Justin Taylor's Blog, page 46

Trying to Think through the Logic of Abortion Rights

The logic of the landmark abortion ruling Roe v. Wade was that ignorance about when human life begins entails that the government not impose restrictions upon abortion practice.

If you go back to August 16, 2008, Rick Warren asked presidential candidate Barack Obama when a fetus gets human rights, and Mr. Obama (who opposes any abortion restrictions for any reason, in line with Roe v. Wade) famously responded that the answer was “above his pay grade.”

Philosopher Peter Kreeft of Boston College helps us think through the logic of this position.

He makes the commonsensical point of formal logic that “either we do or do not know what a fetus is,” explaining:

Either there is “out there,” in objective fact, independent of our minds, a human life, or there is not;

and either there is knowledge in our minds of this objective fact, or there is not.

The first set is an ontological claim (what is or is not); the second set is an epistemological claim (what we know or do not know). The result yields four logical possibilities:

The fetus is a person, and we know that.
The fetus is a person, but we don’t know that.
The fetus isn’t a person, but we don’t know that.
The fetus isn’t a person, and we know that.

What are the implications for these four positions? Kreeft analyzes them as follows:

Abortion in Scenario #1: The Fetus Is a Person and I Know That

In Case 1, where the fetus is a person and you know that, abortion is murder.

First-degree murder, in fact. You deliberately kill an innocent human being.

Abortion in Scenario #2: The Fetus Is a Person and I Do Not Know That

In Case 2, where the fetus is a person and you don’t know that, abortion is manslaughter.

It’s like driving over a man-shaped overcoat in the street at night or shooting toxic chemicals into a building that you’re not sure is fully evacuated. You’re not sure there is a person there, but you’re not sure there isn’t either, and it just so happens that there is a person there, and you kill him. You cannot plead ignorance. True, you didn’t know there was a person there, but you didn’t know there wasn’t either, so your act was literally the height of irresponsibility. This is the act Roe allowed.

Abortion in Scenario #3: The Fetus Is Not a Person and I Do Not Know That

In Case 3, the fetus isn’t a person, but you don’t know that. So abortion is just as irresponsible as it is in the previous case.

You ran over the overcoat or fumigated the building without knowing that there were no persons there. You were lucky; there weren’t. But you didn’t care; you didn’t take care; you were just as irresponsible. You cannot legally be charged with manslaughter, since no man was slaughtered, but you can and should be charged with criminal negligence.

Abortion in Scenario #4: The Fetus Is Not a Person and I Know That

Only in Case 4 [you know that the fetus is not a person] is abortion a reasonable, permissible, and responsible choice.

But note: What makes Case 4 permissible is not merely the fact that the fetus is not a person but also your knowledge that it is not, your overcoming of skepticism. So skepticism counts not for abortion but against it. Only if you are not a skeptic, only if you are a dogmatist, only if you are certain that there is no person in the fetus, no man in the coat, or no person in the building, may you abort, drive, or fumigate.

Kreeft was analyzing the claim about fetal personhood and our knowledge of it.

For another approach, consider Professor J. Budziszewski’s analysis of the rationalizations for abortion in light of the widely held belief, “It is wrong to deliberately take innocent human life.”

In a 2005 Amicus Curiae brief, he writes:

If deep conscience really does hold within it a belief in the wrong of deliberately taking innocent human life, then consider where this leaves a woman who has an abortion. Parsing the rule against murder, there are only six possibilities of rationalization. She may tell herself (1) that her act is not deliberate, (2) that she is not taking anything, (3) that the unborn child is not innocent, (4) that it is not human, (5) that it is not alive, or (6) that what is wrong may be done.

For purposes of the present analysis, the problem is not that all six lines of justification are literally unthinkable. Indeed, all six are commonly entertained. The problem, rather, is that they are so implausible as to require a large dose of self-deception to be accepted. At the moment of decision, a woman may try desperately to talk herself into such the rightness of abortion, but it is impossible to believe it “all the way down.”

Here is his analysis of each rationalization:

Possibility 1: “It is wrong to deliberately take innocent human life.

But I didn’t mean for this to happen; I wasn’t trying to get pregnant.”

The reasoning here is that if something happens that I do not intend—in this case, pregnancy—then no matter what I do about it, I am not responsible. This line of thinking is incompatible with any coherent idea of personal responsibility.

It is like saying “I didn’t plan for my wife to become disabled, therefore I am not responsible for poisoning her.”

Possibility 2: “It is wrong to deliberately take innocent human life.

But I’m not taking life, the doctors are doing it. This is just something happening to me. I’m not involved.”

This time the underlying reasoning is that once I have made a decision, the results are out of my hands—even if I planned and intended them.

It is like saying, “I didn’t take my landlady’s life. If you want to blame someone for her death, blame the hit man I hired, not me.”

