I pre-ordered Hart's most recent book as soon as I discovered it would be released. I like Hart's work and I found his New Testament translation to be mostly helpful despite its many shortcomings. His new book is thought provoking and contains at least three hard to beat arguments for apokatastasis (the doctrine that God will redeem every last living soul in the end). I'll write about it in the future. To be honest, I'm nearly convinced.
Virtue signalling is "the conspicuous expression of moral values by an individual done primarily with the intent of enhancing that person's standing within a social group." Jesus, while not using the terminology, definitely addresses the concept.
“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.
In response to efforts of the American leaders in the United Methodist Church to influence Africa's Methodists to reject the Biblical teaching on homosexual marraige, they did not budge:
I thank God for His precious Word to us, and I thank him for you, my dear sisters and brothers in Christ.
As the General Coordinator of UMC AfricaInitiative I greet you on behalf of all its members and leaders. We want to thank the Renewal and Reform Coalition within the United Methodist Church for the invitation to address you at this important breakfast meeting.
As I understand it, the plans before us seek to find a lasting solution to the long debate over our church’s sexual ethics, its teachings on marriage, and it[s] ordination standards.
This debate and the numerous acts of defiance have brought the United Methodist Church to a crossroads (Jeremiah 6:16).
One plan invites the people called United Methodists to take a road in opposition to the Bible and two thousand years of Christian teachings. Going down that road would divide the church. Those advocating for the One Church Plan would have us take that road.
Another road invites us to reaffirm Christian teachings rooted in Scripture and the church’s rich traditions...
More and more articles on the standard Christian websites and highly read blogs have articles that follow this pattern:
Belief 'X' is almost always something like traditional Christian sexual ethics, the Biblical restriction on divorce, being pro-life, believing that God is real (not even kidding), or believing the Bible is inspired or even accurate at all.
Mike Heiser makes a compelling case against referring to the rabbinical authors uncritically when trying to understand the Bible:
You have to realize appealing to rabbis means nothing. Rabbinic thought and biblical thought (and academic work) are miles apart. Hey Christians enamored with rabbis: The rabbis can’t even get the messiah right (or, to be more charitable, the two powers in heaven doctrine right — that belief they used to have in Judaism until it became uncomfortable due to Christianity). If you’ve ever listened to Ben Shapiro (I’m a fan of the show) you know what I mean. He often does “Bible time” on his podcast. But what you get isn’t exegesis of the text in its ancient context. What you get is rabbinic opinion (with all the contrarian rabbinic opinions shelved to the side). Rabbinic interpretation (think Talmud and Mishnah) contradicts itself over and over again. That’s what those works do — they fling opinions at each other. That Hebrew food fight got codified into the Talmud and Mishnah. And Judaism is fine with that. We shouldn’t be. Most of what you’d find in rabbinic writings bears little to no resemblance of exegetical work in the text understood in light of its original ancient Near Eastern worldview. Not even close. They’re frequently making stuff up (they apply biblical material to situations in which the community found itself in; the work of the rabbis was responsive to community circumstances — it’s very applicational or situational).
If you know me, you know I’ve got an anti-authoritarian side. This is temperamental first and only then morphs into ideology. I noticed this about myself in my late teens. Because of that, I typically found myself siding w/libertarian in most areas of political theory. But I knew, even in high school, that pure anarchy wasn’t reasonable because even at the level of neighborhoods, people with short time preferences or low IQs would just live in chaos in a society bereft of deep organizing mythology as is our own. But I’ve never been sure just how far a modern society can or should go with respect to regulating individual morality outside of contracts and violence.
A common evangelical slogan, which I think comes from a Ravi Zacharias sermon is:
Jesus didn't come to make bad people good, he came to make dead people live.
While I think I agree with the main point of this phrase (Christianity is not merely morality), I usually hear it said in a way that contradicts everything the New Testament says about morality. For instance, Paul says that we'll be judged for everything we do (Romans 14:12). Jesus says to do good works (Matthew 5:14-16). Peter says to add virtue to your faith (2 Peter 1:3-5).
Introduction
A feature of Paul's letter to the Romans that I've never noticed being explored in depth is the concept of obligation or indebtedness. I am interested in this topic because there is a great deal of hand wringing in modern Christian thought about the notion of debt or obligation to God.
John Piper, for instance, thinks that the language of obligation in the context of the Christian life and worship is akin to telling your wife that you bought her flowers out of obligation (Desiring God, 97-98). Piper even calls obligation the "mortal enemy" of worship. Similarly, Greg Boyd (Piper's opposite), in his book Seeing is Believing seems to say something similar, "striving to be holy, loving, kind or patient means nothing if these attributes are sought as ethical ideals, or to fulfill a rule, or to meet an obligation (Seeing is Believing, 53)." These attitudes toward obligation are psychologically confusing to normal people who don't have doctoral degrees to help them keep silly things straight. When Jesus says, "train them to do everything which I have commanded you (Matthew 28:19)," we rightly feel obligated to do what he says and to tell others of the obligations Jesus lays on them. As an aside, it is interesting that Boyd and Piper are utterly in disagreement about many things, but find themselves in complete agreement on this modern/romantic point of view.
John Piper lets pastors know what it's important to study the Bible for themselves and carefully:
We must be like Jonathan Edwards, who resolved in his college days and kept the resolution all his life, “Resolved: To study the Scriptures so steadily, constantly, and frequently, as that I may find, and plainly perceive, myself to grow in the knowledge of the same.” Growing, advancing, increasing—that is the goal. And to advance we must be troubled by biblical affirmations.
It must bother us that James and Paul don’t seem to fit together. Only when we are troubled and bothered do we think hard. Paul told young pastor Timothy to think hard: “Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything” (2 Tim. 2:7). And if we don’t think hard about how biblical affirmations fit together, we will never penetrate to their common root and discover the beauty of unified divine truth—what David calls “wondrous things out of your law” (Ps. 119:18). The end result is that our Bible reading will become insipid, we will turn to fascinating “secondary literature,” our sermons will be the lame work of “second-handers,” and the people will go hungry.
Richard Baxter saw the dangers of cozying up to political power. Ministers of the gospel, if they aren’t careful, will not only sacrifice original thought but also Biblical truth in order to avoid being ostracized, mocked, or disagreed with. Social media has made this quite apparent in the current year. For instance, as the pro-life position has become more and more subject to mockery, fewer Christians are publicly affirming it. I can think of two anti-political pastors (Greg Boyd and Josh Porter) who are “anti-political” as an expression of theology. So, they don’t really talk much about opposing abortion (as a matter of principle one should stay out of politics), but both were happy to engage in making fun of Trump and his voters on Twitter. I suspect that these strategies are more to appeal to people of a left-leaning political slant. And in fact, I've known many pastors personally who have taken a similar approach to ministry: mocking openly anybody in their churches that the political left finds distasteful.