The Real Nativity

I suppose I am being technical but most nativity scenes are about as realistic as a cartoon. The basic image may be right but a lot of details get left out or are plain distorted.

The big first thing is where is this stable? I ask was there really as stable? Luke only reports that Mary laid Jesus in a manger. A manger is a place to put straw for animals to feed, but that still leaves us some options. A stable could have been used, but there is also the common marketplace square where the caravans would stop as well. It would have been covered along the edges but with open air in the middle and the mangers for the animals were along the sides.

Another thing is Mary and Joseph always seem to be in isolation with no one around. Odd for a town that was packed because of the census. Truth be told even if it was a stable, it is quite possible that they were not the only ones in the place. It does not fit our idea that Mary had Jesus in seclusion but it could have been a very public event. I think our modern sensibilities just can't accept Mary giving birth in a public place with onlookers but it is a very reasonable possibility. For ancient women, this was simply a practical reality that could happen during any pregnancy.

Other things that surround the nativity that bug me are the constant reference to Mary and Joseph as poor peasants. I do not think Luke would have referenced the inn if they didn't have the means to pay for it should it have had a vacancy. Yeah, they buy two turtle doves to circumcise Jesus indicating low means but not abject poverty. I really look at Mary and Joseph along with Jesus as really the 'everymen' of life in the ancient world. Not poverty stricken, but getting by.

Recently there has been a phenomena where Mary is looked on as a unwed mother and perhaps that is why she was denied in the inn. Unfortunately for this theory, there is the simple fact that Joseph took her as his wife before they left for Bethlehem so the perception of any innkeeper would have been a young married couple looking for a room. The other one I love is depicting them as homeless. Not really, they had a home in Nazareth, it is just they are in Bethlehem because Caesar has decided to make some money and needs a census to set the taxes. They might have been travellers without a place to stay, but they were not homeless. In addition by the time the Magi arrive, they are staying in a a house.

That of course brings us to the most common gaff in many of the nativity scenes out there. Including the Wisemen with the shepherds and all that is not accurate at all. The Wisemen arrive after both Jesus is presented at the temple and circumcised. In Matthew, the word even changes from the Greek word for 'infant' to 'child' indicating possibly a small child. Considering that Herod slaughters babies two and under based on what the Wisemen say Jesus may have been a walking around toddler by then. As mentioned before, the scene has also shifted from manger-side to a home. There is also the fact the Bible does not actually record how many Wisemen there were but I think there we a lot: a) they disturb the whole city with their arrival and b) they have enough clout to get an audience with Herod. Not a small group of three, but a caravan more likely.

Why does this matter? In one small way it illustrates how what is said in the Bible can be supplanted by traditional understanding and changing cultural standards. How we need to be careful never to accept traditional interpretations or cultural understandings to cloud a genuine interpretation of what the text of Scripture says.

It also matters because it is about rightly dividing the Word of truth. The facts of Scripture must come before our wants and desires of what we would like the text to say so we can push a certain social agenda.

Merry Christmas to all and remember Jesus was an 'everyman' who died for everyman and rose again for everyman. That God became Flesh is the most astounding miracle of Christmas. Lets just tell the story right.

Science Fiction and Theology - Part 8 - Robots

Just for the record -- I thought I, Robot with Will Smith was fairly well done, but also for the record, it is a conglomeration of various stories told by Isaac Asimov in his robot series of books and short stories. The movie is based on them but the story told in the movie never appears in Asimov's works at least as far as I know.

Robots are not just science fiction anymore as they do indeed exist and are getting more complex all the time. They real problem with them is cost. It is simply easier in many context to have a human do it because to design a robot to do it and build it would be far more expensive. Until they truly design a robot that can do and act like the ones in I, Robot and are affordable, I just don't see them on every street corner.

The movie and books brought out many of the social issues that could be faced with robots being reality: a safer world with the cost of human ability and freedom. But the largest issue was one of -- can we eventually design a machine that replaces us to the point that that machine is 'alive'? Seems to be a foolish question to Christians as most of us believe life comes from God, but how do we handle it when robots get advanced enough that humans talk about giving them rights? How do we convince people that there is a difference and can we?

There is also a flip side to robots that has been portrayed in movies like the Terminator Series -- what if they take over? Scary option and a bit ironic as the creator becomes enslaved by their creation.

Next: God and Science Fiction

Marriage and the Bible -- Part 18 -- Many Things Resurface

Time to get back on this series as I suspect it is going to take a while.

Now as we journey through Joshua and Judges some events reinforce what we have already talked about in past articles.