Possibility 3: “It is wrong to deliberately take innocent human life.

But the fetus isn’t innocent. It has invaded me, violated me, made me pregnant.”

The sole purpose of the uterus is to home and house the baby, who has no place else to go. Yet the baby is here regarded as akin to a trespasser or rapist. Although it is hard to imagine an actual pregnant woman taking this view, some abortion proponents consider it quite promising, perhaps because judges will sometimes believe things that ordinary women cannot. Thus, attorney Eileen McDonagh writes that the fetus is “objectively at fault for causing pregnancy.” It is “not innocent,” she says, “but instead aggressively intrudes on a woman’s body so massively that deadly force is justified to stop it.” Although “some might suggest that the solution to coercive pregnancy is simply for the woman to wait until the fetus is born,” she complains that “[t]his type of reasoning is akin to suggesting that a woman being raped should wait until the rape is over rather than stopping the rapist.” Yet even McDonagh admits, in an unintentional testimony to the enduring power of the deep structures of conscience, “[f]ew people are going to be comfortable with the idea.”

Possibility 4: “It is wrong to deliberately take innocent human life.

But it’s not human—it can’t feel, it can’t think, it can’t communicate—and how could it be human if it’s so small?”

Among pro-abortion philosophers, this rationalization is by far the most popular. The reasoning is that human personhood, who-ness, depends on criteria like sensitivity, intelligence, and self-awareness, and the fetus is just a what. Of course born people too can be more or less sensitive, more or less intelligent, more or less self-aware. Therefore, by this reasoning, born people too must be unequally endowed with personhood—some more, some less. The only question is whom we shall have as our masters. At the top may be those with the most exquisite feelings, the most complex thoughts, the keenest sense of self—it is not difficult to guess who these philosophers have in mind. At any rate, such arguments merely touch the surface of moral awareness. It is a matter of everyday observation that pregnant women do think of their fetuses as human persons, and the thought comes back to haunt those who have had abortions. They view themselves as having violated not only the prohibition of murder but also the duty to care for their babies.

Possibility 5: “It is wrong to deliberately take innocent human life.

But it’s not alive, not truly. It’s more like a blood clot. Or like my period just won’t come down.”

Such a thing was easier for a woman to believe before the discovery of the nature of conception. It takes a ferocious act of denial to go on believing it in an age of moving ultrasound pictures. Blood clots do not roll over and suck their thumbs.

Possibility 6: “It is wrong to deliberately take innocent human life.

But sometimes you have to do what’s wrong.”

Logically, this option is nonsense. That something must not be done is what it means for it to be wrong; to deny that wrong may not be done is to say that wrong is not wrong, or that what must not be done may be done. Psychologically, however, the option is tempting: “I just can’t have a baby right now. . . . My parents would have a fit. . . . My boyfriend would leave me.” The pattern of the temptation is ancient: “Let me do evil that good may result.” Some women who do what they themselves consciously regard as wrong try to square the act with perceived moral law by resolving to be sorry later. Whatever the ethical status of such a resolution, it is psychologically devastating. By making it, one literally calls down upon oneself the Furies of conscience. When a woman talks herself into a justifying script that she cannot really believe “all the way down,” then her surface moral beliefs, such as they are, are at war with her deep conscience. This produces disastrous consequences.

I find the logical of the analyses above rationally compelling.

But one objection to this line of reasoning is that if someone truly believes that the taking of an innocent life is murder, and if abortion is the taking of an innocent life and therefore murderous, then pro-lifers would logically have to advocate for incarcerating any woman who has an abortion.

There are at least two responses that can be made to this objection.

First, if it is to truly function as an argument, and not just a rhetorical rejoinder, then it does not touch on the actual issues of whether abortion is the unjust taking of an innocent human life. If anything, it is about the alleged inconsistency of those who hold to this belief. The primary claim itself, however, is not being disputed.

Second, it is not true that imprisoning women who have abortions would be the logical—or legal—result if elective abortion was made illegal again.

Clarke Forsythe, writing as senior counsel for Americans United for Life in 2010, explains in an article entitled “Why the States Did Not Prosecute Women for Abortion Before Roe v. Wade“:

The political claim—that women were or will be prosecuted or jailed under abortion laws—has been made so frequently by Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and NOW over the past 40 years that it has become an urban legend. It shows the astonishing power of contemporary media to make a complete falsehood into a truism.

For 30 years, abortion advocates have claimed—without any evidence and contrary to the well-documented practice of ALL 50 states—that women were jailed before Roe and would be jailed if Roe falls (or if state abortion prohibitions are reinstated).

Forsythe explains that this claim rests on two falsehoods:

First, the almost uniform state policy before Roe was that abortion laws targeted abortionists, not women.

Abortion laws targeted those who performed abortion, not women. In fact, the states expressly treated women as the second “victim” of abortion; state courts expressly called the woman a second “victim.” Abortionists were the exclusive target of the law.

