Written in 2012, Richards’ and O’Brien’s [R&O hereafter] Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes is a bit of a mixed bag though, overall, I found it very thought-provoking and helpful. Let me say at the outset that Brandon is a personal friend and I have the utmost respect for him, for his mind, for his ministry, and for his scholarship. He’s a lot smarter dude than I’ll ever be, that’s for sure! I was honored to interview him recently for an episode of “Quarantine Theology: Conversations with Theologians, Historians, and Old and New Testament Scholars,” and I have reviewed other of his books here and here.

To be sure, the good of this volume certainly outweighs the perplexing. R&O are concerned that Western readers of scripture understand just how much our assumptions, our biases, our preunderstandings, our philosophical outlook, and our presuppositions shape how we read scripture. Simply put, we often misread scripture with Western eyes and essentially impose upon the text concepts and ideas that would have been foreign to the original authors and hearers. “We can easily forget that Scripture is a foreign land and that reading the Bible is a crosscultural experience” (p. 11).

That is true. (In saying this, by the way, O’Brien articulates an idea that he will return to again in Not From Around Here, linked above.) One of the operational premises of the book can be found in this statement on page 12:

There is no purely objective biblical interpretation. This is not postmodern relativism. We believe truth is truth. But there’s no way around the fact that our cultural and historical contexts supply us with habits of mind that lead us to read the Bible differently than Christians in other cultural and historical contexts.

R&O’s assurance that this “is not postmodern relativism” is important, for there are more than enough examples of hermeneutical approaches that are so suspicious as to become functionally nihilistic. This is not what R&O are up to and any fair reading of their work will show this to be the case. No, R&O believe there is such a thing as meaning and they believe that the meaning or meanings of scripture can be ascertained. They are simply arguing in this book that the idea that we in the West read scripture from some utopian and pristine epistemological vantage point of unveiled and pure vision is a delusion. Put another way, we might say that one of the reasons why we see now “through a glass dimly” (1 Cor. 13:12) is that the glass is smudged over with our own Western cultural baggage. To take that metaphor to the next step, R&O are asking that at least that aspect of the dimmed glass be acknowledged and that the process of addressing this be undertaken.

The core conviction that drives this book is that some of the habits that we readers from the West (the United States, Canada and Western Europe) bring to the Bible can blind us to interpretations that the original audience and readers in other cultures see quite naturally. (p. 15)

And what, we might ask, is the big deal? So what if our cultural assumptions cause us to miss a nuance here or there. No, R&O argue, the issue is much bigger than that. First, it’s not just subtle nuances at stake. Sometimes it is the fundamental meaning of certain passages that is at stake. What is more:

If our cultural blind spots keep us from reading the Bible correctly, then they can also keep us from applying the Bible correctly. (p. 17)

Yes. That would certainly seem to be a very real possibility. The reality is that much is at stake in getting this right.

The book is R&O’s effort to prove their thesis by giving practical examples of ways in which our Western eyes cause us to misread scripture. On the whole, they do this admirably. Their “core conviction” is correct and the book is a success in that they do indeed show it to be so. They demonstrate, for instance, how Western assumptions about time fail to appreciate the kairos/chronos distinction the biblical writers knew and utilized. They demonstrate how Western emphases on certain sins (i.e., sexual sins) cause us to miss actions and attitudes that ancient people would have seen as equally if not more sinful (i.e., economic sins, greed, etc.)

In other words, one of the ways Westerners routinely misread instructions about modesty in the Bible is by assuming sexual modesty is of greater concern than economic modesty. (p. 43)

They demonstrate how we miss certain realities that would have been and still are abundantly clear to people whose lives more closely reflect the lives of ancient people in an agrarian society (i.e., the famine in the story of the Prodigal  Son—a very interesting section of this book, I must say!). They demonstrate how Western virtues like punctuality, savings, and efficiency are in many ways just that—Western—and that our emphasizing of these can cause us to miss alternative ways of thinking that are often extolled in the pages of scripture.

Those are just some examples of the ground that R&O cover, and they cover a lot of ground! There are some fascinating insights in this book that correct misunderstandings I have both had and preached! For instance:

So what was it about the Cushites that went without being said in the ancient Near East? The Cushites were not demeaned as a slave race in the ancient world; they were respected as highly skilled soldiers. It is more likely that Miriam and Aaron thought Moses was being presumptuous by marrying above himself. That makes sense of the tone of the passage. “Has the Lord spoken only through Moses?” they whined. “Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” (Num 12:2). In other words: Moses is not the only prophet here. Who does he think he is? (p. 61)

Well. I did NOT know that. I have projected my own understanding on this passage for years and have argued that Miriam’s and Aaron’s great problem with Moses’ wife was her skin color. Apparently that is not so. Here’s another fascinating insight:

Paul struggles for a Greek word to describe the fruit (singular) of the Spirit. He describes it as a “love-joy-peace-patience-kindness-goodness-faithfulness-gentleness-self-control kind of fruit” (Gal 5:22). Paul is not giving us a list of various fruits, from which we may pick a few. Rather, he gives us a list of words that circle around the one character of a Spirit-filled life he is trying to describe. (pp. 74-75)

Well! That right there will ruin a nine-part sermon series, won’t it? I also really appreciated the section on how the Western emphasis on privacy causes a real disconnect between us and much of the world even today! Richards’ examples in this regard were very interesting, especially the story of the two Indonesian men who both owned a great deal of property but who built their houses right beside each other on the property line so that they would not be lonely (p. 77). One more example. I thought the section on collectivist cultures, then and now, was very helpful and I think it will help me better grasp some of the collectivist and “household” portions of scripture.

