On January 11, New Testament scholar J. D. G. Dunn gave a lecture at Fuller on Romans and the New Perspective on Paul, of which he is a major proponent. Donald Hagner, a New Testament professor at Fuller and an opponent to the New Perspective invited him to lecture to his class. It was a very interesting and enlightening evening. I am no expert on the New Perspective and its claims, but I find the conversation necessary. There are some aspects of the New Perspective that I appreciate greatly, though I am hesitant to endorse it altogether since I have not truly delved into its claims (as laid out by Dunn, E. P. Sanders, and N. T. Wright, though Wright distances himself from Sanders and Dunn), or its opposition (such as can be found in Hagner and Seyoon Kim). From my cursory investigation into the New Perspective, there are two important aspects that I believe it brings into the discussion of Paul and Judaism that were absent in a traditional Reformation understanding. The first aspect is showing the continuity of Paul with OT and Second Temple Judaism thought, rather than seeing Paul’s theology as something entirely separate from his religious context (though I still hold that Paul brings something novel to the conversation). The second advantage is related to the first. Namely, the New Perspective emphasizes a relational and Hebraic understanding of theological ideas in Paul—though we must be careful of distinguishing Greek and Hebrew thought too much since at the time of Paul’s writing, Hellenism was a given and not a novel influence in the land of Israel.

What emerged from Dunn’s lecture was a re-evaluation of the meaning of God’s righteousness found in http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=4180154”>Romans 1.17. Dunn argued that the traditional Reformation view of God’s righteousness holds that God exists at a standard of perfection and God’s righteousness is meted out on those who do not attain that same level of perfection. God’s righteousness is therefore seen in God’s punishment of sin. Dunn argued that this abstract ideal of righteousness has more to do with Platonic forms of perfection than it has to do with the righteousness of the God of the Hebrew Bible. In the Hebrew Scriptures, God’s righteousness is relational. The righteousness of God is the responsibility God has taken on himself in relation to creation and community. That is, God is righteous because God keeps the covenant—keeps relationship—with Abraham and his offspring despite the fact that the other party of the covenant rejected God. God saves and maintains Israel. And just as importantly, God is righteous because Yahweh extends that covenant beyond the initial recipients in order to save and maintain whole world. God’s righteousness is not seen in punishment, but in salvation.

It’s time for another round of Shut Up Awards. This week’s winners are New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin and US Senator Hillary Clinton.

Nagin wins two awards for the same speech. The first is for his theological analysis of the US’ recent bouts with natural disasters:

“Surely God is mad at America. He sent us hurricane after hurricane after hurricane, and it’s destroyed and put stress on this country….

“Surely he doesn’t approve of us being in Iraq under false pretenses. But surely he is upset at black America also. We’re not taking care of ourselves.”

The second is for his all-inclusive vision of rebuilding New Orleans:

“It’s time for us to come together. It’s time for us to rebuild New Orleans — the one that should be a chocolate New Orleans… This city will be a majority African American city. It’s the way God wants it to be. You can’t have New Orleans no other way. It wouldn’t be New Orleans.”

To his credit, Nagin has apologized (see here and here). Still, I expect more from elected leaders.

Clinton wins an award for her quote concerning the US House of Representatives that brings civility and a level of decorum back to political dialogue:

“[W]hen you look at the way the House of Representatives has been run, it has been run like a plantation, and you know what I’m talking about.”

I would say more, but John Stewart of The Daily Show has about the best commentary I could imagine on these quotes. (Check out the video soon before Comedy Central takes it down.) If you get nothing else from this post, watch this video—it is brilliant, though some language isn’t suitable for children.

I am admittedly ambiguous about my thoughts and feelings concerning churches endorsing political candidates. While I think it is dangerous for churches to be seen as potential voting blocs, I still would prefer that our elected officials embrace Christian values (as found in the Bible, not necessarily those discussed in the media, but that’s another discussion altogether). Part of me cringes when I see politicians speak from pulpits, when they are nothing more than photo-ops, or attempts to court the “faith-based” vote.

That said, this story from The Columbus Dispatch upsets me even more:

More than 30 local pastors last night [January 15] officially accused two evangelical megachurches of illegal political activities.

In a rare and potentially explosive action, the moderate ministers signed a complaint asking the Internal Revenue Service to investigate World Harvest Church of Columbus and Fairfield Christian Church of Lancaster and determine if their tax-exempt status should be revoked.

The grievance claims that the Rev. Rod Parsley of World Harvest Church and the Rev. Russell Johnson of Fairfield Christian Church improperly used their churches and affiliated entities — the Center for Moral Clarity, Ohio Restoration Project and Reformation Ohio — for partisan politics, including supporting the Republican gubernatorial candidacy of Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell.

