Cody Cook's Blog, page 17

Upcoming Webinar – How Do I Know if I’m Saved?

Can you have assurance that God has saved you from sin and death?

On Tuesday, 12 May 2020 at 1 PM EST, I’ll be giving a short presentation about how major Christian thinkers and traditions have answered this question before giving my own thoughts and opening things up for discussion. Come prepared to discuss your own perspective! Event will be recorded and archived for the benefit of future viewers/listeners.

To join the Zoom Meeting, visit https://us02web.zoom.us/j/2906142448 shortly before the presentation begins. You can use your PC or the Zoom app to participate. To be reminded of the meeting, follow the event page on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/events/664447497739364/

Meeting ID: 290 614 2448

PODCAST: Can We Have Church During a Quarantine?

I invited 3 guests to discuss whether or not we can really have church in light of so many Christian communities closing their doors across the world in response to the Corona virus. Is church online really church? Are churches that stay open during a pandemic neglecting their Christian duty to love their neighbor? Is our Christian fellowship mystical, physical, or both?

Scott Johnson is the pastor at Crosspointe Church of Christ in Franklin, OH. He got his bachelor’s degree in biblical texts from Ohio Valley University. He lives in Middletown, Ohio with his beautiful wife and 2 amazing kids.

Benjamin Highley received both his Bachelor’s in Biblical/Theological Studies and Master’s in Ministry from God’s Bible School and College and is currently finishing a Master’s in Clinical and Mental Health Counseling at Xavier University.

Emmanuel Castillo is currently at Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Seminary, Nigeria preparing to be a Catholic priest.

Audio:
http://www.cantus-firmus.com/Audio/20200404-churchquarantine.mp3

Music:
“The Itis” by Polyrhythmics. Licensed under CC BY 3.0
http://www.needledrop.co/wp/artists/polyrhythmics/

Free Markets and the Trinity

It’s not uncommon to hear libertarians to use a phrase like “free market” as a catchall for freedom in general. However, narrowing freedom down to free markets implies for many a transactional outlook. In one sense this economic-centric view of freedom is quite understandable since libertarians tend to think of rights in terms of ownership. All rights begin, they argue, with the individual’s ownership of his or her body. In other words, all rights are property rights. While I can sell the work of my body or even give it away, it should not be forcibly taken from me since that would be a violation of my rights.

For many progressives, this mentality seems too me-centered. Indeed, free market philosophy is often connected, even by many of its proponents, to self-interest. In other words, the order and bounty which a free market bestows to a society emerge organically when individuals work for their own benefit—whether or not they are intending to benefit those they trade with.

However, it needs to be said that free markets thrive not only on self-interest, but also on reciprocity and mutual benefit. When I go to my local grocer to buy bread, for instance, the price I pay for that bread was arrived at through an organic process wherein both the grocer and I benefit. Whereas I am content to give up some of my money for the bread, my grocer is more than happy to give up the bread for my money. Both of us win from this arrangement.

In addition, my grocer benefits from customers seeing the arrangement as beneficial to them. If we perceive the grocer as seeking to exploit us or others, this could lead to lack of customer support and thus either a soft or hard boycott. In other words, producers in a free economy need a good reputation to survive and thrive. Compare this situation to a government which will usually continue to exist even when it fails those who it’s supposed to be serving or mismanages its funds.

Thus, self-interest thinking in economic matters often leads to reciprocal thinking. In a free economy, I benefit when you do. This is only a paradox for those who think in terms of an either/or of selfishness or altruism–of either looking out for yourself or looking out for the interests of the other guy. But this is neither logical thinking nor is it Christian thinking.

This reciprocity in free markets reflects a more fundamental theological reality, in fact the most fundamental reality there is: that of the Trinitarian God.

Mutuality in the Trinity

At the center of Christian theology is the Trinity—the one God who exists necessarily as three distinct Persons. This complex unity is expressed in 1 John 4:8 with the simple phrase, “God is love”—love in His very essence. “Before” there was a creation for God to love, He already existed in self-giving love as Trinity. For God not to be love would be to undo Himself since He could not continue to exist as Trinitarian community without also being love. Thus, community is an essential attribute of God. As Eastern Orthodox theologian John D. Zizioulas wrote in his book Being As Communion, “being means life, and life means communion… It is communion which makes beings ‘be’: nothing exists without it, not even God.” (John D. Zizioulas, Being As Communion, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press: 1997. p. 16-17.)