Duane Elmer, a professor of missions and intercultural studies, explains in his book Cross-Cultural Connections that when he shared Christ with Asian adults, he “was constantly told that they could not make a decision to follow Christ without asking a parent, uncle, aunt or all three.” At first he thought this was an evasive maneuver, a ruse to avoid making the hard decision of faith. Over time he realized that this is simply how collectivist cultures work. People “do not make major decisions without talking it over with the proper authority figures in their extended family.” This is hard for us Westerners to understand. We believe they are simply doing what the authority figure(s) said and not making the decision for themselves. This is not necessarily so. My (Randy’s) Asian friend speaks of his conversion this way: “My father is wiser than I am. If he says Jesus is better, then I know Jesus is better.” My friend has a faith as strong and rooted as mine. His certitude about Jesus came a different way than mine, but it is as firm. When the wise matriarch Lydia decided Paul’s god was best, her household was convinced as well (Acts 16:14-15). (pp. 104-105)

So, yeah, this is great stuff. This is needed stuff. I marked up a lot of this book to file, remember, and recall. Yet I have at some questions as well. I want to be clear that some of my concern in a few areas is not because I necessarily know the answers to my questions but rather that some of my questions were recurring. Some of my concerns are not even really concerns. They are more like agitations.

For instance, there were too many stories about Indonesia. Mind you, I highlighted probably 75% of these stories because they were fascinating and because Richards’ time and experiences in Indonesia were indeed helpful for advancing the idea that there are a number of significant differences in the ways that people elsewhere in the world think. And, yes, it would seem to me that the people of Indonesia with and among whom Richards lived and worked for I gather a significant time almost certainly inhabit a thought world more akin to that of, say, a first century person than a modern American does. So I get the strategy. However, there were so many Indonesia stories that through the last quarter of the book I began to feel that Richards was resting a bit easily on what appeared to me to be a possible assumption that Indonesian culture and, again, first century culture were directly analogous. I hasten to say that I have no doubt whatsoever that Richards would quickly say that this is not the case and that it is more the case that those two cultures overlap more than do our own,  but I am talking about the impression that the weight of so many illustrations had on me. And, finally, I am a bit irritable by nature, so, I do admit, I started to see so many Indonesia stories as almost a bit of a literary tick. But I do know that’s unfair of me…

Every now and then I found some of the points in the book a bit forced as well. Take, for instance, R&O’s argument that people in honor/shame cultures are responding in some ways more to public shaming than to a Westernized concept of the internal conscience. They argue that this was the case with David in their interesting and, at point, curious retelling of the David and Bathsheba story.

If we assume David thought like a Westerner with an introspective conscience, we’re likely to miss the point altogether. (p. 127)

I have no doubt this is true to an extent (i.e., that Western readers miss the honor/shame dynamics and the ways that God utilized them) and I found this section helpful. I just wonder if it was perhaps a bit overplayed or maybe made a bit too neat and tidy?  For instance, I found it interesting that R&O, in their lengthy consideration of David and Bathsheba and in light of the point they were advancing, never mention Psalm 32, a text that, at least on the surface, might seem to evidence something like an internalized conscience after all:

Yes, I am aware that we are not completely sure of either the Davidic authorship of Psalm 32 or of this psalm’s connection to David and Bathsheba (though many argue that it is). Neither point is necessary to see Psalm 32 as a possible nuance to R&O’s unpacking of conscience/shame-and-honor. Also, I am fully aware that R&O are not arguing that ancient people did not have consciences, and I likewise have no doubt that they would have very good responses as to what Psalm 32 is and is not saying. Even so, the point of shame/honor as the driving force in matters of conviction and behavior was stressed enough that texts like this likely came to the mind of at least some of their readers as it did to mine. I would have liked to see some interaction with it.

Perhaps my biggest concern with the book was the section on “rules” vs. “relationships.” To summarize, R&O are arguing that Western people tend to like laws and lists that they deem inviolable and they apply mechanistically to all people and before which no exceptions are allowed. Many non-Western people, however, are not so rigid, prioritizing relationships instead and having a more fluid approach to rules and laws. A few quotes to demonstrate:

In the West, rules must apply to everyone, and they must apply all the time. In the ancient world, rules did not seem to require such universal compliance. (p. 168)

To the non-Western mind, it seems, a law is more a guideline. (p. 170)

Our tendency to emphasize rules over relationship and correctness over community means that we are often willing to sacrifice relationships on the altar of rules. (p. 173)

We are called to “live by the Spirit” (Gal 5:25). Even after two thousand years, we are still uncomfortable with Paul’s law-free gospel. (p. 173)

We Westerners should also likely consider being less rigid about the rules we read in Scripture. (p. 174)

Richards concludes this chapter like this:

I (Randy) remind my students that one of the perks of being sovereign is that you get to do what you want. In fact, it often seems as if God is sovereign over everything except his rules. Like the Medes and the Persians, we seem to insist upon God being bound to his own rules. In Indonesia, I learned that one of the major responsibilities of the person “in charge” of an office is to determine when to make exceptions. Rules apply except when the one in charge says otherwise. Westerners might consider this arbitrary; many non-Western Christians consider this grace. Fees apply to everybody, unless the manager thinks someone really can’t afford it. Then he makes an exception. (p. 174)

Now, R&O clearly are not antinomians and they clearly are not trying to smuggle some sort of moral license into the faith. That would be an utterly uncharitable reading. And, they are no-doubt correct: the Western minds probably does think more in terms of stark categories of compliance or disobedience, at least theoretically (in practice we love exceptions so far as we are the ones being excepted). And, yes, who can deny that rigidity can lead us into petty legalisms and the like?

But here is my problem: the issues at stake in chapter seven are simply too big and too complex for a chapter! This issue is a book in and of itself. A single chapter simply cannot handle the number of questions that I and I have no doubt others have when reading this chapter. I tended to read this chapter from the vantage point of possibly giving this book to members of our church to read in a discipleship training course. I think I can say with some degree of accuracy that this chapter presented as it was presented would most likely cause genuine confusion because of what it does not answer to a sufficient degree: What are these exceptions? Who determines them? How does this explain this or that passage of scripture (there are many that might prove challenging to the central thrust of this chapter)? Does this open the door to me personally being able to claim exception status? What do I do with my friend who appears to be taking a walk on a ruinous path who claims that he is an exception and that my lovingly confronting him is simply the imposition of a Western-law-approach over his more organic and therefore biblically faithful relational approach?