The complaint asks the IRS to seek a court injunction “if these churches’ flagrant political campaign activities do not cease immediately.” It was signed by 31 pastors from nine denominations during a meeting last night at the North Congregational United Church of Christ in Columbus and was to be faxed late last night to IRS Commissioner Mark W. Everson.

I’m no fan of Rod Parsley and I don’t know who Russell Johnson is. Every so often I catch Parsley on TBN and my blood boils as he proclaims the prosperity gospel and other theologically suspect ideas. Parsley and Johnson and their churches may very well be breaking the rules for political activities, but what upsets me in this issue is that these other Christian leaders have brought in the government to stop them. The story does not mention whether the pastors had tried to communicate with Parsley and Russell prior to appealing to the IRS. I am concerned that Christians would bring in the government to mediate a complaint. What message does this send to the non-Christian world? That we Christians don’t all lean towards the right despite how we are portrayed in the news? If that is the goal, then at what cost? (Nevermind the irony that these pastors are calling in the government because they believe other Christians are too allied with the government.) I wish this issue could have been resolved between these groups, perhaps with another Christian mediator. (Hat tip: The Revealer.)

For some reason, I’ve seen a ton of films the past couple of weeks. Wait, that reason is that I’m no longer in school. Here are some blurbs.

In the theater:

• Munich. Awesome. Complex, both emotionally and socially. Perhaps my favorite film of 2005.


• Syriana. Dense, complex to the point of confusion (but that is perhaps the point), well-acted. A nine-year-old in front of me fell asleep.


• The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Fun. Good, not great. Aslan lacked some terror. Missed the discussions of Deep Magic since that is the unifying logic of Narnia in the novels. Spurred on a hilarious SNL sketch.


• Match Point. Very un-Woody Allen-like film in some respects. In other respects, it’s a remake of other work. A ton of reviews call Match Point his best since Crimes and Misdemeanors. It’s nearly the same movie. Just replace the New York social elite with the London social elite, take out the Woody Allen character, and voila! you have Match Point.


• Memoirs of a Geisha. Beautifully shot. Gorgeous score. Missed the novel. Instead of showing the world of the geisha, the filmmakers decided to focus on melodrama.

On DVD:

• Angels in America. Inventive, challenging, thought provoking, gut-wrenching. Extremely well-made. Along with Munich, this piece shows what an amazing writer Tony Kushner is. One of the most original pieces of art I’ve ever seen. And I think I never want to see it again.


• Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Exteremly fun and imaginative. I loved it and couldn’t see why there is so much objection to these stories in some Christian circles. It was the first time I’d ever taken in any Harry Potter material—either books or films. No Johnny-come-lately am I.


• Crash. (The one directed by Paul Haggis, not the one by David Cronenberg.) Do the Right Thing meets Magnolia. Great film. Directly confronts the audience. Should be seen with a group, preferably an ethnically diverse group. One of the better films of 2005.


• Batman Begins. Saw this one in the theater, but I still enjoyed it a ton. I think it’s safe to say it’s the best Batman film, though without the radical developments of Tim Burton’s first film (namely, the tortured and conflicted superhero), I don’t think this version would be made. The filmmakers took the risk and focused on Bruce Wayne/Batman, which was a terrible downfall (among many downfalls) of Batman Forever. A believable super hero story.


• Annie Hall. Very creative film. Witty, enjoyable, and surprisingly emotional. Allen is a risky filmmaker that forces his audience to keep up. Though I wonder, at what point do Allen’s films—especially those in which he plays a major character—move beyond self-exploration and self-deprication and into self-indulgence?


• March of the Penguins. Fun documentary. I’ve thought penguins were one of the two coolest animals on Earth for several years now and this confirms it. It’s not “penguin porn” as a friend warned me. (Man, am I going to get some interesting traffic with that last sentence.)


• Empire Falls. Well-acted. Even at four hours, it couldn’t live up to the novel. Felt like a greatest-hits version of the book. (Curse Peter Jackson, for raising my expectations for film adaptations of awesome novels.)

Carey and I went up to San Francisco (aka, “The City,” Eddie Izzard is dead-on with those jokes) on Tuesday. We came back to Alhambra the next afternoon. She had a residency interview at a Kaiser hospital up there. I hung out and walked around Golden Gate Park and read in a coffee shop. We were able to stay with our good friend, my former roommate, and groomsman Bakie. Thanks to the generosity of him and his family, our costs were minimal. We ate some awesome Italian food near North Beach on a typical cold and rainy night.