1. Caleb gives away a daughter to the man who captured a city for him. Nice prize.

2. While Gideon is probably most famous for his fleece (above), In Judges 8:30-31 he is noted for a couple of other things a) he had many wives and b) one of those wives was a concubine. Polygamy and concubinage

3. Jephthah was the son of a harlot, not a wife, of Gilead so when Gilead has other sons they drive him away. Difference between the wife and non-wife when it comes to legal obligations for the man become evident here. Also, it seems there are consequences for the children as well.

4. Samson illustrates several things: 1) The intermarrying issue comes up again as Samson desires women outside the Israelite camp and 2) Samson's original wife is given away to another man -- wives as trading cards again.

5. Judges 19 -- A Levite's concubine is raped and it is because the Levite and the host where they were staying offer her up to the Benjamites. Demonstrates the real second class citizenship of concubines in this culture. Even though later this rape would fire a civil war in Israel, throwing her to the dogs was apparently not a difficult decision.

6. Judges 21 -- the need for wombs in the tribe of Benjamin means women are acquired from two sources that involve kidnapping and battle. The tribe needed baby making marriages and they found the wombs necessary and married them to the surviving Benjamites.

Your probably wondering how the women felt about all this -- truth is because of living in this culture they would have accepted it. As long as a man was providing for her and her children as well as giving her respectability by being married and not a harlot or beggar, a woman had no personal problem sharing her bed with a man. She would have considered it her duty and obligation as a wife.

Next: Ruth - Romance at Last?

Troubling Passages of Scripture - Part 2 - God Goes to War

Numbers 31 is a troubling Scripture from the standpoint of modern westerners. It is not just the fact that God orders a war but genocide.

The chapter is basically about Israel's war with the Midianites in which God orders that Israel to utterly destroy the Midianites. To leave no male alive and to only spare women that were virgins so that they could become wives to the Israelites. For all practical purposes this would mean the end of the Midianites forever as the virgin girls would be suddenly Israelite the moment they had sex with and Israelite male.

I really have no problem with God going to war. In the Law there are laws about murder, but there are also laws about how to divide the spoil after a battle. The context for killing, and the Hebrew word for 'to kill' are different. One is premeditated crime of an individual; the other the act of the state in its own interests. If God therefore wants to act as king of His country (A state of affairs that would last until the monarchy of Saul) and wage war on his enemies, He has just as much right to do so as any other king.

Genocide is a different story. To wipe out an entire people group is a harsh action. The question is it justified? One could argue that God is in a better position to judge these things or has a different standard for himself involving justice. Perhaps the first is true about God being in a better position to judge these things, but God is said to be just and the definitions of justice simply don't change just because one entity has more power that others. Justice is justice.

No the real question is genocide sometimes justified? What we are asking here is can a group of people get so corrupt and so vile that they whole lot of them deserve death. Looking at this time period for not just the Midianites but all of Canaan the answer might be 'yes'. Worship of the gods of the time period involved some pretty disgusting rites:

1. Ritual drunken orgies are the norm with temple prostitution as the chief means of support for the temples. Incest was a common accepted practice in religious rites. That's dads with daughters; sons with mothers; brothers with sisters, etc.

2. Human sacrifice in particular the burning to death of a man's firstborn son. Not a quick burning either, but the child was basically placed in a hole in a bronze idol that was then heated from the inside slowly cooking the child to death while drums beat so the child's cries could not be heard.

The whole area is wracked with wars and disputes which were filled with brutality and rape. Slavery was common and while the Law of Moses allows for a kind of indentured servitude, it was not the brutal, for life, under the lash that the people of this time in Canaan practiced.

It wouldn't have been so bad but the local politics, culture and religion supported these activities and promoted them.

There is also the practical advantages of genocide to consider in this case:

1. The fact that Canaanite worship survived became an absolute plague to the Israelites that got them into trouble with God on a regular basis.

2. The fact is the surviving Canaanites and the the Israelites would battle for centuries in which more people would die, more women would be raped and more misery and suffering would be dealt out over the long term than if the Canaanites had simply been destroyed. In short, kill a few now over a short time inflicting short term misery or kill a a whole bunch more over a longer period of time causing continued, long term misery.

3. Had all of Israel's enemies been destroyed, the odds for a lasting peace in the region would have been far higher.

God would be in a better more knowledgeable position to judge these things and see the bigger picture and the lasting impact. Even so, this is troubling to my humanity because to fulfill this you would see soldiers breaking into homes and they find a woman nursing her baby boy, then by the order of God, they would have to spear them both. But in truth as a king going to war in this region, He would have been no different than many others, only in this case the objective is to ultimately crush evil in an area of the world.