It is not that R&O do not communicate anything concerning these issues. They do. They speak, for instance, of the way that the Ten Commandments are framed as opposed to other rules and laws and that some laws are indeed inviolable at all times for all people. But I am talking about what I perceive the overall impression of this chapter to likely be for many modern Evangelical readers.

All of that being said, if the purpose of a good book is to raise questions and spur further thought, this book is a success. It does indeed do that (even though, on the point raised above, I think some questions need a bit more answering from the authors themselves). I believe the central premise of the book was confirmed. I also believe the goal of the authors was met. You will walk away convinced that we must interpret ourselves if we are to interpret the text of scripture well. You will see very real examples of ways in which our assumptions and biases have indeed caused us to misread scripture at points with Western eyes. You will be led to consider what you bring to the text. And, if you read this book carefully, you will be a better reader and interpreter of scripture.

A mixed bag? I think so a little bit. But a helpful and convicting one nonetheless.

Brandon O’Brien’s Not From Around Here is an interesting and helpful book on the ways that place and the cultural currents and crosscurrents that move in, around, and through place can shape us for good or ill. He evaluates the suspicions and occasional conflicts that arise from the caught assumptions (i.e., “…our place makes its mark on us before we are able to question it” ((p. 27)).) of various cultural contexts in American life: rural, suburban, and urban. O’Brien is able to speak from personal experience as he has lived in Arkansas (his home state), Chicago, and, currently, Manhattan.

O’Brien lays out the problem nicely:

…there is plenty of data to confirm that Americans feel divided from one another based on their geography. According to Pew Research Center, 65 percent of urban dwellers and 70 percent of rural dwellers feel that “most people who live in different types of communities don’t understand the problems they face.” Nearly equal percentages of urban and rural people say “people who don’t live in their type of community have a negative view of those who do” (pp. 13-14)

Within the church we find, according to O’Brien, both the reality of these same problems  as well as the resources we need to overcome them:

We live in a historic moment in which Christians across America are divided by regional values rather than being united by Christian values; they feel neglected, wherever they live, when the realities of others elsewhere receive attention. We are basing our most important decisions on beliefs about others that aren’t founded in facts but in spin and hearsay. We need an exercise in empathy. We need to find common cause. And we need to emphasize our shared identity in Christ over our divided identity as citizens of different parts of the country. I’m writing from the firm conviction that no one else will do it. It has to be the church (pp. 20-21).

That’s well said. I agree. It has to be the church. And O’Brien’s grounding of the solution in “our shared identity in Christ” is key. Furthermore, his telling of the story is accessible, frequently charming in its anecdotal insights, and convicting.

O’Brien convincingly demonstrates that many of the assumptions that, say, rural Arkansans (his own upbringing) have about, say, Manhattanites (his current home) are simply untrue. He unpacks, for instance, the reality over and against the Southern assumption of New York rudeness by highlighting the hectic nature, the fast pace, and, most significantly, the lack of privacy that so dominates the daily lives of those who dwell in large cities. He further counters these faulty assumptions by speaking of instances of genuine kindness that he and his family have encountered in New York (i.e., the stranger who grabs the front of the stroller to help them get it up the subway stairs without being asked, the stranger who covers the cost of boat rental in Central Park for the O’Briens once Brandon realizes he did not bring any cash, etc.). As somebody who has personally come to really appreciate New York over the last number of years (through repeated mission trips to the area) I feel like I was kind of coming to understand this a bit already, but O’Brien really helped to flesh this idea out.

I did appreciate also his acknowledgment of the anti-rural bias among some urbanites.

By the early twentieth century, intellectuals in America were betraying a clear bias in favor of city life. Sociologist Edward Ross set out in 1905 to classify all human beings into “four types of intellect” and identify where in America the different types are most likely to be found. The lowest type of intellect “has few ideas.” They are rural people that congregate “about seaboard and lakeboard, in all the mountain regions, and on the great plains.” On the next rung up are folks who enjoy “safe, commonplace , profitable occupations.” They are kind but intellectually dull. They make up a quarter of the population and “predominate in the South.” The third type are principled and hardworking, make up about 20 percent of the population, and can be found from New England through the Midwest. The highest type is “marked by breadth and balance, clear perceptions, sound judgment, careful reasoning, and critical thinking.” They are the minority—making up just 1.5 percent of the population. They are found “here and there in cities” (pp. 78-79).

This kind of thinking persists in various forms and it exists even, O’Brien argues, in the church. One of the more telling insights was when he observed how some religious scholars simultaneously (a) extol the virtues of Christianity in the Global South and plead passionately for their voices to be heard and (b) denigrate rural American Christians as backward rubes and dumb fundamentalists. The problem with this is that many in the rural South of North America share certain “qualities…with the Global South” (p.91). Their worldviews in some significant ways overlap and so, ostensibly, we could learn from both.

I thought that was a brilliant point. I agree. Conservative Christians in the American South are indeed oftentimes drug out for a good thrashing by their supposed betters in the religious establishment when, in reality, rural Southern Christians are pretty much just like every other expression of the church in that they have certain strengths that should be celebrated and certain weaknesses that should be avoided. I appreciated this point a great deal.

I also appreciated O’Brien’s point that many Christian resources and promoted ministry models are actually based on suburban Christianity and that “both rural and urban pastors are often, if unconsciously, comparing themselves to models of ministry most common in the suburbs” (p.142). As a suburbanite who over the years has made an increasing number of forays into urban contexts for ministry efforts I can see how this is so. I think of many of the conferences I go to and how a certain degree of what is presented in those may not be immediately helpful or applicable to either a rural pastor or an inner city pastor. Again, I thought this was an astute point made by O’Brien and it helped me see how the dominant ministry resources available to us truly are skewed to one particular form of ministry in one particular context, namely, my own.

