation and Theological Truth
A proper response of evangelical theology to postmodernity, therefore, should
include not only its obvious epistemological shift from absolute to
hermeneutical reason, but also its less publicized shift from timeless to
temporal ontology.
Grenz's view that theological construction revolves around the social
dynamics of the private tradition-community of evangelicalism does harness the
historicity of postmodern hermeneutical reason. However, his proposal falls
short of the absolute theological truth Christians have always attached to their
theological convictions.' Can we embrace the historicity of hermeneutical
'Plato explained that when the soul "investigates itself, it passes into the realm of the
pure and everlasting and immortal and changeless, and being of a kindred nature. When it is
once independent and free from interference, consorts with it always and strays no
longer, but remains, in that realm of the absolute, constant, and invariable, through contact
with beings of a similar nature" (Phaedo, 79.d, emphasis supplied).
'These realities include both the cognitive subject and the cognitive objects.
'E.g., from the Roman Catholic perspective, John Paul II recognizes that the
divine revelation in Jesus Christ is absolute truth: "The truth of Christian Revelation,
found in Jesus of Nazareth, enables all men and women to embrace the 'mystery' of
their own life. As absolute truth, it summons human beings to be open to the
transcendent, whilst respecting both their autonomy as creatures and their freedom. At
this point the relationship between freedom and truth is complete, and we understand
93
the full meaning of the Lord's words: 'You will know the truth and the truth will make
you free' On 8:32)" (Fides et Ratio: Encyclical Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the
Relationship between Faith and Reason [Vatican: Holy See Web Site, 1998], 2:15). Hilary of
Poitiers states: "But the voice of God, our instruction in true wisdom, speaks what is
perfect, and expresses the absolute truth, when it teaches that itself is prior not merely
to things of time, but even to things infinite" (On the Trinity, ed. Philip Schaff, The Nicene
and Post-Nicene Fathers Series 2 [Albany, OR: Ages Software, 1997], 12.39). Even the
modernist approach of G. W. F. Hegel recognized that "religion has as its content
absolute truth, and, therefore, also the highest kind of feeling. Religion, as intuition,
feeling, or imaginative thought, the object of whose activity is God, the unlimited basis
and cause of all things, advances the claim that everything should be apprehended in
reference to it, and in it should receive its confirmation, justification, and certitude"
(Philosophy of Right, trans. S. D. Dyde [Ontario: Batoche, 2001], 206-207).
"Karl Barth, Protestant Thought: From Rousseau to Ritschl (New York Harper, 1959), 191.
"Barth, 191, states: "This third possibility would, in a word, consist in theology
resigning itself to stand on its own feet in relation to philosophy, in theology recognizing
the point of departure for its method in revelation, just as decidedly as philosophy sees
its point of departure in reason, and in theology conducting, therefore, a dialogue with
philosophy, and not, wrapping itself up in the mantle of philosophy, a quasiphilosophical monologue. It can only be said of this third possibility, which becomes
visible on the border of the Kantian philosophy of religion, that it is at all events
observed by Hegel and by several of his pupils, in theology."
94
Scripture,' let us review briefly the way in which Scripture deals with truth to
see if absolute theological truth is possible in postmodern times.
The OT words for "truth" (nnti and in,v3ii) emphasize the notions of
reliability, firmness, sureness, stability, and continuance, which are ontologically
grounded in the nature of God (Exod 34:6; Ps 31:5). Building on the OT, the
NT word for "truth" (tafj0Ein) underlines the unconcealment of God's being
in the history of humanity.' In Scripture, then, truth stands on the ontological
basis of God's revealing his very being by presence (John 1:14; 1 John 5:6),
action (John 1:17), words (John 17:17; Ps 119:43, 151, 160; Dan 10:21), and
teachings (Ps 119:142) in the flux of human history. God's historical revelation
reached its highest manifestation in Christ, who, as God himself, is the truth
(John 14:6), and who reveals truth by his ontological and epistemological
presence and action and by epistemologically putting the truth in words and
teachings (Mark 12:1).'
Though Scripture implicitly assumes Parmenides's maxim that "being and
knowledge belong together," it departs from the notion that reality is timeless.
Central to the notion of biblical truth is the direct revelation of God's being in
the flux of time. We should not understand God's temporal being, however, as
univocal' or equivocal' to our created time, but as analogously and infinitely
"This approach is actually embraced by philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff, who
explains that he intends to derive his knowledge of God "from Scripture; I'll be appealing
to what we learn about God from Scripture. I make no pretense of constructing a piece of
natural theology" ("Unqualified Divine Temporality," in God and Time: Four Views, ed.
Gregory E. Ganssle [Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 2001], 193). However, Wolterstorff
does not develop the ontological question of God's temporality. His view is a strong
affirmation of the biblical picture of God's acting in our time, which at face value seems to
assume the meaning of time as univocal. The notion of God's infinite, analogical,
ontological temporality, assumed in Scripture, needs to be affirmed and explained in the
limited measure allowed by our human cognitive and ontological limitations.
"According to the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament. "Etymologically alotheia
means "nonconcealrnent." It thus denotes what is seen, indicated, expressed, or
disclosed, i.e., a thing as it really is, not as it is concealed or falsified" (G. Kittel and
Gerhard Friedrich, trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, abridged ed. [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans,
1995], s.v. "aletheia").
'A report on the various meanings of the biblical words for truth can be found in
Roger Nicole, "The Biblical Concept of Truth," in Scripture and Truth, ed. D. A. Carson
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983).
'Theologians have wrestled extensively with God's relation to time. Most assume
the meaning of time univocally. That is to say, time is a characteristic of limited human
realities. In this camp, we find classical theologians, such as Augustine and Thomas
Aquinas, as well as contemporary process philosophy and the contemporary evangelical
debate generated by the Open View of God. Though Heidegger, 427, no. xiii, should
be credited for expressing with great clarity the ontological macroparadigmatic shift
from the classical-modern timeless understanding to the postmodern temporal: "If
God's eternity can be 'construed' philosophically, then it may be understood only as a
95
negationis et eminentiae is
'Following a Hegelian insight, Karl Barth attempted to bring time to the very being and
essence of God, but did it by dealing with the notion of time in an equivocal sense. Thus he
argues: "The being is eternal in whose duration beginning, succession and end are not three
but one, not separate as a first, a second and a third occasion, but one sumultaneous occasion
as beginning, middle and end. Eternity is the simultaneity of beginning, middle and end, and
to that extent it is pure duration. Eternity is God in the sense in which in himself and in all
things God is simultaneous, ie., beginning and middle as well as end, without separation,
distance or contradiction. Eternity is not, therefore, time, although time is certainly God's
creation or more correctly, a form of His creation. Time is distinguished from eternity by the
fact that in it beginning, middle and end are distinct and even opposed as past, present and
future" (Church Dogmatics, ed. G. W. Bromiley and T. F. Torrance, trans. G. W. Bromiley, 2d
ed. (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1975), II/I, 608. Thus, when Barth speaks of the "historicity
of God" to explain his presence of the human Christ in eternity, he uses the word "time" in
an equivocal sense (Church Dogmatics, III/I, 66). To explain the phenomenon of the revelation
of the Word of God in the man Jesus of Nazareth, Barth speaks of God's own being as not
timeless, but rather "historical even in its eternity." This "historicity" of God is conceived to
be the very source of time (ibid., 67). This "historical eternity," however, is conceived by Barth
as simultaneity, where the proper succession that belongs to the essence of time does not exist
(ibid.; see the detailed discussion on God's eternity in Church Dogmatics, II/1, 608-677). I agree
with Barth's conviction that the historical fact of God's incarnation in Christ requires the
temporality and historicity of God. Yet, if we think this issue biblically, we should not conceive
of God's time as equivocal or univocal to created time, but rather as analogical to it. An
analogical notion of divine time means that while God experiences the future, present, and
past sequence of time, he relates to it from the infiniteness of the creator and not with the
limitations of the creature. Scripture gives ample evidence to support this view, which has not
been, as yet, considered by Christian theologians.
'Oscar Cullmann is the one theologian that I know who has come closest to this
understanding of the analogous and infinite temporality of God as the basic ontic
characteristic of his being. He concludes: "Primitive Christianity knows nothing of
timelessness, and that even the passage Rev. 10:6 is not to be understood in this sense.
From all that has been said in the two preceding chapters it results rather that eternity,
which is possible only as an attribute of God, is time, or, to put it better, what we call 'time' is
nothing but a part, defined and delimited by God, of this same unending duration of
God's time" (Christ and Time: The Primitive Christian Conception of Time and History, trans.
Floyd V. Filson, 3d ed. [Philadelphia: Westminster, 1964], 62, emphasis added). For an
introduction to various alternative ways to deal with God and time, see William J. Hill,
Search for the Absent God Tradition and Modernity in Religious Understanding (New
York:Crossroad, 1992), 80-91.
96
97
98
meanings that are not borne out by the things themselves. Working out our
appropriate projections, anticipatory in nature, to be confirmed 'by the things
themselves,' is the constant task of understanding.' Moreover, Gadamer clearly
dismisses the notion that a tradition could arbitrarily define truth, or that truth will
stand on tradition rather than on the reality and nature of the things themselves
(emphasis supplied)."
This may help us to understand that the newness in postmodern
epistemology is not the switch from the individual rational subject to the "social
subject" of community and tradition. Instead, the newness of postmodernity
consists in the ontological conviction that ultimate reality, both of the knower and
the known, is not timeless, but temporal. As we become familiar with the
ontological ground of postmodernity, we realize that the evangelical grounding
conviction that God revealed himself in Scripture is better suited to interact with
postmodemity than the tradition alternative proposed by Grenz.
Evangelical theology stands on the sola Scriptura principle, not on tradition.
Tradition is under the judgment of Scripture.' Tradition is the history of
theological wrestling with divine revelation made public in the inspired writings
of Scripture. Tradition is a secondary fallible discourse based on the primary
discourse of Scripture, where the truth of God's being, actions, and words
enlightens human reason within the flow and dynamics of time and space.
There is nothing in postmodern epistemology or ontology that indicates
evangelical theology should retreat from using the sola Scriptura principle. On the
contrary, postmodernity encourages us to criticize traditional teachings from an
empathic listening to the "things themselves" (ontological reality).' In evangelical
"Gadamer, 267.
45Ibid. Gadamer further clarifies this point by explaining that "[t]he only 'objectivity' here
is the confirmation of a fore-meaning in its being worked out Indeed, what characterizes the
arbitrariness of inappropriate fore-meanings if not that they come to nothing in being worked
out? But understanding realizes its full potential only when the fore-meanings that it begins
with are not arbitrary. Thus it is quite right for the interpreter not to approach the text directly,
relying solely on the fore-meaning already available to him, but rather explicitly to examine the
legitimacyie., the origin and validityof the fore-meanings dwelling with him [that is within
his own history and tradition]."
99
theology, the "things themselves" are those God has done, disclosed, and made
public for all times and ages in the pages of Scripture. Thus, in postmodern
jargon, Scripture is the discourse in which the unconcealment of God's character,
wisdom, purpose, and actions has come to light in the thoughts and words of
biblical writers. In Scripture, God reveals himself from within and in between the
flow of human historical time as a transcendent and all-wise being whose
character, plans, promises, and actions are reliable, faithful, and firm throughout
history and for the unending times of future eternity.
Theological truth, then, is absolute in postmodern times because it is
simultaneously temporal and transcendent. This is possible because in his
transcendent being God is analogously and infinitely temporal and, therefore,
able to disclose absolute unchanging truth within the changing dynamics of
time. The understanding of God's absolute truth does not depend on human
reason or the community of faith. On the contrary, human reason and the
community of faith depend on the absolute truth that God is, and that he has
historically revealed in Scripture.
Conclusion
Neither the postmodern interpretation of human knowledge, nor the social
dynamics of the community of faith can support the claim of absolute
theological truth. Yet divine revelation in Scripture is still able to support
absolute theological truth even within the new epistemological and ontological
parameters produced by postmodern philosophy. The absoluteness of Christian
theological truth springs not from the supposedly universal parameters of
human reason, but from the unchanging divine being whose ontic revelation
in the flux of created time is testified and interpreted in the inspired record of
Scripture. More precisely, the absoluteness of truth springs from the analogical,
infinite, temporal transcendence and immutability of God's being, actions,
words, and teachings preserved in Scripture. Because God's being and historical
purposes are immutable and transcendent to our limited and sinful histories,
his truth is also immutable and transcendent.
Secular-minded individuals do not recognize the reality of divine revelation
because it contradicts the rational patterns of postmodern hermeneutical reason
or ontology. Yet, postmodern philosophers, such as Heidegger and Derrida,
considered that God's revelation in future history is possible.' However, most
interpreter to let himself be guided by the things themselves is obviously not a matter
of a single, 'conscientious' decision, but is 'the first, last and constant task.' For it is
necessary to keep one's gaze fixed on the thing throughout all the constant distractions
that originate in the interpreter himself."
'Heidegger not only places the question of God within the flow of temporal Being, but
he leaves the possibility of a future God open. See, e.g., George Kovacs, The Question of God
in Heidegger's Phenomenology (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1990), 114, 78-79,
83. See also Karin de Boer, Thinking in the Light of Time: Heidegger's Encounter with Hegel
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), 162-163. Even Jacques Derrida kept the
100
THEOLOGY
JO ANN DAVIDSON
Andrews University
Critical issues concerning the environment attract increasing attention. Modern
technologies have affected all life and the environment, creating new situations
that require consideration. Resultant moral deliberation, however, often remains
restricted to human life. Important questions need to be asked. Are humans a
part of the environment, or only stewards of it? Are humans merely "in"
nature, or are they also "of" nature? What does it mean to "preserve" the
environment?
Philosopher Holmes Rolston III raises an important point: "Environmental
ethics stretches classical ethics to the breaking point."' Environmental ethics is
not "anthropocentric," or limited to humans. It attempts to expand the circle of
moral concern beyond human beings to include, at the very least, some "higher"
mammals that share morally relevant features with us. Environmental ethics
builds arguments to explain and justify why nonhumans should count morally.'
By contrast, with few exceptions, Western ethics is predominantly
anthropocentric, with moral value found primarily, if not exclusively, in humans.
We will now examine representative examples.
Classical Western Ethics
Consequentialis tic Utilitarianism
Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism, the process of judging the
rightness or wrongness of an action by assessing the consequences of that
action. Consequences that result in more harm than good are judged to be
morally wrong. To be judged as morally right or desirable, an act should, at
least, produce a net balance of good consequences over harmful ones,' taking
into account everyone who is affected.'
'Holmes Rolston III, "Environmental Ethics: Values and Duties to the Natural
World," in Ecology, Economics, Ethics: The Broken Circle, ed. Herbert Bormann and Stephen
R. Keller (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1991), 73.
'Rolston, 74, continues: "Environmental ethics requires risk. It explores poorly
charted terrain, in which one can easily get lost."
