The Resurrection Accounts

Steph raised a very interesting question in the Easter entry comments. I started to blab on a bit there and realized this topic really involved more than enough for a separate entry. Voila!

The resurrection accounts are each notoriously unique in their approach to Jesus' appearances. For someone who needs very precise historicity, we can mostly fit them together if we suppose that the others just didn't mention all the events--like Steph's comment that John mentions only Mary Magdalene as going to the tomb and she alone sees Jesus (John 20:1, 10-18). Matthew tells us that Jesus appeared to both M. M. and "the other Mary" (Matt. 28:1), probably Mary the mother of James mentioned in Mark 16:1. Mark also mentions Salome.

If Mark 16 had an original ending that was lost, we can suppose that it came closest to Matthew's ending (since Matthew and Mark are without question the closest in presentation to each other overall). I suspect it at least included an appearance of Jesus in Galilee. Clayton Croy (Asbury grad) wrote a whole book on the subject, if you're interested: The Mutilation of Mark's Gospel. As it stands, there is nothing in Mark that is significantly incompatible with the other gospels (its tensions with Luke are no different from the tensions Matthew has with Luke).

Matthew presents an appearance of Jesus to two women at the tomb (Matt. 28:9), a claim that fits with John's presentation of the appearance to Mary Magdalene. In this case, I'm okay with the idea that John has omitted reference to Mary mother of James and that she also saw the risen Christ. I'm guessing that for whatever reason, Salome did not see Jesus on this occasion (Mark 16:1). Luke mentions a Joanna and others. I'm not too bothered about tensions in details like these. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!

The Great Commission presents a couple of issues. On the one hand, its theology seems a bit advanced for this point in the life of the disciples. For example, it involves a commission to all nations and a "trinitarian" baptismal formula. I completely affirm everything in it. But if this is exactly what Jesus said, the disciples didn't seem to remember it for decades, if you know what I mean. Some wonder if Matthew is basically summarizing "the rest of the story" here, while the story itself took a lot longer to come to this understanding. I can't give you the answer. I believe Jesus appeared to the disciples in Galilee and commissioned them to spread the word.

This now leads us to Luke, in some ways the most unique. Luke tells us nothing of Galilee. If all we had was Luke, you would crucify me if I even suggested the content of Matthew and Mark! Here is a stern warning to those who think they are defending God with their zealous harmonizations and deChristianization of others for not holding a rigid, Chicago statement type version of inerrancy. If all we had was any one of the four gospel presentations, they would deChristianize someone for suggesting any of the other gospel versions! Since the other gospels are equally inspired, we must seriously doubt that such zealots are very good representatives of God on this issue. Like the pre-Christian apostle Paul, they have a zeal without knowledge.

The men on the road to Emmaus are unique to Luke (I've mentioned previously that I think the longer ending of Mark is basically summarizing Luke at this point). I don't doubt this story--maybe some early Christians did doubt these guys' story, which might explain why the other gospels don't include it.

Then Luke slips in a most surprising comment in 24:34: "The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon!" Why isn't this narrated anywhere? It is surely the most significant appearance of all, one that Paul mentions as the frontispiece in 1 Corinthians 15:5!

It seems to me that we must take one of two paths at this point.

1. We might suppose that it is at this point that Luke has omitted the appearances of Jesus in Galilee. This has the strength of fitting with the trajectories of Matthew and Mark, which both give us no reason to believe that Jesus ever appeared in Jerusalem to the disciples. On the other hand, both Luke and John tell us that Jesus appeared to the disciples in Jerusalem the night of the resurrection. To conclude otherwise requires us to sacrifice a major aspect of their historical portrayal (although not their theological portrayal).

This might not be too difficult if it were only Luke, since Luke seems to artfully arrange his material. E.g., compare the ending of Luke with Acts. Not only are there no appearances of Jesus in Galilee at all there, but the time connections would most naturally lead us to see Jesus rising and ascending to heaven on the same day (24:1, 9, 13, 33, 36, 50)! The only possible gap is at verse 50, and we wouldn't guess it unless we had Acts and the other gospels.

I conclude that Luke presents these events with artistry without in any way feeling it wrong to arrange things to make the message at hand as clear as possible. Thus his omission of any resurrection appearances in Galilee. His goal is to present the truth of the gospel as clearly as possible, not to present the most precise historical reconstruction possible.

By the way, one reason to suggest the downplaying of the appearence in Galilee (e.g., to Peter and the others) is precisely because of what Matthew 28:17 tells us... some of the disciples were not convinced by these appearances. What if the disciples rushed back to Jerusalem when some of them believed that Jesus had risen from the dead?

This seems a very tempting place to put the trip to Galilee, and it allows us to take the rest of the story in Luke at face value, the appearance to them in Jerusalem being the one that really convinced the other disciples! While Jesus is appearing to the men on the road to Emmaus, the other disciples are seeing him in Galilee. Then they all rush back to Jerusalem!

The biggest weakness to this theory is that John also tells us of Jesus' appearance that first night in Jerusalem (20:19-23). This fact significantly ups the historical ante, especially since so many think John is a witness independent of the other gospels. Therefore, most of us will feel more comfortable with option number 2.

2. The Galilee appearances took place during the 40 period mentioned in Acts one, after this evening appearance in Jerusalem.

This option has only the disadvantage of not explaining why some in Galilee still doubted in Matthew 28:17. Especially after the appearance to Thomas and such in John!

It seems to me that we have worked out at least two plausible explanations for the major issues of the gospel resurrection accounts. I do not believe you can remain sane and look at these four with a rigid, Chicago Statement, Southern Baptist inerrantist perspective. But we can plausibly fit the major aspects of these portrayals together--certainly enough to provide a plausible account of the resurrection, which is what is essential to Christian faith.

We have reconstructed the events like this:

1. Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene and Mary mother of James after they and other women find the tomb empty. Paul interestingly doesn't mention these in 1 Corinthians 15 (heh, heh, heh, women? ...)

2. Jesus appears to Peter, either somewhere near Jerusalem (Luke) or in Galilee.

3. Jesus appears to the disciples, either in Jerusalem the night of his resurrection (Luke, John) or in Galilee (Matthew, [Mark]), or both (adjusting the timing of Luke and John a little or placing it during the 40 days of Acts 1).

4. Jesus appears to over 500 brothers at once (before the ascension on the Mount of Olives?)

5. Jesus appears to James and others who the NT calls apostles, lastly including Paul.

I don't claim to have all the answers. But I am trying to take all the accounts seriously as individual accounts, rather than shoving one or another down the throats of all the others. Someone might argue that this latter practice comes from a high idea of Scripture. But in my view it shows no respect at all for the actual books of Scripture themselves. The books don't hurt after I'm done with them--only the theology of misguided zealots.

Blessed Easter!

Christ's death on Friday meant atonement. From the human side it was humanity making an offering to God for its sins. It was also the satisfaction of God's justice toward sin, a way for God to be "just and the justifier of those who have faith like Jesus."

Easter means victory over death and the "defeat of the one holding power over death, the Devil." From the human side it represents our future resurrection from the dead. From God's side it is the vindication of Jesus and all that he preached while he was on earth.

While some parts of the New Testament emphasize the meaning of the death of Christ (e.g., Mark, parts of Paul, Hebrews), others emphasize the resurrection (Matthew, John, Acts, 1 Corinthians 15). For Acts it is the key verse of every sermon except for Stephen's. And arguably Stephen would have come to that point of his sermon as well if he hadn't been interrupted with stoning! In Acts it implies God's exaltation of Jesus as the cosmic Lord of all, the enthronement of Jesus at God's right hand.

In 1 Corinthians 15 it is the guarantee of our own resurrection. Paul lock-steps Christ's resurrection with ours, to where if we will not be raised, then Christ could not have been also. Similarly, if Christ has been raised, then we will be also. Christ is the "first fruits" of the dead.
On this score yet again I am thankful for the Corinthian problems, for one of the strongest arguments for the resurrection comes from this chapter.

One part of any historical argument we might make for the resurrection is the empty tomb. Even opponents to Christianity are said to admit no body in Matthew 28. And surely one would not invent women finding the empty tomb if one was making the story up--the ancients by and large did not consider them credible.

The other part of any argument for the resurrection comes from the resurrection appearances, particularly those that Paul mentions here:

"For I delivered to as of first importance what was also delivered to me, that Christ died in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he rose again the first day in accordance with the Scriptures. That he appeared to Peter, then the twelve, then to over 500 brothers at once, many of whom are still alive [check my references]. Then he appeared to James and the other disciples. Lastly he appeared to me, as of one born out of season."

Paul has no reason to lie--after all some at Corinth don't like him and would love to catch him out. Further, he can refer to Cephas in passing in the letter, so they must know a little something about him. All our evidence indicates that so many of these witnesses went on to die for their conviction in the resurrection. That spells conviction in what they thought they had seen.

In short, if you believe that resurrections are possible, this must have been one of them.
May this be a blessed Easter (somehow happy doesn't seem to cut it)! I hope you will revel in the defeat of death, the enthronement of Christ as king, and promise of your own victory over death!

Reflections on Good Friday

In my mind, the arrest and death of Jesus must have been very shocking to the disciples. I believe Peter was ready to die for Jesus to live. He just wasn't ready to live for Jesus to die.

Paul calls the message of the cross foolishness to those who are perishing. And indeed it is ludicrous. The Messiah, exposed to public disgrace on a cross, cursed by hanging on a tree? How is this victory?

Tony Campolo made famous his line, "It's Friday, but Sunday's a comin'." But today, it's Friday. It is worthwhile to remember that not all the biblical texts focus on the resurrection. True, Acts does. 1 Corinthians 15 does. Matthew and John do.

