Pagans and Christians in the City - A Review

There are times when the so-called Culture War is spoken of as if it were an invention of the 1980’s Moral Majority. Since many of the participants in that movement were and are Christian Fundamentalists, and fundamentalists of any type are easy to mock, this seems to answer the question and we can simply thank God (or our gracious non-theism) that we aren’t like those people.

But culture wars, as it were, were not invented in the 1980’s. Nor were they invented in the 1960’s, nor the ‘20’s. They are a fact of human history. Wherever different cultures come together, there you will find conflict between them.

One thing that has changed in the contemporary Western conception of cultural conflict is that there have been well-meaning philosophers that have promoted the idea that we can have a shared culture that is neutral with respect to controversial aspects of what is good and right. As Robert George notes in his introduction to Pagans and Christians in the City:

“It was the distinctive claim of the most influential late twentieth-century liberal political philosophers, including most notably John Rawls and Ronal Dworkin, to be proposing theories of political morality that identified principles of justice (and suggested institutional structures and practices to implement those principles) that were neutral as between controversial conceptions of what makes for or detracts from a valuable and morally worthy way of life.”

In other words, there are those within our culture that believe that somehow the government and civil society can function without friction between competing worldviews. This is behind arguments that “you shouldn’t legislate morality” that surround the invention of same-sex marriage and restrictions on abortion, for example. But the failure of moral neutrality is obvious, since broadening legal boundaries necessarily affirms the moral good of the activities that are not restricted. If abortion is a morally repugnant form of homicide, then legislation that allows (or funds that encourage it) are not morally neutral, no matter how much its proponents might claim it is.

Cultural conflict—that is culture wars—are, therefore, inevitable. The bigger concern should be how we deal with them.

Steven Smith’s book, Pagans and Christianity in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac, encourages Christians (and, perhaps, from others) to step outside of the myopic focus on contemporary concerns as first-time-in-history novelties. Christians have been engaged in Culture Wars from the very beginning, because Christianity critiques all cultures, though often in different ways.

Smith writes from within a conservative, orthodox Christian framework. His writing in the volume shows gives evidence of broad reading, as well as appreciation of some of the usual Christian voices on society and morality, like T. S. Eliot and C. S. Lewis. Those Christian humanists, especially a cluster of thinkers in the U.K. from early in the 20th century, wrestled with the destruction of Christendom—that is, an approximately Judeo-Christian cultural consensus––due to the effects of modernity on culture. Eliot argued that the options were Christianity or paganism, which are the poles that Smith follows in this book.

In this context, paganism is not to be understood necessarily as involving blood sacrifices to idols or the various overtly religious practices that one associates with ancient paganism. But contemporary culture has its gods, and those gods are not Christian. The gods of our culture also tend to be physical (health, wealth, and sexual indulgence), much like the ancient pagan gods. The difference is that instead of burning incense in the temple of a mythical being, we tend to throw our offerings at companies that promise us happiness, political action campaigns that promise free love, and organizations that will help us increase our salaries.

Summary

Smith’s book, as he explains while setting the background in Chapter One, seeks to explain how culture wars have been waged throughout Western history, how that relates to the contemporary struggles, with some implied recommendations along the way.

Chapter Two sets out to explain that all humans are religious. This is a further expansion of the definition of pagan offered in the first chapter. The religiousity of all humans is also an essential fact, because it undermines the assertions of Rawls and others that we can (and should) exclude religious reasoning from the public square. The simple fact is that even those who are atheistic and overtly “anti-religious” carry with them truth claims and foundational presuppositions that are inherently religious. By excluding overtly religious claims from public debate, proponents of neutrality are simply biasing the argument against religion.

In Chapters Three and Four Smith begins to make good on his promise to cover the early days of Christianity. He notes that the Romans were known for being religiously tolerant, but also notes that (as history has shown) the tolerance assumed that other gods could be celebrated, but mandated accession to culturally approved ceremonies, most of which were repudiated by Christians. Because Christianity demands total worship of only one God, therefore it was at odds with the cults of Rome. Although many Romans did not believe (and, indeed, the tradition of the philosophers was to debunk) the mythical aspects of Roman religion, it was expected that people participate. Just as some patriots might ostracize someone who refuses to stand for the national anthem, salute the flag, or say the pledge of allegiance, some Romans found the Christian resistance to civil religion divisive and unacceptable. In Chapter Five, Smith explores the differences between Christianity and the Roman religion that made it impossible for the two to simply “get along” as if there was no fundamental conflict. The sixth chapter further explains why persecutions periodically erupted prior to the Constantinian shift, despite the fact that Christian were, in many ways, exemplary citizens.

Chapter Seven shifts from those primarily religious considerations to the cultural and political changes that led to the ascendency of Christianity. He provides a historically balanced that explains how Christianity was slowly becoming dominant in the Roman Empire even before Constantine’s conversion. The eighth chapter explores the continued existence of paganism under the canopy of a Christian society. In fact, some of the elements of paganism were increasingly incorporated into Christianity, with the reconfiguration of some pagan holidays as saint’s feasts, the increased use of images in Christian architecture, etc. Pagan influences never left the Christian imagination, as is apparent with many of the themes in Medieval and, later, Renaissance art created for and by Christians.