'Ethical egoism and altruism are forms of consequentialism. An egoist strives to
take only those actions that bring about the greatest benefit and least harm to the egoist
alone. The altruist, on the other hand, prefers actions that bring about the greatest
benefit and least harm to others, exclusive of the altruist.
4Principle of Utility: Always act to bring about the greatest good for the greatest
101
102
103
104
talk, but can they suffer?'" Arguments that humans alone are morally privileged
rest on arbitrary distinctions and are guilty of what Singer called "specieism."
Because sentient animals experience needs and have interests that are
similar to those of humans, they must be given equal consideration. Actions
that bring about suffering to nonhumans must be justified to the same degree
as if those actions were directed toward humans. Pain is pain for humans and
nonhumans. Singer appeals for the moral worth of all sentient beings.
Singer, however, excludes insentient life forms, lower animals, and plants.
These species are presumed not to suffer, thus they have no moral standing. He
primarily includes mammals as morally qualified sentient beings. Donald
VanDeVeer argues similarly for psychological capacity, roughly equating it with
sentience.' Animals with greater psychological capacity would be favored."
However, the anthropomorphic bias remains.
Inspired by Kant's accounts of universal duties, Regan's deontology moves
beyond Kant's claim that only free and autonomous human beings can qualify
for moral worth." He argues that any being that has a complex emotional and
perceptual life, including pain and pleasure preferences, plus the ability to
pursue actions and goals with a significant degree of independence, should be
included within one's moral scope. Many species of mammals fall into this
category and should be included with humans as candidates for moral standing.
These "subjects-of-life," as Regan refers to them, have inherent value.' Thus
he reaches the same conclusion as Singer, that many mammals have equal
worth with humans, albeit from an entirely different direction.'
Singer and Regan are representatives of a limited biocentrism. They seek
to extend moral consideration to nonhumans, but only within modified
"Jeremy Bentham, The Principles of Morelli and Legislation (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1945), chap. 17, sec. 1, fn. to paragraph 4.
"See Donald VanDeVeer, "Interspecific Justice," Inquiry 22 (Summer 1979): 55-70;
reprinted in Donald VanDeVeer and Christine Pierce, eds, The Environmental Ethics and
Polity Book: Philosophy, Ecology, Economics (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1998), 179-192.
"This position leads to a kind of de facto anthropocentrism because in conflicts in
which individuals (members of a species with unequaled psychological capacity) are
competing with a member of any other species, the interests of the human person
would consistently prevail.
"See Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1983).
"Regan's term corresponds roughly to "intrinsic value." No being with inherent
value should be treated as a means to some end, as a resource or object to be exploited
for the benefit of others. "Subjects-of-a-life" have rights that should be respected by
free and rational agents who are morally responsible for their actions.
16With lower species, Regan finds himself in the same predicament as Singer.
Although being sentient and the "subject-of-a-life" are almost identical, involving
complex psychological capacities, lower animals and all plants remain excluded from
consideration.
105
anthropocentric ethical systems. Other biocentrists applaud this, but fault them
for failing to extend the range of moral standing any further. What about less
complex animals and the plant kingdom? Is moral standing possible for these?
Must justification for their welfare and protection rely exclusively on their
instrumental, economic, or aesthetic value?
A "Teleological Center of Life" Approach
Paul Taylor believes he has found a way to extend the circle of moral concern
beyond sentience in his "teleological center of a life."' All animals and plants,
sentient or not, conduct their lives in a clearly directed way. They grow and
maintain themselves in terms of their well-being. For example, a newly hatched
chick seeks to become a full-fledged representative of its species, as does a live
maple tree or a worm. There is nothing superfluous in the behavior of a living
organism. Its very life is defined by and dedicated to its telos, even if it is not
self-conscious of it.
Unlike psychological capacity, the telos of a species is open to objective
description. One can know what harms or benefits an organism simply by
witnessing its activities, even if the organism is not conscious of its nature or
purpose. These have what is called "a good of their own," giving them worth
and value. Teleological centers of life are valuable objectively apart from our
assessment or judgment regarding them. Nor is the human trios superior to that
of any other living thing:
Taylor calls this "the biocentric outlook," referring to the interdependence
and equality within this planet's vast community. He expands the circle of
moral concern, including greater numbers of nonhumans, going beyond the
emphasis on consciousness or psychological awareness as the main qualification
for moral standing. Taylor is committed to the equality of living teleological
systems, human and nonhuman. However, he does not address the value of
waterways, mountains, or entire ecosystems, except as they provide a suitable
environment for the flourishing of teleological systems of life.
Revised and Expanded Consequentialism:
Environmental Ethics
An environmental ethic justifies the inclusion of large communities of animals,
plants, rivers, lakes, mountains, and valleys. These are referred to in
environmental science as ecosystems, "biomes," or, generally, as "the natural
environment."
Ecosystems are loose associations of species, from microbes in the soil to
forests and animals that live together in countless numbers as citizens in a
community. Aldo Leopold, a pioneer of environmental ethics, was an early
advocate of ecocentrism. His 1949 essay "The Land Ethic" is still considered
"All living things (and for Aristotle, many nonliving things) have a telosan inborn
goal that they strive to realize and sustain. That this is true is obvious to any attentive
observer. See Paul Taylor, Respect for Nature (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1986).
106
2007)
107
'See Bryan G. Norton, Toward Unity among Environmentalists (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1991).
'This pragmatic approach relies on "moral pluralism" (i.e., using a variety of
principles that are not deduced from a single master principle). However, when real
conflicts occur, there are no standards to resolve them. What if a person is faced with
a dilemma between deciding for humans (requiring an anthropocentric, personrespecting principle) or nonhumans (requiring a biocentric sentience or telos-respecting
108
Eco feminism
Ecofeminists focus on hierarchical patterns of patriarchy, with the elevated and
entitled status of male authorities as the primary form of social oppression. For
them, eliminating patriarchy would go far toward the elimination of many
forms of oppression, social and economic. This would result in proper relations
with nature, for they suggest there is positive link between the subjection of
women and nature. In 1973, with increasing fears of planetary ecological
meltdown mounting, Francoise d'Eaubonne wrote that the only mutation that
can save the world would be the "great upheaval" of male power that "brought
about, first, overexploitation, then lethal industrial expansion."'
The Church and Ecology
Christian attitudes toward the environment are based on a distinctive
understanding of the universe. The earth has exalted standing from its status
as a creation of God and, as such, should receive respect. Since all of creation
has value, even the nonliving environment is to be treasured.
The current ecological crisis has influenced some Christian scholars to pay
more attention to the doctrine of creation. For example, Thomas Berry states that
"we seldom notice how much we have lost contact with the revelation of the
divine in nature. Yet our exalted sense of the divine comes from the grandeur of
the universe, especially from the earth in all the splendid modes of its
expression."'
Threats to animals, birds, fish, air, soil, and ecosystems endanger not only
human lives and community, but also go against the directives of God himself.
The scriptural assignment of dominion and responsibility is a stewardship ethic.
The obliteration of forests and wetlands, the pollution of waterways, and the
extinction of numerous species of plants and animals should be a genuine
concern to all Christians.
Some Christian environmentalists have moved beyond anthropocentrism.
For example, James Nash defends the biotic rights of other species and their
principle)? Some moral pluralists would rank the two positions and select the one with
overriding priority. They arrive at such a ranking with an appeal to some master
standard. All the same, moral pluralists argue that life is too complex to be reduced to
a single ethical standard.
29See Warwick Fox, "The Deep EcologyEcofeminism Debate and Its Parallels,"
Environmental Ethics, 11 (1989; Ariel Salleh, "Deeper than Deep Ecology: The EcoFeminist Connection," Environmental Ethics, 6 (Winter 1984); "The Ecofeminism/Deep
Ecology Debate: A Reply to Patriarchal Reason," Environmental Ethics, 14 (Fall 1992);
"Social Ecology and the Man Question," Environmental Politics 5/2 (1996); Mary Mellor,
Feminism and Ecology (Oxford: Polity, 1997); Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature:
Women, Ecology and the Scientific Revolution (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1990).
3Thomas Berry; Thomas Berry and the New Cosmology (Mystic, CN: Twenty-Third
Publications, 1987), 17.
109
110
111
before inviting him to her house (Gen 24). Moreover, the sport of hunting is
mentioned only in connection with violent persons, such as Nimrod (Gen 10:8-9)
and Esau (Gen 25:27), and never of the patriarchs and their descendants.
In the book of Numbers, Balaam's donkey, after being beaten by Balaam,
pleads for respect and fair treatment (22:21-33). The heavenly being, whom the
donkey is reacting toward and whom Balaam does not see at first, also criticizes
Balaam's harshness toward the creature.
As God led the children of Israel to the "Promised Land," he described it
to them as a land rich with "milk and honey" (Exod 3:8; Lev 20:24). He
carefully instructed the people about ecological responsibility: "[T]he land in
which you are about to cross to possess it, a land of hills and valleys, drinks
water from the rain of heaven, a land for which the LORD your God cares"
(Deut 11:11-12). The Mosaic laws include the protection of nature, even
outlawing the destruction of fruit trees to aid a military campaign (Deut 20:19).
Large work animals were not to be muzzled so they could eat while doing the
heavy work involved in agriculture, but were permitted to enjoy the harvest
they were helping to reap (Deut 25:4).
The Hebrew people had an obligation to be kind to their animals. The
Jewish historian Josephus notes how Moses taught compassion for animals:
So thorough a lesson has he given us in gentleness and humanity that he
does not overlook even the brute beasts, authorizing their use only in
accordance with the Law, and forbidding all other employment of them.
Creatures which take refuge in our houses like suppliants we are forbidden
to kill. He would not suffer us to take the parent birds with the young, and
bade us even in an enemy's country to spare and not to kill the beasts
employed in labor. Thus, in every particular, he had an eye for mercy, using
the laws I have mentioned to enforce the lesson.36
Humans, animals, and even the land are included in the stipulations for the
weekly Sabbath and the sabbatical year:
Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, but the seventh
year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat;
and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat. In like manner you shall
do with your vineyard and your olive grove. Six days you shall do your work,
and on the seventh day you shall rest that your ox and your donkey may rest,
and the son of your maidservant and the stranger may be refreshed (Exod
23:10-12; cf. 20:8-10; Lev 25:6-7; Deut 5:12-15).
'Norman Wirzba, Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight
(Grand Rapids: Brazos, 2006), 15.
112
God of grace. The observance of these annual festivals was obligatory. God told
Israel: "[Three times you shall keep a feast to Me in the year: You shall keep the
Feast of Unleavened Bread . . . and the Feast of Harvest . . . and the Feast of
Ingathering" (Exod 23:14-16; cf. Deut 16:16-17). These times of annual
celebration commemorated the signal mercies of the God of Israel, who not only
redeemed the people from bondage, but provided for them during their
wilderness wandering. But further, the feasts also marked three different harvests.
For example, the Feast of the Passover, followed immediately by the Feast of
Unleavened Bread, commemorated Israel's redemption from Egypt. Taking place
in the spring, usually during the month of April, the first sheaf of ripe barley was
gratefully waved before the Lord. The second annual feast, the Feast of Weeks,
also called the Feast of Pentecost or the First Fruits of Harvest, was celebrated
fifty days (or seven weeks) after the Passover, around the beginning of June. This
feast was a time of thanksgiving for the completed grain harvest of wheat and
barley. The last annual festival, the Feast of Booths, was also known as the Feast
of Ingathering, taking place during our month of October. By this time the
produce of vineyard and olive grove had been gathered.
Thus Israel was taught to honor Jehovah, both as God of creation and as
God of salvation. As such, the people, upon their settlement in the Promised Land,
were to
take some of the first of all the produce of the ground, which you shall bring
from your land that the LORD your God is giving you, and put it in a basket
. . and say to [the priest], "I declare today to the LORD your God that I have
come to the country which the LORD swore to our fathers to give us . . and
now I have brought the first fruits of the land which you, 0 LORD, have
given me." .. . So you shall rejoice in every good thing which the LORD your
God has given to you and your house, you and the Levite and the stranger
who is among you (Deut 26:1-11).
John Stott comments on the rich symbolism of the gift of the firstfruits of
the new land to God: "The basket of fruit was a token of 'all the good things'
which God had given Israel. It was the fruit of the ground, fruit which God had
caused to grow. But from what ground? From ground which God had also
given them, as he had sworn to their fathers. The fruit was a sacrament of both
creation and redemption, for it was the fruit of the promised land.'
The Historical Books
Besides redemption and salvation, God also linked ecology with righteousness.
For example, following the dedication of the Temple, God appeared to
Solomon in a dream and said to him: "When I shut up heaven and there is no
rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My
people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and
pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from
heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land" (2 Chron 7:12-14, emphasis
John R. W. Stott, Understanding the Bible (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1999), 49.
38
113
added). Later, Israel would suffer drought because of their apostasy (1 Kgs 17).
Wisdom Literature
When God speaks to Job out of the whirlwind, he recounts the wonders of the
created world, urging Job to contemplate several wild creatures. In his longest
recorded speech (Job 38-41), God refers to animals such as the lioness, the
mountain goat, a stallion, leaping high to paw the air, and the hawk, eagle, and
raven. Finally, he turns to the behemoth and the mighty leviathan, noting
concerning it that "Indeed, any hope of overcoming him is vain; Shall one not be
overwhelmed at the sight of him? No one is so fierce that he would dare stir him
up. Who then is able to stand against Me?" (Job 41:9-10). Wirzba insightfully
comments that the "Leviathan represents an equally ferocious creature that we
would do our best to leave alone. Yet God finds a reason to delight in creatures
such as these: 'I will not keep silence concerning its limbs, or its mighty strength,
or its splendid frame' (41:12)."" God exults in these members of the created
world who will never be controlled by human beings. Apparently, even wild,
untamed animals are of value in the "world as God sees it."'
Within the Psalter, God's providence for his creation inspired many
prayers and hymns. The psalmists emphasize how nature reveals the glory of
God, and how all of God's creation is included in his care. More than once, the
reader is reminded that God provides sustenance for all life: "He gives to the
beast its food, and to the young ravens that cry" (Ps 147:9). Further, the Psalter
focuses attention on the glorious manifestation of life in God's creation. For
instance, Ps 148:7-13 proclaims:
Praise the LORD from the earth,
You great sea creatures and all the depths,
Fire and hail, snow and clouds;
Stormy wind, fulfilling His word;
Mountains and all hills,
Fruit trees and all cedars;
Beasts and all cattle;
Creeping things and flying fowl;
Kings of the earth and all peoples,
Princes and all judges of the earth!
Both young men and maidens;
Old men and children.
Let them praise the name of the LORD
For His name alone is exalted;
His glory is above earth and heaven.'"
Admonitions in the book of Proverbs also include a high regard for the
"Wirzba, 87.
'Philip Yancey, I Was Just Wondering (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 10-11.
'Some have wondered if Christians should stop repeating Scripture passages of
rivers and trees clapping for joy to the Creator (Ps 98:8; Isa 55:12) while forests are
being turned into wastelands and waterways into life-destroying pollution.
114
animal kingdom. Solomon, for example, states: "Go to the ant, you sluggard!