But Mark presented the story with the climax at the cross. The climax of Mark's gospel is when the centurion sees how Jesus died and proclaims, "Wow, this guy must have been the Son of God!" It is the first time in the gospel of Mark that a human being has connected Jesus' identity with his suffering.

Peter didn't. After he was the first human to recognize Jesus as the Messiah, he then corrects Jesus for suggesting he is going to die. "Get behind me, Satan." It is ironically not even a Jew in Mark who first proclaims this truth, but a Roman soldier, a type of Gentiles like me who come to Christ.

So the bold message of Mark is that Jesus is Messiah--not despite the fact that he dies on a cross--but indeed, the cross reveals that he is Messiah. For the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

I picture the disciples scratching their heads to make sense of Jesus' death. Is he, like the Maccabean martyrs, a propitiation and satisfaction of God's wrath toward Israel? Again, God had bigger plans. Not just Israel, but the sins of the whole world, of whosoever believes in him.

Hebrews gives us the final word on the cross: "with one sacrifice Christ has forever perfected those who are being sanctified." Despite our affirmation of Wesleyan theology, let's not miss the point of Hebrews. The blood of Christ cleanses our sins; it deletes them from the registry of our conscience, making it "whole." His blood enables us to join that company of the spirits of those in the heavenly Jerusalem. And where there is forgiveness of sins, there is no more need for sacrifices.

Tongues: Conclusion

6. Conclusion
I would summarize our discussion on tongues in four points:

1. The New Testament can speak of both the tongues of "humans and angels." In other words, the NT affirms the existence of tongues that do not involve the mind and that are not human languages. At least in Acts 2, the tongues in question seem to be what we call xenoglossia, speaking in foreign languages that have not been learned (they are a witness to unbelievers). 1 Corinthians 14 seems to be regular glossolalia (they turn off unbelievers).

2. The New Testament does not teach that you must speak in tongues to be a Christian. Paul flatly says, "Do all speak in tongues? (No)." He makes no distinction between tongues as evidence of the Spirit and tongues as a spiritual gift. The word for speak is the same in both Acts 2 and this comment in 1 Corinthians 12.

3. Some Christians have the gift of tongues, understood as non-human languages that do not involve the mind. Paul says not to forbid this gift. He means in Corinthian worship. I believe it is appropriate for some groups to apply it today as don't forbid exercise of this gift in private. Paul himself may very well have had this gift.

4. Paul does not wish tongues to be a hindrance in worship. At Corinth he reined in the use of tongues in worship. He forbid it unless there was an interpretation and even then only two or three one at a time. With the variety of Christian denominations today, I see this principle playing out in more than one way. There are communities of faith where uninterpreted tongues does not seem to be a hindrance to edification in any way. There are others where any exercise of tongues in worship would create massive disruption and possible schism. Let each group do whatever they do to the glory of God.

Tongues 5

5. 1 Corinthians 14
I would summarize Paul's point in this chapter as follows:

Your worship is a horrible mess. Everyone is just thinking of him or herself. Do things that build up each other, like prophecy. Tongues more often than not build up individuals but don't build up the body of Christ. What is worse, unbelievers can easily mistake them for some pagan religious experience. Don't forbid tongues, as long as someone has an interpretation. You yourself should pray to be able to interpret your tongues. Even then, only have two or at the most three speak in worship, one at a time, and again, only with interpretation.

Tongues at Corinth were a problem. I suppose that tongues in an Assemblies of God church are usually not a problem. In fact, I acknowledged to a student once that it might be possible for everyone in a Pentecostal church to be edified by watching everyone else speak in tongues--even if there wasn't any interpretation. And I doubt many unbelievers these days in America will mistake tongues for some mystery religion experience. After all, what is that? I do think most non-tongues speakers feel really wierd on their first exposure to tongues--even many people the first time they experience tongues.

But in the end, there are so many more churches and church groups today than Paul could have imagined. And the existence of many of them is primarily due to the exercise of tongues. Chances are, if you're going to an Assemblies of God church, you probably find tongues edifying even if they're not interpreted.

By the same token, tongues would be incredibly divisive in your typical Wesleyan Church. I have no problem with our current stance that, for those worshipping in our fellowship, tongues is a gift best exercised in private for one's personal edification. If we have few who speak in tongues, we would have almost no one with the gift of interpretation. And I guarantee you that even if tongues were interpreted, the vast majority of our congregations would feel like "foreigners" to those speaking or interpreting (cf. 1 Cor. 14:11).

Tongues would create schism in most of our communities. I have no hesitation about what I think Paul would say in such a context, mirroring things he said about the Lord's Supper, meat offered to idols, and indeed, about the use of tongues at Corinth: "Do you not have homes to pray in tongues in? I will not speak in tongues in church if it causes my brother or sister to stumble or the church to divide."

We can be thankful that the body of Christ has come to have whole denominations whose special emphasis is speaking in tongues and who freely allow for it in worship. And that allows for whole denominations who don't forbid a person from speaking in tongues, but only use intelligible languages in worship.

And after giving you my conclusion, let me give my understanding of the train of thought in 1 Corinthians 14.

1-5: It's better to prophecy than to speak in tongues, because prophecy builds up the church. Tongues tends more to build up the individual.

And here let me point out the obvious: Paul's point in 14:5 is not "I wish you all spoke in tongues." His point is "BUT I would rather have you prophecy." Remember, this is in the form of a break up line: "I really like you Ken, but I don't want to go out any more." The goal of the sentence is the part after the "but," not the part before. Notice that the possibility of interpreting tongues is not brought up in this paragraph.

6-25: Prophecy is better than tongues in worship, because it builds up the church. Paul uses examples of "confused sounds" to argue against the use of tongues in worship. And here I note that it is not until verse 13 that he first brings up the possibility of interpretation. And even then, he argues that the speaker him or herself pray to be able to interpret it. And of course if a person knew such an interpretation, there would be no need to speak in tongues in the first place. You would presumably just tell the church the prophecy straight out. In effect, even though Paul has brought up the possibility of interpretation, he has brought it up in a way that leads to the disuse of tongues in worship.

In 14:18-19 we have another break up line: "I thank God that I speak in more tongues than all of you, but in church I would prefer to speak five words with my mind than ten thousand words in a tongue." The first clause is again a concession on the way to the real point of the sentence--worship should be intelligible.

I think that it is more likely than not that Paul is claiming to have the same gift as some Corinthians are exercising. While it is possible that he means human languages, the contrast he sets up--"with my mind"--pushes us rather to see his tongues as something he does without his mind. In Romans 8:26, Paul mentions unspeakable groans of the Spirit in prayer, and some scholars think this might be Paul speaking of his use of tongues in private prayer. Can "unspeakable" mean "speaking," as in tongues?

On the other hand, 2 Corinthians 12:1-10 seems Paul's attempt to defend himself against those who would claim to have more spectacular religious experiences than him. On balance the evidence seems to favor Paul speaking in tongues. But it is not an absolute certainty since Paul generally tries to agree with the Corinthian positions as much as possible before steering them in a more profitable direction.

For the worship context, however, look at Paul's contrast: even 5 intelligible words are better than 10,000 words in a tongue. Paul does not mention the possibility of interpretation in this verse, reflecting his emphasis in the chapter away from the use of tongues in worship.

20-25 speak of the negative effect that tongues will likely have on unbelievers, urging the congregation to lean more toward prophecy. Again, Paul does not mention the possibility of interpretation in these verses, reflecting his emphasis in the chapter away from the use of tongues in worship.

In addition to unbelievers, he also mentions the potentially negative effect tongues might have on those who do not understand (idiotes). In this sense, the Wesleyan Church is largely made up of idiotes :-), those who do not understand. Paul likely wishes to prevent exactly what would happen in most Wesleyan churches if someone started praying in tongues in a worship service--the rest of the church would be idiotes to the tongue.

26-40 The remainder of the chapter lays down the rules by which tongues can be practiced in worship at Corinth. Two or at the most three people may speak in tongues during a service. They must go one at a time and only if there is an interpretation.

So Paul says not to forbid speaking in tongues at Corinth. But his trajectory is clear enough. In part because he knows what's going on at Corinth, he severely limits the use of tongues in public worship. He affirms that it is personally edifying and may even himself have the gift. But worship is about communication, and he recognizes the roundabout way in which tongues can communicate--and that only if someone has an interpretation. Prophecy thus serves the purpose of worship much more straightforwardly.

Tongues 4

4. The Situation at Corinth
Ah, the Corinthian church. I love this church and am thankful for their problems. Just think of what it would be like if we did not have 1 Corinthians... in other words, if they had not had so many problems! There is SOOO much we would not know about the early church if it weren't for them!

The fundamental problem they had was division (1 Cor. 1:10). In particular, two power blocks seemed to be locking horns. The "Paul group" was a group, presumably of church leaders and original church members, who remained loyal to Paul's authority. A second group, the "Apollos group," was likely prosperous and of some status. I suppose that some of them became Christians under the educated, eloquent, and probably upper class Apollos.

If I have it right, this Apollos group had enough clout to take others to court, to afford meat and serve it to others, and had enough wine to get drunk. I think this is largely the same group, a group that considered themselves "wise" (see 1 Cor. 6:5) and to have knowledge (8:1). Paul mocks them when he tells them how envious of them he is, since they are already reigning in the kingdom of God and all (4:8). The edges of the groups involved on any issue may have been blurry, but I see most of the problems in the church centering on two core groups in conflict.

It is difficult to know for certain how the "spiritual gift" conflict does or doesn't connect to these two basic groups. But my hunch is that those claiming to have spiritual gifts are probably primarily from the Apollos group. Why? Because this language of spirituality in 12-14 is similar to things Paul says in 2:14-15. In that context Paul strangely speaks of the "psychikos" (soulish) person versus the "pneumatikos" (spiritual) person. The wording is so unusual for Paul (and, indeed, for most ancient writings) that many think Paul is using the language of his Corinthian detractors themselves at this point.