There is a bit of a jump in the timeline beginning in Chapter Nine, as Smith takes up questions about the shift toward secularization, which began around the time of the Renaissance (all these shifts are gradual, with few arbitrary points one can anchor a timeline on) and has continued through our day. He explores some of the shifts of modernity, including the abolition of the sacred, that have only continued to gain steam, despite the persistence of transcendent religions. Smith also summarizes some of the non-theistic pursuits of wonder and the sacred, which still infuse much of our “scientific” culture, particularly as people face the miserable emptiness of nihilism that is spawned from a desacralized world.

Chapters Ten and Eleven shift to contemporary American concerns, with Smith, who is a legal scholar by profession, shifting toward analyses of court cases in the United States, the thinking behind them, and how that reflects the struggles between paganism and the generally Judeo-Christian ethos around which our shared culture was built. The connections between the two main segments of the book are fairly obvious, as the conflicts of ancient Rome are similar to the conflicts of contemporary Western culture. Smith’s work in analyzing the legal record helps parse out some of the clearer thinking on the topic (rather than trolling social media for the wingnuts) to show how thinking has changed and where the points of cultural conflict are.
The book concludes with the twelfth chapter, which summarizes the earlier argument, but also helps to explain why, as with Roman intolerance of Christianity, there is a growing intolerance of Christian orthodoxy. As Smith notes, there is intolerance of people simply holding culturally disfavored views, “Ultimately, in fact, it is not merely the overt expression of the offending view that inflicts injury, but rather the fat that someone holds the offending view and is known to hold it.” It is clear, based on Smith’s description, that we are in for a rough ride in the years to come.

Analysis and Conclusion

This is an excellent book, which I highly recommend for a broad readership.

Smith demonstrates a breadth and depth of reading in ancient sources and modern historiography that make his analysis of early conflicts between Roman culture and Christianity balanced and informative. He has a consistent perspective, which favors Christianity, but he deals with opposing viewpoints (both contemporary and historic) in responsible ways, so that this book is more informative than polemical in tone. As a legal scholar, Smith exposes numerous cases and arguments which many readers may otherwise not encounter. His years of experience in research and teaching make those chapters of this book a goldmine of contemporary argumentation.

The weakness of this volume, such as it is, can be found in the jump between analysis of ancient Roman culture to the contemporary culture wars. Smith leaves a great deal on the table regarding cultural conflict during the period we might call “Christendom.” Those seeking a comprehensive analysis of all cultural conflict from the beginning of Christianity to now will have to find that elsewhere (though I do not know where). In the end, this is not so much a weakness as it is the nature of the book Smith wrote. The subtitle led me to expect a bit more continuity, though looking back that is an assumption I imported. Regardless, what Smith accomplishes in what he writes is phenomenal.

Pagans and Christians in the City will be most useful for theologians, political scientists, historians, and ethicists thinking about the intersection of faith and culture, church and state, or other related topics.  This would make a remarkable textbook for an upper level elective on one of those topics at the graduate level or above. The writing is clear, but the subject matter is focused and sometimes a bit technical for more general application.

This volume can also form, especially the first two-thirds of the book, the cultural analysis that often accompanies classical education, especially in homeschool and private Christian environments. It is not likely to be the right book for a class text in those settings, but would deepen an instructor’s knowledge and ability to speak intelligently and in a balanced way. Smith undermines many myths and offers substantive critique in their place.

Pagans and Christians in the City is also a pleasure to read. Smith’s prose is clear, his vocabulary is non-technical or, when technical, clearly defined. The flow of the book is measured and fairly consistent.

In short, this excellent book is a pleasure to read for scholars or hobbyists alike.

Pagans and Christians in the City: Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac (Emory University Studies in Law and Religion)

By Smith, Steven D.

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Is Socialism Ecologically Friendly?

There is an odd correlation in some of the public square between socialism and the ecological movement. The so called “Green New Deal” is a major example of this, where a proposal has been created to install socialism in the United States for the sake of the environment. This belief in the environmental friendliness of socialism didn’t begin with thoughts of the recent proposals, but the logical connection between the two is dubious, at best.

The first time I came across the argument that socialism was the best solution to the environment was in Naomi Klein’s popular book, This Changes Everything. It was a shoddy book by an activist who writes journalistically, but given the popularity of Klein’s sales and the increasing popularity of the combination of economic control and ecology she proposes, it seems to resonate with a number of people.

Among Klein’s basic proposals is a Universal Basic Income (UBI), which has supporters on both among free market advocates and those who desire more centralized economic control. She claims UBI “makes it possible for workers to say no to dirty energy jobs but also because the very process of arguing for a universal social safety net opens up a space for a full-throated debate about values.” (Klein, 2014: 461) Given that in her recent book, On Fire, Klein offers a definition of “green jobs” that include daycare workers, it isn’t clear exactly what a “dirty energy job” is and why it should be resisted. (Klein, 2019: 268)

But the deeper issue is that there is often no clear connection between socialism and improving the environment, the very grounds on which the so-called Green New Deal is supposed to stand.

As the Washington Post revealed in this profile of Saikat Chakrabarti, who has been one of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s political handlers, the so-called Green New Deal was originally not about the environment, but about imposing socialism on society:

Chakrabarti had an unexpected disclosure. “The interesting thing about the Green New Deal,” he said, “is it wasn’t originally a climate thing at all.” Ricketts greeted this startling notion with an attentive poker face. “Do you guys think of it as a climate thing?” Chakrabarti continued. “Because we really think of it as a how-do-you-change-the-entire-economy thing.”

This was readily apparent to many who read the summary of the so-called Green New Deal proposal and noted that it took a great deal of time to get to anything that was supposed to benefit the ecosystem.