Second, the myth that women will be jailed relies, however, on the myth that “overturning” Roe will result in the immediate re-criminalization of abortion.

If Roe was overturned today, abortion would be legal in at least 42-43 states tomorrow, and likely all 50 states, for the simple reason that nearly all of the state abortion prohibitions have been either repealed or are blocked by state versions of Roe adopted by state courts. The issue is entirely academic. The legislatures of the states would have to enact new abortion laws—and these would almost certainly continue the uniform state policy before Roe that abortion laws targeted abortionists and treated women as the second victim of abortion. There will be no prosecutions of abortionists unless the states pass new laws after Roe is overturned.

This political claim is not an abstract question that is left to speculation—there is a long record of states treating women as the second victim of abortion in the law that can be found and read. To state the policy in legal terms, the states prosecuted the principal (the abortionist) and did not prosecute someone who might be considered an accomplice (the woman) in order to more effectively enforce the law against the principal. And that will most certainly be the state policy if the abortion issue is returned to the states.

Forsythe goes on to explain that the states targeted abortionists and treated women as a victim of the abortionist based on three policy judgments:

the point of abortion law is effective enforcement against abortionists,
the woman is the second victim of the abortionist, and
prosecuting women is counterproductive to the goal of effective enforcement of the law against abortionists.

You can read the whole thing here.

 

Graphical images provided by Jr.canest.

Cliff Barrows (1923-2016)

Cliff Barrows has gone to be with the Lord to whom he so often sang. A longtime associate of Billy Graham as his evangelistic choir director, Mr. Barrows was 93.

Here is a biographical overview from the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association:

Mr. Barrows first met Mr. Graham while on his honeymoon with his first wife, Billie (deceased), near Asheville, N.C., in 1945. Music played a significant role in the programming of Billy Graham Crusades, for which Mr. Barrows was responsible since they formally began in Grand Rapids, Mich., in 1947. Together, he and Mr. Graham shared the Gospel around the globe.

From the beginning of Mr. Graham’s Crusade ministry, George Beverly Shea and Cliff Barrows were the nucleus of the Crusade musical team. They were joined in 1950 by pianist Tedd Smith, and through the years, organists Don Hustad and John Innes provided additional accompaniment.

“I’ve had no greater joy than encouraging people to sing,” said Mr. Barrows. “Every great moving of the Spirit of God has been accompanied by great singing. I believe it will always be so!”

Mr. Barrows remained active in his later years in the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. He served as host of the Hour of Decision radio program for more than 60 years and continued that position for a time through the Hour of Decision Online Internet radio program, which posts weekly on BillyGraham.org. He also served on the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Board of Directors, beginning in 1950.

In addition to singing at Franklin Graham Festivals and Will Graham Celebrations, Mr. Barrows regularly hosted SeniorCelebrations and Christmas at The Cove, three-day events geared toward senior citizens at the Billy Graham Training Center at The Cove in Asheville, N.C. He also helped with BGEA’s Schools of Evangelism ministry for more than 40 years.

For significant contributions to Gospel music, Mr. Barrows was inducted into the Nashville Gospel Music Hall of Fame in April 1988, and into the Religious Broadcasting Hall of Fame in February 1996. Mr. Barrows was also inducted, along with Billy Graham and soloist George Beverly Shea, into the inaugural class of the Conference of Southern Baptist Evangelists’ “Hall of Faith” in 2008.

“His uncanny ability to lead a Crusade choir of thousands of voices or an audience of a hundred thousand voices in a great hymn or Gospel chorus is absolutely unparalleled,” writes Billy Graham in his autobiography, Just As I Am. “But all of that talent is not the secret of Cliff’s effectiveness,” he writes later. “It is his humility and his willingness to be a servant, which spring from his devotional life and his daily walk with Christ.”

Mr. Barrows was born and reared in Ceres, Calif. He was married to his first wife, Billie, for nearly 50 years. Then God brought Mr. Barrows and his second wife, Ann, together following the death of both of their spouses to cancer. He and Ann made their home together in Marvin, N.C.

Mr. Barrows, who passed away on Nov. 15, 2016, at the age of 93, had five children: Bonnie, 1948; Robert, 1950; Betty Ruth, 1953; Clifford (Bud), 1955; and William Burton, 1962.

The BGC Archives has a collection of Barrows material, with an introduction and a guide to the holdings.

The BGEA memorial site is online here: https://cliffbarrowsmemorial.org/

The Best Two Minutes You’ll Hear on TV All Year about the Presidential Election

TNT’s Ernie Johnson:

If you don’t know who Ernie Johnson is, this will explain a lot.