Perhaps we should consider that, we may not like the means but had the full will of God been carried out, evil in Canaan would have been destroyed. It is just perhaps we simply do not like the means with which God had chosen to do this act. But then again He is God, it seems in the authority structure that he would have the right to choose any means He wants.

I will be honest, this one still keeps me up at times because God here seems unfair. Why give the Israelites the power and the right to wipe out a sinful race when they at times were just as vile. In truth, there are a lot of races could be condemned to death but are not. So why at this time and in this way? In this case, we may simply have to exercise faith in the justice and goodness of God.

Next: Herod's Slaughter of Infants?
Previous: Marriage and Rape 

Prayer and the Problem of Evil - Part 1 -- Conditions and Possiblities from James

Now I bet there are some out there that have prayed for a dying loved one and have watched them still die. After thinking on that you also came to the conclusion that you prayed in faith and they still died. So did God then lie?


Now I do not believe it was the will of God that death came into the world at least not for humans. The more deterministic camp says so but then they have God being the author of sin and evil and that is out because the Bible is pretty clear God is not the author of these things; He fights them.


Another option is that God knew evil would come and created the world anyway -- makes Him still the author of evil because once He creates the world evil and death are going to come. He still caused them because He could have stopped them by not creating the world in the first place or creating a world where the possibility of evil could not exist.


A third option is God only knew evil as a possibility. This is known as the open view or open theist position (the one I hold) where God sees evil as a possible but not inevitable end, because He has given Mankind a choice. Eat the tree --'death and evil'; don't eat the tree ' no death and no evil'. Both possibilities exist even in God mind and He is ready for either one. Mankind blows it so God begins to work against evil and redeem us from it and it's consequences. God is only responsible for creating the possibility of evil but did not actually create evil or suffering, they are simply the product of the disobedience of the human race.


Now in this evil world God still lets us talk to him and request things from him through prayer, but because of the evil unleashed things are still going to have multiple possibilities and because we still get carnal from time to time we can very much think we are right with God even though we are not. Evil and sin are always there to possibly screw things up.


Two great passages on prayer are both found in James: 4:1-6 and 5:13-18


James 4:1-6 actually offers up several conditions to answered prayer: 1) You have to ask, 2) You must not have wrong motives in particular that we are praying to consume the results on our own lusts with worldly gain of any type, and 3) You must pray in humility. That is in submission to God's desires. Now that is from God perspective, not ours.


James 5:13-18 was a favorite of many when I was in the Pentecostal church. Particularly, the part that says: "and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick...". There was always a heavy emphasis on the WILL part, but once again the conditions were often overlooked 1) calling for the elders of the church 2) anointing with oil but even here the meaning of this is subject to debate -- it could be anoint like in pour on the head or like in the case of the Good Samaritan where oil was used in a medicinal sense. 3) Do it in the name of the Lord -- humility again -- it is His authority not your own. 4) Offer the prayer in faith (Note: this is not the only condition to answered prayer as some would claim). 5)Based on verse 16 there is also confess your sins to one another and prayer for each other.

Given all these conditions one thing is for sure, you are not going to get an answer to prayer just by praying -- there is a lifestyle of holiness, community and faith that must be lived as well. There is also being the part of a church with a trust level high enough where confession of sin to each other is not only possible but brings about forgiveness. Not to mention that there are many other verses in the Bible that offer up conditions to answered prayer.

What this ultimately means is a prayer offers a possibility to God, one which He can choose to take or not to take depending on the spiritual condition of the person praying and their relationship to Him and the church. Praying does not force God's hand it simply gives Him one more thing to choose, but not a possibility that He must to choose.

In prayer, what I think is often forgotten is that God is the one in charge and we really can't tell Him what to do but we can petition Him. How he fulfils His Word is strictly up to Him.

Part 2 - The Lord's Prayer

Is There Absolute Proof That God Exists?

Now before I begin I want to let people understand something about faith. Everybody regardless of belief system (including atheism and agnosticism which I will get to in a minute) has a measure of faith to it. Faith being trust and belief in something that goes beyond their senses and into the realm of pure belief. I believe, though others may be free to argue, that everyone has beliefs that are basic and essential to them to function beyond their basic five senses:
1. We all believe in the existence of person hood in others. That the people in our lives are people like ourselves.
2. We all could not function without memory beliefs. When I get out of work I get in my car and head home even though the existence of my home is not evident to my five senses.
3. People believe in love -- hold it, measure it, describe it visually, can you hear it, taste it. Hmmm. Seems love and other stuff like it are basic beliefs that are not really evident to the five senses.