The conflation of radical redistribution with eco-friendly is not unique to political formulations of ecology, though. In his book, Religion and Ecology: Developing a Planetary Ethic, queer-theorist Whitney Bauman proposes (1) free higher education (and transferring student loan debt to the U.S. government), (2) global, universal health care, and (3) an increase in leisure time as key remedies for environmental ills, the method for which is not clearly defined. (Bauman, 2014:  147–148) The idea is to get people disengaged from economic activity so they take on the attitudes of “polytheistic nomadism” and have space to imagine a world that is truly environmentally friendly.

The message seems to be that by granting economic power to a central elite––an oligarchy that we will democratically choose, of course––people will stop working so hard and have time to consider the lilies.

There is no question that this sounds terrifically appealing on a Friday afternoon after a long week of work. And, of course, there is some helpful truth within the ideas, which allows people to focus on the legitimate good(s) proposed without considering the damage it would take to get there or what it would do to society.

As a Christian and a non-libertarian advocate for a Free Market economic condition, I believe that debt from higher education (and a whole bunch of other consumer sources) is too high, that we need to reevaluate and structurally improve our health care system at many levels, and that the harried pace of modern life are damaging to the human psyche. I am also of the opinion that we need to think carefully about our individual and corporate impact on the environment and continue to make adjustments at all levels.

However, I can’t support proposals like the so-called Green New Deal because of some of the fundamental flaws in the worldview.

Can Socialism Self-Regulate?

More significantly, I cannot support movement toward socialism on environmental grounds, because centralized control of the economy has not consistently led to a positive outcome for the environment. For the sake of this discussion, I will accept the traditional definition of socialism, which is that the government owns (or substantially controls) the means of production. (There are competing and historically naïve definitions in existence, so such a definition is warranted.)

At a fundamental level, it seems illogical that central planners will self-police environmental issues to the degree that advocates of socialism hope. When the local, state, and federal government are independent entities, they have both standing and incentive to enforce environmental regulations and seek damages from corporate entities that pollute. However, once the various levels of government and production are simply branches of the same massive entity, it is not clear they will have the political will to essentially self-enforce regulations.

Of course, the counter argument is that it isn’t a totalitarian socialism that is being proposed but a “democratic” socialism. However, when a few thousand people are being affected by a chemical spill for the benefit of the rest of the population, it doesn’t take too long to imagine how majoritarian democracy could choose to neglect that tiny minority. It also becomes less and less clear how people will be able to vote in their long-term best interests when their immediate good in regulated by the tiny minority in power, but that is a discussion for another day. It might be more helpful to look at historical examples to see how ecological health has fared under socialist economies.

Historic Impact of Socialism on the Environment

Historically speaking, socialistic systems have not been particularly good for the environment. In his book, The Art of the Impossible, Vaclav Havel describes the environmental blight caused by socialism the former Czechoslovakia. Similarly, historically, the levels of pollution in East Germany were several times that in West Germany during the reign of socialism. Then, you have the ongoing environmental blight and gross pollution present in today’s China, which has made some capitalistic reforms, but is still recovering from their economic communism. During Moa Zedong’s rule, his government created a famine by exterminating sparrows because he thought them to be pests, thus disrupting the ecosystem. The list can go on significantly and include the ongoing environmental meltdown in Venezuela. It is also worth noting that the so-called “good” socialism of the Scandinavian countries is rated near the bottom of the Sustainable Development Index. (For the record, these countries are not socialistic.)

But, some might argue, communism isn’t real socialism and what the so-called Green New Deal is proposing will be environmentally better. First, since the so-called Green New Deal is being compared favorably to FDR’s New Deal of the early 20th century, we can consider the impact that farm subsidies have had on the environment. One of the chief concerns about farming is topsoil depletion, which is significantly accelerated due to monoculture. The rise of agribusiness and the propensity toward monoculture of crops have been enabled and accelerated by FDR’s Agricultural Adjustment Act, which was a precursor to the modern farm bills. The industrialization of farming has only accelerated topsoil depletion. It is unclear that any new proposals from the so-called Green New Deal programs will do much better.

Conclusion

While there is a groundswell movement on the political left to link the concentration of economic power in the Federal government and environmental health, it is unclear that such a movement will have a positive outcome for the environment. In fact, there is good historical evidence that exactly the opposite will occur. We certainly need economic reform, but it might be better to think local, compassionate, and personal instead of looking to socialism.

Spirits in Bondage - A Review

C. S. Lewis is known in most contemporary circles for his apologetics and for his children’s books. If you were to do a “person on the street” interview about Lewis in a local church, you would probably find people mentioning his Chronicles of Narnia, Mere Christianity, and perhaps the collection of essays titled, God in the Dock. There might be some who know about The Screwtape Letters or, if they have a philosophical bent, The Abolition of Man, or, perhaps, The Great Divorce.

Not only would you find people ignorant of any of the works that focused on Lewis’ primary vocation as a scholar of Medieval and Renaissance literature (one of which is still a text in use), but you would be hard pressed to find someone who has not fallen deep into the well of Lewis studies that would describe Lewis as a poet.

And yet, the first volume Lewis ever published was of poetry, and he published many along the way. In an informal exchange, senior Lewis expert James Como (who contributed an essay to the volume, The Christian Mind of C. S. Lewis) informed me that Lewis may have executed his mythopoeic power more effectively in his poetry than in his narrative writing. Based on some of his later poetry, particularly poems like “As the Ruin Falls,” there is an argument to be made there.