A Confession of 7 Sins on Election Day

This is worth reading and praying, from Joe Rigney:

Our Father and God,

We acknowledge that in this election you are, as it were, holding up a mirror to America. You are showing us who we are as a nation. We may not like what we see, but the two major party candidates represent us well. Lies, corruption, selfishness, unbridled ambition, shameless sexual immorality — all committed with a high hand. That’s our nation. You are giving us the leaders that we deserve.

If you are judging our nation by showing us who we are and what we deserve in these two candidates, then our proper response is to embrace your judgment. We say “Amen” to your judgment, to agree with you about who we are as a people, and that begins with repentance.

And it begins with our repentance. Judgment always begins with the household of God (1 Peter 4:17). Sins that are celebrated without shame in the wider culture are almost always present and active in the church, even when they are hidden. Removing the log from our own eyes is the prerequisite to speck-hunting in our neighbor’s out there (Matthew 7:3-5). Heartfelt repentance for our sins is where we must start.

We are people of unclean lips, and we dwell amidst a people of unclean lips. We are humbled by the greatness of our transgressions and by the weight of our wickedness. Left to ourselves, every intention of our hearts is only evil continually. And so we confess these sins on behalf of ourselves and our nation, casting ourselves wholly on your great mercy in Christ.

You can read the whole thing here, working through these seven sins.

Sexual Immorality
Abortion
Racial Animosity
Anxiety and Fear
Envy, Covetousness, and Greed
Lies
Pride

 

The Theological Liberalism Behind the Conservative Biblical Proof Text for American Christian Revival

2 Chronicles 7:14:

If my people  who are called by my name,

humble themselves,

and pray

and turn from their wicked ways

then I will hear from heaven

and will forgive their sin

and heal their land.

Russell Moore comments on the widespread misunderstanding and misuse of this verse:

The fact is 2 Chronicles 7:14 isn’t talking about America or national identity or some generic sense of “revival.” To apply the verse this way is, whatever one’s political ideology, theological liberalism.

This verse is a word written to a specific people—the people of God—who were coming home from exile. They were coming home from a time in which they were dominated and enslaved by a foreign power.

At a time when they needed to be reminded of who they were, who God was and what he had promised to do, this passage was given to them to point them back to Solomon’s reign, reminding them of what Solomon did when he built the temple, the house of the Lord, the place of the gathering of the worship of God.

After all, it seemed as though the house of David was gone. It seemed as though even after a new temple was built, it wasn’t the “real” temple, because it’s not what it was before. The questions that God’s people were asking at this point were, “Where is God? What is our future as the people of God?”

When God said to them, “If my people who are called by name,” he was specifically pointing them back to the covenant that he made with their forefather Abraham. At a specific point in their history, God had told Abraham about his descendants, saying “I will be their God” and “They will be my people.” That’s what “My people” means. God reminded a people who had been exiled, enslaved, and defeated that a rebuilt temple or a displaced nation cannot change who they were. They were God’s people, and would see the future God has for them.

If we don’t understand the question of who we are, first and foremost, as the people of God, then we are going to miss this.

If we take this text and bypass the people of God, applying it to America in general or the Bible Belt in particular, as though our citizenship as Americans or Australians or Albanians is the foundation of the “covenant” God has made with us, the problem is not just that we are misinterpreting the text; the problem is that we are missing Christ.

You can read the whole thing here.

For a discussion on how to interpret 1-2 Chronicles responsibly, listen to this conversation between Nancy Guthrie and Mike Bullmore. (They briefly cover 2 Chronicles 7:14 briefly around the 44:00 mark.)

The Only Four Things You Need to Read in Response to the Hatmakers

Back in the heyday of blogging, I probably would have tried to do a comprehensive roundup of all the responses to the evangelical controversy of the week. But with the seeming ubiquity of Facebook and Twitter, you can probably find all the “hot takes” you want from whatever writer you like.

I have to confess that I get somewhat weary of the pattern. A popular author decides to say something controversial. He or she writes a book or seeks to make a provocative video or orchestrates a softball interview with a journalist-activist to break some news. Once it all goes live, the usual suspects fire up their responses, which themselves generate a lot of traffic. Then the controversialist feigns surprises and lament at how the body of Christ is failing to love one another when news of defection from orthodoxy is announced.

With all of that said, the most valuable thing in every cycle like this is that some writers are so good and clear and helpful that you can learn a lot even in their responses to error.

So while there are probably more than four things you could read, the following are the best that I’ve seen:

1. Rosaria Butterfield

I have already mentioned and excerpted Rosaria’s piece, where she explains that ironically, Jen Hatmaker is doing something deeply damaging to LGBT image-bearers, rather than showing them the biblical love of Christ. Here is a chilling anecdote:

A few years ago, I was speaking at a large church. An older woman waited until the end of the evening and approached me. She told me that she was 75 years old, that she had been married to a woman for 50 years, and that she and her partner had children and grandchildren. Then she said something chilling. In a hushed voice, she whispered, “I have heard the gospel, and I understand that I may lose everything. Why didn’t anyone tell me this before? Why did people I love not tell me that I would one day have to choose like this?”