Consider her ways, and be wise, which, having no captain, overseer or ruler,
provides her supplies in the summer, and gathers her food in the harvest. How
long will you slumber, 0 sluggard? When will you rise from your sleep?" (Prov
6:6-9), and "A righteous man regards the life of his animal, but the tender
mercies of the wicked are cruel" (Prov 12:10).
The Prophets
Isaiah the prophet instructed that if God's covenant is broken and the
responsibilities of stewardship neglected, deterioration and pollution of the
earth will follow: "The earth mourns and fades away, the world languishes and
fades away; the haughty people of the earth languish. The earth is also defiled
under its inhabitants, because they have transgressed the law, changed the
ordinance, broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore the curse devours the
earth, and those who dwell in it are desolate" (Isa 24:5-6).
The prophet Jeremiah concurs, highlighting how Israel's sins affected the
earth, drawing a direct correlation between deceitfulness and vengefulness and
the broken conditions of the earth: "'Shall I not punish them for these things?'
says the LORD. 'Shall I not avenge Myself on such as a nation as this? I will take
up a weeping and wailing for the mountains and for the habitations of the
wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that no one can pass
through them; nor can men hear the voice of the cattle. Both the birds of the
heavens and the beasts have fled; they are gone" (Jer 9:7-10).
Hosea contrasts the state of the earth when Israel remains within the
constraints of the covenantal relationship with the dire consequences of gross
sinfulness. In an echo of the Noahic covenant, God promises that "In that day
I will also make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, with the birds
of the air, and the creeping things of the ground. Bow and sword of battle I will
shatter from the earth, to make them lie down safely" (Hos 2:18). But Israel did
not guard their covenantal relationship, thereby bringing against them the
charge, "There is no truth or mercy or knowledge of God in the land. By
swearing and lying, killing and stealing and committing adultery, they break all
restraint, with bloodshed after bloodshed" (Hos 4:1-2). But the gross
inhumanity of humans for one another is not limited to affecting human life,
Hosea states. It also leads to dire consequences for the ecosystem: "Therefore
[because of Israel's sinfulness] the land will mourn; and everyone who dwells
there will waste away with the beasts of the field and the birds of the air; even
the fish of the sea will be taken away" (Hos 4:3).
According to the prophet Joel, both animals and land are devastated as the
Day of the Lord approaches: "The seeds shrivel under their clods; the
storehouses are in shambles; barns are broken down, for the grain has withered.
How the beasts groan! The herds of cattle are restless, because they have no
pasture; even the flocks of sheep suffer punishment. 0 LORD, to You I cry out;
for fire has devoured the open pastures, and the flame has burned up all the
115
trees of the field. The beasts of the field also cry out to You, for the water
brooks are dried up, and fire has devoured the open pastures" (Joel 1:17-20).
The prophet Jonah, petulantly demanding that God destroy the inhabitants
of Nineveh even after they repented, had to be rebuked: "And should I not pity
Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty
thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left
hand, and also much livestock?" (John 4:10-11, emphasis added). Thus God ends
his discussion with Jonah with an intriguing reminder of his profound mercy
that extends not only to the wicked Ninevites, but also to their animals.
God's statement to Jonah should not be surprising; the natural world is
important to the Creator. The concluding question in the book of Jonah
pointedly reminds the reader that even the animal kingdom is expressly
included in God's tender regard. In God's extension of mercy to the humans
of Nineveh, he was also sparing the animals. In an echo of Pss 36:6 and 145:9,
the sentiment that God cares for the natural world is expressed. The psalmist
states: "Your righteousness is like the great mountains. . . . 0 LORD, You
preserve man and beast.... The Lord is good to all, and His tender mercies are
over all His works."
The prophet Zechariah also repeats the pervasive biblical theme of human
sin destroying the earth:
Execute true justice, show mercy and compassion everyone to his brother.
. . . But they refused to heed, shrugged their shoulders, and stopped their
ears so that they could not hear. . . . Thus great wrath came from the LORD
of hosts. Therefore it happened, that just as He proclaimed and they would
not hear, "so they called out and I would not listen," says the LORD of hosts.
"But I scattered them with a whirlwind among all the nations which they had
not known. Thus the land became desolate after them, so that no one passed
through or returned; for they made the pleasant land desolate" (Zech 7:9,11,
12b-14).
116
death could not remain in his presence (Luke 7:16; John 11).
As Paul Santmire contends: Jesus "can be thought of as an ecological
figure as well as an eschatological figure.""
'"How lovely is Your tabernacle, 0 LORD of host! My soul longs, yes, even faints
for the courts of the LORD; my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. Even the
sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her
youngeven Your altars, 0 LORD of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those
who dwell in Your house; they will still be praising You" (Ps 84:1-4).
43Speaking of Jesus' quieting of the storm on Galilee, Jakob van Bruggen writes: "Jesus
is not the pawn of the elements" (Christ on Earth [Grand Rapids: Baker, 1998], 178).
f1. Paul Santmire, The Travail ofNature: The Ambiguous Ecological Promise of Christian
44
117
After the seventh trumpet sounds in Rev 11, the twenty-four elders fall on
Theology (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 201.
"Ben Witherington III, Paul's Narrative Thought World The Tapestry of Tragedy and
Triumph (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 171.
'Even Jonathan Edwards understood that God communicates not only "by his
voice to us in the Scriptures, but also in creation and in historical events. The whole
creation of God preaches" (cited in Allen C. Guelzo, "The Return of the Will," in
Edwards in Our Time: Jonathan Edwards and the Shaping of American Religion, ed. Sang Hyun
Lee and Allen C. Guelzo [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1999], 133).
118
their faces and worship God, as they cry out against those who have wreaked
havoc on the created world:
We give You thanks 0 Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was
and who is to come, because You have taken Your great power and reigned.
The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, and the time of the dead,
that they should be judged, and that You should reward Your servants the
prophets and the saints, and those who fear Your name, small and great, and
should destroy those who destroy the earth (Rev 11:17-18).
The book of Revelation concludes with the resplendent restoration promised
earlier by the OT prophets, reminding the reader again that redemption involves
the renewal of God's original creation. The material world will participate in
redemption. Salvation is never described as an escape from the earth, but rather
as a reclamation of the earth! God's salvation is earth-affirming.' There is nothing
in God's creation that is irrelevant. Throughoout Scripture, the profound value
that God places on this created world is often repeated.
Conclusion
From Genesis to Revelation, Scripture consistently reveals a close link between
ecology and theology. When compared to modem attempts to attach earthly
values to ethical motivation, the biblical writers are far advanced. A close study of
the Scriptures suggests that authentic Christian faith must include ecological
concern. Since God is the Creator and Sustainer of this world, and humans are
created in his image and are to be his image-bearers on the earth, surely this must
include showing loving concern for this world as manifested by the Creator. Any
negative interference with his creation would be a daring act. The biblical writers
warned of the serious implications of failing to maintain a covenantal relationship
with the Creator. Tragically, what they warned against has become reality. As
pioneering ecological theologian Joseph Sittler insists:
When we turn the attention of the church to a definition of the Christian
relationship with the natural world, we are not stepping away from grave and
proper theological ideas; we are stepping right into the middle of them. There is
a deeply rooted, genuinely Christian motivation for attention to God's creation,
despite the fact that many church people consider ecology to be a secular
concern. `What does environmental preservation have to do with Jesus Christ
and His church?" they ask. They could not be more shallow or more wrong."
'Nancy Pearcey states: "God's command to Adam and Eve to partner with Him
in developing the beauty and goodness of creation revealed His purpose for all of
human life. And after He has dealt with sin once for all, we will joyfully take up that
task once again, as redeemed people in a renewed world. This comprehensive vision
of Creation, Fall, and Redemption allows no room for a secular/sacred split. All of
creation was originally good; it cannot be divided into a good part (spiritual) and a bad
part (material). Likewise, all of creation was affected by the Fall, and when time ends,
all creation will be redeemed" (Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural
Captivity [Wheaton: Crossway, 2004], 86).
"Joseph Sittler, Gravity and Grace (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1986), 15.
119
120
thousands from one boy's lunch (John 6:1-14), teaches the privilege of eating
and the miracle of food by urging that nothing be wasted.
Diet is also related to ecological concerns. The vegetarian diet should be
revisited in the light of ecological and even mental-health concerns.
Philosopher Stephen Webb links this issue to the biblical record of the life of
Daniel:
The Book of Daniel, for example, tells the story of how Daniel and his
friends refused to eat the impure food of Nebuchadnezzer, the Babylonian
king. Instead, they ate only vegetables, and "at the end of ten days it was
observed that they appeared better and fatter than all the young men who
had been eating the royal rations" (Dn 1:15). It is tempting at this point to
argue that even the Bible understands that eating less meat is better for one's
physical as well as spiritual health.'
Perhaps the Christian Church should pay more attention to the crucial
ecological issues involved with eating meat. When a fourth-generation cattle
rancher' and Mennonite hog farmer' ceased raising animals for slaughter and
became vegetarians, they pointed to the critical ecological issues involved in
eating flesh meat. For instance, there is a wasteful "funnel effect" of many
pounds of grain fed to a single steerthe same amount of grain that could be
used to feed far more people. A few years ago, it was thought that animal
protein was of paramount importance for optimum health. Now science has
demonstrated from the study of human physiology that the optimum diet for
human beings does not include meat. In fact, the digestion of animal flesh puts
an enormous strain on the human body. Second, the huge amount of water
used to grow fodder for feeding animals for slaughter is also well documented.
The same amount of water could serve a much larger community of people.'
'Stephen H. Webb, On God and Dogs: A Christian Theology of Compassion forAnimals
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 22.
53
See, e.g., Howard F. Lyman, Mad Cowboy: Plain Truth from the Cattle Rancher Who
Won't Eat Meat (New York: Simon & Simon, 2001). Lyman is well aware of what goes into
U.S. livestockhigh doses of pesticides, growth hormone, and the ground-up remains of
other animals. A fourth-generation Montana farmer, he regularly doused his cattle and soil
with chemicals. It was only when he narrowly escaped paralysis from a spinal tumor that
Lyman began to question his vocation and the effect it was having on people and on the
land he loved. The questions he raised and the answers he found led him, surprisingly, to
adopt a vegetarian diet. As a result, he lost 130 pounds and lowered his cholesterol by
more than 150 points. He is now one of America's leading spokesmen for vegetarianism.
Along the way, Lyman learned even more about the alarming dangers associated with
eating meat, and blasts through the propaganda of the beef and dairy industries (and the
government agencies that often protect them) and exppses an animal-based diet as the
primary cause of cancer, heart disease, and obesity in this country.
54Gary L. Comstock, "Pigs and Piety: A Theocentric Perspective on Food
Animals," in Good News for Animals? Christian Approaches to Animal Well-Being, ed. Charles
Pinches and Jay B. McDaniel (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993), 105-127.
'It takes approximately 14 trillion gallons of water annually to water crops grown
121
Some studies even show that not only is our water supply being slowly depleted
on this basis, but also that our deep underground water sources are being
polluted by the seepage from immense amounts of cow manure, resulting from
present methods of animal husbandry.' These are but a few of the serious
ecological issues related to the meat industry' and say nothing about the
frightful cruelty to the animals that are slaughtered.' Webb is correct: "As long
to feed livestock in this country. As much as 4,500 gallons of water are required just to
produce a quarter-pound of raw beef. Just to irrigate hay and alfalfa, it takes more water
than that required for all vegetables, berries, and fruit orchards combined.
56
As Carol J. Adams documents: "'Meat' eaters do not have to pay the true costs for
the 'meat' that they eat. The cheapness of a diet based on grain-fed terminal animals exists
because it does not include the cost of depleting the environment. Not only does the cost
of 'meat' not include the loss of topsoil, the pollution of water, and other environmental
effects, but price supports of the dairy and beef 'industry' mean that the government
actively prevents the price of eating animals from being reflected in the commodity of
`meat.' My tax money subsidizes war, but it also subsidizes the eating of animals. For
instance, the estimated costs of subsidizing the 'meat' industry with water in California
alone is $26 billion annually (Hur and Fields 1985a, 17). If water used by the 'meat'
industry were not subsidized by United States taxpayers, 'hamburgers' would cost $35 per
pound and 'beefsteak' would be $89. Tax monies perpetuate the cheapness of animals'
bodies as a food source; consequently 'meat' eaters are allowed to exist in a state of denial.
They are not required to confront 'meat' eating as a 'pocketbook issue"' ("Feeding on
Grace: Institutional Violence, Christianity, and Vegetarianism," in Good News for Animals?
Christian Approaches to Animal Well-Being, ed. Charles Pinches and Jay B. McDaniel
[Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1993], 148).
'Nineteenth-century health reformer Ellen White was sensitive to this issue: "Think
of the cruelty to animals that meat eating involves, and its effect on those who inflict and
those who behold it. How it destroys the tenderness with which we should regard these
creatures of God!
"The intelligence displayed by many dumb animals approaches so closely to human
intelligence that it is a mystery. The animals see and hear and love and fear and suffer.
They use their organs far more faithfully than many human beings use theirs. They
manifest sympathy and tenderness toward their companions in suffering. Many animals
show an affection for.those who have charge of them, far superior to the affection shown
by some of the human race. They form attachments for man which are not broken
without great suffering to them.
'What man with a human heart, who has ever cared for domestic animals, could look
into their eyes, so full of confidence and affection, and willingly give them over to the
butcher's knife? How could he devour their flesh as a sweet morsel?" (Ministry of Healing
[Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press, 1942], 315-316).
Even the skeptic David Flume granted this point, even while insisting that any truth
was opposed to his methodological skepticism: "[N]o truth appears to me more evident,
than that beasts are endow'd with thought and reason as well as men. The arguments are
in this case so obvious, that they never escape the most stupid and ignorant" (A Treatise
of Human Nature, 272, cited in Bernard E. Rollin, The Unheeded Cry: Animal Consciousness,
Animal Pain and Science [Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1998], 22).
58.J. R. Hyland states: "We have increasingly hidden the slaughterhouse, and its
122
as it is more acceptable to say that we love meat than it is to say that we love
animals, our views on animals will continue to be deeply distorted.""
A meatless diet, then, permits humans to live in peace with God's creation,
even before the Parousia. At Christ's return, the nonviolent diet of the original
Eden will be restored for both humans and animals. One day, all killing will
cease. People and animals will stop doing harm to each other (Isa 11:6-9). As
we await this glorious future, Christians can begin to live by the compassionate
patterns of God's governance for all of his creation." In the process, we can
offer praise to God for his glorious creation by how we live and eat. Thus we
will, finally, be linking our theology with ecology, as God has done in Scripture,
where he instructs us how to see and love the world as he does.
victims, from sight. Very few persons have any direct experience of the violence and
brutality that is inflicted on animals in order to satisfy a carnivorous population.
Additionally, the steaks, chops, hamburgers, and cold cuts that are consumed show little
resemblance to the creature who had to be killed in order to obtain them" (God's
Covenant with Animals: A Biblical Basis for the Humane Treatment ofAll Creatures [New York:
Lantern Books, 2000], 102); see also Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of
the All-American Meal (New York: Harper, 2002).