Lexham Press has recently released Lewis’ first published volume, which is a cycle of poetry. Spirits in Bondage: A Cycle of Lyrics was begun during his teenage years (as we know from his correspondence with Arthur Greeves) and completed while Lewis was in the trenches during the Great War and during his recovery after he was wounded. It bears the marks of a broadly read teenager. Engaging, imitative, emotionally powerful at times, and at other times not quite enrapturing.

This small book, originally published under the pseudonym Clive Hamilton, earned a lukewarm reception from reviewers, which contributed to Lewis becoming more invested in other forms of literature. Part of the reason for its meager applause when released was that Lewis largely borrows from existing forms of poetry and, at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, English poetry was trending toward more modernistic form and structure. Lewis’ tendency to imitate the art of others, borrowing their themes and structures to present ideas in a fresh way, did not catch the fancy of readers of poetry as it would in his highly imitative science fiction trilogy or with the Chestertonian moralism of much of his apologetic prose. In many ways we should be thankful, because Lewis the novelist and apologist has been more effective than Lewis the poet may have been.

The new edition of Spirits in Bondage is a well-constructed book. The slender hardback volume is artistically illuminated, with brilliantly colored endsheets. It is well-typeset to invite the reader into a meditative digestion of Lewis’ poetry. This is a lovely volume and a pleasure to experience.

The reprint book has been published with a new introduction by Karen Swallow Prior. Her brief essay helps welcome unfamiliar readers into this book. She reminds people that this “is a work of literary, intellectual, and spiritual immaturity––and promise.” And it is all of those things. The reader of Mere Christianity would be surprised to pick up this book and find a tendency toward supernaturalism, but no real sense of the grandeur of the Divine. Prior’s introduction does what all introductions should do: it puts the work into its context so the uninitiated reader need not puzzle over themes and concepts that seem foreign. It also sets expectations, as Prior notes, “While sometimes weak in both concept and execution, the poems overall exhibit considerable metrical variety and a range of perspectives impressive for such a young writer. They are worthy reading for the poetry lover and the Lewis aficionado alike.”

Readers should understand that Spirits in Bondage is being reprinted because of the man who wrote it, not because it is the best poetry of its age. But for those struggling to understand the complexity of Lewis (there is a great deal more to even his children’s stories than some will acknowledge), these poems are exceedingly helpful.

When Lewis wrote Spirits in Bondage he was not a theist. He was past the most strident phase of his atheism, which was fueled by his tutor. He had found joy in the transcendent beauty of Nordic mythology. He had dabbled in the occult in his late teens, and that supernaturalism can be seen beneath some of Spirits in Bondage. This is, to be clear, not a series of love poems to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But it is not directly antagonistic to the faith, however. We encounter a Lewis who has not been found by Christ, but is searching for something he knows is out there.

This book will have the most appeal for those studying the life and work of C. S. Lewis. But those that enjoy poetry will find it a generally pleasant experience, too. Those who both enjoy poetry and are deeply interested in Lewis will find this a thoroughly intriguing book, because there are echoes of later Lewisian thoughts and motifs even in this very early work.

Spirits in Bondage: A Cycle of Lyrics

By Lewis, C.S.

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NOTE: I received a gratis copy of this volume from the publisher with no expectation of a positive review.

Race and Justice in Our Time

The ongoing debates over race relations always seems to generate a great more heat than light. It seems like we keep going over the same topics over and over again, the same memes get shared, the same voices are trotted out to demonstrate this point or that point.

It’s hard to know where to turn for helpful resources that are going to enrich understanding, remain faithful to biblical truth, and yet push us along toward a deeper desire for goodness. There is simply so much frustration because we keep having the same conversation after each public event that even the most careful handling of this issue is liable to offend some.

Feel free to scroll to the bottom if you’ve heard all this before. There are some resources that I’ve found helpful and appropriate to this time.

But I am encouraged. Despite the sinful excesses of the rioters, it feels like there is a different tone to the conversation this time. There are more people who are seeing—sometimes for the first time—that equality under the law does not always result in equal treatment under the law. We are also seeing people ask questions about how they have perpetuated injustice by simply not seeming to care enough to speak up when confronted with it.

Our action has to be more than a token meme here or there. It has to go beyond a week’s interest when it’s the topic about which the news is blaring. It has to be a steady emphasis on making things better in real and tangible ways.

And that is really the key. It’s not Tweeting or pumping out Facebook content that matters. It’s taking careful action to diminish the negative reality of ongoing racial discrimination. For some people, the first step is admitting that racism is still real and active in our communities. Our duty is to pursue justice in our lives as we live for Christ.

Justice as a Duty for the Godly

Micah 6:8 is a helpful verse as we think about our duty to live justly:

“He has told you, O man, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?”

Our God is a God of justice. It is the nature of God to be holy, righteous, and just. The Trinity is all those things and love at the same time. In this verse, which is known to many, Micah is simply summarizing what the Pentateuch already reveals: We are called to be a people who promote justice because we are called to be a people who look like the God of the universe. The pursuit of justice in the world around us is not a convenient add on to the faith, it’s the heart of what obedience looks like.

In Micah 6:8, “He has told you, O man, what is good,” refers to the testimony of God’s character that was already available to Micah and his audience. This line is pointing back to the Law and telling Israel--and also Christians as inheritors of the Hebrew Bible—that to live faithfully, we need to look at God’s character, which is partially revealed through the Law. And the Law is a call to live as agents of justice in the spheres that we have influence.