That’s a good question.

Why did not one person tell this dear image bearer that she could not have illicit love and gospel peace at the same time?

Why didn’t anyone—throughout all of these decades—tell this woman that sin and Christ cannot abide together, for the cross never makes itself an ally with the sin it must crush, because Christ took our sin upon himself and paid the ransom for its dreadful cost?

You can read the whole thing here.

2. Wesley Hill

Wesley Hill, a New Testament professor who experiences exclusively same-sex desires but is committed to living a life of sexual fidelity, penned a powerful response to the Reformed philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff, emeritus at Yale, who has now endorsed same-sex unions. I know this is not a response to the Hatmakers per se, but it so well done and the issues overlap that it is worth your time to read. Responding to Wolterstorff’s argument, Wes writes:

What is so disappointing about this is its profound shallowness. . . . By firing cheap shots and caricaturing the traditional views he hopes to overturn, he hampers a debate whose depth and maturity could be further deepened.

Several years ago, a Reformed scholar hoping to overturn some aspects of his tradition’s doctrine of God wrote these words:

I regularly tell my students that I will not allow them to take cheap shots against the tradition; they have to earn their right to disagree by working through the tradition and understanding it at its deepest level. Every now and then when they do take what I regard as cheap shots I say to them: “Would you still say what you just said if Augustine were sitting right across the table from you?” Or Anselm, or Aquinas, or Calvin? In short, it is our duty to honor those forebears in the Christian tradition.

The scholar who wrote those words was Nicholas Wolterstorff. Would that, in his case for same-sex marriage, he had heeded his own counsel.

You can read the whole thing here.

3. Kevin DeYoung

Kevin DeYoung looks at what he calls the Hatmaker Hermeneutic, offering a few brief thoughts on a post written by Jen’s husband Brandon, who explained in greater depth how they came to their conclusion that monogamous gay sex could be holy in the eyes of God.

Here is one of his three points:

I fail to see how the logic for monogamy and against fornication is obvious according to Hatmaker’s hermeneutic. I appreciate that they don’t want to completely jettison orthodox Christian teaching when it comes to sex and marriage. But the flimsiness of the hermeneutic cannot support the weight of the tradition.

Once you’ve concluded that the creation of Adam and Eve has nothing to do with a procreative telos (Mal. 2:15), or the fittedness of male with female (Gen. 2:18), or the joining of two complementary sexes into one organic union (Gen. 2:23-24), what’s left to insist that marriage must be limited to two persons, or that the two persons must be faithful to each other? Sure, both partners may agree that they want fidelity, but there is no longer anything inherent to the ontology and the telos of marriage to insist that sexual fidelity is a must.

Likewise, why is it obvious that sex outside of marriage is wrong? Perhaps those verses were only dealing with oppressive situations too.

Most foundationally, once stripped of the biological orientation toward children, by what internal logic can we say that consensual sex between two adults is wrong?

And on that score, by what measure can we condemn a biological brother and sister getting married if they truly love each other (and use contraceptives, just to take the possibility of genetic abnormalities out of the equation)?

When marriage is redefined to include persons of the same sex, we may think we are expanding the institution to make it more inclusive, but in fact we are diminishing it to the point where it is something other than marriage.

You can read his full interaction here.

4. Jake Meador

Writing at Mere Orthodoxy, Jake steps back and puts the Hatmaker announcement into the wider context of the attractional church model that, even in its positive moves cannot help but tack with the winds of culture.

The things that Hatmaker said last week are entirely consistent with a movement that cannot create culture but can only react to it and mimic it. Even where I think she is more right than wrong, as she is in her handling of race issues, for example, her response shows a kind of captivity to prevailing cultural norms that are typical of seeker-sensitive ministries. It is a movement driven by the same techniques used to grow businesses and which interprets the contemporary expression of Christian faith through the medium of current cultural norms and, particularly, common business norms and practices.

There is simply no foundation in the movement for someone like Hatmaker to resist the cultural momentum that has carried so many people toward a view of the human body and sexuality that is wildly out of step with historic Christian teachings.

To the extent that Hatmaker has helped promote and grow this sort of syncretist Christianity she should be criticized, but this problem is far older than Hatmaker and is something that Hatmaker inherited from other older Christians.

So criticism that singles out Hatmaker is misguided; Hatmaker is one part of a much larger sub-culture of evangelicalism that is deeply broken and incapable of doing the very things it was designed to do, which is communicate the truths of the Gospel to a culture that finds those truths increasingly strange and alien. By adopting the norms of the bourgeois, the attractional Christians of the 1970s were setting themselves and their children up to become good syncretists and utterly incapable of mounting any kind of serious prophetic critique of their culture.