59Webb, On God and Dogs, 12.
Cor 6:14 comes in the middle of Paul's discussion about the proper use of the
human body. Resurrection is introduced here to explain why it is important to act
morally in and with the bodythe body is meant for the Lord and, in fact, will
participate in the eschatological state of salvation. V. 14 makes the analogy between
Christ's resurrection and that of believers quite explicit. Both are raised up by God's
power. The context makes clear that by resurrection Paul means something involving
a body. Again, we see a clear connection made between the believer's present condition
and his or her future condition. Ethics circumscribes bodily conduct because the body
has a place in the eschatological future of the believer" (Witherington, 174).
123
124
125
'Ibid., 80-84.
8Krister Stendahl, "Biblical Theology, Contemporary," Interpreter's Dictionary of the
Bible, ed. George A Buttrick, et al. (Nashville: Abingdon, 1962), 1:419-422.
126
Fear of legalism can also contribute to the distance between truth and life.
When Christian standards of behavior and obedience to God and his will are
set aside, unpopular theology gives way to antinomianism. It is claimed that
God is not concerned with specifics. He gave humanity broad principles and
freedom to navigate within them. But as Daniel M. Doriani states: "Fear of
legalism should not foster a nebulous idealism that never actually says 'Do this,
not that."'" Wolfgang Schrage reminds that
Beyond all doubt Jesus demanded not just a new attitude, a rethinking and an
inward conversion, but concrete and specific obediencenot in the form of
a universal moral appeal to the human conscience, but in concrete
injunctions. What Jesus requires is not the relationship of the soul to its God,
not inward renewal, but totality of the person, including concrete actions.12
Disjunction between God's law and love has similar effects on practicing
'Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (London: SCM Press, 1959), 35.
"Daniel M Doriani, Putting the Truth to Work (Phillipsburg: Presbyterian and
Reformed, 2001), 125.
'Wolfgang Schrage, The Ethics of the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1982), 44.
127
128
129
something that is in a deep sense good for oneself, for other people, and for
all creation. As Christians, the two of us affirm that such a way of liferight
down .to the specific words, gestures, and situations of which it is
wovenfinds its fullest integrity, coherence and fittingness insofar as it
embodies a grateful human response to God's presence and promises."
Conclusion
The work of a theologian can use occasional examination. The search for truth
is the essential first step in the task of theology. If occasional attempts to devote
sustained thought to the meaning, application, and significance of a particular
Christian belief and the practices that embody that belief are not undertaken,
such practices can become hollow, insignificant, and ultimately
unpersuasiveeven to those who undertake such practices with diligence and
love." The gap that ensues can become scandalous.'
This occasional self-searching effort made by theologians is indispensable.
It is significant and troublesome to hear from our pulpits and read in some
publications that doctrines are not important. What matters the most is to have
a close and deep relationship with God. Such comments should be taken as a
clarion call to the church's theologians. It is a call to us to present biblical
doctrines to our hearers and readers as a way of living, not only as a way of
understanding. Without theology and doctrine, what does "relationship" mean?
What sort of God do we speak about? If our theologizing is not clear as to
what we shall do about the well-articulated truth, our work is far from finished.
For when God sends his Word to his people, it must not return to him empty
because it is too hard to understand, too esoteric, or too theoretical. It must
not return to him without accomplishing the task for which he is sending it.
'7Miroslav Volf and Dorothy C. Bass, eds, Practicing Theology (Grand Rapids:
Eerdmans, 2002), 16.
,18David S. Cunningham, The Practice ofTrinitarianTheology (Malden: Blackwell, 1998), 8.
19A glaring example can be found in the theology of apartheid. Consider Abraham
Kuyper's claim that racial diversity is God-given and that each race has a tight to
maintain its identity. In addition, he insisted that Christ did not die for every human
being. Such claims opened the doors for apartheid policies of hierarchical ordering of
economics, politics, and social standing, and justified negative discrimination against the
"non-whites" (Particular Grace: A Defense of God's Sovereignty in Salvation [Granville:
Reformed Free Publishing, 2001], 22-56).
Andrews University
Introduction
Academic writing and research in the seminary context or the undergraduate
religion classroom can, at times, feel disconnected from both the spiritual
formation of the writer and the task of ministry. A better understanding of
theological inquiry as a spiritual discipline and the community of inquiry in
which knowledge is communicated and formed could provide a context in
which that disconnect may be addressed.
Two approaches to teaching academic writing and research in theological
education have been discussed. First, Nancy Vyhmeister defines research as
"the search for truthfor God is truthwhether it be historical, scientific, or
theologicalit is all God's truth."' For Vyhmeister, truth is objective, centered
in God, and is something to be sought.
Barry Hamilton suggests an alternative approach to the teaching of
research methods that focuses on the writer. He notes that
the research project as a theological enterprise does not stand as an isolated
object, but rather integrates the researcher's vocation into his/her spiritual and
intellectual formation. The researcher must ask, "What is God calling me to do
in this project? How does my work as a researcher relate to my life's journey
with God? How has God led me thus far? How will this project influence the
course of this journey? How will this project shape my character? Will the
outcome be congruent with the vocation to which God has called me?"'
Thus, for Hamilton, the value of research relates to the person.
A comparison of these two approaches demonstrates that, for Vyhmeister,
truth is to be found outside and above usit is a process of discovery, while
Hamilton's approach focuses on the spiritual formation of the writer and can
be understood as reflecting a process of spiritual growth. A third approach,
which I will develop in this article, views academic writing and theological
inquiry as a ministry, in which the writer is served by and, in turn, serves the
community of faith for the purpose of building a corporate knowledge of God.
Research is service and the dissemination of the knowledge of God in the
corporate experience of the community of faith. Research-method pedagogy
will be enriched when all three research approaches are incorporated in the
student's understanding of the academic-writing task. Because I believe that the
'Nancy Jean Vyhmeister, .Quality Research Papers: For Students of Religion and Theology
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 2.
'Barry Hamilton, "A Model for Teaching Research Methods in Theological
Education," Summary ofProcedngs ofthe American TheologicalLibrag Association 57 (2003): 158.
131
132
133
integrated into the process of spiritual formation so that the student views
"theological research as a means for engaging the whole person and insuring
the integration of spiritual formation and knowledge formation components of
the seminary curriculum, as well as enhancing timely completion of projects.
And instead of completing assignments that constitute an alien 'other',
seminarians could pursue cognitively relevant research that would reflect their
path to knowledge as a journey with God."' Thus, in the context of theological
education, research writing becomes one way among many to "seek first his
kingdom and his righteousness." Theological inquiry is, then, based on the
primary text that reveals Godthe Scriptures.
Biblical Evidence for the Social Aspect
of Theological Inquiry
Paul's conversion in Acts 9 illustrates the social aspect of information-sharing
in theological inquiry. Saul, who was on his way to Damascus with arrest
warrants for the followers of Jesus, was suddenly confronted with "a light from
heaven." "He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, 'Saul, Saul, why
do you persecute me?' Who are you, Lord?' Saul asked. 'I am Jesus, whom you
are persecuting,' he replied. 'Now get up and go into the city, and you will be
told what you must do"' (Acts 9:3-6).
That moment of divinely inspired insight altered Saul's perception of what
he was doing. His former zeal was based on his understanding of the law of
God, as he had been educated as a Jew (Acts 22:3). Supernatural revelation,
however, provided an additional important piece of information: the identity
of Jesus. For everything else he needed to know as a Christian, Saul was sent
to Damascus to be informed by Ananias and the church.'
The blindness Saul experienced as a result of his experience on the road
to Damascus, while physically real, can be understood as a metaphor for his
lack of understanding and his false beliefs about Jesus. While zealous in his
persecution of the followers of Jesus, he fully believed he was doing the right
to mold oneself or others in the traditions of Christian spirituality. Thus Christian
formation can begin with family spirituality and memorization of simple verbal prayers.
Sunday school classes and worship services continue formation through reading and
studying scripture; singing hymns; receiving the sacraments of baptism and Holy
Communion; and joining or hearing prayers of adoration, confession, thanksgiving,
petition, and intercession" ("Formation, Spiritual," The Upper Room Dictionary of Christian
Spiritual Formation [Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2003], 109-110).
'Hamilton, 157.
'Ellen G. White states: "The marvelous light that illumined the darkness of Saul
was the work of the Lord; but there was also a work that was to be done for him by the
disciples. Christ had performed the work of revelation and conviction; and now the
penitent was in a condition to learn from those whom God had ordained to teach His
truth" (Acts of the Apostles in the Proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ [Mountain View,
CA: Pacific Press, 1911], 121).
134
thing and honoring God. Saul was spiritually blind. It took the ministry of the
Christian community of faith to restore his sight.
Therefore, just as Saul was sent to the church in Damascus to be informed
about the kingdom of God and God's righteousness, so too the theological
researcher is sent to the community of faith to be instructed. In the context of
academic writing, the community of faith includes the written documents of the
historic church. Throughout history sincere Christians have struggled to apply
the Scriptures in their personal lives and in their communities and to
subsequently record their thoughts and experiences. As Chris Armstrong
summarizes: "All of the 'saints' worth reading share this: they followed their
Lord, offered up their gifts, and tried to discern their pathsright in the very
midst of all that was good, bad, and ugly in their surrounding cultures."' The
information these writings provide can be useful in theological inquiry, either
by enhancing the understanding or by clarifying understanding through the
study of differing perspectives.
In addition, the Scriptures warn of error and heresy in the community of
faith (2 Pet 2:1). Being able to differentiate between truth and error is critical
for theological inquiry. This distinction can be worked out through dialogue
with other thought leaders, whether from the past or present, using the medium
of the written word. While individually the limitations of being human may lead
to incomplete or incorrect conclusions, corporately the combined efforts of
many can lead to a greater appreciation of truth.
The Seventh-day Adventist Perspective for the
Social Aspect of Theological Inquiry
Theological inquiry from the Seventh-day Adventist perspective is informed by
the "Great Controversy" theme9 and the belief in the imminent return of Jesus.
These themes require an intentional emphasis on the Scriptures as the primary
source of information about God. As Fernando Canale affirms: "In the church
to think is to do theology. In Adventism, 'to do theology' is not to understand
tradition and beliefs of the church or our own personal faith, but instead, to
understand biblical revelation. This is the real basis for our identity as a
people."' Thus, while a researcher may narrowly analyze and evaluate any
word of Scripture or any written text in the history of God's people, the "Great
Controversy" theme and the second coming of Christ should permeate the
'Chris Armstrong, "Grateful to the Dead: The Diary of a Christian History
Professor #2: 'All Things to All Men' or 'Be Ye Separate'?" Christian History and
Biography, October, 2 00 5, <www.christianitytoday.com/history/
newsletter/2005/oct27.html>.
'The great controversy theme refers to the cosmic struggle between good and evil
through all ages until Christ's Second Coming, at which time sin and evil will be
destroyed.
'Fernando Canale, "Thinking Biblically and the Pastoral Ministry," Reflections: A
BRI Newsletter, October 2005, 3.
135
136
He got up and was baptized, and after taking some food, he regained his
strength" (Acts 9:17-19). Ananias, as a representative of the community of
faith, spoke and acted for God. Saul's experience on the roada
schemaprovided him with new information. Saul accepted that new
information as truth and the scales fell from his eyes, thereby transitioning him
from spiritual darkness to light. The geography of his mind was transformed.
The first action Saul took following his conversion was to express his
commitment to this new knowledge through baptism. He then regained his
strength by eating, which can be understood as being metaphorically suggestive
of the process of internalizing, digesting, and assimilating truth.
Scholarship and academic writing as a form of theological inquiry can thus
be understood as a personal fulfillment of the command of Jesus to seek first
the kingdom of heaven and, as such, the writer should "be transformed by the
renewing of the mind" (Rom 12:2). Scholarship is an active engagement in the
community of faith, past and present, for the purpose of contributing to the
collective knowledge and community experience of God. Such communityoriented scholarship is less likely to generate error and heresy because it is open
to criticism and correction. From this perspective, it is hoped that student
writers can appreciate research assignments in theological education as
opportunities for both spiritual growth and ministry.
The Signs and Symbols of the Community of Faith
What is the "SIGN" that academic theological inquiry points toward? In the
broadest context, signs that inform are everywhere. Words, linguistic units, are
one form of sign that represent meaning. The primary source for transmitting
information about God is the Scriptures, which are a symbolic coding of truth
consisting of letters formed into words and words combined to make sentences
for the purpose of expressing ideas. The cumulative expression of words and
their meaningful use is language. Information transmission is thus a function
of language.
Biblical Evidence: The Tower of Babel
The power of language is illustrated in the biblical account of Babel (Gen 11:19). Rather than spreading out and inhabiting the earth as God had commanded,
the people chose to stay together. To defy God, they decided to build a tower
that would reach to heaven and there they would make a name for themselves
(v. 4). "But the Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men
were building. The Lord said, 'Has one people speaking the same language they
have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for
them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not
understand each other" (vv. 6-7). It took the confusing of the language to
disperse the people. United under one language, anything they planned would
be possible. Their power lay in the ability to share information as a society.
Douglas S. Robertson illustrates this principle by describing levels of
137
civilization based on their ability to store and handle information: The first level
of civilization relied only on spoken language. Information was stored in the
mind of the individual and was shared once at a time in a nonfixed form to
those who were close enough to hear. Second, the invention of writing, though
limited due to the laborious process of copying, allowed for information to be
stored on documents that others could consult. The copies could be altered
either through human error or through intentional enhancements, thus no two
copies were exactly the same. Third, with the invention of the printing press,
a renaissance occurred, in which information could be stored in a fixed format
and distributed broadly, with access made simultaneously available to a much
larger audience. It is this broad access to information that has made possible
the technological and intellectual advances of contemporary society. Fourth, the
information explosion caused by the printing revolution is predictive of a new
and much larger information explosion due to the computer's ability to store
and disseminate information, which, in turn, will impact and change society in
as yet unknown ways."
The social crisis at Babel did not happen, however, because of
technological breakdowns in the storage and retrieval of information. It can be
inferred that attempts to communicate continued, just as before God
intervened. The problem came because the people could not "understand each
other" (v. 7).
Communication theorists have worked through the quantification and speed
of information flow, including the formulation of mathematical formulas. But, as
Fred I. Dreske points out, regardless of how much communication takes place,
unless there is understanding and unless the equation includes meaning, it does
not serve any purpose.' Both the sender and the receiver must equally understand
the "signs" or "symbols." This shared ability was no longer functional in Babel.
The differentiation of languages made communication impossible.
Interpretation and Translation of Signs
Bible translations illustrate the challenge of interpreting and translating signs.
Simply substituting words from one language to another is not adequate. Alister
E. McGrath describes particular problems the translators of the King James
Version faced with the Hebrew Bible because they lacked a knowledge of
Hebrew idioms and unique words. As a result, in several passages the
translators' efforts do not make sense."