To be godly is to live justly. That is the refrain of the Law. Obedience to the law does not justify, but it does promote justice as we live out imperfectly the character of God.

Make no mistake, the Law reflects God’s character and obedience is due because of God’s character. To list a few examples, that refrain accompanies the Law in Leviticus 11:44, 11:45, 18:2, 18:4, 18:5, 18:6, 18:21; Numbers 3:41, 3:45, 10:10, 15:41. There are many more examples. Some of these laws relate to proper relationship with God through ceremonial sacrifices. Many of the laws relate to proper relationship to other humans by honoring parents, leaving gleanings for the poor, and not causing the blind to stumble. They all relate to living justly according to the character of God.

Justice, therefore, is not an extracurricular activity of Christianity, it is at the core of the Christian faith. When Jesus is asked which is the great commandment in the law in Matthew 22:34–40, he states:

 “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.  On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (vv. 37-40)

Love God. Love neighbor. The first is greater, but the second is like it. To love you neighbor is, in a very real sense, to demonstrate your love for God. To love your neighbor is to love the image of God in your neighbor. To love your neighbor is to do justice toward your neighbor.

The Golden Rule and Justice

The so-called Golden Rule is a helpful but often misunderstood aspect of living justly. And, again, it is an instruction from God, in the words of Jesus himself, that points us back to the Old Testament for much of its content. Jesus says, “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.” (Matt 7:12)

Unfortunately, when I hear this passage cited it is often in the context of a call to leave others alone or simply not to intentionally make someone else’s life harder. When kids are being mean to each other we are tempted to say, “Do unto others.” By which we mean that they should stop being a pest and leave their sister be.

Non-interference with others is certainly part of the meaning of the Golden Rule, but it’s the easy half. The harder half is to actually do to others what we wish someone would do for us. There is an active call to go out of our way to do things that make someone’s life better. “Do unto others” has become such a cliché that we sometimes miss what is a really hard call to obedience, grounded in the Old Testament, which reveals God’s character. So we’re back to Micah sharing God’s word with us that we are to do justice and love kindness. This is an active pursuit of justice on another’s behalf rather than simply an avoidance of injustice as an abstinence of sin.

This is a whole-Bible issue and an all-of-faith-in-God issue, not a side issue that we should see as a secondary concern. Real justice, as God defines it, can never replace the gospel because it is a form of gospel proclamation to accompany our words. But the key here is that justice must be as God defines it.

But What is Justice?

The content of justice never changes and any claim about what is justice must be evaluated according to Scripture. This means that some things that masquerade as justice in our time are not truly just. In fact, simply because there is a statute on the books does not mean that the law is just. The nature of justice is oriented in the character of God, not in the context of our time.

But justice is worked out in the context of our time. So our task is “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” in the time that we have been given. We may choose to explore questions of justice in the future or the past. That may help us understand our time better, but we must always be clear that our call is to live justly in our time and to resist the injustices of our time.

The nature of justice does not change, but our context does shape what issues are significant for our time. Because context is always changing, some will accuse those pursuing justice of innovation. We will not find an exact parallel to our social questions. Racial disparities in mass incarceration, excessive force by rogue police are issues peculiar to our day. Racial bias may not have been a primary concern in more ethnically homogeneous settings.

In our age racial reconciliation and the pursuit of racial justice—the healing of decades of injustice—should be a priority in our personal lives and our communities.

What Does Justice Look Like Now?

The world is so rife with sin that it is impossible for us to bring about the kingdom of God through human effort. The good news is that God never commands us to do that. He’s going to do the heavy lifting, but he does, as we’ve seen, ask us to love our neighbor by pursuing godly character according to his word.

So, we’re called to be fair in our business dealings with others and to work for a more just marketplace. As Proverbs 20:10 notes, “Unequal weights and unequal measures are both alike an abomination to the Lord.” Justice is fair dealing, but it also means working toward reforms in the economy that due to their very structure disadvantage particular groups. In some cases, this could be by working to reform excessive licensure requirements for certain professions. For example, many states require more than a thousand hours of training to cut someone’s hair. There may certainly be some health and safety training needed, but the excessive burden puts up a barrier to the poor for a reliable career path.

This example is painless because most of us aren’t barbers worried about excessive competition, so changing those statutes doesn’t negatively impact us. But it could make a big difference to someone on the bottom of the economic ladder in our society.

The key is to begin to notice that there is a problem. Then to pursue justice through righteous means.

Race and Justice

It is the noticing part that often comes the hardest in questions of race.

Many people who are not in the majority consistently fail to notice the pervasive bias against minorities. Some people have invested a great deal of time in the past few weeks presenting the narrative that there is no pervasive bias against minorities. I once believed that myself.

But then I began to look around and see things that I had never seen before. They were always there, but I’d never noticed. Here are a few examples:

To a person, every African American I have asked about it has had an excessively negative interaction with a police officer at some point. One sedate-looking African American with a PhD with salt and pepper hair had an officer draw his gun on him before he even got to the door of his truck. There was no apparent reason.

Multiple upper-middle class African Americans have told me about being asked by police why they were running when they were in an affluent neighborhood (even their own), as if heart disease might not be enough of a reason. The real implication was that they weren’t where they were supposed to be.

None of these were fatal, and most of them were simply escalated interest, as with the question while jogging. But the simple fact is that this is an alien experience to most whites, but a common (not to say universal) one for African Americans. Most of these experiences do not show up in statistics on policing, because either the result was a traffic ticket or an awkward discussion. But the experiences are real.