Jake continues:

There are two things we must do if we are to do what Hatmaker, largely for reasons outside her control, is not able to do: resist the culturally dominant sensibility that translates all of life through the language of individual achievement, freedom, and autonomy and thus dispenses with not just traditional limits to human sexuality, but to limitation more generally.

You can read the whole thing, where he gives more background on this second-generation seeker-sensitive movement among millennial evangelicals, and also gives his analysis of the two things we must do to swim against the current.

I am thankful for these brothers and sisters who are seeking to speak the truth in love and to serve the church. Each of their pieces, I believe, is worth taking the time to read.

Rosaria Butterfield Responds to Jen Hatmaker’s Blessing of LGBT Sexual Relationships as “Holy”

Rosaria Butterfield pens a poignant reply to popular author Jen Hatmaker:

If this were 1999—the year that I was converted and walked away from the woman and lesbian community I loved—instead of 2016, Jen Hatmaker’s words about the holiness of LGBT relationships would have flooded into my world like a balm of Gilead. How amazing it would have been to have someone as radiant, knowledgeable, humble, kind, and funny as Jen saying out loud what my heart was shouting: Yes, I can have Jesus and my girlfriend. Yes, I can flourish both in my tenured academic discipline (queer theory and English literature and culture) and in my church. My emotional vertigo could find normal once again.

Maybe I wouldn’t need to lose everything to have Jesus. Maybe the gospel wouldn’t ruin me while I waited, waited, waited for the Lord to build me back up after he convicted me of my sin, and I suffered the consequences. Maybe it would go differently for me than it did for Paul, Daniel, David, and Jeremiah. Maybe Jesus could save me without afflicting me. Maybe the Lord would give to me respectable crosses (Matt. 16:24). Manageable thorns (2 Cor. 12:7).

Today, I hear Jen’s words—words meant to encourage, not discourage, to build up, not tear down, to defend the marginalized, not broker unearned power—and a thin trickle of sweat creeps down my back. If I were still in the thick of the battle over the indwelling sin of lesbian desire, Jen’s words would have put a millstone around my neck.

I would encourage you to read the whole thing here.

Rosaria is a woman of whom the world is not worthy. For those unfamiliar with her books, see The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert and Openness Unhindered: Further Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert on Sexual Identity and Union with Christ.

You can also watch some of her talks below.

The Burial Place of Jesus Exposed for the First Time in Centuries: An Interview on What It Originally Looked Like and How We Know This Is the Right Location

PHOTOGRAPH BY ODED BALILTY, AP FOR NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Kristin Romey, writing for National Geographic, reports:

For the first time in centuries, scientists have exposed the original surface of what is traditionally considered the tomb of Jesus Christ. Located in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in the Old City of Jerusalem, the tomb has been covered by marble cladding since at least 1555 A.D., and most likely centuries earlier.

“The marble covering of the tomb has been pulled back, and we were surprised by the amount of fill material beneath it,” said Fredrik Hiebert, archaeologist-in-residence at the National Geographic Society, a partner in the restoration project. “It will be a long scientific analysis, but we will finally be able to see the original rock surface on which, according to tradition, the body of Christ was laid.”

According to Christian tradition, the body of Jesus Christ was laid on a shelf or “burial bed” hewn from the side of a limestone cave following his crucifixion by the Romans in A.D. 30 or possibly 33. Christian belief says Christ was resurrected after death, and women who came to anoint his body three days after the burial reported that no remains were present.

This burial shelf is now enclosed by a small structure known as the Edicule (from the Latin aedicule, or “little house”), which was last reconstructed in 1808-1810 after being destroyed in a fire. The Edicule and the interior tomb are currently undergoing restoration by a team of scientists from the National Technical University of Athens, under the direction of Chief Scientific Supervisor Professor Antonia Moropoulou.

The exposure of the burial bed is giving researchers an unprecedented opportunity to study the original surface of what is considered the most sacred site in Christianity. An analysis of the original rock may enable them to better understand not only the original form of the tomb chamber, but also how it evolved as the focal point of veneration since it was first identified by Helena, mother of the Roman emperor Constantine, in A.D. 326.

“We are at the critical moment for rehabilitating the Edicule,” Moropoulou said. “The techniques we’re using to document this unique monument will enable the world to study our findings as if they themselves were in the tomb of Christ.”

 

PHOTOGRAPH BY DUSAN VRANIC, AP FOR NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

You can read the whole report here.

Readers might wonder, though, how we know this is really the place Jesus was buried. Don’t tourists visit the beautiful Garden Tomb as the real place where Jesus was buried? Which one is right? What does the Bible say? How about archaeology? Do we know what first-century tombs looked like? How big were these tombs?

Several years ago I served as the managing editor of the ESV Study Bible. One of the areas under my oversight was working with archaeological architects and reconstruction artists to assemble and present the relevant research and imagery that could help us to see (as much as possible) how the originals looked.