And this is one of the great points of Not From Around Here, it seems to me: we need to learn to see beyond ourselves and understand the wider picture, understand, that is, each other. We should learn to see the beauty and challenges and uniqueness and idiosyncrasies and opportunities inherent in each expression of the body of Christ as it resides in its very own particular context. O’Brien’s book helped me to think deeply about my own biases, my own assumptions, and my own suspicions.

I believe this book will help in combating the hardening of ecclesiological and missiological categories that calcify when we naively and presumptuously assume that our context is the context. This would be a great book to give believers in general but perhaps especially believers who are wanting to engage different cultural contexts than their own. And maybe more specifically, this would be a great book to give to a rural or suburban ministry or mission team about to make a foray into, say, New York or other large urban centers. I thought this particular insight was really strong:

Seeing things from someone else’s point of view is ultimately an act of repentance. It requires admitting that I didn’t see things completely before, and now I see them more clearly. And in light of the new information that I have, I’m going to think and behave differently. Christians should be prepared to spot these lapses in our perception. If we believe our human nature is so corrupted by sin and that we are prone to selfishness and self-absorption, then it’s no stretch to admit that we are also, therefore, prone to see what we want to see and to filter our experiences in terms of what’s best for us. We should welcome new information and the experiences of others that discipline and challenge our own experiences precisely because we are Christians. We should be grateful for the ministry of people who are unlike us, who can point out where we’ve misperceived reality and how we can make corrections. We should delight in repentance because it makes us more fully aware of God and ourselves and others (p. 155).

I enjoyed this book. It is not a difficult read and it is quite helpful and convicting. Check it out.

When I saw The Fire is Upon Us recommended on Twitter, I purchased it immediately. I’ve long had a fascination with William F. Buckley Jr.. The Buckley’s had/have a home in Camden, SC, about thirty miles from my hometown of Sumter and considerably less miles from Dalzell, SC, where I went to school at Thomas Sumter Academy. When I was a student there I knew Reid Buckley who is either WFB’s nephew or grand-nephew. I certainly do not want to overplay this: Reid and I knew each other the way you know everybody in a small private school. I claim no other connection to the Buckley family and I do not claim that that particular connection was close. Anyway, I was aware of and impressed by his being in the family of the great WFB! As an aside, my mother dropped almost casually over Thanksgiving last year that somebody (Reid, perhaps?) had given her name to WFB and he had written her some questions concerning Latin (she was the Latin teacher at Thomas Sumter, again, maybe twenty miles from the Buckley home in Camden). She went on to say that she answered the questions and provided the information he was looking for and that he wrote back thanking her and saying that he would acknowledge her in print. I was, to put it mildly, amazed that I had never heard this before. I have no idea if my mother was ever acknowledged in any of Buckley’s books.

As for my interest in Buckley, I suppose it was a result of the type of Republican I grew up being. I grew up a conservative but a conservative who has always had a weary eye of the lunatic fringe of our own side (I would characterize myself as this kind of conservative to this day, by the way). I suppose I grew up less charitable of the left, considering most all of them as lunatics! Nowadays I’m all out of charity and consider pretty much everybody on all sides to be lunatics, but that’s another story. Buckley represented thoughtful conservatism to me growing up, conservatism in a suit with a strange hybrid accent, conservatism that engaged the best thinkers on the left through the Firing Line TV show. Furthermore, Buckley was a Christian. Lastly, he was a free thinker in many ways. I remember as a young man feeling the thrill of some of Buckley’s libertarian positions that were, to my more provincial mindset, dangerous. So, yes, I grew up a Buckley fan.

As for James Baldwin, I knew next to nothing about him as I approached this book other than his name and that he spoke prominently to civil rights issues. That’s it, and I was a little fuzzy even on those two points.

Enter The Fire is Upon Us, Nicholas Buccola’s absolutely fascinating and riveting account of the 1965 debate between Buckley and Baldwin at Cambridge on the proposition, “Is the American Dream at the expense of the American Negro?” Baldwin argued for an affirmative answer to the question and Buckley for the negative.

Now, as a frequent viewer of old Firing Line clips and episodes on YouTube, I had come across and watched most of this debate before, but this book really brought it to life for me. Buccola does a great job of unpacking the events that led up to this clash in Cambridge, but the book truly is about much bigger issues than simply this exchange. In truth, the book, it seems to me, is about two movements in America, two ways of seeing reality as Buccola defines them.

At this point it should be noted that Buccola shows his cards explicitly near the end of the book. He writes:

My study of history and political science led me to grow up from conservatism, but when Buckley reentered my life through the study of Baldwin, I became mildly obsessed about the possibilities of thinking about the two of them together. (p.369)

Well, let me say that even a person like myself who appreciated this book by and large, who agrees that Buckley’s views on civil rights and racial questions were tragic and certainly inconsistent with the teachings of the Jesus Buckley professed to follow, who winces at reading some of Buckley’s positions on these matters, and who would say that he has cooled in many ways on Buckley can also say that the idea that studying history will lead one to “grow up from conservatism” is one of the most flabbergasting statements I have ever heard. I am no shill for the conservative establishment, but history cuts both ways, does it not? There are numerous people (like, say, the late theologian Tom Oden) who grew up, thankfully, out of liberalism and realized the dead end that it is. So, sorry, I do not think that Buccola’s work, as damning as it in many ways is, confirms the veracity of his personal experience that the study of history will cause one to “grow up from conservatism.” Really, now.