Now -- atheists have this same problem though they deny it. They believe in a Big Bang -- they have never witnessed it. They believe in evolution -- ditto. Then they laugh at me for believing in a God, I can't see -- irony. There is an arrogance of mind to atheists who look in the face of their colossal ignorance of mankind about the universe and its nature and say they understand exactly how things were and are and will be. The statement --"There is no God" is ultimately just as big a statement of faith as "There is a God". Logically, 'There is no God' is a universal negative and universal negatives are the most hard to prove. To prove it you would have to be everywhere in the universe at the same time and have the power so nothing could block your ability to assess the question. This is not possible for any human and so the atheist is taking something very much on 'faith' when he says: 'The is no God.' It is actually a great leap of faith given that he is a finite being with a limited knowledge and only his limited education in his life and experiences to go on.

Agnosticism I can take better because they are at least willing to admit how ignorant they are and that there are some things that they may never know including whether there is a God or not. Most dismiss religion as an attempt to control and for the most part they are right. Most of the better ones though come back with the idea that there indeed may be a religion that is right, but how can you know which one? I understand the issues of agnosticism well because I considered it for a long year. I believe that it is a sensible option, but it may have its perils. Agnostics put faith in their reason and humanity much like atheists, but I think we can all admit that faith in both of these things can fail as well because of their limitations.

Now, what about the person who says -- There is a God. In some respect he is in a better position logically universal positives do not require as much effort to prove -- once you find evidence of God's existence that would be conclusive you can stop searching the universe. The problem is given the same limitations we can't do this either.

What we are left with is the hope that said God will reveal himself to us and show us He is real. Now that is what all religions in one sense or another claim has happened in one form or another. They all claim some divine revelation from a divine source that proves that their version of God, or the gods, or Karma or etc. is true.

What remains then is to assess if a religion has had a genuine visitation by the divine that can be verified. Which one the rises to a level where it stands highest in the most likely to be true.

Can we prove God exists conclusively -- no, but I believe that it is possible to prove which version of divine reality is the most true and provides the surest foundation for faith -- which all humans have.

Why Personal Religious Experience Does Not Prove Christian Faith

I wrote on this in my post on The Second Reformation but perhaps a closer look would help.

A little background on me, I grew up in a Pentecostal church, I have been a pastor of two Pentecostal churches and have had Pentecostal experiences and I still feel things like tongues, healings and miracles happen and are legit, BUT I have also witnessed things that have convinced me that part of the movement has a dark side and more than just a few bad apples. I have witnessed the charlatans on which Steve Martin based his movie Leap of Faith. The tricks are numerous and the doctrines that are used, to be blunt, are absolute crap with one design -- relieving people of their money and the accumulation of power for the preacher. I saw more and more of these as I got deeper into the leadership of the movement. I am now convinced that many will believe anything as long as it thrills their emotions and gives them a feeling of power over their circumstances.

One of the things that frustrates me is how people who have had a religious experience or a 'feeling' of God in their lives use this as absolute proof that God exists and that their faith is the real deal. It does nothing of the kind.

1) All religions and faiths have religious experiences of some kind. If personal religious experience proves faith, then every faith is proven true.
2) The manifestations of tongues, healings and various miracles are not unique to Christianity, other religions have them.
3) In just about every religion in the world there is some claim of special revelation from some divine source.
4) Feelings are not fact, they are not right or wrong -- they are just feelings and the fact is you can have a feeling of spiritual wholeness from a cup of hot chocolate on a cold day. Doesn't prove I should worship hot chocolate.
5) It is hard to prove a religious experience is genuine and given that some are easily manipulated through their emotions, some experiences may not be religious just emotional releases.

I am not saying that they have no value whatsoever but ultimately they are only valuable to the ones who have them and only as a seal of assurance, not as proof of faith.

I believe this is why you can find so many former Pentecostals out there, they start to think too much. I know I was accused of this often. Once you get past the emotional part of the experience, sometimes it was difficult to say what the experience was. What this means ultimately for someone who has based their whole faith on these experiences, is complete despair and disillusionment when they come to the realization that these experiences do not in any way prove their faith is true.

For Christianity, there is only one event at stake and if it is not a historical fact then as Paul says: 'our faith is useless' - The Resurrection. If Jesus did not, in fact, literally walk out that tomb than Christianity is a complete and absolute waste of time and we would be better off 'eating and drinking for tomorrow we die." See First Corinthians 15, if you do not believe me.