There is a greater general suspicion toward people of color in retail establishments. We might expect a heightened level of concern with kids in trench coats with big pockets wandering through the music store. But when someone goes in dressed like a soccer mom with dark skin, there is little reason to suspect them of shoplifting any more than a woman with a lighter complexion. And yet, the anecdotal evidence, which will never show up as a “fact that doesn’t care about feelings” on someone’s report, builds with every person that I’ve talked to.

It’s easy to miss the real problem because people can pull out stats that lethal force has been used more often on a numerical basis and roughly equally on a percentage basis on whites than on blacks. Let’s accept that statistic as true, but also accept that some of the most important facts aren’t measured in the available data. The regular indignities of heightened surveillance don’t show up in anyone’s data. We all become data-driven when it suits our purposes and supports our narrative. But the reality, as we argue when the reported data runs against our viewpoint, is that statistics don’t tell the whole story.

The first step in working toward justice is recognizing there is injustice. In the case of race in the United States, that means stepping into someone else’s shoes, taking their concerns seriously, and listening when they explain the problem. That isn’t humiliation or subjugation, it’s just common courtesy. In the past few weeks I’ve seen some exaggeration, but a lot more honest, sorrowful explanation. It isn’t all a hoax and we should be able to see that.

Conclusion

There is a whole lot of work to do beyond recognizing there is a problem. I’m not the expert on the issue and each of us should have a different response depending on where we live, what our responsibilities are, and what opportunities we have. Our duty is to work out justice in our situation right here and right now without trying to figure out how it should have been done or could be better facilitated by another group over there.

I’m going to include several videos below that were produced by people I know well and trust.

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This discuss is between my former pastor, Anthony Rhone and my former colleague Heath Thomas, and it is on the topic of justice. In particular justice in our context of a racialized United States.

My former pastor, Anthony Rhone, preached on the important question of who is our neighbor directly in response to the protests and riots after George Floyd’s murder. He is an excellent, biblical preacher and this is a good example of his preaching on an important topic.

Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary hosted a helpful panel discussion for pastors on shepherding a church through a racially tense time. I found this conversation gracious and practical.

Another important conversation at my alma mater about the ethics of racial injustice.

"He Descended to the Dead" - A Review

For many Christians, the three ecumenical creeds define the kernel of orthodox belief. The first time I encountered the Apostle’s Creed was one of my first Sundays at the Naval Academy. When we read that the clause, “He descended into hell,” caught my attention. Given the number of other things that were wrong with the service (it was being run by a very progressive chaplain of some semi-orthodox variety), that was the thing that led me to stop going to chapel.

Looking back, I don’t regret not sitting through the milk toast services in the chapel (though the organist later became a friend and, as it turns out, is a phenomenal human being), but that clause should not have been the radical point of theological departure that it became for me.

First, it appears that “he descended to the dead” is a better text and translation than “he descended into hell.” Second, it turns out that the Apostle’s Creed is extremely helpful at centering (though not exclusively defining) orthodoxy. Third, Christ’s descent to the dead is much more important that I supposed as an 18-year-old fundamentalist Baptist.

Over the years of seminary education, broader reading, and interaction with other Christian traditions, I came to see the value of the Apostle’s Creed. Michael Bird’s excellent volume, What Christians Ought to Believe, uses the Apostle’s Creed as a backbone for basic Christian instruction, which has been helpful in discipling my children.

I still didn’t really have a firm grasp on the descent clause until I read Matthew Emerson’s book, “He Descended to the Dead”: An Evangelical Theology of Holy Saturday. In one fairly concise volume, Emerson has laid out most of the major arguments and presents a convincing case that not only should Evangelical Christians accept the descent clause, but that our theologies will be deficient if we do not.

The book is divided into three unequal parts. In Part One, Emerson makes the case for the descent clause. He engages with the major arguments over the proper wording (he moves us a way from Christ descending to hell) and affirms that this is a clause that has central importance to the Christian faith. The Apostle’s Creed is an extra-biblical text, but it is a faithful summary of what Scripture teaches, so Emerson carefully combs through the Bible to show that Christ ministering to the spirits in the lower reaches of the earth is, in fact, his descent to the dead. This does not involve the “harrowing of hell,” which some theologians have argued as support for universal salvation, but it does point to Christ’s Spirit descending to the place of the righteous dead while his body lay in the grave. For pastors and amateur theologians trying to place the descent clause in the Christian tradition, this is the essential reading.

Part Two is much longer, very thorough, and systematic. In six chapters Emerson discusses the importance of the descent clause to classic Trinitarian theology, the doctrine of creation, salvation, ecclesiology, eschatology, and Christological anthropology. This is an important section, which demonstrates how deeply important the theological concept is to a thick orthodoxy. This is also a very thorough section, so casual readers may find it helpful to read more quickly. The book concludes in Part Three, where Emerson meditates on some of the practical applications of the Christian life in a single chapter.

The first three chapters are worth the price of the book and are accessible to reasonably informed lay people. The six chapters of Part Two are more technical and denser, but worthwhile for those aspiring to grow in their theological understanding. The last chapter is a helpful meditation to bring things home.

This is the work of several years for Emerson. He carefully researched what has been a fairly hotly debated theological idea, which has fallen out of favor among many Evangelicals. This is a paradigm-shifting book that, because of the care in the research, covers most of the debates of any size and honestly represents the various perspectives on the passage. “He Descended to the Dead” is a masterpiece of contemporary theology. It well warranted the award from The Gospel Coalition for Academic Theology Book of the Year in 2019.