In other words, the Trinity’s existence is based not on selfishness, not even on altruism, but on reciprocity. Each member of the Trinity finds joy and personal satisfaction in relationships, not in merely giving (altruism) or merely taking (selfishness), but in giving and taking to their mutual benefit. The Triune God gives freely to the world as well, hoping to bring humans into the divine reciprocity of finding joy in mutual benefit. In turn, everything we do, even suffering and sacrifice, will ultimately benefit us if we are in relationship with the Triune God.

Coincidentally, these relationships among the members of the Trinity and between the Trinity and the world are described by theologians as “the economic Trinity.”

What About When Freedom Doesn’t Work?

Often progressives see freedom as an unmitigated good in nearly every area except one—markets. In this one area, it is insisted that the state intervene to plan elements of the economy and back up their policies with violence and the threat of violence. Thus, instead of seeing freedom in markets as an arrangement whereby free people choose to interact with each other without coercion for their mutual benefit, it is seen as necessarily exploitative.

However, even if we have shown that freedom in markets is not inherently exploitative, that doesn’t mean that it can never be exploitative. Some libertarians have argued that exploitation is never possible when two people agree to an arrangement. After all, if there was not mutual benefit, the arrangement would never have been agreed to. Thus, even if I take a job I hate, I value the job more than I do starvation. Thus, I benefit from doing the unpleasant job.

There is a certain logic to this, but there is something to be said for negotiating from a position of weakness. Nearly all of us would agree that it is exploitative for a 50 year old man to have sex with a 13 year old girl, even if she does “consent” to it.

Similarly, imagine a scenario where you are dangling from a cliff, holding on for your very life. A man appears and agrees to help you but only under one condition—that you give all of your property, your house, your car, and all of your belongings, over to him.

Perhaps in such a scenario you would agree to the man’s terms, but you would no doubt feel exploited by the arrangement. After all, it would cost the man almost nothing to help you. Yet, he took advantage of you in your moment of distress. Though there may not have been coercion, there was still nevertheless exploitation.

While one could make an argument for why such an arrangement may be legally binding, one cannot defend it as ethical from a Christian point of view. Christian ethics are better reflected in the parable of the Good Samaritan who helps a stranger beaten and left for dead on the road than in my story of the man dangling from the side of a cliff and staring down at the jagged rocks below. This is not because Christians view harming or inconveniencing themselves as a moral value, but because they value human life for its own sake and want to protect it. In other words, the Christian finds it in her own best interest to be concerned for the welfare of others.

At the same time, to claim that the man in poverty who seeks a job and might starve otherwise is at such a disadvantage from a more financially secure potential employer is like a 13 year old being sexually propositioned by a 50 year old man certainly goes too far. Such a comparison takes away his agency and his ability to make free choices. It infantilizes him. All employment is not necessarily exploitation.

Finally, to introduce government into the equation doesn’t solve the problem of power differential since the government has power that even the most wealthy employer doesn’t have—thus the power dynamic here would also necessarily be exploitative. Thus, while we can speak of situations where taking advantage can occur, we should distinguish between a scenario where a meaningful choice can be made and one where such a choice cannot be made.

To conclude, the Christian should prefer (and perhaps even advocate for) freedom, which better allows for community and mutual benefit, as opposed to coercion, wherein violence is used to force people to do things against their will, whenever possible. However, she should also remember that even if freedom is better, or even just generally better, than coercion, it cannot on its own bring about utopia or even guarantee that exploitation won’t happen. That would require that all members of society seek to make mutuality and love for neighbor their highest calling, and that this mutual benefit would be seen as more than mere financial profit but the fulfillment of God’s calling on our lives.

PODCAST: Reading Lamentations in a Time of Pandemic

I took the Corona virus quarantine as an opportunity to create a live video chat on the topic of the biblical book of Lamentations and what it says to us in the time of COVID-19. Should we feel afraid or anxious, perhaps like God is punishing us? These questions and more are hashed out among myself and four guests–four of us Christians with an educational background in theology and one of us a physicist and skeptic.