Anyway, what the book does establish is that Buckley had some ugly and tragic views on civil rights and stubbornly held to them until he offered something of an apology and showed signs of growth in his views later in life (as this defense of Buckley from National Review argues). Here is an example of Buckley’s unfortunate views:

In private correspondence after Up from Liberalism was published, Buckley told a friend, “I pray every Negro will not be given the vote in South Carolina tomorrow” because such a development would cause him to “lose that repose through which, slowly but one hopes surely, some of the decent instincts of the white man to go to work, fuse with his own myths and habits of mind, and hence a man more likely to know God” (pp. 115-116).

Perhaps less philosophically, here is another look at Buckley’s mindset at the time:

As the summer wore on, Buckley and Baldwin had the civil rights bill and upcoming march on their minds. In an August 3 column on the bill, Buckley conceded that many of the “[Negro] protests” that had taken place throughout the summer were “warranted,” but he continued to express skepticism about the aims being sought by the protesters. The issue “goes to the heart of political philosophy: should a Constitution be an instrument for impressing on the community at large the people’s general, and even specific ideas of morality?” Against the idea that the Constitution should be used to “bring Paradise” to the people, Buckley argued in favor of the relativist notion that “each community [has] the right to govern its own affairs, according to its own individual lights.” South Carolinians and New Yorkers tend to have different moral views, and ought to be free to decide for themselves how they will live together. “The states’ rights argument,” Buckley concluded, “is deemed by a lot of impatient and right-minded idealists to be a plea for continued racism. It is not. It is a plea for the survival of the federal system, which was once considered, by idealists, to be a glory in itself.”78 In an August 17 piece called “Count Me Out,” Buckley offered direct criticisms of the March on Washington, which he suggested would be an “unruly” and “mobocratic” affair that could do great damage to “inter-racial progress” as well as “our free institutions” (p. 203).

This particular selection is helpful because it shows the fairly consistent line that Buckley tried to walk: yes, blatant racism is unfortunate and not desirable but this does not warrant naked federal aggression against the way states choose to approach these issues. What is more, Buckley seemed to think, equality, while slow going, will eventually come about. The upshot of this approach was that Buckley did not support federal civil rights actions.

Baldwin, on the other hand, had a sharp mind and fire in his belly and was keenly aware of racial injustice in America. One could not imagine somebody more different from Buckley. Black, liberal, and one who had rejected the Christianity of his youth, Baldwin would emerge as a passionate and creative voice for racial equality in America.

As a Christian I am particularly interested in Baldwin’s rejection of Christianity. There were a lot of factors involved with this. The first factor was Baldwin’s perception of the type of Christianity his stepfather embraced and what this faith did to him.

One of the ways David [Baldwin’s father] dealt with his status at the margins of society was to shield himself with a rigid armor of religiosity. In an open letter to his nephew that was published in 1962, Baldwin explained the connection between his father’s marginalization and his faith when he wrote that his father “had a terrible life; he was defeated long before he died because, at the bottom of his heart, he really believed what white people said about him. This is one of the reasons he became so holy.”36 The church, he explained to an interviewer, was the “only means” his parents had to express “their pain and their despair.” David was convinced that it was only holiness that could protect him and his family from the cruel world that surrounded them. This led him to express his love in an “outrageously demanding and protective way,” and to be extraordinarily “bitter” in his outlook and “indescribably cruel” in his personal relationships. David’s bitterness was rooted in the “humiliation” he felt in his everyday life, and it led him to view those he thought the authors of that humiliation—all white people—with suspicion. It also extended to his fellow blacks, though, most of whom he viewed as insufficiently holy. At home, David attempted to rule the family in an authoritarian fashion that left James and his siblings in a constant state of fear. “I do not remember, in all those years,” he wrote in 1955, “that one of his children was ever glad to see him come home” (pp. 17-18).

And again:

Baldwin’s stepfather, David, is the centerpiece of “Notes of a Native Son.” Baldwin said that David, like the character Gabriel in Mountain, “could be chilling in the pulpit and indescribably cruel in his personal life and he was certainly the most bitter man I have ever met”; he treated other blacks in the neighborhood “with the most uncharitable asperity” and distrusted all white people (p. 65).

But there were other factors that compelled Baldwin to leave the church.

Baldwin’s exit from the church will be discussed in great detail later in this book, but for now suffice it to say that the seeds of doubt were planted by a broadening of his intellectual horizons and the hypocritical deeds of the “true believers” he saw around him. Though not as sudden as the conversion experience that drew him into the church, Baldwin’s conversion experience out of the church was just as profound. The “fortress” of his faith, he wrote later, had been “pulverized” (p. 19).

The intellectual components of Baldwin’s rejection of the faith is later spelled out in interesting detail:

Baldwin also launched a direct attack on theology generally and NOI [Nation of Islam] doctrine specifically. “To me,” he said, “all theologies are suspect” because they encourage human beings to escape reality and construct false identities. As an alternative to theological thinking, Baldwin proposed the “reckless” idea that we attempt to live our lives without the support of mythology and ideology. “I would like to think of myself as being able to face whatever it is I have to face as me,” he declared, “without having my identity dependent on something that finally has to be believed.” He conceded that reliance on religion, race, and culture as the bases of identity might be useful in some circumstances, but we must never lose sight of the fact that this reliance “has something very dangerous in it.” As long as we rely on such things to make sense of where we fit into the world and how we ought to act in it, “the confusion … and the bloodshed will be great” (p. 140).

This is regrettable. One may understand wanting distance from an overbearing and psychologically and spiritually grasping father’s stunted faith. One may also understand struggling with the Western church’s rank hypocrisy in its failure to apply the teachings of Jesus to social and racial issues. But the idea of “being able to face whatever it is I have face” as some sort of self-in-a-vaccuum without any ideological foundations and without recourse to “something that finally has to be believed” is so meaningless as to warrant the descriptor “absurd.” This is because, of course, Baldwin was as committed to certain things that “had to be believed” as we all are. Life simply cannot be lived without belief. The views expressed in the selection above strike me as a kind of village empiricism that is beneath the obvious keenness of a mind like Baldwin’s.