If so, the Apollos group is likely the group claiming to be spiritual. Paul himself does not encourage eating meat offered to idols, but we can see some PhD like Apollos telling them that "we Jews know that there's no one home at the temple of Apollo. Eat the meat because you know this and, thus, your conscience is strong." Whether they or Apollos came up with this argument, it is far more likely the Apollos group claiming to have knowledge and be wise in these kinds of ways. Perhaps 1 Corinthians 2 reflects them distinguishing themeselves from others in the church, whom they are deeming "soul-ish," psychikos.

But Paul then moves to his categories in chapter 3. "I wish I could call you spiritual, but you are really fleshly." They think they are spiritual. Paul says they are carnal, fleshly, babes in Christ.

So when 1 Corinthians 12 begins, "Now concerning spiritual things..." (pneumatika: the word gifts isn't actually there in this verse), it surely relates to those claiming to be spiritual. And if we use 1 Corinthians 12 to help us understand further what some of the issues of spirituality were--you guessed it--some at Corinth were claiming to be more spiritually significant than others in the church because of their spiritual gifts.

We can basically summarize Paul's argument in 1 Corinthians 12 as "People are equally valuable no matter what spiritual gift they have." Some are eyes, some are ears, some are feet... But all valuable, and we should not look down on someone else because they are a hand.

Similarly, it is no coincidence that the "love chapter" is sandwiched in the middle of this discussion of spiritual gifts in chapters 12-14. Love is clearly the antidote to the Corinthian divisions and, more specifically, to their spiritual gift issues.

But what might be the focal point of the issue here? What spiritual gift does Paul focus on in 1 Corinthians 12-14? What is he leading the Corinthians away from, other than the way some are dishonoring those without their gift? What gift does Paul have in mind when he ends chapter 12 with "be zealous for the greater gifts" (now shifting from the value of persons to those gifts that are most beneficial to the body)?

We know the answer when Paul picks up his train of thought in chapter 14: "... be zealous for the spiritual things, but more (mallon) that you prophesy, for the one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to humans, but to God..."

After beginning with the general issue of spiritual gifts, Paul now gets down to business. Apparently the way tongues were being practiced at Corinth was the focal point of the issue over spiritual gifts and apparently tongues were the lesser gifts (in benefit) that he alluded to in 12:31. And it is no coincidence that after beginning with "God appointed first apostles..." (12:28), tongues and then their interpretation are last on the list (12:30).

In short, while Paul clearly believes that individuals who speak in tongues are equal in value to any Christian with any other gift, the overall trajectory of his rhetoric in the overall context of 1 Corinthians 14 is to move the Corinthians away from the way they are using tongues in their community. Further, he is likely moving a certain segment of the church from thinking they are more important than the others in the congregation because they speak in tongues. Paul is "reining in" the way tongues are used at Corinth.

We will consider the specifics of Paul's instructions in the next entry.

Tongues 3

3. Mark 16:17 (Textus Receptus)
"And these signs will follow those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons, they will speak in new tongues..."

For some conservative Pentecostals, this verse also plays a prominent role. I say conservative because the only translations of the New Testament that consider it to have been in the original text of Mark are the King James Version and the New King James Version. Other versions only print the text because of its historical importance, but this is in deference to tradition. Their translators did not consider them original.

After I have said this, however, I have no problems with the message of this text. I believe that Mark 16:9-20 is a pastiche of post-resurrection events that some author took probably from the endings of the other gospels and Acts. When 16:18 mentions taking up snakes, for example, I picture Paul on the island of Malta in Acts 27. The mention of Mary Magdalene in 16:9 reminds me of John. The two mentioned in 16:12 are the men on the road to Emmaus in Luke. 16:15 is drawn from the Great Commission in Matthew 28.

Finally, 16:17 surely alludes to the Day of Pentecost. The word "new" tongues ("new" isn't even in all the manuscripts that have this ending) seems simply a reference to the fact that the languages on the Day of Pentecost were new to the apostles. I suppose it is possible that it is a reference to the tongues of 1 Corinthinans 14.

So even if the passage was original, it would not contribute anything new to our discussion of tongues. For example, the verse doesn't say that every Christian will do all these things.

I might just rehearse the reasons why there is such uniform agreement that Mark 16:9-20 was not a part of the original Mark:

External Evidence
There are two types of evidence that are discussed when one is trying to decide what the original reading of a text was. This is a science that can be used on any text in which we only have copies of copies that differ from one another and we are trying to decide between the various readings to figure out what the first copy said.

With regard to what we might call "the longer ending" of Mark, the external evidence is not good. I call it the longer ending because there is also a shorter one and a longer, longer one. The presence of the shorter one shows that someone else added another ending because 16:8 didn't seem like a good way to end the gospel... and thus even those manuscripts with the shorter ending are evidence that there was no ending after 16:8 in the manuscripts before them.

Jerome (400) says that he does not know many Greek manuscripts with the longer ending. Eusebius (300's) divided up the gospels into sections but made no room for verses at this point. The longer ending is not in any of the major ancient manuscripts and translations, including the two most famous, Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. However, it was used by Tatian in the late 100's in his spliced together "four gospels" and Irenaeus knows of it as well (Justin Martyr has a sentence with some of the same words, but it's not a conclusive allusion).

A late Armenian manuscript says, "of Ariston" right before the longer ending. Ariston lived in the early 100's, but most textual scholars don't believe some copier in the 800's (I think) could know who came up with the ending when no other manuscripts say this. But Ariston did live at the right time for the creation of this ending.

To sum up the external evidence, we have evidence that the reading existed by the mid to late 100's, but it did not appear in most ancient Greek manuscripts, particularly those considered most weighty.

Internal Evidence
The internal evidence is, however, determinative. Verse 9 basically starts all over again with the post-resurrection. It's like 1-8 never happened. Verse 8 ends with the women telling no one. Then all of a sudden we're talking about "Now having risen on the first day" again. The women were the subject in verse 8. Then Jesus is suddenly the subject in verse 9. This fact alone militates against the verses being original.

There are at least nine words or phrases in these few short verses (including connecting phrases) that appear no where else in Mark, and the style is different. These verses are more of a summary than the narrative we have been reading up to this point. I've already mentioned that the content of this ending is a pastiche of references from other gospels. If these verses were original, they would be the most "harmonistic" track of gospel anywhere in the four gospels. That's one of the reasons why many don't notice how odd they are--because we're used to reading the gospels as a single witness to Jesus rather than four distinct witness.

In short, there are a few ultra-conservative people with PhD's who think these verses are original. But their very position on this issue demonstrates to me that they have come to the evidence with their conclusion already in hand. I consider no one a reliable textual scholar who thinks these verses were original.

As a side note, I have finally admitted to myself that Mark probably did have some other ending that is lost. It would be unprecedented for a book to end with the word "for" (which is how it ends in the Greek... I won't go into it). And the other places in Mark where the word "fear" is used in this way, someone is usually afraid of something. Witherington thinks the ending of Matthew is the best place for us to go to figure out what the original ending might have looked like. That's a fair enough suggestion, if Matthew used Mark, but given the beginning of Mark, I doubt Mark had as much at the end as Matthew does.

Tongues 2

2. Tongues in Acts
Most Pentecostals understandably make their home in Acts 2 (thus, Pentecost-als ;-). Acts 2 provides for many a direct association between being filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. Thus for the original Pentecostals (who had their roots in the holiness movement), speaking in tongues was a second or even third "work of grace" for a Christian after conversion. For those like the United Pentecostal Church, who see the Spirit-fillings of Acts as an essential part of conversion, it is a short step to say that you can't even be a Christian if you do not speak in tongues.

There are a number of problems here.

For one thing, the book of Acts does not say anywhere that tongues are always involved when the Holy Spirit fills a person. There are of course three incidents in Acts where tongues are mentioned when the Holy Spirit comes (Acts 2:4; 10:46; 19:6). But there are other places where the Spirit comes and tongues are not mentioned (Acts 4:31; 8:17-19; 9:17-19; and the rest of Acts).

A person who argues you have to speak in tongues to have the Spirit is arguing from the silence of the text. I think Acts does indicate that tongues of its sort are an indication that you have the Spirit (e.g., 10:46). But Acts never says the opposite is true: that you will speak in tongues if you have the Holy Spirit. It never says this.

I might also add that 1 Corinthians 12:30 gives me the final answer on the issue of whether all Christians will speak in tongues: "All don't speak in tongues, do they?" In Greek this is a question introduced by me, thus a question expecting a no answer: "Do all speak in tongues? No" is a legitimate translation. And for those UPCers out there, Paul doesn't say, "Do all have the gift of tongues?" He simply says that all do not speak (laleo) in tongues, the same word that Acts 2:4 uses when it says the apostles spoke (laleo) in different tongues.

As a matter of argument, tongues are rarely mentioned in the New Testament as a whole. They feature prominently in 1 Corinthians where Paul is addressing a problem in the Corinthian church. But he doesn't even mention them in his list of spiritual gifts in Romans 12:6-8 (see their absence also in Ephesians 4:7-13). Indeed, they are last on his list even in 1 Corinthians 12:10. In short, a Pentecostal would not have written the New Testament this way--it would not look this way if their emphases were that of the NT authors.

So what of those Pentecostals who would distinguish between tongues as evidence of the Holy Spirit and tongues as a gift, as in 1 Corinthians 12-14? First, this is not a distinction we find the Bible ever making. That's a tell tale sign of a Christian tradition taking over, when the heart of a doctrine is nowhere stated. It's an ingenious way of splicing Acts to 1 Corinthians--just not one the Bible ever says. And I've already mentioned that 1 Corinthians 12:30 argues against this line of interpretation.