On a personal note, I wouldn’t mind living in San Francisco for four years. It’s a dense city, but there is a character to it, a sense of community in it. San Francisco has consistently been one of my favorite places. I just wouldn’t want to drive stick there.

First rate biblical scholar Scot McKnight has this to say about covenant over on his blog:

It is in the context of a covenant relationship with God that the Law is expressed. It goes on and on: David and then Jesus and then Paul and Peter and John and whoever else you’d like to list. Christian “ethics” are not Kantian deductions from human nature and social behavior, nor are they Rousseau-like contracts with one another by vote, but Christian ethics are behaviors expressing fidelity to the Covenant God has made with his people and these behaviors emerge from God’s Spirit and grace. Nor are the behaviors for Israel constitutional rights or simply laws governing the Land: they are, instead, covenant responsibilities for rescued people who are summoned to live in the community of faith.

I ordered some books through Barnes&Noble.com and they use USPS for shipping. I must say that the USPS tracking system is weak sauce when compared to UPS’. The message I receive is: “Information, if available, is updated every evening.” The last update was on January 10. UPS updates their system whenever the parcel enters a new warehouse or when the delivery person knocks on your door.

As I listen to Samuel Alito’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings on NPR, I can’t help but think whenever I hear a southern senator say his name in the soft, long drawl that comes with their accent: “Alito rhymes with Cheeto.” Come on, wouldn’t you love to hear Lindsey Graham, Tom Coburn, or John Cornyn mutter that at some point?

According to the AFP story, “Selective Abortion: 10 Million Girls ‘Missing’ in India,”

Around 10 million female foetuses may have been aborted in India over the past two decades because of ultrasound sex screening and a traditional preference for boys, according to a study published online in The Lancet….

Based on the natural sex ratio in other countries, around 13.6-13.8 million girls should have been born in India in 1997—but the actual number was 13.1 million.

“We conservatively estimate that prenatal sex determination and selective abortion accounts for 0.5 million missing girls yearly,” said one of the authors, Prabhat Jha of St. Michael’s Hospital at the University of Toronto, Canada, on Monday.

“If this practice has been common for most of the past two decades since access to ultrasound became widespread, then a figure of 10 million missing female births would not be unreasonable.”

There are lots of answers to the question above, but I prefer the one found in Alister E. McGrath’s Christian Theology: An Introduction, second edition (1997). It isn’t perfect, but it’s better than many popular notions these days that link evangelicalism to a specific American political agenda. The description is as follows:

The term “evangelical” dates from the sixteenth century, and was then used to refer to Catholic writers wishing to revert to more biblical beliefs and practices than those associated with the late medieval church… The term is now used widely to refer to a transdenominational trend in theology and spirituality, which lays particular emphasis upon the place of Scripture in the Christian life. Evangelicalism now centers upon a cluster of four assumptions:

1. The authority and sufficiency of Scripture.


2. The uniqueness of redemption through the death of Christ upon the cross.


3. The need for personal conversion.


4. The necessity, propriety, and urgency of evangelism.

All other matters have tended to be regarded as adiaphora, “matters of indifference,” upon which a substantial degree of pluralism may be accepted….

Historically, evangelicalism has never been committed to any particular theory of the church, regarding the New Testament as being open to a number of interpretations in this respect, and treating denominational distinctives as of secondary importance to the gospel itself. This most emphatically does not mean that evangelicals lack commitment to the church as the body of Christ; rather, it means that evangelicals are not committed to any one theory of the church. A corporate conceptoin of the Christian life is not understood to be specifically linked with any one denominational understanding of the nature of the church. In one sense, this is a “minimalist” ecclesiology; in another, it represents the admission that the New Testament itself does not stipulate with precision any single form of church government, which can be made binding upon all Christians. This has had several major consequences, which are of central importance to an informed understanding of the movement.

1. Evangelicalism is transdenominational. It is not confined to any one denomination, nor is it a denomination in its own right. There is no inconsistency involved in speaking of “Anglican evangelicals,” “Presbyterian evangelicals,” “Methodist evangelicals,” or even “Roman Catholic evangelicals.”


2. Evangelicalism is not a denomination in itself, possessed of a disctinctive ecclesiology, but is a trend within the mainstream denominations.


3. Evangelicalism itself represents an ecumenical movement. There is a natural affinity amongst evangelicals, irrespective of their denominational associations, which arises from a common commitment to a set of shared beliefs and outlooks. The characteristic evangelical refusal to allow any specific ecclesiology to be seen as normative, while honoring those which are clearly grounded in the New Testament and Christian tradition, means that the potentially divisive matters of church ordering and government are treated as of secondary importance.

(121-122)