Recent efforts to translate the Bible into non-European languages face
equally daunting challenges. David J. Clark uses the experience of the Bible
"Douglas S. Robertson, The New Renaissance: Computers and the Next Level of
Civibtation (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 20-24.
"Fred I. Dretske, Knowledge and the Flow of Information, David Hume Series
(Stanford: CSLI, 1999), 40-41.
"Mister E. McGrath, In the Beginning: The Story of the King James Bible and How It
Changed a Nation, a Language, and a Culture (New York: Anchor Books, 2002), 230-234.
138
Society in translating the Bible into Kalmyk and Yakut, languages of Siberia:
"Translation problems can be usefully considered in two general categories,
linguistic and culture . . . [and in] an area where they intertwine, namely the
translation of figurative language."' After providing a number of examples,
Clark concludes:
Enough has been said to demonstrate that translating the Bible is very much
more than transferring the words of one language into another. Language
and culture are intimately connected, and a culture is deeply influenced by
the ecological environment and philosophical worldview of its members. The
result is that far from being a mechanical task that could be taken over by a
machine, the translation of the Bible requires a deep understanding of and
empathy with both the source language and culture and the receptor
language and culture. It will continue to demand the highest level of skill,
creativity, discipline, and commitment on the part of its practitioners."
Disciplinary Discourse
The storage and sharing of information within a specific discipline follows a
similar pattern. Eric Sheppard and Trevor Barnes define "disciplinary
discourse" as "a network of concepts, statements, and practices that produce
a distinct body of knowledge. A disciplinary discourse, for example, would
include specialized vocabularies, conceptual and theoretical frameworks,
diagrams, variables, and even tables of figures."' As an academic discipline,
theological inquiry has these elements and can be described as having both a
language and a' culture. Academic writing in theology should follow the
conventions and patterns, the "signs," of the discipline as a component of
credibility. Just as the context and the audience should inform the shape of the
sermon, so should these also inform academic written work.
Disciplinary discourse has a functional value. Careful participation minimizes
the impact of extraneous cultural diversity or ambivalences in community
knowledge building. Steve Fuller explains that while some scholars tend
to suppose that all scientists experience the same kinds of ambivalence, a
finer-grained analysis of the concept might reveal that each discipline has a
characteristic way of resolving its ambivalences, which, in turn, become the
basis on which its cognitive status is evaluated by other disciplines and the
public at large. This thesis of Disciplinary Ambivalence may be illustrated by
considering the multiple linguistic functions performed by the discourses of
disciplines. Our model, adapted from Popper, specifies four such functions,
each associated with a virtue of disciplinary discourse.
"David J. Clark, "Minority Language Biblical Translation Work in Russia, Then
and Now," in Sowing the Word: The Cultural Impact of the British and Foreign Bible Society,
1804-2004, ed. Stephen Bataldan, Kathleen Cann, and John Dean (Sheffield: Sheffield
Phoenix Press, 2004), 255.
Ibid., 233.
"Eric Sheppard and Trevor Barnes, A Companion to Economic Geography (Oxford:
Blackwell, 2000), 13.
139
140
values with others."' This definition implies what he calls the "forum model,"
which "holds that there is a dynamic relationship between sender and receiver.
The receiver actively participates in this dialogic exchange on the basis of
experience, understanding, and interpretations. Receiving involves active and
creative dialogue by which the message is re-created and interpreted by the
receiver."' Thus, for Granfield, "the Church is a group of communicating
persons, a network of meaning and values, where continual and multiple
interactions take place."'
Following Granfield's model, the scholar listens to the message of God
through the voices of the church in the past and present, is transformed both
intellectually and spiritually by the message through the processes of interpretation
and assimilation, and then shares the enriched message with others using
appropriate methods and conventions of communication. The never-ending cycle
continues as the receiver of the message from the scholar is also transformed by
the message and, in turn, passes it on to new receivers. Thus the truth of God's
revelation in Jesus is handed down from generation to generation throughout
time, with each new generation experiencing the transforming power of the
gospel as they struggle to understand and apply the message in their new setting.
The role of scholarship is that of a servant of the community of faith and scholars
who emulate the Spirit of Jesus best serve truth.
Biblical Evidence: An Application of
Communication Theory
The Gospels record an incident that relates to Granfield's theory of
communication. Human institutions, such as the university and the church,
reward the most effective scholars with respect and recognition. Career
opportunities are often governed by the objective evaluation of scholarly
productivity. In Matt 20:20-28, when the sons of Zebedee asked a favorto
be granted the top positions in the kingdomfrom Jesus through their mother,
the other disciples became indignant. Jesus replied: "You know the rulers of the
Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them.
Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be
your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slavejust as the Son
of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life a ransom
for many" (Matt 20:35-38).
Gerald Gerbrandt clarifies the role of scholar/servant: "Scholars in their
scholarship serve the church as they fulfill their unique mandate of being the
critical thinkers of the hermeneutical community. On the one side, the mandate
of the scholars should be clear; on the other side, they do it not as those who
'Ibid., 3.
23
ibid., 5.
141
have the final say or as individuals but as part of a community."' This mandate
to serve the church through critical thinking suggests that "all aspects of
lifethe assumptions and traditions of society, the faith and traditions of the
church, as well as the customs and 'givens' of the universitymust be put
under the microscope. Faculty at our church institutions thus must ask difficult
and uncomfortable questions, not because they have a right or freedom to do so, but
because it is their responsibility and assignment"' From this perspective, success as
a scholar is not measured merely by productivity and recognition, but by
faithfulness to a calling and to the furthering of the mission of the church.
Following Jesus, the scholars in theological inquiry seek not to be served, but
to serve and to give their lives for the church.
Purposes of Scholarship
One way to clarify the role of scholarship in the community of faith is to define
its purposes. Calvin College has done this in their mission statement:
Conserving scholarship promotes understanding of the various Christian traditions
in order to provide the Christian community with the integrity, vision, and
wisdom needed both to frame and to energize its ongoing work... .
Transforming scholarship may establish Christian criteria for knowledge or for
its application, or may implement those criteria in a particular field in such
a way as to challenge the wisdom prevailing there or to show the critical,
redemptive, or reconciling power of the Christian faith... .
Enriching scholarship brings the insights or methods of the arts and sciences
to bear on Christian thought and the understanding of creation and culture.
Such scholarship can enhance appreciation for God's creation and human
experience, expand the fund of human knowledge and wisdom, help
Christians engage in proper self-criticism or self-understanding, and enrich
the testimony of the Christian message.'
Individual scholarly projects in theological inquiry can fulfill any of these
purposes. The purpose and function are determined by the nature of the
inquiry and the audience for which the findings are prepared. Academic writing
presupposes certain expectations concerning subject matter, research methods,
and audience (in this case, professional peers).. However, permeating the
research process is the awareness that the scholar is a servant of the community
of faith and is seeking to contribute to the mission of the church. Thus the
context of scholarship in theological inquiry is the community of faith.
Conclusion
While Borgmann's definition of knowledge may be useful for discussion
purposes, the elements are not discrete. Discussion of the message includes
'Gerald Gerbrandt, "Scholars as Servants of the Church," Direction 33/2 (2004): 139.
'Ibid., 136, emphasis original.
'Expanded Statement of Mission: Part II: C. The Mission of Calvin College in
Scholarship <www.calvin.edu/ admin/provost/mission/part2c.htm>.
142
considering the sources that have been preserved, interpreted, and applied
within a community of faith. Academic research seeks this knowledge through
a better understanding of the Scriptures, the Word incarnate, and through the
collective experience of the community of faith throughout time as preserved
in written records. Thus the knowledge of the kingdom of heaven is made
known through the Scriptures, as mediated through communication within the
community of faith. It is in conversation with the historic community of faith
that information about God is shared. The systematic and intentional research
of scholars fulfills an important function within the church by thinking critically
about the community's knowledge of God. This role is an essential ministry
that will enable the community to build knowledge and to grow spiritually.
Discussions of scholarly discourse in composition studies and information
and communication theory emphasize the role of the community in forming
and understanding the signs used to share information. Epistemology reminds
us that information must be transformed into knowledge. This applies both to
individuals and communities. Finally, in theological inquiry, God is at the center
of the process, from message to sign to community. The transformation within
the scholar and the community from having information about God to
knowing God requires the power of the Holy Spirit. Through the Holy Spirit,
God is an active participant in all theological inquiry.
Academic scholarship, then, can be viewed as a calling to a ministry of
transforming information that will edify the community of faith. Individual
assignments and projects may not appear in and of themselves to contribute
much to this vision; however, the cumulative effect of individual and corporate
scholarship within the community of faith will lead to a better and richer
knowledge of God and his purpose for his people. Research-methods pedagogy
and academic-writing assignments, which lead the student to discover truth
(what the student knows), are also meaningful for the student's spiritual
formation (what the student becomes). Thus academic writing assignments
prepare the student to do, thereby aiding him or her in a ministry of corporate
knowledge building and communication that edifies the community of faith.
DISSERTATION ABSTRACT
MORAL IMPLICATIONS OF DARWINIAN EVOLUTION FOR
HUMAN PREFERENCE IN CHRISTIAN ETHICS: A
CRITICAL ANALYSIS AND RESPONSE TO THE
"MORAL INDIVIDUALISM" OF
JAMES RACHELS
Name of Researcher:
Name of Faculty Adviser:
Date Completed:
Stephen Bauer
Miroslav Kik Ph.D.
May 2007
The Topic
This dissertation explores and analyzes James Rachels's efforts to prove that Darwin's
theory of evolution has catastrophic implications for traditional Christian ethics.
The Purpose
The purpose of this dissertation is to explore and evaluate the question of whether or
not protology affects ethics. In particular, I propose to distill the implications of
evolutionary views of origins for ethics, mainly in reference to the issue of human
preference over nature in ethics. I propose to disclose Rachels's understanding of the
implications of evolution on human preference ethics (such as biblical-Christian ethics),
and to evaluate his views on the basis of his internal consistency, and the accuracy of his
use of Christian history and biblical data.
The Sources
In order to accomplish this purpose, many sources were consulted, starting with the works
of Rachels himself. Additional authors include J. V. Langmead Casserly, Richard Dawkins,
Stephen J. Gould, John F. Haught, Cornelius Hunteer, Jerry Korsmeyer, Andrew Linzey,
John Rawls, Tom Regan, Lewis Regenstein, Michael Ruse, Richard Ryder, Peter Singer,
Gerhard von Rad, Stephen Webb, Lynn White Jr., and Benjamin Wiker.
Conclusions
First, Rachels is essentially correct in his analysis of the impact of Darwinian evolution
on Christian ethics. Second, possibly his greatest contribution is identifying Darwin's
rejection of teleology as the philosophical nerve of Darwinism. Third, he correctly
identifies two key pillars of human preference in Christian ethics and shows how
evolution undermines each pillar. Fourth, the work of evolutionary theologians verifies
Rachels's assertion that any kind of theism supportable by Darwin's theory cannot
sustain a traditional Christian view of morality. Fifth, the dependence of evolutionary
theologians on Process Theology undermines the grounding of God's moral authority
by limiting his foreknowledge. Sixth, Wiker is correct in his assertion that cosmology
affects morality, and that changing from a biblical cosmology to a materialist one cannot
help but eventually undermine Christian ethics. Seventh, I conclude that, in the
evolutionary system, rights become grounded in individual functionality, whereas in
Scripture they are granted by God, with the latter providing a more secure foundation
for grounding rights.
143
BOOK REVIEWS
Brode, Douglas. From Walt to Woodstock: How Disney Created the Counterculture. Austin:
University of Texas Press, 2004. xxxiv + 252 pp. Paper, $22.95.
Douglas Brode's thesis, early expressed, exhaustively explored, advanced with conviction
and competence along multiple lines of argument, is that contrary to popular
conventionalization and/or trivializations of Walt Disney, this historic character of
America's twentieth century was no child's-play artisan of film. His movies, TV
programming, and theme parks significantly contributed to the transformation of mid1950 American kids into late 1960s rebels. Brode proposes a three-pronged exposition of
his thesis, through a close textual analysis of individual films, comparison of movies as
parts of a whole, and sociopolitical analysis of Disney's work within its historical context
(x). Brode agrees with cinema historian Peter Noble that "The ordinary filmgoer has his
whole outlook formulated by the film; politically, socially, [and] intellectually he forms his
opinions 'unconsciously' through experiencesthe most important of them in
childhoodwith popular entertainment" (cited xxvi-xxvii; cf. Peter Nobel, The Negro in
Films [New York: Arno, 1970], 8). It is by targeting the most impressionable of
allchildrenthat Disney has impacted multiple American generations.
The notion that Walt Disney Pictures is nothing more than innocuous children's
entertainment is a myth, though so enduring that it seems absurd or worse to even
question it. In a 1997 protest by the religious right, Southern Baptist Convention president
Richard Land could complain that Disney, under Michael Eisner, was no longer "Mom &
Dad's Disney" (cited xxi). Brode treats the myth as the fruit of Disney's mastery. For the
truth is that "When studied individually and then as an oeuvre, his movies offered a
homogenized society the big bad wolf of an iconoclastic ideology. Disney films challenged
the impressionable audience's acceptance of the status quo, puckishly doing so in the
sheep's clothing of soothingly conventional family films" (xxvii).
As with many great artistic innovators, Disney passed through the three-stage
institutionalization of acclamation, repudiation, and rehabilitation and vindication. For
Brode the value and consequence of Disney's contribution remains unappreciated so long
as we miss the prescience of his prophetic anticipation of the Woodstock generation of
flower power, rock 'n' roll, and hippiedom. Disney, Brode contends, gave the world longhair youth rebellion before the Beatlesthrough Jimmy Bean (Kevin Corcoran) in
Po4anna (1960). It would be four years (1964) before the Beatles first appeared on the Ed
Sullivan Show. Pollyanna "predated, predicted, and, more significant still, defended . . . a
coming rebellion in which youth stands up to the adult world" (xxvii).
Significantly, in regard to rebellion, Disney movies, whether set in the Scotland of
the 1400s (Rob Roy, 1954) or pastoral America (So Dear to My Heart, 1948; the Johnny
Appleseed character of Melody Time, 1948; Davy Crockett, 1954-55), Disney dared to
exploit the "inherently rebellious implications" of dance (6). Daringly, in terms of
respect for standards and the status quo, he gave the world, in The Parent Trap (1961),
its first example of a fusion between rock and classical music. And in Fantasia (1940)
he supplied the ultimate trip movie to highflying potheads an astonishing thirty years
before Stanley Kubrick's 1968 work, 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Disney's independent radicalism extends to socialist sympathies expressed in a solid
preference for faithful labor and a deep despising of the worship of money. As seen in The
Stog of Robin Hood and His Marie Men (1952), Disney's ideal is a "progressive-populist"
vision, akin to that of Kirk Douglas's Spartacus in Stanley Kubrick's opus of the same
144
BOOK REVIEWS
145
name (1960), rather than an "elitist-imperialist" one (61), such as that of Charlton Heston
in Anthony Mann's El Cid (1961). Disney's perspective of the world fascinated Lenin's
chief cinematographer Sergei Eisenstein and terrified Frank Lloyd Wright, despite a belief
strongly shared with the latter in the importance of harmony with nature. Wright's visit to
Disney's study ended in horror as the architect retreated, exclaiming: "Democracy? That's
not democracy, it's mobocracy!" [cited 29]. Disney would later be responsible for the
wording of the Motion Picture Alliance charter that called for "a revolt" against
movements such as Communism and Fascism that sought to undermine the American
way of life. Nevertheless, the Alliance's Communist-baiting era saw him insisting that his
name be struck from the officers' list (37).