Again, if tongues were the evidence of the Holy Spirit, then we would expect it to go hand in hand with any discussion of the Holy Spirit. We would expect John to say the Holy Spirit leads into all truth (John 16:13), convicts of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8), and you will know it because you will speak in tongues. We would expect Romans to say that the Spirit bears witness with our Spirit as we speak in tongues and tells us we are a child of God (Romans 8:16). We would expect Paul to say that the Holy Spirit is a downpayment that guarantees our inheritance (2 Cor. 5:5; Eph. 1:14), God's seal of ownership on us (2 Cor. 1:22), made clear as we speak in tongues. And it would sure be great if Hebrews 6:4 would be a little clearer in telling us that the heavenly gift it has in mind is speaking in tongues--it does relate it to partaking of the Holy Spirit, after all.

A Pentecostal would have told us these things in these passages. The New Testament authors did not. The most logical reason they don't is because they do not think of tongues every time they think of the Holy Spirit.

A second thing to think about is the fact that the tongues in Acts 2 are human languages, at least that is the most natural way to take it. I think Charles Carter used to suggest that they were speaking the same thing as 1 Corinthians 14, but that the people were given the gift of interpretation to where they heard it in their own languages. Ingenious! But of course Acts says nothing like this. It is another reading into the text to iron out an issue in our theology.

"They began to speak in different languages [tongues] as the Spirit was giving to them to speak out" (Acts 2:4) ... "... each one was hearing them speak in his own dialect (2:6) ... we hear them speaking in our languages [tongues] the great things of God (2:11)."

It seems to me that the most natural way to take this is that they spoke in different languages and the people heard them in those different languages.

I suspect strongly that the tongues of those who claim that their tongues are the evidence of the Holy Spirit would not pass a foreign language test. Yet this seems to be the tongues of Acts 2.

And while Acts 10 and 19 do not tell us if the tongues are foreign languages or not, the book of Acts itself gives us no basis to consider it anything different from the tongues of Acts 2. That is, Acts never informs us of the 1 Corinthians 14 type of tongues. In the story world of Acts, they do not clearly exist. The burden of proof is thus on anyone who would argue that the tongues in Acts 10 and 19 are angelic languages or prayer languages or ecstatic languages or anything other than the different human languages of Acts 2.

So why does Luke mention tongues these three times?

It is interesting to me that the interpretation Peter gives of the tongues in Acts 2 is a Scripture from Joel that sees prophecy as a primary feature of the coming of the Spirit. This fits with the fact that the tongues in Acts 2 are used for missionary purposes--not for personal edification as the "evidence" of the Spirit turns out to be in the UPC. One of Luke's special emphasis is that the gospel is for the whole world and to the ends of the earth. How appropriate that the prophetic message be given to people from all over the world through the ability to speak in their languages!

I believe Luke mentions the tongues in Acts 10 to make it clear that the experience of the Gentiles wasn't different in any way from the experience of Jews on the Day of Pentecost. This was a very important point so that Jewish Christians could not claim any superiority over Gentile Christians. Again, tongues in Acts 10 serve an important corporate purpose.

Similarly, I believe that Acts 19 mentions tongues to make it doubly clear that being baptized by John the Baptist was not the same thing as being baptized by the Spirit. The tongues emphasize this point. Again, tongues serve to make a theological point here.

A final note. The text of Acts 2, presenting us with events on the Day of Pentecost, has proved to be extremely important as a sacrament of revelation both to Wesleyan and Pentecostal communities of faith. Indeed, this text is more important to us than to most other Christian communities. A good deal of our past identity is tied up with a particular reading of this text. Without closing the doors to these sacramental means of theological grace, we might also keep in mind an original meaning concern in the process.

While we have four gospels, we have only one Acts. Those gospels are often quite unique from each other and can differ both in arrangement and emphasis. Indeed, in some instances we might be quite misled if we had only one of them.

For example, we would not know that Mary and Joseph came from Nazareth to Bethlehem if we didn't have Luke. We would think they had always lived in Bethlehem and only moved to Nazareth after Jesus was born (from Matthew). Similarly, we would not know that Jesus spoke in parables or cast out demons if all we had was John.

Here's the warning: if we had second volumes to Matthew, Mark, or John, they would likely differ as much from Acts as Luke differs from Matthew, Mark, and John. Unfortunately, we don't know exactly how they would differ.

So we probably should not take Acts to be a straightforward videotape of events in the life of the early church. This fact argues against basing the core of one's theology on a specific way of reading between the lines of the specifics of Acts. And that is exactly what Pentecostals tend to do.

Tongues 1

I don't know how much I will blog on tongues, but this entry hath come forth.

What are tongues?
The Greek word glossa means "tongue" (as in the organ in your mouth) but also by extension, "language" (the thing your tongue speaks). Paul mentions the "tongues of humans and angels" in 1 Corinthians 13:1, and the fact that the Testament of Job tells of Job's daughters speaking in angelic tongues leads us to take "angels" seriously in this verse (although some argue it is a later Christian addition to the text). In other words, when certain non-Christian Jews spoke in "tongues," they apparently believed they were speaking in angelic languages.

Were they? Were the Corinthians possibly speaking in angelic languages? I personally doubt it, but must remain open to the possibility. Paul speaks of the "third heaven" (2 Cor. 12:2) and likely alludes to the dead "under the earth" (Phil. 2:10), but I see such language as God incarnating truth in their ancient worldview. Of course don't take me to believe the sun goes around the earth just because I might occasionally say something about the "sun setting." So we have at least three possibilities: 1) sometimes people do speak in angelic languages, 2) Paul never really understood the phrase "angelic languages" literally in the first place, and 3) while he may have thought of them literally, this is an instance of God revealing something through their ancient worldview.

We actually get mixed signals on whether tongues are human languages (xenoglossia) or not in the biblical texts. In Acts 2, the most obvious interpretation is that the disciples are speaking in human languages. Jews hear the gospel proclaimed in their own tongues from all around the Mediterranean Sea. On the other hand, Paul speaks of the tongues at Corinth more in terms of "the tongues of angels." They do not pray with their minds (14:10, 19). The words are unintelligible (cf. 14:7-11). And Paul's presumption is that unbelievers will not understand them (14:21-23).

So the Bible implies that tongues might be human languages or they might be something else that Paul alludes to in one way or another as "tongues of angels."

I might point out that in something like its 1 Corinthians 14 variety, tongues seems to be a pan-religious phenomenon. I have already mentioned non-Christian Jews above who apparently spoke in tongues. I do not feel it necessary to say that such individuals were demon possessed or that Satan was in these instances counterfeiting the genuine article. The most logical explanation to me is that certain brains are just wired to have these kinds of experiences. And in the case of Christians, God sanctifies the experience as a means of grace. This is just my personal hunch as to what is going on in the vast majority of cases where tongues is spoken today. I am open to other possibilities.

So the Bible refers to two different kinds of activity as speaking in tongues. First, in Acts 2 individuals speak in tongues in a way that serves as a witness to unbelievers. Second, in 1 Corinthians 14 Paul speaks of tongues that shouldn't be done around unbelievers (glossolalia). But the biblical text refers to both as tongues. You cannot tell by the word "tongues" itself which the Bible refers to apart from context.

What Bugs Me About the United Pentecostal Church

Every year it seems I end up talking to some student about a faith crisis they're in because someone from the UPC is evangelizing them. I wrote a little on this last year (it's on my archive site www.kenschenck.com). I may actually write up a formal response sometime--this isn't it.

Today I just want to make it clear what bugs me about the UPC.

First, I like the people I know in it. I think they're good people. They're vibrant. Indeed, the main attraction of the church that there's something going on there. And then there's the certainty both of what they believe and about what is true in general. In an uncertain world of grey, that's a plus.

Second, the fact that they speak in tongues doesn't bug me. Tongues is a pan-religious phenomenon that has been around forever. We have literature that indicates some ancient Jews spoke in tongues. There are Muslims who speakin tongues. And of course many Christians speak in tongues. I would never accuse someone of being demon possessed for speaking in tongues.

Acts clearly sanctions tongues, particularly understood as speaking in other languages that one hasn't studied. Bill Faupel, who used to be a librarian at Asbury, did his doctoral dissertation on how the individuals in Topeka in 1901 who mark the beginnings of the modern charismatic movement 1) were holiness folk seeking the Pentecostal blessing understood as a second work of entire sanctification and 2) thought that they were speaking in human languages. Evidently many of them actually went to foreign countries thinking that they would be able to spread the gospel to them because of their experience of tongues. Of course they failed miserably.

Paul addresses tongues as a problem in the Corinthian church (they don't even make his list of spiritual gifts in Romans 12 where tongues is not at issue, an indication that tongues was not high on Paul's list of priorities). He says not to forbid speaking in tongues--note the trajectory he is moving in: away from tongues but don't forbid, not toward tongues but don't promote. In the flow of that argument 14:1 is a continuation of 12:31, which indicates that prophecy is a "greater gift" while tongues is one he is not saying to eagerly desire.

I'm getting off topic. My goal was not to "put the gift of tongues in its place," although this is my attempt at an objective assessment of tongues. Tongues simply is not a major emphasis of the New Testament and the New Testament would not look the way it does if a Pentecostal had written its books. It's easy to get lost in an exegetical forest of interpreting individual verses. Indeed, the exegetical ethos of our circles fosters a spirit of "reading into the text."

I'll be the first to admit up front that my holiness background did exactly the same thing. But there is no single place in the entire Bible where the "second work of grace, entire sanctification doctrine" is laid down the way I heard it preached growing up. If a holiness preacher of my background had written the New Testament, it would not look the way it does. I step back and conclude that there is some myopia at work here.

