When does life begin? An alternative Christian reading of Scripture summarized

Regarding the issue of life in the womb, and my reading of Scripture on this issue summarized briefly: 

(1) I will defer to the scientists on what their view of life is and is not, and when it does and does not begin. They have their presuppositions about a lot of things that color all they see, and the great weakness of the scientific approach to knowing anything, in my view, is the huge blind spot about how presuppositions (which come before any experiment or hypothesis or theory) color all they later see. If you have the presupposition, for example, that all that is real can be proven by the scientific method of falsifying a null hypothesis, then you miss out on a lot of the really good stuff in the world like love, beauty, justice, truth, Jesus--while these are all real, they do not validate their own existence under a microscope. There are other kinds of knowing. 

(2) If, for example, you presuppose that truth coheres with itself, and corresponds to experience, and that it is stranger than fiction, then you could equally believe that life begins at conception, or that my life began when my mom and dad met, or that my life began when my Spanish conquistador great grandmother married my Blackfoot-German great grandfather (by reductio ad absurdum argumentation). 

(3) All that said, my concern is different. The question is not when life (Iiving cells) begin to form (clearly, at conception), but when a living soul is born according to scripture, AND the scriptural difference between murder and killing. 

(4) With regard to when a soul is born to life in my reading of the Bible:
(a) The Hebrew word ruach and the Greek work pneuma in the Old and New Testaments are correctly interchangeable translated "breath" and "spirit." This is based on the presupposition in much (most?) of the ancient world that a human soul is born when you breathe (your spirit/breath comes into you), and it your spirit leaves when your breath leaves, because they are somehow mysteriously and inseparably tangled together, physical and spiritual. 
(b) There are numerous examples of where the Bible describes the death of a person in terms of "they gave up their spirit/stopped breathing." No one would have thought otherwise. It is never argued for in the Bible because it didn't need to be--it was so understood that the structure of various languages all support this same connection of breath with spirit with a human soul being born and then leaving to another place with the breath that leaves. 
(c) The "life begins at conception" reading of the Bible has little to go on by comparison. This reading claims "God knew me in my mother's womb" is proof that abortion is murder, but that has to overlook the writer's intent to express, "I am deeply and truly known by God from beginning to end in a way no one else knows me. And, how does this apply to the issue of murder? The Bible also says that God knew me before there was time--if we make the same application to the issue of murder as the womb scripture then we have to argue that every murder is a multiple murder like one of those time-traveling Hollywood movies: if you killed my grand-father you also killed me and so you are a multiple murderer and qualify for the death penalty in many states (don't get me started on that). 
(d) When I read the Bible, there is nowhere to be found a discussion of the issue of abortion. Jesus does not mention the issue. Nowhere in the New Testament is the issue mentioned. Best we can get to there from both sides is an argument from silence. 
(e) The attraction of the life-begins-at-conception reading of scripture--and I speak as one who had argued it most of my Christian life, but no more--is a PHILOSOPHICAL argument masquerading as a scriptural reading. And it is attractive because It is more consistent, philosophically speaking, and avoids the fatal flaws of the viability argument. 
(f) To summarize, in my reading of the Bible, a human soul is born at birth when they start breathing (the "spirit" enters into them), and human life ends when we stop breathing/give up our spirit. I don't doubt that "science" is surely right that what is in the womb is alive and growing, and there is no question that it is on its way to being a breathing human, all being well. I don't doubt that God has always known me, and has foreknowledge of me before I was born--I receive that message that I am known intimately and loved deeply, as are each and every person. 

(5) The scriptural distinction between murder and killing is reflected in every legal code since. Both killing and murder are very serious, but they are not the same. There is no question that abortion is killing. I doubt that it is murder. When someone aborts, in my view, they are killing their fetus but it does not rise to the crime of murder, because the living fetus does not yet have a human soul (that doesn't come until breath). Abortion is has serious consequences, physically, emotionally and spiritually, but it is not murder.

"I am not bound to win, but I am bound to be true. I am not bound to succeed, but I am bound to live by the light that I have. I must stand with anybody that stands right, and stand with him while he is right, and part with him when he goes wrong." ~ Abraham Lincoln

daily mass shootings? really?

264 mass shootings in our country this year. Almost one for every day of the year. "Mass shooting" is defined as 4 or more people killed not including the gunman. We can still say "gunman" and it is not sexist. We really don't need equal opportunity in this madness. We could also say "young white gunman" and it would be almost completely accurate. What is wrong with us? A mass shooting a day by white guys. Plus all the other violent, senseless deaths. A whole lot of hurting going on. I talked to a mom the other day whose son died 9 years ago this week. It was like it was yesterday for her. Don't we see the damage being done? 