This is a volume that is likely to get less attention than it deserves because it tackles a topic that is far from the center of most people’s contemporary concerns about theological debates. And yet, it is a good example of theological retrieval, so it provides an example of how theology ought to be done as we read through the centuries of Christian thinkers. An excellent book that I highly recommend. This should shape the course of the debate on the descent clause for the next generation of Evangelicals.

"He Descended to the Dead": An Evangelical Theology of Holy Saturday

By Emerson, Matthew Y.

Buy on Amazon

NOTE: The publisher provided me a copy of this volume gratis with no expectation of a positive review.

Should Southern Baptists Use Creeds?

The Southern Baptist Convention is a confessional network of autonomous local congregations who have generally clustered around mutual affirmation of the Baptist Faith and Message 2000 as a minimum statement of theological belief that permits cooperation, though there are churches that are in cooperation with the SBC (based on CP giving) that do not affirm the BF&M 2000. Many Southern Baptists are clear that they see the Baptist Faith and Message as a confession, which loosely binds, rather than a creed, that more clearly delineates and binds. Thus, affirmation of the BF&M is not required for churches or pastors to affiliate with the SBC.

The BF&M is a helpful document for this particular moment, because it defines the currently debated boundaries of SBC cooperation. It has limitations in two directions: (1) It largely assumes the earlier theological formulations that define orthodoxy, and which are outlined in the ecumenical creeds and other official products of ecumenical councils. (2) Language changes, which means that certain phrases can be filled with new meaning or disputed in their meaning, so that future clarification will be warranted. In other words, there will come a time that the BF&M will need to be revised to ensure it properly delineates the doctrinal categories of the SBC of that present moment.

One way that we can lengthen the time between needed revisions to the BF&M is to do more work in teaching orthodox doctrine through historical formulations, particularly building on the ecumenical creeds.

The use of creeds in worship gatherings and teaching ministries in SBC churches rubs some members the wrong way. Earlier generations, in particular, have built their identity on being “confessional” not “credal” due to the concept of individual soul liberty. There is value in that objection, but I believe that there is warrant to increase our use of creeds in our congregations without diminishing the role of the conscience in arriving at conclusions through careful of study of Scripture.

Within the context of learning and teaching theology, the creeds that were affirmed by the ecumenical councils are faithful summaries of the Christian faith. They do not supplant the careful study of Scripture, but they certainly provide guardrails that can help keep us from drifting into error. As I understand them, the creeds are some of the ways that we connect to the tradition of faithful Christians and prevent our own culture’s assumptions from overrunning the message of Scripture. This makes them invaluable in this time when information from unlimited sources threatens to overrun our churches.

Basis for Didactic Use of Creeds

The presence and use of creeds within SBC life is growing. In my opinion, that is generally a good thing for at least four reasons.

First, recognizing faithful affirmation of statements of faith (like creeds and confessions) as basics of Christian belief connects us to our Baptist heritage.

As Chuck Kelley, Richard Land, and Albert Mohler wrote in the introduction to the LifeWay study on the Baptist Faith and Message in 2007,

“Baptist churches and associations of churches have adopted statements of belief to teach, defend, and perpetuate the faith ‘that was delivered to the saints once for all’ (Jude 3). These statements, most commonly known as confessions of faith, are intended to clarify and publish the most basic beliefs that frame our faith, our witness, and our worship. In the beginning years of the organized Baptist movement, these statements were often intended to demonstrate that Baptists were fully orthodox as Christian believers. Later, such statements were used to establish identity, confront false teaching, and instruct Christians in the faith.” (The Baptist Faith and Message, 5)

Southern Baptists hold the BF&M to be a document that frames our corporate identity, but as noted, that identity is also within the orthodox tradition. The orthodox tradition has been defined, historically, as including acceptance of (though not dogmatically so) the historical creeds of the church. And, though we tend to describe our confession as a voluntary document, that has not been entirely consistent with the Baptist tradition broadly, or the Southern Baptist tradition more narrowly.

As Chute, Finn, and Haykin (all historians and professors in and from an SBC context) note:

“For at least the past century, some Baptists have adopted a negative posture toward confessions. They suggest that any prescriptive use of confession is ‘creedalism,’ or the elevation of a merely human standard above Scripture and an infringement on individual liberty of conscience. While this view is popular in some circles, it reflects a misunderstanding of Baptist history. As Timothy George argues, ‘The idea that voluntary conscientious adherence to an explicit doctrinal standard is somehow foreign to the Baptist tradition is a peculiar notion not borne out by careful examination of our heritage.’” (The Baptist Story, 327)

By affirming the BF&M 2000 as the defining confession of our cooperative network of churches, we are essentially treating it as a creed. As B. H. Carrol asserts: “There was never a man in the world without a creed. A creed is what you believe. What is a confession? It is a declaration of what you believe.”

In practice, the BF&M 2000 functions as a creed. It is minimalistic (e.g., it holds open diverse eschatological possibilities, multiple arrangements of church government, and a host of other secondary and tertiary documents). However, it is sufficient for a significant body of baptistic Christians to gather around and cooperate within without excessively binding the conscience of anyone.