But the speaking in tongues does not bother me. I truly believe that those who speak in tongues are experiencing God and how can that be anything other than a blessing, to have such a clear moment of divine engagement. Those with the gift are truly blessed in this regard. No better and definitely not more spiritual, but blessed. I can live easily with this feature of the UPC.

Third, I can live with their heretical views of the Trinity. I'm a proto-Pentecostal as we've said, so I'm more interested in the heart than the head. If God always corrected everyone's head then all Christians would believe the same thing. They don't.

Of course this group thinks all Christians think the same way. But in effect this leads them to believe that the only true Christians were the original church and members of their church since the early 1900's. I'm sure just on the percentage of human beings whose head is hard wired for tongues that a certain percentage of all humans speak in tongues at any one point in history. So we know there have been Christians in all times who have spoken in tongues (and Buddhists and members of mystery cults in ancient Greece).

BUT, we don't know of any Christians who were modalists who spoke in tongues, let alone who were baptized in the name of Jesus only, until the early 1900's.

Similarly, as a New Testament scholar I can say they're going the wrong direction with regard to the New Testament. The debate in the NT is whether the early Christians even believed Jesus to be divine in the same way as God the Father. The debate is not whether Jesus and God the Father are different individuals. It is not until the late 200's that modalism emerges as one potential solution to how Jesus and God the Father can both be God.

This puts them in the strange position of being the only Christians in the history of Christianity who are going to heaven.

But I can live with their head being a little off.

Fourth, it doesn't bother me that they think I'm not a Christian. I understand how religious ideas work. I know it's not personal. I'm sure that some of them think they're "holier than thou" but I bet the best of them aren't. There's nothing wrong with believing you're right. The logical consequences are that I'm wrong and not on my way to heaven.

But I can live with that, because I know I am. The Spirit bears witness with my Spirit that I am a child of God. And of course, as usual, there is no mention of tongues in 1 John (or John, or Matthew, or Mark, or Luke, or 2 Corinthians, or ....), so I will only conclude that this verse involves tongues if I bring that idea to the text with me. The Bible doesn't say it.

So I can live with them saying I'm on my way to hell.

Fifth, what really bugs me is the faith crisis they throw others into who aren't as sure as I am. And that's why I feel the need to put the group into proper perspective at some point. What do you call a group that stands outside the historic faith of the church as a twentieth century off shoot of a historical movement particular to its time that doesn't know how to read Scripture in context and thinks only its members are Christians. You call it a cult.

United Pentecostal Church 1

There is a vibrant UPC community in and around Indiana Wesleyan, and every year it seems like various questions arise by students about it, so I thought I would blog a somewhat more formal response on my part that I can use for any future engagement.

Identifying the Church's Distinctives
First of all, the church's website identifies itself in the following way:

"The doctrinal views of the UPCI reflect most of the beliefs of the Holiness-Pentecostal movement, with the exception of the "second work of grace," the historic doctrine of the Trinity, and the traditional Trinitarian formula in water baptism. It embraces the Pentecostal view that speaking in tongues is the initial sign of receiving the Holy Spirit."

This is a very good summary of its distinctives and before we go into much detail on it, it will be helpful to "parse" these statements:

1. It's beliefs reflect most of the beliefs of the Holiness-Pentecostal movement.
The founders of the UPC were initially part of the assemblies of God movement that became somewhat organized in 1914. But in 1916 when the Assemblies of God Church formalized its doctrinal beliefs, the founders of the UPC went their own way primarily over the doctrine of the Trinity.

2. ...with the exeption of the "second work of grace"


3. ... the historic doctrine of the Trinity, and the traditional Trinitarian formula in water baptism
The UPC in this regard stands outside the historic faith of the church and implies as much when it speaks of the "historic" doctrine of the Trinity.

We should emphasize the uniqueness of their position on this matter. You can point to speaking in tongues throughout the history of the church here and there. The vast majority of those who have called themselves Christians throughout the ages have not spoken in tongues. For this reason, the UPC must by virtue of their doctrine say that the overwhelming majority of those who have called themselves Christians have not really been Christians.

But their claims are far more radical than this. It is not just non-tongues speakers who are not Christians--it is those who have been baptized in the name of the Trinity. There were of course modalists in the early church, particularly in the late 200's. A modalist is someone who believes that God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are all different phases of one person, that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are not distinct or different persons but the same person at different points of time. But we have no evidence that a single one of these spoke in tongues. I imagine a few did, just going on the percentages of people in the world (Christian and non-Christian) who experience tongues at any one point in history. But even if a few modalists did speak in tongues, they still baptized in the name of the Trinity--they believed the Trinitarian formula meant something else, but still used it.

The importance of this combination--both tongues and modalist baptizing in the name of Jesus only--effectively implies that the only people who will be in heaven are members of the UPC in the twentieth and now twenty-first century. This arbitrary conglomeration going to heaven is so restrictive that we must classify the UPC as a cult.

The UPC is of course pre-modern in its use of Scripture and so doesn't notice how bizarre a claim this is from a historical perspective--that the only people we know are going to heaven for sure are those who since the early 1900's have both spoken in tongues and been baptized in the name of Jesus only.

Mr. Litfin goes to Marion

Dr. Duane Litfin, president of Wheaton College, was on campus yesterday. He seems a very honorable man and was very gracious even when uncomfortable questions were asked him by one particularly dogged member of our current faculty. You all might remember that Wheaton fired a professor for converting to Roman Catholicism last year. I am sincerely torn on whether Litfin did the right thing for Wheaton.

I respect the right of private religious institutions to set ideological boundaries around their faculty and students, as long as it is done from true conviction and not from hate or prejudice of an emotive sort. Don't ask me how to parse that legally. I do indeed find it a difficult issue. Would I allow for a Nazi school that taught Jews, homosexuals, and African-Americans should be killed?

Again, these are difficult days to know how the legalities will play out. For many in the broader culture, prohibiting a homosexual from teaching is tantamount to the same thing. Perhaps one solution is in ethical standards. There seems no harm, for example, it prohibiting anyone from teaching who has sex, period. So surely there is no harm in prohibiting anyone from teaching who has sex and is not married (then you have the wrinkle if gay marriage becomes legal). Some of you out there will have to argue these cases. It is an important issue to wrestle with at some point.

I do believe, however, that there is one serious flaw in Litfin's arguments for why he had to fire the man who converted to Catholicism. More than once yesterday Litfin implied that sola scriptura was in the "Statement of Faith" of Wheaton. If this were the case, then I think I would have to concede that you cannot be Roman Catholic and teach at Wheaton. I say this even though the very concept of sola scriptura is an impossibility of language, especially given the fact that the Bible is not a single book and it was written concretely to ancient audiences (meaning it was not written in the format of a timeless theological tractate). Those of you who read me regularly know my line of thought here.

There are two reasons why these comments seem to me logically flawed:

1. I double checked Wheaton's Statement of Faith and this does not seem to be the case. Here is Wheaton's statement:

"WE BELIEVE that God has revealed Himself and His truth in the created order, in the Scriptures, and supremely in Jesus Christ; and that the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are verbally inspired by God and inerrant in the original writing, so that they are fully trustworthy and of supreme and final authority in all they say."

There is nothing here about sola scriptura, and the man had no problem affirming this statement. In my opinion, Litfin had an insufficient basis to fire the man in terms of this statement.

2. However, Litfin might have fired him on the basis of this statement, also in the statement of faith: "The statement accordingly reaffirms salient features of the historic Christian creeds, thereby identifying the College not only with the Scriptures but also with the reformers and the evangelical movement of recent years."

Ah, the professor's understanding of the phrase "supreme and final authority in all they say" does not fit with the what "the reformers and the evangelical movement of recent years." So perhaps Litfin might legally fire the man on this basis.

BUT, he has thereby deconstructed his sola scriptura claim thereby! The statement clearly identifies--and Litfin by firing him affirms--that the problem is not with this man's faith in the Bible, but in the particular magisterium to which he subscribes.

The magisterium of Wheaton is "the reformers and the evangelical movement." They are Wheaton's pope and council. So be honest, Litfin. The sola scriptura argument is a bit of a smoke screen. By making recourse to the reformers (extra scripturam) you have deconstructed your own argument. The problem you have with this man is mainly that he's Catholic, not evangelical.

The Future of the Wesleyan Church

Bud Bence has a question he often asks, a variation on Robert Frost's well known statement that he had a "lover's quarrel with the world." "Do you," Bence asks, "have a lover's quarrel with your church?"

I suppose many Wesleyans over the years have had various lover's quarrels with our church. Several decades ago the boomers had a major quarrel with legalism. Then for the last few decades many have quarreled with what they saw as a "small church mentality." Some who've gone to seminary have quarreled with what they saw as ignorance in the church. Emergents are currently quarreling with artificiality and failure to have impact on the world in areas other than just the soul.

But you can't find lasting identity in a quarrel. To endure a group needs a positive identity and not just a negative one.

In the last few posts I've selected parts of our Wesleyan past that I personally find attractive and worth further pursuit. I've not intentionally skewed our history, but it's clear at the same time that our story could have been told much differently by someone with other priorities.

In a few days I'll go back to my old habits of posting on whatever happens to suit my fancy at the moment. But I'd like to recap some of the things that I am enthusiastic about in our tradition. In some cases I am trying to create self-fulfilling prophecies for the future, even if I believe my starting points are true to our tradition. I hope someone out there will embrace them too and work to "make it so." In particular, a Wesleyan seminary could take on these kinds of values from its very inception, creating a focal point of Wesleyan identity among (hopefully) many others.