Brode proposes that Disney was never a window on his epoch. The man who could
be enthusiastically Democratic with Franklin Roosevelt, but a registered Republican in later
years, was consistently label-resistant, a rebel against the very traits that permit, produce,
and permeate the conservatism of categorization. He could satirize the superficiality of
small-town America when others hailed it as a proof of wholesomeness (Pollyanna); his
Susie, the Little Blue Coupe, on a car retired because of its advanced years, is anti-ageist as
early as 1952; No Hunting (1955) is remarkable as the first antigun cartoon. Other Disney
movies contextualize his perspective on his messageWestward Ho the Wagons (1956),
Johnny Tremain (1957), and The Liberty Story (1957). Any Disney message on guns in Westward
Ho is nuanced by character Bissonette, whose sale of rifles to the Indians involves both
commercialism's self-interest and a validation of the dignity of Indian personhood,
otherwise so often despised. At the same time, last-resort violence is compelled in Johnny
Tremain and The Liberty Story "against any system that denies basic human rights" (69).
Finally, the director's Lady and the Tramp (1955), along with two adaptations of Mark
Twain's 1881 work, The Prince and the Pauper (1962, 1990), both assault the prejudiced
elitism of rules of status, whether in love or economics. Disney's primary goal was to bring
all people together across every barrier of class, social status, or prejudice. For example, he
used directorial-fusion technique to blend rock and classical music in The Parent Trap and
the "formal (upper-class) literary approach" with the "informal (working-class) ballad
tradition" (55) in Pinocchio (1940), Robin Hood (1952), and Dag Crockett: King of the Wild
Frontier (1955). For Brode, Disney was a destroyer of all barriers: sociologically, between
privileged and destitute, commoner and sophisticate; cinematographically, between
animation and live action; epistemologically, between fact and fiction; theologically,
between traditional creationist belief and the new scientific insights of Darwin (e.g.,
Fantasia as the ultimate visualization of the law of the jungle; Poanna as the teacher of
pantheism; and The Three Lives of Thomasina as the introduction to reincarnation) (118-123).
Brode states: "Disney films consistently undermine the Judeo-Christian vision of death,
ingrained into the American psyche from the puritan era to the twentieth century" (187).
Brode effectively cuts through Disney's reputation as a conventional filmmaker,
showing him to be the father of the sixties counter-culture revolution, leaving the
reader to ponder the deeper meanings behind an apparently innocuous medium of
children's programming.
Andrews University
LAEL CAESAR
Damsteegt, P. Gerard. The Great Controvery Experience: First Century Christianity. Vol. 1
Multimedia CD-ROM. Berrien Springs: Christian Heritage Media, 2004. $59.99.
The Great Controversy Experience: First Century Christianity is the first volume of a four-part
series of CD-ROMs intended to highlight crucial periods of the Christian church. P.
146
Gerard Damsteegt, the author and producer, is Associate Professor of Church History at
the Seventh-day Adventist Theological Seminary, Andrews University. Damsteegt leads
every summer (since 1994) "Great Controversy Tours" to the major European historical
sites mentioned by Ellen G. White in her dassic work of Christian history, The Great
Controversy. In the course of preparing for these tours, he has accumulated a large collection
of photographs and historical documents, which serve as the basis for the current CDROM project and that help to bring alive and give a more enduring nature to the Great
Controversy tour experience.
The design of this CD-ROM is excellent, with an impressive richness and variety
of options and resources. The opening scene shows an ancient Graeco-Roman building,
the sides of which are covered by fog. This opening scene might easily lead first-time
users to assume that the quality might not be as impressive as it could be. This wrong
impression is erased once the researcher enters the museum and is surrounded by an
atmosphere that gives the actual feeling of what it would be to visit an ancient building.
The floor, walls, columns, and the decoration of the rooms seem to be real.
Once in the Lobby, the visitor will find a helpdesk and options for entering the
Museum to the left or the Library to the right. Within the Museum, the program leads the
visitor to a Gallery where he or she can choose to see four museum displays: "Jesus' Life,"
"Apostles' Church," "Jerusalem's Fall," and "The Persecutions." When the visitor clicks
on one of the displays, a short narration with soft background music plays. New options
appear when displayed objects are clicked on and each object is briefly described.
A small sundial appears at each of the four museum displays, which when, clicked will
lead the visitor to the timeline of that era, induding a detailed historical background based
on the prophecies of Daniel. Several different symbols are used in the timelines to indicate
important people of the period and major events related to that time. My first impression
was to find the symbols to be somewhat confusing. However, with a bit of patience, I
discovered a table of symbols at the top right of the screen that explains the meaning of
each symbol. By clicking on each symbol on the timeline, I was led directly to a written
explanation in the Encyclopedia of Persons, Places, Events, which is kept in the Library.
Besides the Museum, the visitor might choose to walk into the Library, which
contains three major works: Josephus's Wars of the Jews, the first chapter of E. G.
White's Great Controversy, and Damsteegt's Encyclopedia of Persons, Places, Events. The fact
that the pages of these books can be turned adds a nice touch. The chapter of White's
Great Controversy is divided into eight parts and narrated in audio, with pictures that
change as the narration continues. The Library contains, under the title "Sources," an
extensive Bibliography of the CD-ROM, as well as image and photo credits. While the
background music and William Fagal's text narration are outstanding, the user has the
option of switching off the audible narration and just reading the text itself.
The whole project is based upon the notion that human history unfolds itself
within the framework of the great cosmic controversy between God and truth, and
Satan and error. Biblical prophecies are understood as being of a predictive nature and
requiring a historicist hermeneutic in order to be correctly understood. Damsteegt
makes extensive use of Jewish, Roman, and Greek primary sources to describe the
ancient world with its kings and emperors and to give an accurate context of the
experience of the early Christians. The most important literary contribution of this
project is his own Encyclopedia of Persons, Places, Events, which comprises much of his
original research on the subject.
The graphics, photos, images, and other illustrations are excellent throughout,
providing the necessary background important for comprehending the subject.
Especially impressive is the three-dimensional Temple of Jerusalem at the "Jerusalem's
BOOK REVIEWS
147
Fall" display. The menu bar on the right side of the screen is complete and helps the
visitor to easily navigate through the displays. Well-defined maps add a geographical
dimension to the topics covered. A helpful expanding line shows gradually, for example,
the conquests of Alexander the Great and Paul's missionary journeys. Yet, that
animation could be improved so that the screen could move automatically whenever
the cursor moves into those parts of the map not shown on the screen without the
manual use of the scrollbar. In addition, the maps of Palestine seem to leave a blank
strip at the bottom and the right side of the screen that could be either erased or filled
up. Also worth mentioning from a more technical perspective is the four-page "User's
Manual." Additional technical support is provided at www.christianheritagemedia.com,
[email protected], and [email protected].
I commend Damsteegt and all his helpers for their outstanding contribution in
producing such an insightful and helpful source of information. I highly recommend
its use for personal Bible study, small-group study, evangelism, and undergraduate
religion classes.
Sao Paulo Adventist University College, Campus 2
ALBERTO R. TIMM
Engenheiro Coelho, SP, Brazil
Douglass, Herbert Edgar. Truth Matters: AnAnalysis of the Purpose Driven Life Movement.
Nampa, ID: Pacific Press, 2006. 2324 pp. Paper, $15.99.
In Truth Matters, Herbert E. Douglass deals with a movement that is a hot global issue
in the religious world. Living in the time of the end, it is urgent for Christians to discern
biblical truth from falsehood and a genuine revival from a counterfeit one. Truth Matters
is a valuable help in testing one of the most influential movements of the dayRick
Warren's Purpose Driven Lsji movement.
Douglass presents a factual description of the origin and development of this
seemingly successful movement. He sums up the appealing facts in the Purpose Driven
ministry, such as being contemporary, emphasizing personal needs, and particular
interests of the various age groups in a popular and comfortable form of evangelism.
The question is whether this way of evangelizing can be biblically accepted. Is it
compliant with the truths presented in the Bible?
In chapter 3, Douglass mentions a number of solid biblical statements he
especially likes in Warren's messages. Since, however, solid biblical truth is often
presented with falsehood, thus paving the way for compromising truth with error, I am
glad that Douglass is quick to conclude that "we will take another look at what Rick
Warren seems to mute or overlook. My primary concern is that his readers will laud
Rick Warren for those statements that appear so positive and obvious, but that in their
appreciation, they will not be led into seeing a bigger biblical picture regarding what
God really has in mind for planet Earth and its inhabitants" (39). This is an important
observation, for, as a matter of fact, the Purpose Driven Lifi movement has not outlined
a biblical end-time message, clarifying how God will close human history. It may also
be added that the Purpose Driven Life movement does not blow a warning trumpet
against deception and apostasy. There is no emphasis on the importance of discerning
truth from error nor stressing the necessity of being alert for falsehooda vital and
urgent responsibility of a true church in the time of the end.
After analyzing Warren's preaching methods in chapter 5, Douglass argues in
chapter 6 that the basic gospel message of Scripture is either minimized or neglected
in the Purpose Driven Life movement. Chapter 7 deals with the misuse of Bible texts and
148
BOOK REVIEWS
149
"Sabbatarians," "Salvation Army," and "Shinto." The articles are generally equal to or
superior to those found in other reference works with similar aims. The one consistent
exception to that statement is the introductions to the books of the Bible. Generally
more satisfactory treatments may be found in Bible dictionaries or encyclopedias,
introductions to the OT and NT, and the preliminary sections of commentaries; works
that are nearly always found in libraries housing the Encyclopedia. That deficiency,
however, is a part of the price that must be paid when a work seeks to be all-inclusive.
The sad fact is that no work, no matter how expansive, can be best in everything.
A reader wonders, however, if such an encyclopedia should even attempt to
accomplish everything. For example, volume 4 contains only seven biographies
Phoebe Palmer, Pius IX, Pius XII, Karl Rahner, Walter Rauschenbusch, Friedrich
Schleiermacher, and Albert Schweitzer. That selection is not only an interesting
assortment, but it obviously passes over many persons who deserve consideration.
Given the limitations of space, it might have been better to set some editorial
delimitations for content and merely refer readers to the extensive works on religious
biography and biblical introduction that are available to modern readers. To put it
another way, given the cost of publishing today, it may be impossible to be as
encyclopedic as such treatments as The New Schaff-Hern,y Encyclopedia of Religious
Knowledge (12 vols., 1908-1912) or McClintock and Strong's Cyclopedia of Biblical,
Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature (10 vols., 1867-1887).
Flaying said that, it should be added that The Encyclopedia of Christianity is a helpful
place to begin the study of a wide range of topics. A survey of articles with which the
present reviewer has either expertise or relative ignorance has indicated both helpful
introductory-level discussions and extensive bibliographies. The bibliographic
information in itself makes the Encyclopedia valuable for those venturing into any of an
extensive array of topics related to religion.
No reference work is perfect. Reductionism is an in-built problem of the genre.
But The Encyclopedia ofChristianity is a monumental reference work that has accomplished
the task better than most. It has set a standard that will dictate an essential place for it
in theological libraries.
Andrews University
GEORGE R. KNIGHT
Kuhn, Wagner. Christian Relief and Development: Biblical, Historical, and Contemporary
Perspectives of the Holistic Gospel. Engenheiro Coelho, Brazil: Adventist University
Press, 2005. 163 pp. Paper, $7.50.
Wagner Kuhn, who holds a Ph.D. from Fuller School of Intercultural Studies, is
Associate Director of the Institute of World Mission for the Seventh-day Adventist
Church. Previously he served as director of Adventist Development and Relief
Agency's (ADRA) in Central Asia from 1994-2002.
Kuhn begins by stating his thesis: "a holistic approach to development has
advantages over the secular approaches to development, as it does not dichotomize
between body and spirit, between the physical and spiritual realities of life" (1). His
purpose is "to promote an awareness of the importance of a biblical theology of
transformational development for missionaries as they aim to be holistic witnesses of
the gospel of Jesus Christ in a cross-cultural context" (2). He senses the need for a
clearer theology of mission to prevent disputes over whether an evangelistic or social
ministry is fulfilling the biblical mandate (127-137).
According to Kuhn, God is identified as the first "emergency relief worker" when
150
he provided clothing for Adam and Eve! Kuhn mentions the creation of wholeness
and cites OT welfare principles in chapter 1, and concludes by suggesting that the
Sabbath, the Year of Jubilee, Shalom, and the Messianic hope are four exemplars of
relief and development. In chapter 2, he devotes thirteen pages to the proclamation of
the kingdom of God through the teaching, preaching, and healing ministry of Jesus
Christ, who focused on the needs of women, the sick, and the poor, while speaking out
against corruption, oppression, and hypocrisy. He cites efforts in the apostolic church
to promote relief and development by sharing together, but ignores the deployment of
deacons to care for widows mentioned in Acts 6. He devotes a scant three paragraphs
to Paul's contribution to the topic.
Kuhn devotes the second half of the book to an excellent summary of charity relief
and development in the history of Christianity to 1945. Kuhn highlights the contributions
of the Benedictines, Nestorians, Orthodox monasteries, Celts, Franciscans, and
Dominicans. Then he focuses on Luther's writings and the contribution of Protestants and
Catholics (such as Vincent de Paul in France). His reflections on Puritanism, Pietism, the
Moravians, and Wesleyan Methodism are useful because they focus on these groups'
unique contributions. He remembers the work of the antislavery movement and the
agricultural, educational, economic, and social reform efforts of William Carey. Chapter
4 summarizes the contributions of nineteenth-century Protestant missionaries and social
gospel advocates, such as Walter Rauschenbusch. The book takes us up to "the Great
Reversal," when conservative evangelicals, about halfway through the twentieth century,
rejected much of the social-gospel agenda because of its association with liberalism.
Chapter 5 traces the revival of social concern through the influence of people such
as Carl F. H. Henry and Ron Sider, showing how the kingdom-of-God motif contributed
to this reawakening, and explaining how modem colonialism and capitalism have affected
development. On pages 101-125, Kuhn interacts with secular development theory for the
first timeoften relying on Bryant L. Myers's insights (Walking with the Poor. Principles and
Practices of Transformational Development [Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1999]). Here he concludes
there is a place for political social action in Christian work. He evaluates paradigms such
as "economic," "participatory," "from below," and "community development,"
concluding with the suggestion that "holistic development" motivated by love is his
paradigm of choice. Chapter 6 describes the need for a biblical theology of holistic mission
for Christian welfare/relief work and transformational development so that the Christian
church in general, the Adventist Church and ADRA can benefit from it.