There is a policy we can all agree on: never give a monkey a pistol. Is that bipartisan enough? Can we agree on that? If so, is it really so hard to see that MONKEYS WITH GUNS kill people? We can't eliminate monkeys, but do we have to make it so easy for them to have a gun in every hand with a bag full of extra bullets in case they run out?

How We Can Make the Kingdom Come Sooner and Find the Unity We All Want

Okay, the title of this blog entry is meant to be provocative, but it comes from something I have a remembrance of that Bill Bright from Campus Crusade (may he rest in peace) said about a chapter of the New Testament. It went something like this:

"If we all practice the principles of Matthew 18, then three things will immediately happen:

1. Disloyalty in the body of Christ will cease.

2. The world will really see how we love one another.

3. The kingdom of God will immediately come on the earth."

Provocative, for sure. His predictions may not be true (and #2 surely oversimplifies and reduces love to a few behaviors), BUT his quote highlights the importance of:

(A) Forgiveness as a standard way of living with each other...over and over and over. "How many times should I forgive someone when they hurt me?" Peter asked Jesus. "Seven times?" Peter was obviously feeling Jesus on this forgiveness thing, but he had not yet grasped how radical Jesus was on this subject: "No, 70 x 7!" Forgiveness is a posture that puts us in a very vulnerable position toward the users and hurters out there. But, Jesus got that. How much more vulnerable can you be than naked and nailed up in shameful display in a public execution so that forgiveness of sins can happen?

(B) If someone wrongs us, we are to go to them one on one, just the two of us. This has two parts, and may be the most disobeyed command of Jesus by those of us who claim to follow him. The first part is that we are to go to them. Not wait for them to figure it. Not cut them off and cut them out. Proactively go to them. The second part is privately. We are not to involve someone else (or talk about it with others--gossip! slander!) until we have had a chance to work it through. A lot of times I discover in this Step 1, that I wasn't actually wronged but either that I had misinterpreted words or actions, or that what I thought had started the problem (their behavior) was actually a response to what had really started the problem: something I had done first that I was blind to.

(C) Step 2, if Step 1 fails (B above), is to take one or two others with you and all of you talk together with the person involved. This is not a tribunal or a grand jury. This is taking loving people to lovingly work out the normal friction that comes with broken people living with broken people. The log in my eye gets in the speck of your eye and irritates the heck out me :-). My log makes your speck look like a log to me. Sometimes it is your log that needs cutting out, sometimes mine. Wise, caring friends can help us sort it out. But, not always...

(D) Step 3 involves a larger group of 10 or 20: "If they won't listen, tell it to the gathering." The Greek for "church" is "gathering," and this usually happened in homes in the New Testament period, and surely did not involve the modern conception of a stage/performance/spotlights. Jesus is not talking about an auditorium where you shame and shun someone, but a living room where you have a family meeting.

(E) Step 4 needs some thoughtful application: "If they won't listen to the family gathering, treat them as you would a pagan or tax collector." Back then, Jesus' Jewish listeners would have avoided and mistrusted people who did not follow God (pagans) and those who had sided with the Roman military government (tax collectors). That is probably what Jesus is implying. Be wary and watchful of them.

All of Matthew 18 is very important and needs a lot of thinking on and acting on. I think we can all agree with at least that much about what brother Bill said.

God Uses Nobodies and Nothing: A True Story

In 2007 I flew back to Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia to visit some of the people I had baptized on a previous trip (for that story, see “What Does Your Faith Rest Upon?” @ brianjdodd.blogspot.com). Before I left the United States, I had a picture in my mind that I was to play one a guitar in the upstairs area of the Moscow Sheremetyevo airport. I thought God put the picture in my mind, and I expected all kinds of people to come and listen to me play. Ha! Anyone who has heard me play and sing knows that cats wailing have a better chance of drawing a crowd. Anyway, deluded as I was, I took out my guitar and played and sang my heart out. Nobody came except Ingrid, my wife, and Kirstie, my daughter—but they had to be there because they were traveling with me. I played and sang my heart out with all my favorite Jesus’ street rocker songs: Momma Killed a Chicken, Born to Be Unlucky, Why Don’t You Look into Jesus, I’m Feeling So Bad, Outlaw, Great American Novel and such.

No one came. Except 6-year old Eva from Denmark. She was the best audience ever. She was so into it that she got completely worn out. After listening for awhile she had to go lie down and fall asleep. Her dad, Jakob, gave me the peace sign (two fingers), took her by the hand, and led her back to their spot on the concrete a little farther down the balcony. She fell asleep on someone else’s card board/blanket makeshift pad.