Here are some of the core points I think are apt for our future:

1. Wesleyans have a head, but our hearts and attention to the Spirit have always taken priority and have led the way. We would far rather your doctrine be a little off than your heart. Do you love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength? Are you serving Him according to the light you have? Does your life show that you "do all to the glory of God"?

For me this last comment is perhaps the very essence of our values and identity. When we are committed to doing all to the glory of God, then we are certainly not sinning intentionally (the systematic theologian here notes that it is only by God's grace and the Spirit's empowerment that any of this can take place).

And in our affirmation of the possibility to live above sin, we are expressing an optimism and hopefulness for individuals and the world that stands at the heart of who we are. No one and no area of any human's life is beyond redemption. We are Arminians and thus believe that anyone can be saved. We are proto-Pentecostals who believe in healing and miracles. I think it would be possible to rewrite all the values I have tried to express here as the outworking of this one principle of doing all to the glory of God.

I know it might "technically" be wrong to approach such core matters from the human perspective... A systematic theologian--perhaps even Wesley himself--would begin with God or the Trinity or prevenient grace. But in some strange revivalist, pre-now-post-modern, quasi-pietist way, I think the flavor of our heritage starts with this basic dictum: "You must completely belong to God. You already do, for God is God. Are you willing, by the grace of God at work within you, to consent to that which is already true?" We might reflectively place a thousand pages of theological prolegomena to get us to this point, but the real beginning of my becoming is the first moment when I give the most limited consent to this question.

And since none of us does theology outside of our individual I, no individual's theology can properly begin apart from the birth of this question in his or her life.

2. In the light of our heart orientation, we have a limited but significant "generous orthodoxy." We allow for some breadth of understanding when it comes to things like baptism, end times, communion, and even in how we understand the particulars of inerrancy. Because our identity is centered in the heart toward God, we by-pass some of the thornier theological divides of history.

3. We are a Bible-focused church, but not in a modernist way. We value the original meaning but recognize that the biblical meaning that has always been authoritative has been a matter of a Spiritual common sense mediated through the church of the ages and the particular understandings to which God has led our tradition. Whether we like it our not, the Fall has made it such that particular interpretations are more determinative than idealogical affirmations.

4. But we do have beliefs and they cohere with our hearts. Some stand in strong continuity with John Wesley. Thus we believe in the power of God to give victory over temptation, that a Christian does not, indeed must not, sin willfully. We believe further in the power of the Spirit to heal our "bent to sinning" in this life! We believe that the Lordship of Christ means Lordship over every part of our lives.

5. We believe in the Great Commission and the call to make disciples of every nation, including our own. We do not view the local church as a hide out or retreat for a few but as a place where communities are changed and the kingdom of God grows.

6. We affirm full salvation well beyond our souls. We believe that the Spirit can speak as authoritatively through a woman as through a man. We believe that God wants to change the world through the church now and not just in the judgment.

These are things that I am proud of about our tradition. They are the picture of a church with which I would have no need to quarrel. More significantly, they are to me the picture of a church that God can use powerfully to change the world we live in, the kind of church that the world sorely needs.

Real Denomination 4: Wesley-an

In the first post, I argued that the most basic flavor of our denomination is "revivalist" or might we say, "a pietist mutation"? The Wesleyan Church is a church oriented around the Spirit, with much in common with Pentecostals in terms of how we look and operate. Our most formative decades emphasized personal holiness and a "second blessing" experience of the Holy Spirit.

The language of our "spiritual" identity was the Scriptures. While our fathers and mothers often did not read the Bible in context, they breathed the Scriptures as they preached and presented what they believed the Holy Spirit had to say. The last thirty years have seen some correctives to some excesses. In particular, we (over?) corrected the legalism into which a belief in "Christian perfection" can so easily slip. In some quarters, we replaced a "inward looking" orientation with an emphasis on evangelism, discipleship, church planting, and growing the church. To be fair, we had always had a huge emphasis on "classical" missions, even going so far as getting our children to commit 52 cents a year to missions.

We probably threw out some good with the excesses. We have used Scripture less, and we have lost our sense of personal holiness to some extent. Many Wesleyans today find themselves somewhat adrift with little sense of why we're even here.

In all these comments, the question arises--if we are so much a denomination of heart and experience, do we also have a head? Is there a place in our church for the person God has gifted intellectually as well? Given our past, must we be anti-education? Many in our "neck of the woods" are. Some in our pulpits have not always been great friends of further education. Do we deemphasize cognition as much as, say, the Anabaptist tradition seems to?

Surely we can't because of our very name--Wesley-an! I have a certain delight that Wesley was not the founder of our specific church, for then we can't get bogged down in hero worship. Wesley provides the background, not the foreground, for our identity. This is a point many a Wesleyan seminarian should remember. In a sense we cannot "get back" to Wesley, for he predates our origins. He is prolegomena. We have inherited his DNA, but we have a mother too with her own genes.

But what important DNA! My intent is to set out some of the elements of our identity that show Wesley's DNA in our genes. Wesley is the best place to start to discuss the "head" that's guided by our heart. And I would argue Wesley is also the best place to start discussing the "feet" I hear young Wesleyans trying to get moving. And indeed, Wesley would have been a great one for the leaders of our "church growth phase" to reference as well. As it was, we more seemed to follow the lead of others in the contemporary American scene. It's not too late to give some grounding to those correct impulses retroactively from our own tradition!

Wesley: Assurance of Salvation
These days everybody believes that you can know you are bound for heaven--even Baptists. But in Wesley's day, this was a more unusual thing to believe. The Calvinists of Puritan New England, even John Bunyan in Pilgrim's Progress--these did not believe you could know you were predestined until you got there. By the way, Wesley can apparently thus claim some role in the current Baptist belief of eternal security. Perseverence of the saints only becomes apparent after you have persevered. The current Calvinist sense that you can know now and thus will make it thereafter, is a hybrid of classic Calvinism with Wesley's belief in assurance in this life.

P.S. Wesleyans still believe you can know if you are on the way to heaven. And time forbids that I go on to speak of how profoundly the Arminian tradition can contributie to theology in the postmodern age. Calvinism will struggle in this age. Its arrogant claims to having God figured out turn out to be confessions of ignorance about a God whose ways are past finding out. What a shame Wheaton--founded originally as a Wesleyan school--chose to leave us and take the path of modernist Calvinism!

Wesley: Full Salvation
When we think of Wesley today, we probably think more about his contribution of entire sanctification to theology than the idea of the assurance of salvation, since the latter is now widely held. Wesley taught that a person should be victorious over willful sin from the moment they become a Christian. But a few, he believed, would find themselves set free in this life from the "bent to sinning" as well--the tendency to sin, the sinful nature. He called this "Christian perfection."

The belief in victory over sin in this world is not a very common belief in the church today. Yet it is the clear teaching of the entire Bible. I cannot think of a single verse in the entirety of the Bible that in any way advocates intentional sin as a normal or expected part of a Christian's life. This remains one of the greatest strengths of our tradition and one in which almost all other Christian traditions remain in the dark.

Of course our version of entire sanctification came more directly through Phoebe Palmer and the holiness movement of the 1800's. While Wesley saw few experiencing Christian perfection and probably late in life, Palmer taught "the shorter way" and made it the expectation of all Christians to experience it. Further, from John Fletcher on, American Methodists increasingly identified the Spirit-fillings of Acts as experiences of entire sanctification.

I personally would say that the "death" of the holiness movement pronounced by Drury ten years ago was more a death of Palmer type holiness than the Wesley type. A conference last year on salvation at Wesleyan Church HQ found strong support by Wesleyan educators of a more John Wesley version of the doctrine. While it is arguably less Wesleyan in terms of our own history, it looks like this form of the doctrine actually has actually survived. It was in the heart of the tree that looked so dead, a life hidden inside to view but now sprouting and about to bloom on the tree again.

Wesleyans thus continue to believe in the necessity of victory over sin and the power of God to free all Christians from the power of sin.

Wesley: "No Holiness but Social Holiness"
In the early twentieth century, some conservatives became averse to phrases like "social holiness." It sounds too much like "social gospel," a theme propagated in the early twentieth century by Christians who had ceased to believe in the divinity of Christ but liked the helping the poor part of the gospel.

But those in our tradition who might have thrown out the social implications of the gospel threw the baby out with the bath water. This is an essential part of our DNA. Wesley is known for the saying, "There is no holiness but social holiness." By it he implied that any sense of Christian holiness that does not lead to positive social action is no real holiness. It was this impulse that lead Wesley to preach to coal miners in the north of England and the reason why even today English Methodism is heavily composed of the everyday working class of England. Some think England was spared the bloody revolution of France in part for the actions of people like Wesley who gave hope to the disempowered.

So it was when Methodism entered America. The Midwest is a powerhouse in Methodism because this was the frontier when the gospel entered America. And while their children are now upper middle class, they were originally the salt of American earth.

Our more specific roots were founded in the abolitionist movement, as the Wesleyan Methodist Connection withdrew from the Methodist Episcopal Church for its refusal to take a stand against slavery. The women's rights movement--something some modern Wesleyans are embarrassed about--is usually dated from a meeting in a Wesleyan Church in the late 1800's in Seneca Falls, New York. I proudly celebrate that our fathers and mothers were fighting for women to be able to vote when other Christians were emphasizing that women should stay in their "place."

I disdain any Wesleyan who has questions about women in ministry or Pharisaic restrictions on what a woman can do in the home. You don't deserve such a rich tradition--you're the type that would have opposed women voting back when we were leading the way of the Spirit in the cause of "full salvation" for women as well as men. You were the Methodists whose Judaizing tendencies led you to keep quiet in the days of slavery or even oppose their emancipation. Find your way to some other more impoverished tradition.