Audio:
http://www.cantus-firmus.com/Audio/20200325-LamentationsPandemic.mp3

Music:
“The Itis” by Polyrhythmics. Licensed under CC BY 3.0
http://www.needledrop.co/wp/artists/polyrhythmics/

PODCAST: Unhitching the Old Testament Ep. 4 – Keith Giles

My interview with Keith Giles gave me an opportunity to clarify the arguments made in his book Jesus Unbound: Liberating the Word of God from the Bible. Keith takes the position that sometimes the Old Testament gets God wrong and that Jesus corrects these mistaken pictures. Since I’m interacting with his work in my upcoming book about unhitching the Old Testament from the Christian faith, I wanted to make sure I understood him correctly. Thankfully, he was kind enough to take the time to lay out his position and subject himself to scrutiny.

You can learn more about Keith here: www.keithgiles.com

Audio download:
http://www.cantus-firmus.com/Audio/20200318-UTOTEp4-KeithGiles.mp3

Music:
Denso by Macchiato Funky

What has Washington D.C. to do with Jerusalem?: Can Christians be political when politics means violence?

We know from both biblical revelation and from experience that the state is violence. Experientially, we know that the primary distinction between the state and other institutions which organize our society is that the state can take our money and create rules which are enforced by the threat of violence and incarceration–something no business (apart from organized crime enterprises) can do. As Tolstoy wrote in his book The Slavery of Our Times:

“Laws are rules, made by people who govern by means of organised violence for non-compliance with which the non-complier is subjected to blows, to loss of liberty, or even to being murdered.”

Similarly, the Bible tells us that rulers carry a sword to carry out wrath against wrongdoers (Romans 13) and that Christians should pray for government leaders so that we may live unmolested by the violence which states visit upon those who gain their attention (1 Timothy 2:2). This further supports the notion that the state is violence.

But here’s the rub. Unlike the state, followers of Christ are, almost by definition, nonviolent.

RELATED: PODCAST: Cantus Firmus Book Club Ep. 4 – Warlike Christians in an Age of Violence (w/ the author Nick Megoran)

Many Christians throughout church history have argued that if the state sometimes serves a divine role by punishing evildoers, as Paul seems to claim in Romans 13:4, it should be not only acceptable but desirable for Christians to participate in state violence. But in the same place where we read that the state can be a tool of the vengeance and wrath of God, we read that Christians are never to avenge themselves, never be a medium for God’s wrath, but must always overcome evil with good (Romans 12:19-21). More famously, in Jesus’ sermon on the mount, Christians are told to turn the other cheek (Matthew 5:39), love their enemies (5:44), and live as peacemakers (5:9).

If the state is violence, though, how can Christians support its existence, even tacitly? A popular argument for allowing the state to continue, and thus for state violence, is that when a government is absent an order will arise anyway and that this order will likely be more violent and aggressive than a state intentionally organized to maximize justice and order. In other words, a little aggression stops a lot of aggression. This was precisely the argument which America’s founding fathers invoked for the creation of their constitutional republic. As the Declaration of Independence tells us:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men…”

According to this philosophy, a limited government is a necessary minor evil which is initiated by men to allow for more human freedom and flourishing than could be possible if the state were abolished.

The notion that some state violence is necessary, which is to say only as much as is needed to preserve the greatest exercise of human rights, is called minarchism. A Christian who is a minarchist in theory, because she believes that God intends the state to maintain peace and punish evil until the kingdom of God comes in its fullness, would still practice separation from government violence due to Jesus’ teaching that the kingdom of God is not of this world (John 18:36). She would also prefer a state with limited power so that Christians like herself “may lead a peaceful and quiet life” (1 Timothy 2:2).

On the other hand, the Christian who takes Jesus’ condemnation of violence to be a universal maxim and not just a command for Christians will engage in positive action on behalf of the peaceful (which is to say persuasive instead of coercive) destruction of all state aggression. This is not the soft libertarianism of minarchist separation but the radical libertarianism of anarchist activism.