Regardless, the hypocrisy of the church proved to be ruinous to Baldwin’s faith.

Speaking of the West generally, Baldwin argued that time had demonstrated the “Christian world” to be “morally bankrupt and politically unstable.” For Baldwin, this indictment had little to do with the moral, religious, and political doctrines that had been rhetorically dominant in the West, but rather with the behavior of Western countries. For the second time in the essay, he referred to the obscene spectacle “when priests of that church which stands in Rome gave God’s blessing to Italian boys being sent out to ravage” Ethiopia. And of course, Baldwin found it difficult to accept the idea that Christianity was synonymous with civilization “when a Christian nation surrenders to a foul and violent orgy, as Germany did during the Third Reich.” For Baldwin, the fact that the Nazi movement could rise and thrive in Christian Germany was revealing and damning indeed. “In the heart of Europe,” millions of people “were sent to a death so calculated, so hideous, and so prolonged that no age before this enlightened one had been able to imagine it, much less achieve and record it.” “The fact of the Third Reich alone,” Baldwin observed, “makes obsolete forever any question of Christian superiority, except in technological terms.” If this was the record of the “White God,” it is not surprising that those seduced by the NOI [Nation of Islam] were ready to give the “Black God” a chance (pp. 158-159).

Here, then, were the two men who met in Cambridge in 1965. That amazing debate is worth watching. Baldwin is largely considered to have won the debate (those in the room voted 544 to 164 to that effect). I would agree. Still, take the time to watch and listen. The selections from the book mentioned above will help give some context. But if you really want to get the most out of it and if you really want to understand all of the currents and crosscurrents, both personal and social, that were at play in that debating hall, you can do much worse than read Buccola’s book.

So who’s side am I on? Simply put, I stand with Baldwin in his plea for racial justice and I stand with Buckley on the truthfulness of Christianity. Buckley’s lamentable inconsistencies in practicing his faith are just that: lamentable inconsistencies, hypocrisies. Should they be condemned? Indeed. I hereby condemn them! But does that mean that Buckley has nothing to offer in other areas? No. Of course not. It does not mean that and many of his works may still be read with profit.

I believe that Baldwin is not beyond critique either. Some of his philosophical assertions strike me as vacuous and naive as do some of his theological musings. But those do not negate his call for equality, for justice. Baldwin too can be read with profit, but must also be read with care.

This is a very interesting and thought-provoking book about two complex men addressing issues that remain critically important to our own day. Well worth reading!

In his truly fascinating book, The Patient Ferment of the Early Church, Alan Kreider describes a practice that was widespread in the early church, the “kiss of peace.” Kreider writes:

After the believers have concluded the prayers, according to Tertullian “they shall give the kiss of peace.” Tertullian is the inventor of the term “the kiss of peace.”…When Tertullian wrote, peacemaking in worship already had a considerable history. From a very early date, both the author of the Didache and Hermas saw reconciliation as a precondition for the community to celebrate the Lord’s Supper; and in the mid-second century, in the early stages of the morning service tradition, Justin Martyr reported that in his Roman house church “we greet each other with a kiss” after the common prayers, evidently as a means of preparing relationships for the Eucharist that followed immediately. In the morning service tradition, the peace greeting occupied a sensitive, crucial position between these central actions of early Christian worship, the prayers and the Lord’s Supper. The kiss of peace formed a ritual bridge between them that had its own significance. At the heart of Christian worship was a community whose habitus both celebrated and made peace.[1]

Christians early on exchanged a “kiss of peace” as a sign that their relationships had been transformed in and through Christ Jesus. The practice came from Romans 16:16a, “Greet one another with a holy kiss.” It was act that had to be monitored, of course, for it could give way to abuses. So you find in the early church warnings about keeping the “kiss of peace” chaste and appropriate and worshipful. This practice has continued into our own day in some churches literally and in many other churches verbally through the “passing of the peace.” In these churches there is a time in the service in which the congregants go to one another and say something like, “The peace of God with you” and you are to respond, “And also with you.” This is one modern continuation of the “kiss of peace” without the awkwardness (for modern Americans) of an actual kiss. And, perhaps more familiar to us, the tradition has continued on in many churches in the form of the handshake and hug that happens in our worship services. These are all varied modern expressions of the ancient Christian “kiss of peace.”

Now, I am not in favor of bringing back a literal kiss of peace. There is too wide a cultural disconnect and I can frankly think of few things more horrific in modern North American churches than asking everybody to start kissing one another! But what intrigues me is the fact that this practice was so ubiquitous in the early church. In his book Kissing Christians: Ritual and Community in the Late Ancient Church Michael Philip Penn calls the “kiss of peace” “one of the most prevalent features of early Christianity.”[2]

In fact, intentional efforts at fostering peace in the body of Christ are evident in numerous ways in the history of the early church, be they symbolic or more literal. Kreider quotes the early Christian Clement in this regard:

Throughout his writings, Clement described these nonkilling, nonadulterous people as people of peace who are formed in catechesis. God has created humans to be peaceable: “man is an instrument made for peace.” But humans have been stunted by sin. The catechumenate is a time to “cut out sins like parasitic growths.” In the course of their catechesis, God’s people “are educated not for war but for peace.” Clement comments: “We do not train our women like Amazons to manliness in war; since we wish the men even to be peaceable.” In their catechesis Christians become “a peaceful people,” “soldiers of peace” in God’s “bloodless army” who wear “the armor of peace.” Marshaled by God in “the ranks of peace,” they “stand in array against the evil one.” The peaceableness of the Christians’ culture is expressed by telltale things, such as the signet rings Christians buy in the markets to authenticate documents. What images should there be on these rings? According to Clement, the rings may have an intaglio of “a fish or ship in full sail . . . or a ship’s anchor” but not of “a sword or bow, for we cultivate peace.”[3]

When I hear all of this I am left with an obvious question: if peacemaking and peacekeeping was such a fundamental value in the life of the beleaguered early church, why is it not so in our own day? If the early Christians fought so hard for peace, why do we simply assume that peace just happens, on its own, as it were?