In the early 1900's there was no stigma to a woman minister in our churches. It was only after WW2, when men came home from the war to find women empowered in the workplace and increasingly in society, that the numbers of women in ministry began to decline in our churches. They had lots of children in the baby boom, no doubt diverting many from ministry. Meanwhile, some men felt intimidated by the increasing power of women in society, and the result was a backlash among bigots and the insecure who hid behind the mask of the Bible. But now the disease has infected even the well-intentioned, people like Dobson who--with Nazarene roots--should know better.

This social dimension passed on into many of the Methodist offshoots of the late 1800's. The Salvation Army is a perfect example of the spirit that was also a part of our forebears. It has survived at the grass roots level of the Wesleyan Church--what Wesleyan Church has not kept a food pantry for the homeless or needy who might come to the parsonage door? While many other conservatives oppose helping the needy as if it were actually unchristian in some way, many of our most conservative holiness churches--the ones we have sometimes disdained as legalistic--have continued to reach out to the poor and needy. The father of the president-elect of IWU spent his entire life humbly and without acclaim--practically unnoticed--faithfully ministering to the down and out of Frankfort, Indiana. That's the stuff of our genes!

Wesley: Missional
Wesley saw one of his tasks as "the spreading of Scriptural holiness throughout the land." This man was not perfect. Indeed, one of his "sins" was that he did so much mission that he did not give appropriate attention to his marriage. This man circled England again and again and again preaching the good news to anyone who would hear. He was a church planter, an evangelist, a discipler whose class meetings set up incredible accountability for individual Christians. His writings are a treasure trove of resources for the next generation of Wesleyans to plunder.


What do I take from all this?
1. Wesleyans believe in victory over sin and the fullness of the Spirit.
This is the greatest current contribution our tradition can perhaps make to theology. We believe that every person by God's power can consistently defeat sin. And while the phrase "the fullness of the Spirit" is not strictly a biblical phrase, we can legitimately use it to push for a moment (a moment that must be repeatedly affirmed) in which we surrender everything we know about in our lives at that moment to God and are thus able to be fully under the control of the Holy Spirit.

2. Wesleyans take the Great Commission seriously.
Go into all the world and make disciples. We've never stopped believing in our mission to the whole world. And the last thirty years have emphasized that we should never just settle for the status quo of our church, but be ever pushing to bring more in.

3. That commission involves a mission to the whole person.
We stand squarely behind the full personhood and spirituality of women without pigeonholing them into some rigid, legalistic preconception of what God can and cannot do through them. We continue to stand for the oppressed and disempowered both at home and abroad. I have a feeling that the emerging generation will play out this part of our heritage with a vengeance.

4. Open season on the theological and practical seeds of our tradition that the Spirit is just waiting to quicken to the next generation!

Real Denomination 3: People of the Book

3. Wesleyans are people of the Bible.
Wesleyans are people of the book. The Bible is our playground, the air we breathe. As good Wesley-ans, we wisely recognize that there are always other factors in play, factors like Christian tradition and the experience of the Holy Spirit (think "Wesley's Quadrilateral"). But we usually factor these things into our discussion as we look at biblical texts. And when we reach the end of the discussion, we usually express our conclusions in biblical terms.

From where we stand today looking back, we recognize that our fathers and mothers read the Bible much the way the New Testament authors and church fathers did. They joined their Spiritual common sense to an intimate knowledge of the biblical text. As they did this, they typically read the Bible as God's Word to them, often without paying too much attention to the meaning God intended for its original audiences.

It is good for us now to pursue a deep understanding of the original meaning as well. But we are also in a good position now to recognize that the "Spiritual, church" approach of our forebears is what the Bible itself models, as indeed have the "community of saints" throughout the ages. When the Spirit speaks to the church through the words in this way, woe to the one who questions the message!

Yet in addition, many of our biblical scholars have also been classic evangelicals. Dr. Stephen Paine, president of Houghton, singlehandedly convinced the Wesleyan Methodist Church in the 1950s to add the word inerrancy to its Discipline. And while the broader church may not have known much about the issues he was wrestling with, the Pilgrim Holiness Church agreed to include it in the Wesleyan Discipline in the 1968 merger as an affirmation of faith in the trustworthiness of the Bible.

But the Wesleyan Church has never defined exactly what the term inerrancy means, unlike the Southern Baptists. It is for us a strong affirmation of the truthfulness of the Bible in all its parts, that the Bible both in individual passages and as a whole is truthful in what it affirms. But inerrancy has never been a modernist straightjacket for us as it has been for some other churches of a more fundamentalist flavor. In contrast to them, our leaders and general conferences have consistently defined us as having more in common with evangelicals than with fundamentalists (although I would argue that our "spiritual" approach has more untapped potential than both!). This is a great advantage for us as a church, because it means our identity is not locked up with a passing phase of mid-twentieth century culture.

The dawning of the post-modern age has drawn our attention to a key issue that the Christians of our age must face. It is one thing to affirm the inspiration, authority, and inerrancy of the Bible. But two people can affirm all these things and yet have widely different understandings of what the Bible is saying or affirming (see David Koresh!). Perhaps even more important than affirming that the Bible is authoritative is determining what meaning is the authoritative meaning!

Whether we like it or not, this inevitably pushes us back to the Spirit and the church, for it is here that we are forced to join the meanings of individual biblical texts to other individual biblical texts. James does not tell us how to join its teaching to Paul or visa versa--this is a task we are forced to do. And 1 Peter does not tell us exactly how to translate instructions to a disempowered and oppressed minority to a world where we elect our leaders and can change our laws. We are forced to do this, even if we wish the Bible did not require us to wrestle with such issues.

So who decides how to hear the Spirit directly in the words when we are reading the words as a direct Word to us, and thus are reading the words out of their original contexts? And when we are reading the words in context, and thus recognize that these words were not written directly to us, who decides how to connect the individual meanings of individual books with each other and then indirectly with us? Who decides how to process the Word to us from this starting point?

Here we return to where we began. Our fathers and mothers combined their Spiritual common sense with an intimate knowledge of the biblical text. And the results were a number of beliefs that formed their identity. Every group does this--they read the Bible and find themselves gravitating toward the Scriptures that best express their understanding of what God is saying to them. While a group may claim to get their beliefs from the Scriptures alone, in reality the use of the Bible is always a combination of 1) the text, 2) Christian tradition (both throughout the ages and the specific tradition of the interpreter), 3) human experience (including experience of the Spirit), and, yes, ultimately 4) human minds are forced to process and synthesize all these things.

So our denominational identity is best revealed not by our statement of faith in the Bible, but by the specific passages and interpretations that God has led us to focus on throughout our history!

Here I mention just a few that seem particularly important:

1 Thessalonians 5:23: "And may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ."

This verse, along with passages like Romans 12:1-2, embodies our belief in "complete cleansing" from sin and "radical blamelessness."

1 Corinthians 10:13: "No temptation has taken you that is not common to humanity. But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted above what you are able, but will make along with the temptation also the way out so you are able to endure it."

This verse is a good representation of our belief that willful sin is not an essential part of a Christian's life.

Acts 4:31: "And when they had prayed, the place where they were gathered was shaken and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and they spoke the word of God with boldness."

We used to formulate our belief in radical victory over sin by way of the Spirit-fillings of Acts. These passages remain strong embodiments of our particular understanding of Pentecostal power and our need for not just a little of the Spirit, but the "fullness" of the Spirit.

Acts 2:17: "'And it will happen in the last days,' God says, 'I will pour out from my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy and your young men will see dreams..."

We as a denomination are historically and prophetically committed to the full salvation of women, including from the sins of Eve. Women have the Spirit just as much as men, so a woman can lead Spiritually in any role to which God calls her--from layleader to General Superintendent.

Matthew 28:19-20: "As you go, make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to keep all the things I have commanded you."

I would say that for the last thirty years, this verse has more been our theme. In this period, we balanced out the personal piety of our earlier history with the importance of the church's mission to go to all the world.

What's next? I hear the Spirit "bubbling up" verses like the following:

Luke 4:18 (Isaiah 61): "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, who--because He has anointed me to preach good news to the poor--has sent me to preach release to the enslaved and restored sight to the blind, to send the broken on with forgiveness, to proclaim the appointed year of the Lord!"

So what should we take from our past into our future?

1. The Bible is the playing field where we "work out our salvation with fear and trembling." And that means we should strive for an intimate knowledge of the biblical text.

There are indeed Roman Catholics who believe the Bible is a "supreme and highest authority," but they are more likely to work out their final thoughts and practices on the playing field of church decrees and pronouncements. We work out our thoughts and practices on the playing field of the Bible, even if we bring later developments into the discussion.

On the one hand, we recognize that it doesn't simply end with the New Testament text--there's much more to it than that, including some very crucial issues that God worked out in the course of later church history. We wouldn't even have an authoritative collection of books called the New Testament if God had not worked through the church of the first, second, third, fourth and indeed, even fifth centuries to define its boundaries as they now stand. And the church fathers of the 300's and 400's had to look beyond the words of the New Testament to fend off false directions like that of Arius, who believed Jesus was the first thing God created. Arius argued his understandings from the biblical text.

So we should not point fingers at our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters with the belief that our disagreements are just some question of the Bible versus later Christian tradition. Whether they are willing to admit it or not, all Protestants are indebted on a fundamental level to Christian tradition beyond the Bible.

But the fact remains that we are a Protestant denomination, and while Christian tradition is always involved in our use of the Bible, we will by our very nature play out that tradition as we discuss the biblical text. Our disagreement with the Roman Catholics is how much they have built beyond the Bible, not with the fact that the Bible itself leaves us with many issues to work out (stem cell research, anyone?).