But whether Christian non-violence leads to separation or revolution, the one thing a follower of Christ should not do is to actively support the violence of the state and agree to be used as its tool to destroy lives that Christ came to save.

Our methods for defeating the spiritual-political complex which the apostle Paul called the powers and principalities must thus not only be nonviolent, but Christ-centered. As the 19th century Christian minister David Lipscomb wrote:

“It is the duty of the Christian to submit to the human government in its office and work and to seek its destruction only by spreading the religion of Christ and so converting men from service to the earthly government to service to the heavenly one, and so, too, by removing the necessity for its existence and work. No violence, no sword, no bitterness or wrath can he use. The spread of the peaceful principles of the Savior, will draw men out of the kingdoms of earth into the kingdom of God.”

PODCAST: Unhitching the Old Testament Ep. 3 – Dr. A. Philip Brown II

My interview with Dr. A. Philip Brown II centers around how we should define and understand biblical inspiration, how the New Testament both modifies and builds on Old Testament teaching, and whether unhitching the Old Testament makes it easier to defend the faith.

Dr. A. Phillip Brown is the Graduate Program director and teacher of New Testament Greek, Biblical Hebrew and a vast assortment of Bible and theology classes at God’s Bible School & College at Cincinnati, Ohio. He’s also the editor of Zondervan’s A Reader’s Hebrew Bible. You can find out more about him at
http://www.apbrown2.net

Audio download:
http://www.cantus-firmus.com/Audio/20200219-UTOTEp3-APBrown.mp3

Music:
Denso by Macchiato Funky

PODCAST: Cantus Firmus at the Movies Film Festival – Monsters & Madmen

Some time back I had started a Patreon and part of the benefits that subscribers got was a Patreon-exclusive podcast. That Patreon has been closed for awhile now but there was some really cool content left over that only a few people got to hear. Here is a collection of film analyses I did organized around the theme “Monsters & Madmen,” including discussion of The Shining, Labyrinth, The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises, and Clifford. Themes discussed include white privilege, coming of age, bearing someone else’s guilt, class resentment and the never-ending cycle of revenge, and forgiveness.

Audio:
http://www.cantus-firmus.com/Audio/20200211-CFATM-Ep18-FilmFest2.mp3

Music:
“Octagon Pt 2” by Polyrhythmics. Licensed under CC BY 3.0
http://www.needledrop.co/wp/artists/polyrhythmics/

“Kitchen Suite” by Spiedkiks.

Everything Is Liturgy

In the Hebrew Bible, much is made of sacred space and sacred time. The tabernacle where God dwelt was positioned right in the middle of the tribes whenever they stopped to rest in the wilderness. Soon the tabernacle gave way to the temple, a building which stayed in one location and had to be properly cleansed with regular rituals for God’s presence to remain there. As for sacred time, the Israelites were commanded to arrange their lives around yearly holidays, monthly observances, and weekly Sabbath rests. Within the common ordering of their lives, something special broke in on these holy days.

Through the process of secularization, the west has largely lost this sense of sacred space and sacred time. In some cases, we’re the better for it. After all, God no longer dwells in buildings but in His people, an important theological concept that we should never lose sight of.

On the other hand, we have forgotten that time and space have any significance at all. Every event in our lives is arranged somewhere in time and somewhere in space, gaining their importance from their relationships to each other. By making all time and space common and utilitarian, we have become blind to their significance, even to the meaning that we unknowingly give them ourselves. Note the illustration below:

In the drawing above, we see in the top right panel an example of how living spaces were once oriented before the advent of television. People could be arranged around each other and the relationships we had together were the focal point. Compare that to the common arrangement of living rooms now–we sit looking away from each other and at our television set. Both of these arrangements–these uses of space–carry meaning. They are not insignificant or accidental. They tell us what is the center of our domestic experience.

Something similar can be said for how we arrange our churches. The bottom left panel is a traditional cruciform church. Beyond the intentional crucifix-shaped design, the arrangement of people and objects communicates a message–the altar is central and the priest (despite the claim that Catholicism, unlike protestantism, is centered around men in authority) is off to the side when he speaks his own words. This says something about the centrality of the altar to their theology–the mass is the main event, not the preacher or the message preached. In contrast, many evangelical churches are oriented toward a preacher who takes center stage. Positively, you can say that the preacher is in the center because the proclaiming of God’s word is central to evangelical churches. On the other hand, there is something to be said for a church which places a stage or pulpit where a man’s speaking becomes the center of our worship experience.