A bit of time went by, and Eva’s father Jakob came walking up and held up the two-finger peace sign and said in perfect English, “Peace!” Now, I’m from California so I could have gone with hippy- surfer-dude, but my brain started to go with Matthew 10 and Luke 10—this must be a “man of peace” who opens the door for the good news about Jesus to be shared....Right? Wait. No. He said this: “My daughter is asleep on this strange woman’s bed and I have to go check on my flight. Can you watch my daughter and make sure this woman doesn’t run off with her?” Not exactly my idea of “ministry,” but I agreed, walked over and stood by the rail by Eva and the African woman sitting next to her while Jakob went to check on his flight. He came back, and I tagged off guard duty and went and sat back down. I was a little disappointed. It didn’t appear my Christian rock concert was having any effect.

Later, I looked down Jakob and Eva’s way, and there he goes again giving me the peace sign and smiling. I say to myself, “Self, this must be a man of peace. I’m going down there.” So I got myself up, went to save Jakob’s soul, sat down and tried to talk to him about God. But I couldn’t because the African woman there named Elizabeth kept interrupting me with complete religious nonsense. I looked over at her and she was surrounded by Watchtower materials that a Jehovah’s Witness had shared with her. I looked at these magazines then I looked Elizabeth in the eye and said in a very parental way, “You should not be reading these.” I cannot explain what happened next, other than to say she immediately complied. She looked down at the magazines, gathered them all up in her arms and walked over and threw them in the garbage can. She came back, and calmly listened to me tell her about Jesus and prayed out loud to submit to Jesus as her new owner and boss, and to do whatever he says. I spent some time telling her the six things every new follower of Jesus should know and gave her my Bible and all the trail mix and toothpaste we had, then we had to rush and catch our plane to Bishkek.

Oh, one more important detail. I forgot to mention that I found out Elizabeth was captive in this airport’s transit/transfer area, an international no-man’s-land. The story is still not completely clear to me, probably because she has some shame associated with it.

The part that is clear is that the guy taking her to Palestine from Germany told her that he had to take her passport outside the airport to get her ticket, and he never came back (probably sold her passport, since passports are big money on the black market).

Without a passport, she could not leave the transfer area to enter Russia, and without a ticket or a passport she couldn’t get on a plane. For 18 months, she was stuck there in that cold, heartless, inhospitable piece of concrete.

What did she do after we met? She read the Bible I gave her through many, many times. She prayed. She fasted. She waited for God to provide her food through some kind soul passing through the airport and having mercy on her. She shared Jesus with everyone who would listen and, by my count, evangelized people from at least 19 nations (nearby is a picture of the guy from Eritrea she shared Jesus with, and our co-worker in Christ Steve Hill from Canada who was one of the kind souls traveling through that airport from time to time). With the help of the United Nations’ High Commission on Refugees, we were able to get her out and back to Nigeria where she serves Jesus still.

“God has put his incredible power in cracked pots with the express purpose of demonstrating that the power is from him and not from us” (the apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians 4).

Brian Joseph Dodd, Ph.D., Orlando, Florida, USA

brian.dodd@yahoo.com

brianjdodd.blogspot.com

Nothing or a little bit? None or two? (How Much Money and How Many People does it take to start a church?)

Everybody knows it takes a lot of money and people and a good band and a funny, smart speaker to “start a church.” Competence, training, giftedness, skill, good looks, healthy psychological profile, good health and general goodness and greatness. A beautiful wife and kids doesn’t hurt. Okay, scratch that. You absolutely need a beautiful wife and kids. Go check it out at The First Church of What’s Happening Now in your area. See for yourself. It must be true. Everybody knows it.

There are a four problems with what “everybody knows”:

1. It’s not true. “Everybody” is limited to Americans and American wannabes around the world.

2. It’s not how Jesus taught his first followers to do it.

3. It’s not how the rapidly growing Jesus-follower movements around the world are doing it today.

4. It’s not what the Bible says about the upside-down kingdom where strong is weak, weak is powerful, and poor is rich. It’s not what the Bible says about God choosing to use cracked- pots so no one will confuse his power with human effort and his glory with human arrogance.

So, I raise two questions:

How much money does it really take to start a church

How many people do you need to start a church?

Bear with me. This won’t take long. There are only two answers and they are really short and easy to figure out.

HOW MUCH MONEY DOES IT TAKE TO START A CHURCH?