No, peace does not just happen. Peace is cultivated and fostered and fought for in churches of peace. And this happens especially in times of conflict and community distress. This raises another interesting and important question: what exactly should the church do when conflict arises in her midst? What is our job, the job of the community of Christ, the wider church, when members in her midst begin to clash?

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Matthew 3

¹ In those days John the Baptist came preaching in the wilderness of Judea, ² “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” ³ For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord; make his paths straight.’” ⁴ Now John wore a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist, and his food was locusts and wild honey. ⁵ Then Jerusalem and all Judea and all the region about the Jordan were going out to him, ⁶ and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. ⁷ But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? ⁸ Bear fruit in keeping with repentance. ⁹ And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham. ¹⁰ Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. ¹¹ “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. ¹² His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

My father once told me about something interesting that happened when he and my mother visited the city of Assisi in Italy. Their tour guide was a Franciscan, a monk in the order founded by St. Francis, Assisi’s most famous son. Their guide, he said, was wearing the Franciscan habit—a brown robe with a thrice-knotted rope belt—but it was, my father went on to explain, a very nice robe and rope! It looked to have been tailored and made of very nice fabric. In all, the guide looked clean and well-dressed in his seemingly not-inexpensive Franciscan habit.

My father said that at one point in the tour there came around the corner toward them another Franciscan brother. But this one looked different. His brown robe was old and frayed and threadbare. It had obviously not been tailored. The rope belt was dirty and frazzled. He looked, my father said, like something out of Francis’ own day, like he came from that first group of zealous men who took up with Francis of Assisi so very long ago. This less-refined monk did not have the amiable face of a tour-guide either. He looked stern and focused.

My dad said that as this other Franciscan passed them by he noticed the look that he gave their tour guide. He said it was a look of exasperation, of judgment. The haggard Franciscan, in that brief moment, communicated with his eyes that he did not care much for the tour guide Franciscan. My dad said it looked like a clash of different worlds in just that instant and he wondered what the two men thought of each other.

I thought of that while reading our text about John the Baptist. There was something old-school about John, something very different from the other religious leaders of the day. John was dressed haggard and odd. His diet was raw and made one flinch: locusts and honey! He wore a camel hair garment. And he looked askance at the comfortable clergy of the day, the leaders and rulers of the people in their nice robes with their cushy stations in life.

We are privileged in Matthew 3 to see what happened when John and these others crossed paths. Who was this odd man, John the Baptist? What exactly was this seemingly surly, cantankerous prophet up to? And why exactly was he so important? Why did Jesus call John the Baptist one of the greatest of all time?

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Galatians 2

¹¹ But when Cephas came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. ¹² For before certain men came from James, he was eating with the Gentiles; but when they came he drew back and separated himself, fearing the circumcision party. ¹³ And the rest of the Jews acted hypocritically along with him, so that even Barnabas was led astray by their hypocrisy. ¹⁴ But when I saw that their conduct was not in step with the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas before them all, “If you, though a Jew, live like a Gentile and not like a Jew, how can you force the Gentiles to live like Jews?”

I once attended a church business meeting when I was a college student in which tempers flared over the question of whether or not to adopt the proposed budget. I remember being amazed and uncomfortable when an elderly man who was opposing the budget turned on the elderly lady who was sitting at the organ bench and berated her for a comment she had made.

In another and later instance, I presided over a business meeting in which one member turned on another church member and called him out for his bad attitude after the first had made a negative comment (one of many, as I recall).

Both of these were awkward moments. As I look back on them I felt, perhaps, that one of them was appropriate and one was inappropriate. But even as I ponder these situations I am uneasy. It raises an interesting and important question: does conflict resolution in the shadow of the cross ever call for public confrontation in the body of Christ?

Certainly we would want to say that public confrontation, ideally, should never happen and that if it happens it is usually wrong, given the carelessness with which human beings tend to handle such. Usually it is the case that public confrontation results from public outbursts of temper. But is that always the case and is it always wrong? After all of these careful considerations concerning conflict resolution we have looked at through this journey, we must now ask whether or not there is ever a time for public correction?

In Galatians 2, Paul recounts an instance in which he publicly rebuked Peter for something that Peter did. It is an astonishing passage! David Platt and Tony Merida call this text “one of the most dramatic and tense episodes in all of the New Testament.”[1] It is so surprising and uncomfortable that some interpreters over the years could not bring themselves to believe that it even really happened! “Some early church leaders (Origen, Chrysostom and Jerome) could not believe that this conflict really occurred,” writes G. Walter Hansen, “They explained that Paul and Peter must have staged the conflict to illustrate the issue at stake.”[2]

Well our text certainly does not sound like it was staged. We can almost certainly reject that notion outright. No, what Paul says happened actually happened. Paul publicly rebuked Peter. Why? And should this ever occur today?

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Matthew 2

¹³ Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” ¹⁴ And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt ¹⁵ and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” ¹⁶ Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. ¹⁷ Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah: ¹⁸ “A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.” ¹⁹ But when Herod died, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, ²⁰ saying, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.” ²¹ And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. ²² But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he withdrew to the district of Galilee. ²³ And he went and lived in a city called Nazareth, so that what was spoken by the prophets might be fulfilled, that he would be called a Nazarene.

Matthew’s account of the holy family’s flight to Egypt is fascinating and theologically rich. David Platt writes that “when Jesus and His family flee to Egypt and then later return from Egypt, Matthew helps us see that Jesus inaugurates the new exodus.” This seems clear enough. Matthew, whose interactions with Old Testament texts and themes is so very powerful and thorough, is depicting Jesus as the new and greater Moses in this text. Platt then adds that “[t]he flight to Egypt for Jesus and His family was about much more than simply running away from Herod; this was about painting a picture…”[1]

I like that: it was “about painting a picture.” That is a helpful idea, and true! And what is the picture that is being painted? Again, is the picture of Christ as the new and greater Moses leading His people out of bondage. This is true, but what is really amazing is to see just how nuanced and detailed the picture that Matthew paints of this scene truly is! In this recasting of the Exodus in the person and work of Jesus, Matthew truly touches on the primary aspects of the great episode in Israel’s history. In doing so, he lifts it to new heights showing how it was but a foreshadowing of the person and work of Christ.