Toward that end, we hired archaeological architect Leen Ritmeyer, widely considered the world’s leading authority on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. Ritmeyer was the chief architect of the Temple Mount excavations, which took place in Jerusalem after the Six-Day War of 1967. He served in a similar capacity in the Jewish Quarter excavations and also in the City of David excavations, producing important reconstruction drawings for all of them and for many other sites in Israel and Bible Lands. Using Ritmeyer’s extensive research and new drawings, we then turned to the illustration firm Maltings Partnership (in Derby, England) to produce the final, full-color paintings. We knew of Maltings’ superb work from their reconstruction drawings in the DK Travel Guides and the National Geographic Traveler guides.

I was able to ask Ritmeyer several questions about archaeology and the place of Jesus’s crucifixion and burial.

How do we know that the current site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is where Jesus originally died and was buried?

The Gospel record tells us that Golgotha (Aramaic for “Place of a Skull,”Matt. 27:33; Mark 15:22; John 19:17; cf. Luke 23:33; the Latin Vulgate translated it as “Calvary”) was located:

outside but near the city walls of Jerusalem at that time (Heb. 13:12),
near a main road (Mark 15:21, 29),
in a garden (John 19:41a), where a new tomb had been made (Matt. 27:60; Luke 23:53; John 19:41b).

Copyright 2008 Crossway Bibles, www.esvstudybible.org

 

The site of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher certainly answers to these requirements. Although the church is located inside the walls of the Old City today, this was not the case in the first century A.D. At that time, this site was situated north of the First Wall and west of the Second Wall.

Substantial remains of the First Wall have been found in the Citadel and in the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem. In these latter excavations, the remains of the Gennath (Garden) Gate and the beginning of what is believed to be the Second Wall have been found, just where Josephus described them as being (cf. War 5.146).

The name “Garden Gate” indicates that a garden must have been located nearby. Excavations below the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Lutheran Church of the Redeemer have shown that this area used to be an ancient quarry, which was later abandoned. The excavators believe that the area was then filled with arable soil, presumably to turn the ugly quarry remains into a beautiful garden.

In one area, a rocky outcrop was left unquarried, because of the poor quality of the stone. It is believed that this hill was used to crucify criminals, although there are problems with the size of the rock offering enough space for three crosses.

Why do you think Golgotha was chosen as the site of the crucifixion in Jerusalem?

Golgotha was chosen by the Romans, not only for the punishment of criminals, but also as a deterring factor for the whole population. It was therefore located close to one of the major gateways into Jerusalem, the Gennath Gate, and along the busy biblical highway that ran from Shechem in the north to Hebron and Beersheba in the south. That the site was in full view of those traveling along that major road is indicated by Mark 15:29, which speaks of “those who passed by” the place of execution. There have been suggestions based on ancient documents that Golgotha may even have been closer to the Gennath Gate than the site of the Holy Sepulcher.

When was the site of the Holy Sepulcher built, and when was it first identified with the location of Golgotha?

In 313 A.D., the Emperor Constantine the Great published the Edict of Milan, which accepted Christianity as one of the state religions. Ten years later, in 323 A.D., his mother Queen Helena visited Jerusalem, and legend tells us that she discovered the cross of Jesus.

In 325 A.D., Constantine ordered the Church of the Holy Sepulcher to be built over a temple that the Roman emperor Hadrian had built to Aphrodite, but where, according to tradition, Jesus was buried.

In 1883, General Charles Gordon argued that the real Golgotha was located to the north of the Old City of Jerusalem in the Garden Tomb. Why do most archaeologists today reject that location as the place where Jesus was crucified and buried?

The Garden Tomb has been investigated by archaeologists, and it is well known today that this tomb was at least 600 years old when Christ died, and therefore could not have been the newly hewn, unused tomb described in the Gospels. However, the peaceful setting of the Garden Tomb is infinitely more conducive to meditation than the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

The Gospels tell us that after the Romans confirmed that Jesus was dead, his body was taken to a garden and laid in Joseph of Arimathea’s newly hewn tomb (Matt. 27:60; Luke 23:53; John 19:41). Why is that information important for archaeologists?

The fact that the tomb was a new one is hugely significant for the way in which archaeologists would try to understand the tomb layout.

Tombs of the New Testament period usually consisted of several rock-cut chambers, which had burial and arched niches cut into the side walls. The first chamber was an entrance porch, while the other chambers had burial niches cut into the side walls for the burying of the dead.

But multiple chambers would contradict the description of the tomb of Jesus in the gospels, for the women involved with the burial could apparently see the body from outside the tomb (cf. Matt. 26:61; Luke 23:55). And John, while being outside the tomb and stooping to look inside, saw the linen grave clothes lying (John 20:5).