The two, possible correct answers are:

$0. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Squat. Goose egg. Bagel. Jesus doesn’t need money to rule the world and be King of the universe.

-OR-

Some. A little bit of money—whatever it took the Jesus-follower to get to where he or she was sent by Jesus to meet the person of peace (also sent to that same spot by God).

I’m not sure which answer is the correct one, but I’m pretty sure it is one of these two, and no other answer. I still crack up every time I remember hearing that one First Church of What’s Happening Now requires 50 people minimum to start a church (because that’s what you need musically to make it sound good, I think they believe). My old denominations (I was ordained in two different ones) thought you needed about 200 rich people so you could afford the needed building and salary, pension and benefits to afford a seminary-trained religious professional. Man, are they good managing pensions! I digress.

HOW MANY PEOPLE DOES IT TAKE TO START A CHURCH? 

There are also two, possible correct answers to this question:

0. Zero. No one. Nobody. Jesus is the initiator, the starter, the builder of HIS church.

-OR-

2. Two. It takes two people to start a church since, by definition, a church exists wherever two or three come together in Jesus’ name and, remember, Jesus sent them and us to go two by two, right?

This question is easier to answer with certainty than the first question. The correct answer has to be the first one: zero people are needed to start a church. Jesus said he is the starter of his church: “I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.” Two is almost right, but not quite. Jesus sent them out two by two to “teach people to obey Jesus,” not start churches. When we do our part (teach to obey), Jesus does his part (builds a church that makes hell fear). Two people together cannot start a church by themselves, since Jesus needs to bring them together and show up for it to be church at all. One person does not a church make, nor two people meeting without Jesus present through the Holy Spirit.

Brian J. Dodd, Ph.D.

brianjdodd.blogspot.com

brian.dodd@yahoo.com

From my Canadian friend, Steve Hill. Poignant and potent. If your ideas don't fit with Scripture, then too bad for your ideas. Prepare to be jarred. -Brian

"Hello Friends

Many of you can identify with my journey of beginning to question and then discard  firmly held convictions (mostly about how to do church).  Too many "Biblical principles" turned out to be cultural or institutional dogmas.  In this process I began to wonder about the early disciples and to look at the book of Acts through a big question mark-  What was their journey?

Luke writes the Acts account by simply telling the story.  He makes no value judgements.  He does not say whether something done was consistent with the teachings of Jesus or not.  He just tells the story.  We assume that everything he records the early apostles as doing was good,  but should we?  Acts begins with them asking Jesus,  "Lord will You at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel?"   They were still thinking of an earthly kingdom that would kick out the Romans and give them BMW camels.  They were still asking this question after a forty day seminar on the Kingdom of God!  They were on a learning curve and I do not think it ended with the Day of Pentecost.  

Jesus talked about building on rock or on sand.  Sand used to be rock.  Sand is bits broken from the rock.  You can choose bits of the scripture but what you build upon your favourite bits will fall.  We need to wrestle with the whole as revealed in the Rock, Jesus, if we wish to build something that will last.  The old saying  "Text without context is pretext." is accurate.  If you cut and paste, you can make the scripture say anything you like.  

Maybe the problem  is not just understanding the original historical context but seeing our own?  How much of what we see in the scriptures is because we are looking at them through the filter of  our present presuppositions and reading that back into them?  Or maybe just reading the scriptures through the lens of our own desire for significance, power, position and privilege? 

Is this what the early apostles did?  The church at Jerusalem was hugely successful but were having a problem feeding all the widows and orphans.  More accurately they were having a cultural problem in that the Jewish background widows and orphans were getting better food than those of Greek background (Acts 6). The apostles did not think it was desirable "that they should leave the Word of God and serve tables.....  but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and the ministry of the word."  so they appointed deacons to this task.   Luke says this  "Pleased the whole multitude"  but does not say if it pleased the Holy Spirit.  

These verses have been quoted over and over again in support of "full time ministry" but should we not question them?  How could the very men for whom Jesus made breakfast, the very men who heard Him say that even a cup of cold water given in His name would be rewarded, the very men who  helped Him feed the multitudes, the very men who received the  instruction that whatever was done unto the least was done unto Him.... How could these men think that serving tables was beneath them?   In appointing deacons were they forgetting the teachings and example of the Master and reflecting the privileges of the religious leadership culture all around them?

To ask questions through the book of Acts you may have to question some of your favourite bits and cultural filters.

You may have to acknowledge that you are on a journey.

You may have to question some of your security blanket convictions.

You may have to ask the Holy Spirit some questions.

Your brother

Steve

 

www.harvest-now.org"