Low church evangelicals (evangelicals who reject much of the traditional church calendar and rituals) commonly criticize liturgy. Liturgy, to put it simply, is the form or structure of our worship–those things we do over and over again to orient ourselves around the object of our love.

These evangelicals often tell us that liturgy facilitates idolatry or legalism.  Instead of having a liturgy, they (usually) unwaveringly and inflexibly advocate a format which is centered around the performances of musicians and preachers and the laity must be quiet or are drowned out by electric guitars. They tell us that in this non-traditional, non-liturigical format we can worship God more freely. The irony,  of course, is that anything which we do habitually to orient ourselves to what’s most important to us is a liturgy. When we grab our phones in the morning and constantly throughout the day to check our email or social media, that’s a kind of liturgy–it communicates what the object of our devotion is. In our churches, whatever we fill our time with, even if it’s spontaneous sharing and conversation, is a liturgy. It’s our way of saying, “this is important to us. This is the best way for us to use this time and space.”

If this is so, then a low church structure is not more free–whether we spend our time listening to a preacher or reciting the Nicene creed, a formal order must be kept–but it may be less thoughtful. Churches which carve out time to focus on and repeat what is important to them are being intentional, not legalistic. In contrast, churches which insist that they don’t have traditions while rigidly holding to them have very likely created a structure for worship that is less spiritual and less beneficial for discipleship and understanding, all while patting themselves on the back and thanking God that they aren’t like the Anglican man who stands up when the Bible passes between the pews.

Since we all have a liturgy, let’s think carefully about the form we want it to take. Should we dedicate time for preaching, singing, celebrating the Lord’s supper, free and open sharing, or the recitation of our most cherished creeds and doctrines? Why or why not? What do our choices say about what’s important to us?

And whether we eat or drink, recite the creeds or listen to a preacher, share openly or keep quiet, sing together or listen to a band, let us do it for the glory of God. The time and space we set aside for our encounter with God is sacred. Let’s treat it that way.

Liberty as an Idol

In recent years I have found myself moving toward a libertarian political philosophy on the basis of biblical data, moral arguments, and practical concerns. Though I did not argue explicitly for libertarianism in it, my book 2018 book Fight the Powers: What the Bible Says About the Relationship Between Spiritual Forces and Human Governments reflects the research I did on how the Bible sees the state as demonically inspired, violently-inclined, and destined to fall when Christ’s kingdom comes in its fullness.

However, as I have spent time reading and listening to arguments for libertarian perspectives, especially from secular thinkers, I have seen how liberty as a political movement can become just as much of an idol as the state often is for non-libertarians. In particular, I have seen the dehumanization of those serve the state and that the goal of a stateless utopia has become a panacea for all of humanity’s woes.

The problem with this naive notion is that the state is not the cause of our sorry state but a symptom of it. Restricting its power or abolishing it altogether would certainly have many positive impacts on our social order, but there would still be violence, cruelty, predation, and self-centeredness. Political liberty is a good, but it cannot straighten out the twistedness of our hearts.

That requires Jesus taking residence inside of us. Though Paul knew that the state was corrupt and opposed to Christ, he never saw its agents as devils for us to slay. Instead, he argued that our battle is spiritual and our weapons are not carnal. He sought not to overthrow the empire with violence but to persuade kings and emperors to bow the knee before Christ. Paul was confident that Jesus had already conquered the powers on the cross, so if we have no choice but to suffer the oppression of the state a little longer while the conquering Jesus lives inside of us, so be it. We’ve already won.

As for the reparation of the social order, that will not finally take place until Jesus takes residence among us. God will place all dominion under the feet of Jesus and the evil empire will be slain and thrown into the fire. Then, and only then, will the perfect rule of God cover the earth.

Until that day, let us do our best to make the world a freer and more peaceful place; but let’s not forget that it’s the horse which pulls the cart.