This book appears to originate with the author's dissertation, "Toward a Holistic
Approach to Relief, Development, and Christian Witness, with Special Reference to
ADRA's Mission to Naxcivan, 1993-2003 (2004). However, the book does not attempt to
extrapolate any lessons from the case study in Azerbaijaneven in the contemporary
perspectives section. I would like to know what the author learned as a result of his
fieldwork 'in that country. Reports of interviews and observations there could have
provided some primary source material to complement the fine secondary sources that
were used.
Kuhn's ability to "promote an awareness of the importance of a biblical theology of
transformational development" for missionaries as they serve as cross-cultural witnesses
of the gospelhis stated purposeis weakened by his failure to show how well
established motifs of mission theology, such as the "kingdom of God" and "covenant,"
cannot provide solutions to the problem of evangelism versus social concern in mission.
Earlier in the book, he discusses the "kingdom" motif (championed by Arthur Glasser and
others) favorably; then suddenly, in chapter 6, he announces that a biblical theology for
holistic mission is needed. Kuhn could be right, but I would have liked to have seen him
BOOK REVIEWS
151
analyze how and why our current theologies of mission are lacking.
One contribution to the new theology of mission that Kuhn seeks could come
from a focus on holism in the Bible. Kuhn defines holism as "the belief or theory that
reality (things or people) are made up of organic or unified wholes that are greater than
the simple sum of their parts. The term 'holistic' has to do with holism and as such it
emphasizes the importance of the whole and the interdependency of its parts" (135).
He is clearly referring to the synergistic nature of wholes and parts as they relate. I have
begun work on a biblical theology of synergism or holism, and have identified five
conditions (based on a study of Gen 1-4 and qualitative field work) for building
synergic unity among diverse parts in Christian organizational wholes: spirituality,
communication, identifying, appreciating, and defining mission (see Doug Matacio,
"Creating Unity in a Multicultural Christian Organization: Is the Seventh-day Adventist
Church Effectively Meeting Its Goal of Scriptural Unity?" AUSS 43 [2005]: 315-331).
The biblical section of this book, with its numerous examples of welfare and
development principles found in the Bible, is a good source of support for field workers
around the world. These are the seeds for Kuhn's future theology of holistic mission,
a theology that will need to carefully balance social concern with evangelism. The
historical section is a superb summary and fingertip resource for historical trends. It is
also a good starting point for those planning deeper research into the history of
Christian social responsibility.
By comparison, the contemporary perspectives section, while informative and
useful, does not thoroughly engage contemporary secular or Christian theorists in
dialog. For example Jayakumar Christian's work, including God of the Empty-Handed.
Poverty, Power and the Kingdom of God (Monrovia, CA: MARC, 1999), is barely mentioned.
This book should be read along with Myers's Walking with the Poor, mentioned above.
The fairly numerous typographical mistakes found in this book do not detract
much from the author's ability to get his message across in clear and easily
understandable prose.
Many lay persons who have logged hours of fund-raising in behalf of the poor,
and who volunteer in community service centers have questions about the relief and
development enterprise of the church. I know of no better place to direct them than
to Kuhn's introduction to the field. This book should stimulate further studies into
God's plan for holistic mission.
DOUG MATACIO
Canadian University College
Lacombe, Alberta, Canada
Lee, Harold L., with Monte Sahlin. Brad: Visionary Spiritual Leadership. Lincoln, NE:
Center for Creative Ministry, 2005. 259 pp. Paper, $14.95.
Charles Bradford, a truly historical figure, was the first Black leader of the North
American Division of Seventh-day Adventists. Harold Lee and Monte Sahlin describe his
life as a "moving story of visionary Christian servant-leadership manifested in a gifted
personality, a Jesus man" (v). The authors have attempted to indude much of Bradford's
thinking on the major issues faced by the church during his life and ministry, drawing
much of the material for the book from Bradford's personal experiences, memories,
testimonies, scholarly papers, official documents, letters, sermons, and essays.
This rich treasure of material casts a revealing light on the life of Bradford,
showing him to be a visionary and Christ-centered leader, a powerful and persuasive
preacher, a competent administrator, and a skillful and tactful negotiator. His most
152
enduring contribution to the church was in the area of ecclesiology. His practical ideas
and approaches to leadership, church administration, and church growth, along with
his concerns about social issues and creative evangelism, still influence the Seventh-day
Adventist Church today.
Brad reflects biographical characteristics, but is not a true biography. Although the
book initially deals with chronological issues in Bradford's life (chap. 1), it focuses
primarily on the great themes and issues that dominated his life, ministry, and personal
reflection, approaches, and methodology in dealing with those issues (chaps. 2-8).
Chapter 9 is a summary and a challenge to readers to consider the continuing relevance
of Bradford's ideas.
Using excerpts from a number of Bradford's articles on preaching and pastoral
ministry, the authors conclude that he was first and foremost a pastor who passionately
believed that the local church is the most important entity in the denominational
structure. For him, all ministry was local. He fervently believed that the ministry of the
gospel was given to all members, thereby leaving no room for hierarchy or rank within
the community of faith. This fundamental belief would inform his leadership style,
preaching, views on women, and concerns about social issues within the church.
On the matter of preaching, Bradford strove for clarity and a distinct Adventist
message. He once noted that 'We are living in the age of double speak, technical jargon
and information overload. There are many confusing voices. Nobody seems to
understand what the other is saying. Preachers must not fall into this pattern. Clarity is
imperative. We cannot afford the luxury of being obscure. We must ruthlessly discard
every ounce of excess verbiage" (30).
According to the authors, Bradford's approach to administration was highly
relational. He was committed to "servant leadership" and was convinced that the main
duty of the pastor is to equip, enable, and encourage members to carry out their individual
ministries. Leaders are "to empower others, to widen the leadership group, to grow new
leaders" (57). For him, the denominational structure existed to serve the local church; it
was never intended to be a hierarchal superstructure to rule over God's people.
Bradford was also noted for his bold and courageous stance on issues that were
considered controversial. He excoriated the church for its position on the issue of race,
drawing upon the counsels of Ellen G. White to buttress his case. He challenged the
church to reach out to African-Americans of the inner cities and to implement remedial
action to alleviate their suffering. He raised serious questions about the fairness of the
Adventist financial structure relative to the regional conferences. He urged the church
to employ more Black Adventist youth and set up scholarships for them.
Bradford was not afraid to engage in one of the church's most controversial issues:
women's ordination. He urged his readers to look into the broad, general principles of
the Bible through the prism of three major biblical doctrines (salvation, Holy Spirit, and
the church), arguing that the ordination of women was in keeping with biblical
principles. Who are we to question whom God has called? For Bradford, Christians
achieve a new identity in Christ. Race, nationality, color, and gender are superseded by
this new identity, making the believer one of God's people. God is at liberty to call any
of us to any position regardless of gender.
A minor criticism of the book is that while Lee and Sahlin have painted a powerful
portrait of a great visionary leader, they seem to have forgotten that he was also human.
Little is said about Bradford's faults and weaknesses. Did he experience any significant
failures in his ten years as president of the North American Division? What were his
deficiencies in the different areas of leadership in which he served? We rejoice in his
successes, but we are aware that no one is perfect. A chapter that focused on Bradford's
BOOK REVIEWS
153
challenges and failures would have brought a balance that the book lacked. Even the
Bible is not afraid to tell us about the failures of its heroes.
The book also lacked a coherent theme in conveying Bradford's life, making it feel
disjointed and disconnected. While Bradford's personal papers were insightful, at times
it was difficult reading. Some of them could have been summarized and analyzed by the
authors so the readers could better understand them.
In spite of these criticisms Brad is excellent reading material for church leaders at
all levels. It provides precious gems of wisdom from one of the most successful
Adventist administrators who, despite his rise to international leadership, maintained
a pastor's heart for the local church and an attitude of a servant-leadership that reminds
all of Christ the Chief Shepherd and great Servant-Leader.
Andrews University
TREVOR O'REGGIO
McKibben, Bill. The Comforting Whirlwind God, Job and the Scale of Creation. Cambridge,
MA: Cowley, 2005. 73 pp. Paper, $13.95.
Modern Western culture blindly pursues a false god that Bill McKibben succinctly
summarizes with one word: "more." Unfortunately, this is no benign idolatry; the entire
earth groans under our consumerism as we cut down forests, fill in wetlands, drive rare
species to extinction, and consume obscene quantities of oil and coalall so we can eat
cheaper food, make and acquire more stuff, and live in greater luxury.
What are we to do? The answer is obvious, but deep patterns of thought and life die
hard, and we must find sources of wisdom and strength deep enough to motivate and
sustain new habits. McKibben's essay mines such wisdom from the book of Job by
suggesting two parallels between Job's crisis and ours. First, both crises witnessed collision
between reality and received wisdom (in Job's case, he knows the reality of his innocence,
but his friends repeat ad museum the conventional view that his suffering must reflect
God's punishment). Second, in both cases the received wisdom reflects a deep, underlying
anthropocentrismJob's friends expect that God will act according to their standards of
justice; modern man believes that all things exist to support our wants.
But the central message of Job, as developed by McKibben, emerges as God
appears in the whirlwind. God does not directly answer Job or his friends, but
confronts him with a visceral portrayal of the mystery, grandeur, and wildness of
creation that McKibben views as history's "first great piece of nature writing" (43).
Much of what God describes provides no direct benefit for humans (e.g., rain in the
wilderness, food for the lions, behavior of the ostrich, freedom of the wild ass), yet God
uses these aspects of nature as exhibits of his power and care.
McKibben believes that God's revelation to Job calls for two responses: First, we
(like Job) should fall humbly before God, acknowledging that "God can" and "we
can't." Job accepts his place as part (not center) of creation and repents, and so should
we. Second, we are drawn upward and outward into a deep, visceral sense of
transcendent joy, a joy that comes when we find our place in God's creation. It is this
combinationhumility with joythat McKibben hopes will motivate and sustain new
ways of thinking and living toward creation, although he worries that we may lose both
as humans increasingly eliminate wildness and gain the power to shape what remains
for our own ends (think genetic manipulation).
McKibben is a writer and environmentalist, not a theologian, and his well-written
book is more evocative than scholarly (his book has no footnotes or references). I
cannot evaluate McKibben's theological arguments or fidelity to the original text of Job,
154
but I do offer personal confirmation of a central thesis: reading Job, as a Christian and
a biologist, elicits both humility and joy in the presence of a powerful Creator who
sustains and loves all his creatures. I hope we will learn to love what God loves.
Andrews University
H. THOMAS GOODWIN
McWilliams, Warren. Where is the God of Justice? Biblical Perspectives on Suffering. Peabody,
MA: Hendrickson, 2005. xii + 259 pp. Paper, $16.95.
Warren McWilliams addresses the doctrine of retribution from the backdrop of a
transcendent, omnipotent God whose foreknowledge, creation, and continuing
preservation of that fallen creation render him ultimately responsible for the problem of
evil. Within God's providence, aspects of his intervening willlimitative, permissive,
directive, and preventativeare considered in tension with humanity's own responsibility
for moral and natural evils. The goal is a practical biblical theology of suffering, exploring
scriptural evidence of the complex relationship between a God of love, his creatures, and
the reality of suffering. An experienced writer, theologian, and teacher, he explores a
variety of topics including faith, prayer, and the spread of the gospel in the book of Acts.
He has a related book on theodicy, Fear No Evil, whose theme is God's identity with our
suffering, the strength he gives us, and our duty to reach out and help others. This present
work is more concerned with the Christian experience of and response to suffering.
McWilliams contends that the Bible does not focus on the origin of evil, but the
God who, through Christ, overcame evil (173). The need for Christians, then, is not so
much to understand the "why" of suffering, but the "how." He recounts the experience
of the prophet Habakkuk, who was distressed because he believed Israel was God's
chosen people; therefore he did not understand how God could let a heathen nation
hurt his people. God's response was that Habakkuk needed to live by faith, not by sight
(1). Of course, this response from God to Habakkuk, and to us, opens up all kinds of
issues and questions in the believer's mind. McWilliams wants us to take this advice and
develop a strategy of creatively and reverently coping.
The introduction and first section of the book lay a basic philosophical foundation:
Is God willing but incapable of stopping evil? Or is He capable but unwilling? McWilliams
concludes that God is willing and capable. So why is there so much evil?
The second section contains a thorough description of basic forms of suffering.
At the conclusion of each topic, McWilliams concludes his description and biblical
illustrations of suffering by returning the reader to the need for an intelligent, faithmotivated response. For example, chapter 7 discusses friend, marital, and family
relationships and the emotional and psychological pain caused by betrayal. After
experiencing the pain of betrayal, the sufferer often doubts the trustworthiness of God,
or anyone, for that matter. McWilliams stresses the importance of grieving and
expression as a healthy, biblical activity. Then, through the process of suffering, we can,
with Paul, come to the conclusion God is good (91).
The final section presents McWilliam's attempt to create a "theodicy for living in
the real world" (171: Be practical. Ask clear questions. Know your needs. Then,
creatively and reverently respond.
The highlight of the book occurs in the midst of a group of dizzying questions that
humans typically ask in desperation. The author reminds us that God suffers too. He
suffers because of us (Gen 6:6), with us (Ps 23), and for us (Isa 53). It is this profound
truth that legitimizes the author's intent. The reader who wonders about God's care for
him or her can begin to move from lamenting "why" to asking "how can I survive"?
BOOK REVIEWS
155
Another highpoint occurs at the end of the book. The author's portrayal of God's
relationship to suffering is well balanced, taking into account both God's character and his
allowance of evil. He gives a beautiful picture of God as a "wooer," who voluntarily limits
the exercise of his power (188) in order to coax us back into relationship with him.
Reading this book is akin to participating in a session with a Christian counselor. The
reader can recognize a source or two of their own suffering from the list, be educated as
to some possible responses, and then be challenged to exercise faith and creatively cope.
McWilliams is openly evangelical in his theology. His scriptural applications are generally
effective. However, in one place he claims that "Jesus does not endorse the cynicism of
Ecclesiastes" (8), while at the same time he uses other OT books, such as job, with the
seeming assumption that they are authoritative in spite of their apparent cynicism. While
the remark about Ecclesiastes may not be intrinsic to his argument, the inconsistency of
his esteem of different sections of Scripture cracks his biblical foundation and contradicts
his purpose in coming to a biblical theology of suffering. The theology of the preacher in
Ecclesiastes would contribute greatly to McWilliams's project: a man who has had and
experienced much, lost much, and suffered greatly as a result. The Preacher has learned
that there are no dear answers, at least "under the sun." The race does not always go to
the swift, the wise do not always receive bread, but "time and chance do happen to them
all" (Eccl 9:11). This great sufferer concludes that "under the sun" humans will not have
all the answers. Just make sure we do what God wants. McWilliams would add that we
should do it creatively.