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You will notice that we are not calling this series “Conflict Management in the Shadow of the Cross.” We are calling it “Conflict Resolution in the Shadow of the Cross.” The goal of Christians in conflict is to press toward resolution using all of the wisdom and guidance that God has offered us in His Word and under the leading and prompting of the Holy Spirit. In the first part of our consideration of what to do when conflict comes we laid out three initial steps:

1. Assess the conflict from the perspective (1) of heaven and (2) of the other person.
2. Move quickly with forgiveness and/or an apology.
3. Keep the circle of conflict as small as possible for as long as possible.

We now continue with steps 4, 5, 6, and 7. Each of these steps are rooted in scripture and each is geared toward resolution and the reestablishment of unity. What is more, each step must be taken in love and genuine concern for peace and the other’s well-being as opposed to taking them mechanistically or in a detached spirit of simply checking the boxes.

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Matthew 2

¹ Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, ² saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews? For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” ³ When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him; ⁴ and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. ⁵ They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet: ⁶ “‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’” ⁷ Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star had appeared. ⁸ And he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him, bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.” ⁹ After listening to the king, they went on their way. And behold, the star that they had seen when it rose went before them until it came to rest over the place where the child was. ¹⁰ When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly with great joy. ¹¹ And going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Then, opening their treasures, they offered him gifts, gold and frankincense and myrrh. ¹² And being warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they departed to their own country by another way.

In his book Is the New Testament Reliable? Paul Barnett pointed out a very interesting possibility related to the star of Bethelehem. He writes:

Every 805 years the planets Jupiter and Saturn draw near to each other.  Astronomers have calculatedthat in 7 BC the two planets were conjoined three times – in May, September and December and that in February, 6 BC they were joined by Mars, presenting a spectacular triangular conjunction.  It appears likely that the magoi, knowing the ancient star prophecy, on seeing the brilliant planetary formation, decided to visit Judaea to see the new king of the world.  Incidentally, the Biblical record does not say there were three magoi.

            In 1871 the astronomer John Williams published his authoritative list of sightings of Comets. Comet number 52 on Williams’ list appeared for seventy days early in 5 BC and would have been visible in the Middle East.  Was this the “star” which guided the magoi?  Why did Herod kill the boys who were two years old and younger?  Could this figure be explained by the time in 7-6 BC when the conjunction of the stars appeared?

            Time Magazine, in its cover story of 27 December 1976, commented that while “there are those who dismiss the star as nothing more than a metaphor…others take the Christmas star more literally, and not without reason.  Astronomical records show that there were several significant celestial events around the time of Jesus’ birth.”[1]

I find things like this interesting, natural explanations for miracles. Seen from the human and scientific perspective, perhaps there is something to it. But, of course, if this is so, then astronomical history would only be confirming what scripture said happened, not getting behind the event to the why of it. For that, only scripture can help. And scripture does give us the why of the event of the star: it is bound up in God’s loving and gracious giving of the Son for salvation and life to a lost world. The star is a signpost, yes, pointing the magi to Christ. Yet, it is more than that. It is also a sign of coronation, for the baby that was born is a King, a King, in fact, above all other kings. We will let this understanding of Christ as King guide us in our approach to the amazing events of Matthew 2.

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Matthew 1

¹⁸ Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. ²⁰ But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. ²¹ She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” ²² All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: ²³ “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). ²⁴ When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, ²⁵ but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

Just when you thought you had heard it all, I offer you the following from                                          www.st-josephstatue.com:

St Joseph Statue

Saint Joseph has helped thousands of people to sell their homes and other real estate. The biggest part of this help is to give you faith in Saint Joseph and yourself; the belief that you now will sell your house with the help and blessing of Saint Joseph. So if you need help to sell your real estate or another house please read more on our Saint Joseph Statue homepage.

Sell My House

Do you have friends that are having trouble selling their real estate? Are you about to put your own house out in the home sales market? Have you tried everything but still haven´t sold your house? Are you in the real estate business and need an extra incentive for your customers?
– In all cases above you have come to the right place. The use of a St Joseph statue and the belief in St Joseph is a tradition known all over the world for helping you to sell your house in a smooth way. To bury a statue of Saint Joseph is both a wonderful tradition and a great gift to friends and customers.

The Home Seller Kit

There are some different home sales kit from which you may choose. It is not that important which one you prefer, the most important thing is that you have faith in yourself and in Saint Joseph. You can read more about how to use the home selling kit here.[1]

I actually first heard of this in Georgia a number of years ago when a lady mentioned it to me. She said that she had buried a statue of Joseph upside down in the yard and that her house sold not too long thereafter. She appeared to be a believer in this.

To put it mildly, I am not. But I am a fan of Joseph the earthly father of Jesus. Some call Joseph Jesus’ “foster father” or “step father.” All of these titles are efforts to recognize that God, of course, was truly Jesus’ father. But there was a man who loved Mary, the mother of Jesus, and this man played a very important role in the story of Jesus’ first advent. Even so, it seems like we never quite know what to do with Joseph. We either say a few polite words about him and move on, or we try to do strained detective work to figure out exactly what happened to him, or we ignore him outright, or, heaven forbid, we bury statues of poor Joseph upside down in our yards as some sort of real estate hocus pocus.

Yet, behind all of these approaches stands Joseph the man. All that really matters for us on this side of heaven is what we know of him from scripture. As it turns out, the portrait that scripture paints of Joseph is a beautiful portrait indeed.

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