2. We affirm the basic principles of Wesley's Quadrilateral.

But if we distinguish ourselves from the flavor of the Roman Catholic Church on that side, we are more than just another Protestant or even evangelical denomination. The Wesley part of us bids us recognize the unavoidable role that Christian tradition plays in our use of Scripture. Even if we find someone who can argue powerfully from the Bible that a rebellious son should be stoned or that we can only baptize in Jesus' name (rather than the Trinity), the church of 2000 years has rejected these applications of the Bible. There is a "rule of faith" and a "law of love" that restrict any appropriation of Scripture, regardless of the original meaning of any one passage. And it is the church of the ages that has bequeathed us these boundaries.

And we are more pietist in our use of Scripture than fundamentalist and thus recognize the (even potentially "irrational") role of Spiritual experience in using the Bible. We should value the original meaning, for that is the first moment of God's revelation. But we do not use the word inerrancy the way the Baptists do. Was there one blind man or two, going in or coming out of Jericho... You're missing the point, "Jesus can heal, even today!"

And we are now in a position to realize that reason is not just another factor in the equation. The nature of the Fall makes it such that reason is always involved when we wrestle with the meaning and appropriation of the Bible. The Bible is not on our hard drive already--it's meaning has to be inputted into our system. And that can only happen through our human, fallible minds, even though we pray for the Spirit's guidance in the process.

This last observation leads us to a final caveat:

3. We should "work out our salvation with fear and trembling."

While we all have the privilege and should read the Bible as individuals, while God raises up individual prophets with correctives and redirection for His church, the Protestant history of the last 500 years has resulted in over 25,000 different Protestant churches who claim to get their beliefs and practices from "Scripture alone." Clearly this implies a certain failure in Luther's line of thought!

But we're not Lutherans, we're Wesleyan. The revivalist/pietist part of us is open to the Spirit. And the Wesley part of us is open to the church. If indeed "you (plural) are the temple of the Holy Spirit," then it is together, as the church of the ages, that we best hear the Spirit's voice speaking through the Scriptures. I believe we (and the rest of the church as well) will increasingly regain a sense that Scripture is meant to be read and appropriated corporately.

The task of appropriating the Bible for God's church is bigger than any one person.

Intermission

I've sensed that we've been using my blog to work through some important issues, so I have resisted posting some of the insignificant things I usually post from time to time.

But the brilliant thing about Google Blogging is that I can slip this update into the past now that I have posted the future.

So things you may or may not want to check out:

1. I have put several of my CafeTutor videos on Google, including the physics one. Just do a Google video search on schenck and they'll all come up. You reach google video by clicking on "more" and then "video." P.S. there are two versions until Google deletes one that had problems. Pick the one with me sitting down.

To go directly there, either from the google or cafe sight:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7218860555420700863&q=schenck

http://www.cafetutor.com/speed.html

Google will eventually sell some of my videos, but they're testing things right now.

2. The physics link just above gives you a taste of my new format, and there is now a 99 cent one on Greek subjects and objects from

http://www.cafetutor.com/subject.html

3. Drury and I have set up a blog where you can report your experiences either visiting or attending one of the seminaries we've been discussing:

http://www.whichseminary.blogspot.com/

Real Denomination 2: Revivalist

OK, I'm going through withdrawal from waiting so long to post the next entry, so since only one person posted Tuesday... I gave into the flesh and here it is.

Be sure and read Drury's final entry on the last post--a good summary. P.S. Feel free to continue posting on it.


2. Wesleyans are people of Spirit.
Although we haven't always wanted to admit it to ourselves, the parent denominations of the Wesleyan Church were as much or more products of the late nineteenth century holiness, revivalist movement as they were of John Wesley. True, Wesley stands there in the Methodist background and, true, the Wesleyan Methodist Connection was birthed in the abolitionist movement. These are all things I want to claim as very important parts of our background (future posts).

BUT, you could argue that the most "rational" Wesleyan Methodists went back into the Methodist Episcopal Church after the Civil War (including one founder). The continued existence of that branch rests in the holiness message of the late 1800's. And that stretch had more in common with Phoebe Palmer's experientially oriented "claim sanctification today" than with Wesley's more methodical "longer way." Like it or not, Wesleyan Methodists must own up to that part of their identity.

As a Pilgrim, there's no question that my background comes from holiness revivals at the turn of the twentieth century. My grandfather was one of many Quaker transplants to a snowballing collection of revivalists in the early 1920's.

And Dieter and D. Dayton may quibble over whether the Azuza street Pentecostal revivals were really offshoots of our blood or not. But there's no denying the points of commonality. We may not speak in tongues, but the charismatic movement was birthed off the same air we were breathing. The similarity made our fathers and mothers so uncomfortable that they sometimes passed around urban legends about people speaking in tongues who were actually cursing in another language.

So it was with glee that I entertained my Methodist wife's question at one of my more sectarian uncle's funerals. "I didn't know you're uncle was Pentecostal," she innocently said. I think he must have turned over in his casket. He was so conservative that he didn't become a Wesleyan when the churches merged in 67. Headed for a one world religion, you know. But I knew what she meant--holy laughter behind us, running the aisles, people standing and shouting, hoopin' and hollerin'. :)

None of this is to say that we cannot (and have not) critiqued some of the more "irrational" elements of our past. But it is a part of who we are. The Wesleyan Church historically is not a strongly rationalist denomination. It is a denomination of the Spirit.

The fundamentalist modernist controversy--arguments about higher criticism, the virgin birth, evolution--these things were pretty far removed from us. We were looking for the Pentecostal power at the time, understood as entire sanctification rather than tongues. These debates of the broader culture had little overall affect on our tradition. A few of our academics paid notice, but the bulk did not.

What do I want to claim from this part of our story?

1. We are more people of the heart than the head.
Here I am not claiming the anti-intellectualism that has sometimes plagued our church. I've heard stories about Wesleyan pastors in the vicinity of Asbury who preached against seminary education with Wesleyan professors from Asbury sitting in the congregation (well, not for long). I could name names of people that I actually like as people. But I'll have no part of such ignorance and inferiority complexes. The pursuit of cognitive knowledge is not our main priority, but we cannot be against it and be like God.

I hope we will always put people ahead of knowledge, meeting the concrete needs of others ahead of working out fine theological points. We need some people who like to ask how many angels fit on the head of a pin too, but I hope that will never be our top priority. We need some people who can parse Greek and Hebrew verbs too (pick me, pick me), but I hope we will always emphasize practical ministry over cognitive depth (without divorcing the two).

2. We can skip straight from pre-modern to post-modern.
I realize that postmodernism is a bad word to many, and we should oppose the extreme form of postmodernism that rejects truth altogether. But let's simply say that we're so late in catching up to modernism that we can effectively by pass its quirks and catch right up with where the flow of history is at the moment.

What were the quirks of modernism that we are in a perfect position to by pass? With regard to the Bible, fundamentalists and modernist evangelicals went crazy with scientific methods of exegeting and excavating the biblical text. The famed "EB" of Asbury and Traina's methodical Bible study taught the student how to create detailed diagrams of textual observation and a self-contained set of terms like "recurring contrast with causation and generalization." These are very valuable methods for arriving at the original meaning. I use them and don't want to lose them.

But who said the original meaning was the "be all and end all" of Scriptural authority or that the original text is automatically more authoritative than the one God let the church use for over 1500 years? Modernism did. Meanwhile, our nineteenth century forebears blissfully (and quite naively) interpreted the biblical text with little sense of historical or literary context. Ask Steve Lennox... he about went crazy studying the hermeneutical methods of the late nineteenth century holiness authors.

But as unaware of context as these holiness preachers were, they ironically read the Bible much as New Testament authors like Paul and Matthew read the Old Testament. The modernist evangelical claim that we should get our theology from the original meaning of the Bible deconstructs when we find that, in the original meaning of the Bible, the Bible does not interpret the Old Testament in terms of its original meaning. In the words of Pac Man, wee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-oink oink.

So our Spirit-filled forebears caught the Spirit on issues like slavery and women. They had a spiritual common sense that saw women as full participants in the Spirit and saw the spiritual forest so well that they didn't get bogged down in the minute trees of problem passages. That's the way Jesus and Paul used Scripture.

I am not advocating that we throw away the original meaning--especially now that a few Wesleyans are catching on to what it is. But I do think the fact that we slept through modernism puts us in a good position to move forward in a way those breathing the last breath of modernist evangelicalism can't (can you say Wheaton, Trinity, Gordon-Conwell?). We can affirm both the way God inspired the original meaning and yet also acknowledge that God has and does speak through the words in ways the original authors might never have imagined. And He does this primarily through His church.

3. "In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, in all things charity."
It may not have seemed like this was the motto of the Pilgrim Holiness Church, but it was. I believe we should have core doctrinal distinctives. But I like the liberty of our church on so many issues:

a. baptism: you can infant baptize, believer baptize, never baptize, immerse, sprinkle, or pour. You just can't believe that baptism itself saves you. I like it.

b. end times: on this one I am grateful for the Wesleyan Methodists. If it had been up to the Pilgrims, all Wesleyans would have to be pre-millennial and believe in a pre-trib rapture. As it is, you just need to believe that Christ will come again. Beyond that you can be pre-mill, post-mill, a-mill, pre-trib, post-trib, mid-trib, no trib...

c. communion: you could actually believe in transubstantiation and be Wesleyan if you wanted. Mind you, I don't know any Wesleyans that view communion this way, but it's possible.

We are basically a pietist denomination. And what other traditions might say as a put down (much as they did when they called Wesley an "enthusiast"), I take as a strength. Other traditions that have staked their identity so much in a modernist paradigm now find some of their fundamentals challenged by contemporary worldview developments. Meanwhile Wesley says, "If your heart is as my heart, then put your hand in mine."