The most troublesome area is McWilliains's analysis of death as "a departure." He
states: "Although Christians still die physically, the sense of death as a primarily negative
experience has been transformed through Christ's death" (147). The "sting" of death
that has been lost by Christ's death does not lessen the negativity of death itself, but
lessens its grip on humanity through the blood of Christ. Our response to death need
not be negativeas if we did not have hope. In short, death is still bad, but there is a
solution to escaping it. The problem is rooted in McWilliams's understanding of death.
For him, death only affects the body. Jesus, however, admonished us to fear him who
can destroy both body and soul in hell (Matt 10:28). The destruction of our soulwhich
is our lifeis as serious, and as negative, as the notions of immortality and perfection
are serious and positive. On this important category of suffering, McWilliams is short
on scriptural evidence. Instead, he says that "many religions and philosophies have
stressed that death is the doorway to another life (146)." He cites Paul as exemplifying
this positive view of death (2 Tim 4:6-7), but leaves out verse 8, which refers to Paul
receiving his crown "at that day" of Christ's appearing. The main problem with this
view in the context of suffering is that the Bible admonishes us to comfort one another
with the hope of the Second Coming of Jesus Christ (2 Thess 4:16, 17), not with a
positive view of death. It is true that Paul views death as "his friend" in light of the
difficult life he has lived. Job did too. So do many suffering today. But it is seeing Jesus
"at that day" of Jesus' Second Coming that gives Paul his hope of a life without trial and
suffering, as it should for us "who love his appearing." Our own death does not give
us that hope. It is not a doorway to a better life.
The strength of this book is its effective documentation of forms of suffering in
such a way that a variety of readers can identify with the message. This book is not
aimed at scholars or philosophers, but at anyone who has suffered. For pastors and
laity, it is a valuable tool. Given the immense difficulty of the topic and the complexity
of ideas involved, McWilliams has done an admirable job of giving us a "theodicy for
living in the real world" (171). However, a positive consideration of concepts in
Ecclesiastes and a more biblical view of death would lend weight to the author's
156
argument and better point us to the answer to our questions on suffering and death:
Jesus and his Second Coming.
Berrien Springs, Michigan
DEREK NUTT
Noll, Mark. America's God From Jonathan Edwards to Abraham Lincoln. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2005. 640 pp. Hardcover, $55.00.
Noll argues that American Protestantism developed a unique religious perspective due to
the combining of three historical ideas: the theology of the Protestant Reformation, the
philosophy of republicanism that arose from and was animated by the American
revolution, and the thought of the Scottish common-sense Enlightenment. Protestantism's
ability or willingness to speak the language of these three strands of thought made it the
religion of choice and influence in the early republic, as its apologetic and evangelistic
discourse echoed contemporary political assumptions and commitments.
But, Noll argues, there was a downside to this success. The theology of
Protestantism was itself changed by the use of this republican and common-sense
language, and evolved from a logical and systematic, reformed orthodoxy into a freer,
arminian-"tainted" popular theology. These changes led to a literalistic, individualistic
biblical hermeneutic that, according to Noll, made American Protestantism unable to
speak definitively on the issue of slavery.
North and South used the newly modified American Protestant hermeneutic to
come to radically different conclusions on the morality of slavery. This intractability
ended in the Civil War, which was not just a political crisis, but a theological one. The
failure of the American Protestant synthesis to resolve the great moral issue of slavery,
Noll argues, caused it to lose its social force, and opened the way for the modern era.
Noll's argument is almost overwhelming in its learning and attention to detail. He
lays an exhaustive groundwork of eighteenth-century religious/philosophical/political
thought, moves into early nineteenth-century theological evolution of Calvinism and
Methodism, and then builds to a Civil-War-era climax of heated, yet impotent,
theological dispute. Each section is so rich and deep that challenging Noll on his
intermediate conclusions is a daunting task; yet, Noll's ultimate conclusion is so
challenging in its implications for non-Calvinist Protestant theologies that a closer look
is warranted. A few key observations can be made.
Noll has a tendency to so broadly define his key terms that their essential meaning
becomes vague, obscure, and highly malleable. The most obvious example of this is his use
of the word "republicanism," which Noll uses to cover concepts such as "virtue"
(common good), "antiaristocracy," "rule of law," "proper use of power," "separation of
powers," "representative government," and most largely, the belief in the "reciprocity of
personal morality and social-well being" (55-57).
He later adds to this melange of meaning by distinguishing between "civichumanism" republicanism, which was concerned with the public good and order, and
"liberal" republicanism, which emphasized individual self-determination and, according to
Noll, economic rights (210-211). Noll acknowledges that. "republicanism" was a
"multivalent, plastic and often extraordinarily imprecise term" (447); yet, he frequently
cites historical writers and speakers in support of his "republicanism" thesis without
attempting to determine which particular meaning of republicanism the historical thinker
had in mind.
Noll is also guilty of dealing with the "common sense" Enlightenment in a similar
manner. Every reference to human reason, intuition, insight, or other source of
BOOK REVIEWS
157
158
scholar. She manages to inform the reader on a wide range of topics, including Rousseau's
negative reaction to the Enlightenment, feminism, and the problems that have resulted
from the antiintellectual strain of evangelicalism found among many North American
adherents. Other topics include a critique of Darwinism and a favorable presentation of
intelligent design. Her primary goal in following the trajectory of history is to demonstrate
the impact of society on Christianity.
The value of Total Truth may be found in Pearcey's apt defense of an objective
Christian reality. Starting with the fact/value split in society, she seeks to remove
religion from the constraints placed on it by society. Enlightenment criticism
marginalized religion to relativistic values. Further, Enlightment thought posited that
religion was not to impose its morality on society as a universally valid approach for
human beings to follow. Under Pearcey's capable hand, however, Christianity becomes
something more than one worldview among many. She reasserts Christianity as ultimate
Truth for all humanity, thereby repairing the epistemological split rendered to the
science-theology continuum by the Enlightenment.
Building on Schaeffer's foundation, Pearcey locates the core of Christianity's
problems in regard to worldview and reality in the interdependence of social,
philosophical, scientific, and religious movements that reinforce a two-tiered view of truth.
In the lower level of this two-storied building lies objective, real knowledge, such as that
generally associated with scientific data and empirical reason. In the upper story is found
noncognitive, nonempirical knowledge, such as that which gives meaning to life, and which
is essentially nonrational and deeply personal. Modem society places religion in this latter
category, including with it a moral relativism that govems private affairs, such as abortion
and sexual preference. Pearcey seeks to set Christianity free from this two-tiered reality.
As a worldview, Christianity ascribes to the notion of intelligent design. Believing that
God purposefully created the universe is, therefore, an integral part of the foundation of
the Christian worldview. Pearcey thoughtfully disassembles evolutionary thought, calling
into question the idea that evolution is a fact-based theory. But, importantly, she
demonstrates how evolutionary theory has impacted our understanding of the creative
event. Christians have become accustomed to thinking of the origin of the universe from
a purely scientific perspective. Pearcey urges the reader to rethink creation from a purely
Christian perspective that spans, and in fact buttresses, the entire span of reality.
Although Pearcey is clearly an evangelical, she is able to critique her own tradition.
Friedrich Schleiermacher's separation of human reason from human emotions, along
with his placement of the divine-human point of contact in the emotive section of the
mind (as opposed to the classical point of contact in human reason), is still found
within the heart of those evangelical traditions that came out of the revivalist/pietistic
tradition. Such revivalist/pietistic tendencies, Pearcey contends, makes evangelicalism
vulnerable to cultural paradigms that require a two-tiered reality.
Total Truth is much more than a diatribe against the shortcomings of Christians;
the subtitle "Liberating Christianity From Its Cultural Captivity" conveys a theme of
hope and practical change. Once we understand what a worldview iswhat different
worldviews arethe Christian worldview becomes a priceless gift. We are liberated to
understand not only the beauty of Christianity in a refreshingly new manner, but also
why those with different worldviews think as they do. Such understanding not only
inoculates Christians against the subtle pitfalls of other worldviews, but also opens up
a plethora of new options for sharing the splendor of Christianity with others.
The media indisputably plays a powerfully seductive role in shaping worldview, often
leaving Christian teachers, parents, and pastors feeling powerless to diagnose and address
the resulting problems. Total Truth directly addresses this problem, not only educating
BOOK REVIEWS
159
Christians about worldviews, but equipping them to deal with the various issues resulting
from the secular and pagan worldviews their children will inevitably be exposed to as active
participants in modern Western culture. Just as Pearcey's mentor, Schaeffer, made a huge
impact on thinking Christians in the 1960s and 1970s, so Pearcey will impact Christians in
present and future generations. I strongly recommend Pearcey's Total Truth as an important
guide in the development of a Christian worldview.
Geoscience Research Institute
TIMOTHY G. STANDISH
Loma Linda, California
Roberts, J. Deotis, Bonhoeffer and King: Speaking Truth to Power. Louisville: Westminster
John Knox, 2005. 160 pages. Paper, $19.95.
J. Deotis Roberts, pastor and theologian, is one of the founders of the Black Theology
movement. Having previously published The Prophethood of Black Believers: An African
American Political T heology for Ministg; Black Theology in Dialogue; Liberation and Reconciliation:
A Black Theology; and A Black Political Theology (all published by Westminster John Knox
Press), Roberts, with biography and theological reflection, delves into Dietrich
Bonhoeffer's courageous stand against Nazism in Europe and Martin Luther King's
intrepid mission for civil rights in America.
The book is structured in three sections: Part 1 is biographical. The reader is
informed of the geographical backgrounds, family, early education, and professional
training of Bonhoeffer and King. Both completed a doctorate in theology and both had
pastoral experience. Their tragically brief contributions are reviewed in Part 2. Both sought
to fight ugly collective evil. King's sense of mission is set within America's Civil Rights
movement, while Bonhoeffer's is set in Nazi Germany. Both were put to death at the age
of thirty-nine.
Part 3 studies Bonhoeffer's and King's respective political theologies. Again, the
comparison of their lives is insightful. Both were Protestant (King was Baptist; Bonhoeffer
was Lutheran). Neither's passion for social justice had a secular motivation; both issued
from their religious convictions. In addition to Scripture, Gandhi's life and teachings also
had a major impact on both King and Bonhoeffer. All three were deeply affected by Jesus'
"Sermon on the Mount." Bonhoeffer and King spoke out against a solely heaven-directed
faith. Ahead of their respective times, they revealed an "earthward direction in their ethical
concerns" (125). Bonhoeffer and King were political activists, in what Roberts terms a
"social eschatology" (130). While not delving into some of Bonhoeffer's more enigmatic
statements, Roberts does touch on Bonhoeffer's views on the relation of church and state.
He does the same with King, although King's thinking is more accessible. Roberts is also
interested in how King and Bonhoeffer made decisions in a crisis.
One might not readily think of making a comparison of Bonhoeffer and King, but
Roberts prepares a credible and convincing case. Having never met either, he studied
their published materials. He also taught advanced seminars comparing Bonhoeffer's
and King's thinking and work at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Lancaster
Theological Seminary, Yale Divinity School, and Duke Divinity School. As a result of
the dialogue with the faculty at these various institutions, Roberts decided to write this
book. His study of their lives and theologies is historically and theologically helpful.
And in this day of floating pluralism, it is good to be reminded of two courageous
reformers who truly believed that there are some fundamental truths that anchor reality
and that are worth living and dying for.
Andrews University
JO ANN DAVIDSON
160
Wirzba, Norman. Living the Sabbath: Discovering the Rhythms of Rest and Delight. Grand
Rapids: Brazos, 2006. 172 pp. Paper, $19.99.
Norman Wirzba, who holds a Ph.D. from Loyola University, Chicago, is Professor and
Chair of Philosophy at Georgetown College in Georgetown, Kentucky. He has also
authored The Paradise of God Renewing Religion in an Ecological Age. In the present book,
which is part of the Christian Practice of Everyday Life Series, Wirzba reminds readers of
what he calls "some of this planet's vital principles, its inherent goodness and its
maker's approval of it, in gratitude for our membership in it"as Wendell Berry
summarizes in the Foreword (12).
The book is divided into two sections: "Setting a Sabbath Context" and "The
Sabbath in Practical Context." Wirzba's stated goal for the book is that Sabbath-keeping
should be the "culmination of habits and days that express gratitude for and joy in the
manifold blessings of God" (13), and "that Sabbath teaching contains an inner logic
that helps us make some theological and practical sense of God's revelation" (14).
Only in chapter 3 does Wirzba enter into the important discussion of the
Sabbath/Sunday issue. He believes that there is a continuity between the Jewish
Sabbath and the Christian "feast day," urging Jurgen Moltmann's position that "The
Christian Sunday neither abolishes Israel's sabbath, nor supplants it. . . The Christian
feast-day must rather be seen as the messianic extension of Israel's sabbath" (God in
Creation, A New Theology of Creation and the Spirit of God [Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993],
294). Wirbza works within the Christian position that the Sunday Sabbath finds its
completion within Jesus, citing the early medieval pope Gregory the Great: "For us, the
true Sabbath is the person of our Redeemer, our Lord Jesus Christ" (cited in John Paul
II, Dies Domini, May 31, 1998, <www.papalencyclicals.net/all.htm>). But his intent is
not to substantiate or belabor the correct day for Sabbath. Instead, the rest of the
chapter draws out the salvific significance of the Sabbath through Christ's healing and
teaching ministry. For example, Wirzba writes: "Just as the Sabbath represents the
climax or fulfillment of creation, so too Jesus reveals what God's intentions for life to
have been all along. What does it mean to be a creature of God, and what are we to do
with the life given us? How do we best live the life that will bring delight to God and
health and peace to the whole of creation? The life and ministry of Jesus enable us to
answer these questions in new ways" (43). Wirzba seeks to instruct that Sabbath
observance has the potential to "reform and redirect all our ways of living. It should be
the source and goal that inspires and nourishes the best of everything we do" (14).
Wirzba makes a broad case for how the Sabbath is a pervasive element of biblical
thought, which undergirds its importance. Thus the Sabbath should inform all of our
habits as Christians, affecting even our treatment of the created world itself. Drawing on
many contemporary sources, Wirzba instructs the reader as to how Sabbath principles
apply to family life, eating, farming, education, economics, and worship. Sabbath-keepers
and those interested in ecological issues will appreciate Wirzba's discussion of the vital
linkages in earth's vast web of life and his insightful pairing of Sabbath observance with
"a fuller awareness of the contexts of our living" (100). Sabbath is not just for "keeping,"
but also for "living." However, the vast importance of Sabbath and creation issues might
actually be undergirded and enhanced by the seventh day of the weekly cycle, which
-Wirzba and much of Christian discussion often misses.
JO ANN DAVIDSON
Andrews University
=a
a
a
=
=
I
1
o 1
Andrews University
SEMINARY STUDIES
N136 Seminary Hall
Andrews University
Berrien Springs, MI 49104-1500
USA
Address Service Requested
Return Postage Guaranteed
Non-Profit
Organization
U.S. Postage
PAID
Permit No. 5
Berrien Springs, MI
49104