In the spirit of the Reformational principal, sola Scriptura, we hold Scripture as the final authority over all faith and practice over the BF&M or any other human declaration. (If the BF&M is the frame of our beliefs, Scripture provides the portrait that the frame outlines.) This practice is consistent with the declaration on the SBC’s webpage that we are “all within the framework of historic biblical orthodoxy,” which statement seems to presume some non-scriptural standard outside of the BF&M that we can be judged by. That is to say, the BF&M necessarily assumes a broader stream of orthodoxy of which the SBC is a part. Using historical creeds like the Nicene Creed supports the BF&M rather than denigrates it by putting it in its context.

Second, evangelical churches (broadly defined) are bleeding young people that are searching for a faith that is rooted deeply in the past. I have seen multiple young Baptists drift into Roman Catholicism because they feel it has deeper roots in history. This is a practical concern, but one that has a theological solution.

While mistaken in their belief that the Roman Catholics are the real church with the deeper tradition, the impetus of those leaving Baptist churches and other evangelical churches is logical as we anticipate the growing cultural storm. In light of growing pressure to affirm counter-scriptural trends in culture, using a statement of faith adopted in the year 2000 is a much less robust shield than in a faith that is described as rooted in the confession of a man who knew Jesus in 33 AD. Churches serve their people well when they help them

Based on this reasoning, I use the historical creeds of the church to teach my children and I share them with Christians in Baptist churches because it connects us to the great cloud of witness that has gone before us. When I read the Apostle’s creed, I am reading the confession that Augustine affirmed, as have millions of faithful Christians in the interim. When I recite the creed, I am joining in a doxological practice that missionaries, martyrs, and ministers have shared for generations.

There is strength in the continuity we can share with those that have come before us. The creeds help us to understand that continuity. Given the ravages of the ecumenical movement of the mid-20th century, I understand reservations toward that sort of universal confession, but I believe it will be important in the coming years. The Nicene Creed is not enough, because it doesn’t take into account theological errors raised since it was authored, which is why the BF&M 2000 is an important document. Connecting people to the historic creeds is a way of showing theological continuity of our present confession with the ancient faith that we believe we are properly representing.

Third, the development of the creeds helps us understand the boundaries of Christian orthodoxy. Within the church, pastors and other leaders should be teaching the basis of our doctrinal belief, because it is vitally important to building a robust doctrinal foundation in a post-modern world.

As Dorothy L. Sayers wrote, with characteristic wit,

“Teacher and preachers never, I think, make it sufficiently clear that dogmas are not a set of arbitrary regulations invented a priori by a committee of theologians enjoying a bout of all-in dialectical wrestling. Most of them were hammered out under pressure of urgent practical necessity to provide an answer to heresy. And heresy is, as I have tried to show, largely the expression of opinion of the untutored average man, trying to grapple with the problems of the universe, trying to grapple with the problems of the universe at the point where they begin to interfere with daily life and thought.” (“Creed or Chaos,” in The Whimsical Christian, 41)

I think Sayers is right. Especially as an ethicist, I believe that we have to understand doctrine in light of the context in which it was expressed (not invented). By rooting our faith, which is founded on Scripture, in the Christian tradition through its connection with the historic creeds, we combat the error that Sayers identified in the 1940s in the rapidly secularizing British culture. To build an ethics that will weather the storms of this life and a faith that will not be carried away, we need to show people that our contemporary orthodoxy is a historical orthodoxy, which was drawn from Scripture in light of particular theological errors that continue to resurface.

Exposing people to ancient creeds that connect faith today to the doctrines delineated more than a millennia ago strengthens the faith of contemporary saints, even as it helps rule out of bounds some doctrinal innovations being promoted by ignorant and malicious teachers in our age. People need to know what good looks like to be able to recognize and avoid bad theology.

Fourth, studying and making people aware of the historical Christian creeds helps prevent the error of believing we can have “no creed but the Bible.”

I am sympathetic to those who try to live by the “no creed but the Bible” statement, but the good intent behind it can lead to significant error because it assumes that we can, without falling into error, read Scripture rightly. For example, “no creed but the Bible” is the essential belief of the Campbellite movement, which has led to their affirmation (in many cases) of baptismal regeneration. When diced in a particular way, Scripture can be seen to support that doctrine, though I believe it to be clearly inconsistent with the holistic message of Scripture.

I affirm the sufficiency, authority, and perspicuity of Scripture. At the same time, I also recognize that there are patterns of thought endemic to my age that will tend to lead to into particular errors. Exposing people to historic creeds helps guard against the blindness of our own age.

As C. S. Lewis wrote in his introduction to Athanasius’s On the Incarnation:

“Most of all, perhaps, we need intimate knowledge of the past. Not that the past has any magic about it, but because we cannot study the future, and yet need something to set against the present, to remind us that the basic assumptions have been quite different in different periods and that much which seems certain to the educated is merely temporary fashion. A man who has lived in many places is not likely to be deceived by the local errors of his native village: the scholar has lived in many times and is therefore in some degree immune from the great cataract of nonsense that pours from the press and the microphone of his own age.”

Church History in general and the creeds specifically are helpful in preventing us from falling into errors of our own age. Lewis is overly optimistic in believing that we won't fall into the opposite error of unquestioningly believing ancient sources, but his point that evaluating our understanding in light of historic thinkers, particularly when we are dealing with timeless truths, is right on the mark.

There are, I am sure, other reasons that I could list for utilizing the creeds as we study Christian doctrine, but these four provide a solid framework. I am hopeful that the creeds that have bounded orthodoxy for generations continue to grow in their use. It will link together faithful believers across traditions and bolster the faith of the members of our congregations trying to stand firm in our cultural moment.