The truth of this description can now be confirmed by archaeology. More than 1,000 tombs have been studied around Jerusalem, and we know now that the first stage in tomb construction is the cutting out of a single chamber with benches arranged along the three sides, leaving a pit in the middle, so that the workmen could stand upright while working. A tomb could be left like this for a while, until the other chambers were added.

Such a newly hewn tomb could be used for the first phase of burial, the so-called “primary burial,” where the body was laid out on a bench. A year or so later, when only bones were left, these were placed in “ossuaries” or bone boxes. This was called “secondary burial.”

Other reconstructions of Jesus’ tomb show burial niches carved into the wall. Why are these lacking in the ESV Study Bible illustration?

The second phase in the development of a family tomb was the cutting out of a proper burial chamber. Such chambers had loculi (burial niches) where the body was put in. These niches were narrow and about 6 feet deep, so that a complete body could be put inside and the opening sealed off by a large stone. Higher up the wall, arched niches (arcosolia) were carved for the placing of the ossuaries. Once the tomb had reached this stage of construction, it could no longer be called a “newly hewn tomb.”

It would be wrong therefore to portray burial niches in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea. The drawing of Jesus’s tomb in the ESV Study Bible accurately shows what a newly hewn tomb would have looked like.

Copyright 2008 Crossway Bibles, www.esvstudybible.org

 

Within the tomb, where did they probably place Jesus’s body?

The gospel record tells us that the body of Jesus could be seen as soon as someone looked inside the tomb (cf. John 20:5).

Newly hewn tombs usually had a bench running along three sides of the chamber. Looking inside a tomb, the first thing one would notice is the bench opposite the entrance. It is reasonable therefore to suggest that the body of Jesus was laid on the bench opposite the entrance. In the drawing, the grave clothes and head cloth (cf. John 20:5-7) can be seen on that bench, as an indication as to where Jesus’s body was laid. This arrangement makes it also possible for the two angels to sit on either side of the place where the body of Jesus had been (cf. John 20:12).

The Bible says that there was a massive rolling rock that sealed the tomb.

How big would such a rock have been?

Only a few of these rolling stones have been found. They usually have a diameter of 4.5 feet and were about 1 foot or so thick. Based on these measurements, the stone would have weighed a good few hundred kilos.

Were rolling stones typical of tombs in the first century?

Surprisingly, only very few tombs dating to the Second Temple period (c. 516 B.C.-A.D. 70) had rolling stones to close off the entrance. Actually, only four have been found in the Jerusalem area. The most well-known examples are the so-called Tomb of the Kings (more likely the Tomb of Queen Helena of Adiabene) and the Tomb of Herod’s Family. These were very elaborate tombs, built by wealthy people, as it is more expensive to build this kind of closing mechanism than just putting a blocking stone in front of the entrance.

It confirms the fact that Joseph of Arimathea was a wealthy man (cf. Matt. 27:57).

How big would the entrance to the tomb have been?

Tomb entrances, even those with rolling stones, were rather small, about 2.5 to 3 feet high and 2 to 2.5 feet wide.

There was no need to make the entrance larger as it was only used during burials. Smaller entrances are also easier to close off.

The fact that the disciples had to stoop to look in (Luke 24:12; John 20:5; John 20:11) is in perfect harmony with the archaeological record of tomb architecture of that time.

Why Would Good Christians Ever Complain About Faith-Based Family-Friendly Films?

Joshua Gibbs, writing a review of the new N. D. Wilson film, The River Thief, helpfully summarizes some of the usual problems with the genre:

The typical hero of a faith-based film measures their own satisfaction with the ending by the metric ton. If you stuck a teaspoon in the ending of the average Christian film, you’d pull it out dripping with enough sweet goo to give everyone in the world a mouthful of cavities. We don’t merely like redemption. We want redemption spelled out in letters large enough they can be seen from space.

The challenge, then, for anyone who has set out to make a film for Christians, is to not give the audience what they want, but to give them something good instead. . . .

Most Christian films do not require or even allow the viewer to search for secondary meaning in the sets, the untouched objects which fill the sets, the costumes, the names of the characters. The marriage in Fireproof is no marriage, but a token marriage. The characters are not characters, but token characters who don’t have real problems, but token problems. The things in most Christian films do not seem like real things, but placeholders for ideas. The token character is an end unto itself, and there is nothing more to see or discern than what is cursory—unlike a real human being, or even a real character, who can be known more deeply over the course of time.

Wilson has made a film which repays a roving eye and a curious imagination. I could probably still find new correlations and connections between the characters on a second viewing, and that’s not a claim I have ever made about a faith-based film.

You can watch the film here or start with the trailer below:

 

An Evening with C.S. Lewis

This one-man show by British actor David Payne gives a good feel for C.S. Lewis as a man and as a thinker.

The setting is 1963 (the last year of Lewis’s life), with Lewis addressing in his home a group of writers from America. It’s an hour and a half in length: