Tentpegs

Last one on this question and then we’ll move on. If you are following my personal/historical blog, you might want to know that I began a new series there today – www.patrickmead.net. Now, back to Hawking.

Hawking could use a good philosophy course to help him not make several mistakes in his book, The Grand Design, including, of course, the idea that philosophy is dead. He deals with epistemology, the study of how we know what we know, but he fails to account for what his theory would do to that field. Physicists I’ve quoted in the last two blogs such as Davies and Polkinghorne have excoriated him on this for if our brains and if consciousness itself were merely the random arrangement of molecules due to a pre-existent law of gravity there would be no reason at all to believe what they come up with is true.

But there are other problems with the book: an ignorance of history caused by arrogance. Hawking says that the only reason people believed in miracles in Jesus’ time (or the time of scripture generally) was because they lived in an ignorant, pre-scientific, myth filled world. He is not the first to make this argument. While Dawkins makes it as well they both took it from the late Carl Sagan’s book “The Demon Haunted World.” In that book, Sagan paints the people of the Bible and, indeed, all people up to the time of Darwin as so foolish they thought everything was caused by demons or angels and that miracles were all around them. Only when science came along, Sagan says, were we given freedom from those atavistic fears of our forefathers. This is, of course, rubbish.

Before I get into why it is rubbish, let me remind you of something. Sagan wrote a fiction book called Contact where a plucky scientist played by Jodie Foster notices that a pattern of a few tones/letters appears again and again. Knowing that the odds that a pattern like that could form spontaneously and repeat again and again are so high as to be impossible, she uses that to prove that there is an alien intelligence “out there” trying to make contact with us. But Sagan ignored the largest “word” known to man – our DNA. There in every cell in our body is a 3.5 billion letter “word” that has the most intricate set of architectural drawings, chemical equations, and structural instructions known to exist in the entire universe. He couldn’t see it because he was waiting for a few tones/letters to hit from “out there.” Sigh.

Back to the historical myth touted by Sagan, Dawkins and, now, Hawking. If the people of Jesus’ day expected miracles and saw angels and demons behind the events of every day life, then why were the miracles done by Jesus of any interest to them at all? Why did the resurrection literally change the course of world history? As Professor Lennox said “A moment’s thought will show us that, in order to recognize some event as a miracle, there must be some perceived regularity to which that event is an apparent exception! You cannot recognize something as abnormal if you do not know what is normal.”

Luke was a historian as well as a physician. He noted some objections to the resurrection story, but they came from the high priests who saw that their power would disappear if this story were true. In other words, religious people of the day did NOT automatically believe in miracles even when they occurred. Like most people – remember Thomas? – they would not believe unless they saw it with their own eyes and touched him with their own hands. And resurrection was such an anomaly! Pagan myths did, indeed, exist everywhere but the idea of a resurrection from the dead was so rare that even Mohammed, when he wrote the story of Islam, rewrote the Jesus story to take the resurrection out.

The fact is that the people of Jesus’ day studied science and understood when the laws of nature had been broken. They did not look at such events as normal but as extremely rare. People even flocked around Jesus just in case he did something extraordinary… for they had never seen miracles before. The idea that people of that age just believed any old story is a slander to the intelligence of the people who gave us our first lessons in science, language, alphabets, and numerals.

Hawking then says there is no place for a God when you have laws of nature. What could He possibly do? Hawking asks. Seriously? My car runs by the laws of science and nature, but a large group of individuals intervened when they put those materials together and arranged them into a functioning vehicle. To say that since natural laws exist, God can’t intervene to arrange substances and materials into people and rivers is nonsensical. Again, quoting Lennox, “He is simply assuming what he wants to prove. He is expressing a belief based on his atheistic worldview, not on his science.”

Yes, miracles are unique and rare and improbable. And the resurrection story is something that we can all agree is so rare and improbable that it is fine to question it and look to see what evidence exists that it did, in fact, occur. But is this story any more unique, rare, or improbable than that a law of nature (gravity) created itself and then, without any action or agency, it created all other things? Hawking never sees how odd his choices are. He believes in the multiverse but not miracles, even though the whole point of the theory of multiverses is that everything that can happen is happening or did happen in one of them… including miracles. Every theory of multiverses includes universes in which the laws of nature are missing or changed. In his other papers, Hawking admits that. In his book to push atheism, he never brings it up. If Hawking doesn’t want to meet God, he should avoid the multiverse.

Remember that Hawking is telling us – with great confidence – that there is now a known scientific pathway to get from nothing to something. He saw that mechanism is the law of gravity. However, he is going in circles here. He has failed to answer the simple question “why is there something rather than nothing?” When he says that the existence of the law of gravity makes creation of the universe not only possible but inevitable he makes at least two huge errors.

First – if you have a law of gravity in existence, you most certainly do not have “nothing.” You have something. You have failed to answer how that something came to be. It did not create itself as that is as impossible as pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. We won’t even go into the details of the law of gravity that require other objects before gravity manifests itself… let’s just say his cosmic cart is well ahead of his cosmic horse. Hawking says that all that was necessary was for “the blue touch paper to be lit to set the universe going” and you can almost hear the jaws of scientists drop all over the world. What blue touch paper? The law of gravity? Who put its properties and potentials into place? Who put the blue touch paper there? Who lit it?

The second error is to say that the existence of the law of gravity makes the creation of the universe inevitable. Of course, he offers no formula or experiment to show us this cosmic inevitability and that is understandable for none such exists. Someone who actually knows a great deal about this is Allan Sandage. He is considered the father of modern astronomy and has won astronomy’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize, the Crafoord Prize. He says (quoted by Lennox), “I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle. God to me is a mystery but is the explanation for the miracle of existence – why there is something rather than nothing.”

Hawking builds several straw men in his book and then triumphantly knocks them down. One of them is the old Bishop Ussher chronology. He presents it as if all who believe in God believe that Ussher had it right when he declared that the universe was created on October 27, 4004 BC. He also leaves the impression that the Bible backs up Ussher and that timeline. While there are some groups that hold to Ussher (and other who believe we didn’t make it to the moon, others who believe the earth is flat, etc.) the vast majority of believers in God are quite elastic when it comes to timelines and dates for creation. And the Bible certainly doesn’t give us that answer. Trying to count backwards from lists of ancestors and sons is against the purpose of the list and ignores the rules of such lists. Remember… Jesus was the Son of David but there were a few generations in between.

When confronted with the massive collection of evidence that indicates this universe was fine tuned for life, Hawking agrees that it looks that way. He says “The discovery relatively recently of the extreme fine tuning of so many of the laws of nature could lead at least some of us back to the old idea that this grand design is the world of some grand designer…That is not the answer of modern science… our universe seems to be one of many, each with different laws.” So… let’s toss aside all the of evidence we can see, measure, and use in experiments and replace it with the unproven theory of the multiverse? And how does the existence of multiple universes – if they, indeed, exist – negate the order and fine tuning in our universe? And why would it be necessary to assume that the other universes are NOT fine-tuned? One of the top theoretical physicists of all times is John Polkinghorne said this of the concept of multiverses: “Let us recognize these speculations for what they are. They are not physics, but in the purely scientific sense, metaphysics. There is no purely scientific reason to believe in an ensemble of universes…A possible explanation of equal intellectual respectability…would be that this one world is the way it is, because it is the creation of the will of a Creator who purposes that it should be so.”

Surprised that so many top astronomers and physicists are believers? Don’t be. While belief is less common among scientists of all stripes than it is in the general public, it is rather common among physicists and astronomers, mathematicians, and several other disciplines. It is much rarer in disciplines such as paleontology, geology, and evolutionary biology. Faith is very common among medical practitioners and researchers. Just saying this – don’t think Hawking represents all scientists. He represents the ones that get on TV and in the popular press.

This would be a good time to insert something a bit off topic. I was recently approached by a member of my church whose friend at work “doesn’t believe in God. He believes in science.” His stated reason for this was the large number of divisions among believers which showed him it was all nonsense. Faith wasn’t united like science was, he said. I nearly swallowed my tongue. I know of no denominational fight that comes up to the scale of the infighting in scientific circles. One example will suffice here but more can be given upon request. When dinosaur fossils and fossilized tropical vegetation was found in Antarctica, the scientific world started a fight it shows no sign of settling. Geologists said that Antarctica separated from a landmass further north too long ago to support the existence of dinosaurs there. Biologists and paleontologists nearly came to blows with each other and with geologists about the timing, possibility, and how those bones got there. Those who study the formation of petroleum say all of the others are nuts. Climate scientists believe their idea is right and the others are idiots. Fact is, I have never been to a medical or scientific forum where “denominations” didn’t break out and harsh divisions form. In contrast, 95% of believers in Christ on this planet would accept the Nicean and or the Apostles Creed in some form or the other.

Hawking makes up a theory he calls M-theory to explain how the law of gravity formed by itself, set itself off, and created planets, pandas, and posies out of nothing. His assumptions are such a reach that Don Page, a theoretical physicist who authored eight papers with Hawking and who helped him do research for years and years wrote this in a letter to his colleagues at Oxford and Cambridge: “I would certainly agree that even if M-theory were a fully formulated theory (which it isn’t yet) and were correct (which of course we do not know), that would not imply that God did not create the universe.” M-theory is an abstract theory with no power to create or to solve the issue of our fine-tuned universe. Hawking says it is sufficient to explain the existence of 10⁵⁰⁰ universes but his peers and those who are Nobel Prize winners in his field say it is not sufficient to explain the one in which we live. Guess who got his view on TV and in our kids’ textbooks?

Tim Radford wrote a review of Hawking’s book in The Guardian, a left leaning newspaper for the well-educated Englishman. I love his phrasing. “In this very brief history of modern cosmological physics, the laws of quantum and relativistic physics represent things to be wondered at but widely accepted: just like biblical miracles. M-theory invokes something different: a prime mover, a begetter, a creative force that is everywhere and nowhere. This force cannot be identified by instruments or examined by comprehensible mathematical prediction, and yet it contains all possibilities. It incorporates omnipresence, omniscience and omnipotence, and it’s a big mystery. Remind you of Anybody?” (Guardian, 18 September 2010)

Other physicists came out against Hawking’s book and against M-theory in particular. Jim Al-Khalili said “M-theory is not even a proper scientific theory…and in fact [it is] only one of a number of candidate TOEs [theories of everything].” Paul Davies said “It is not testable, not even in any foreseeable future.” Frank Close says that the M might as well stand for Myth and adds “I don’t see that M-theory adds one iota to the God debate, either pro or con.” One of the top men at the Hadron Collider in Switzerland, John Butterworth, says it is “highly speculative and certainly not in the zone of science that we have got any evidence for.” And this type of quotes could go on for dozens of top physicists in top universities and labs all over the world. The only people Hawking can convince with his book are TV presenters, our kids in school (who don’t hear the opposing arguments), and the simple, unscientifically trained. Sadly, that latter group is rather large and vocal.

I love Lennox’s quote here in “God and Stephen Hawking.” He says “A move to advance the cause of atheism by means of a highly speculative, untestable theory that is not within the zone of evidence-based science, and which, even if it were true, could not dislodge God in any case, is not exactly calculated to impress those of us whose faith in God is not speculative, but testable and well within the zone of evidence based rational thought.” Amen.

One more on this later…

More questions are coming into tentpegsquestion@yahoo.com than I can answer but keep them coming! This one has come in a couple of times so I blended two emails and distilled them into this question:

I haven’t seen you address Stephen Hawking’s latest book, The Grand Design. Several of our kids have read it (or say they did) and that it gave them all they needed to discard belief in God. If you’ve read it, what do you think about it and how can we answer those who think science has now disproven the existence of God?

It seems that every new book is said to have proven there is no god. And then that book is forgotten and we move along, churches still in business, Bibles still being sold and read, and charities still run as if there were a God. It’s best to keep that in mind and to remind people of that when they run to this or that book as if the author has come up with some argument that has eluded everyone else in the history of our planet.

Stephen Hawking brushed up against atheistic statements in his classic book “A Brief History of Time” but he comes right out and says that science has done away with any reason to believe in any kind of god in his latest book… and the media loves him for it. They gave him an hour long special program that ran on Discovery Channel and was reshown on a couple of other networks. They also had him or his surrogates (he can only speak through a complicated computer so he rarely does straight interviews) on at least a dozen shows I heard about or saw. The problem is… his book is quite a disappointment.

I’ll explain. I keep waiting for good arguments to arise that would free me from this whole “love thy neighbor” and “give to the poor” stuff I find myself in but no one has made them. Richard Dawkins’ book, The God Delusion, was so poorly researched and written and so poorly reasoned that although the media treated it as if it were brilliant, his friends and co-scientists and professors at Oxford excoriated it as childish and error filled. He confused the testaments, attributed quotes to the Bible that were never there, misunderstood several basic scientific concepts (to be fair, they weren’t in his own field of evolutionary biology but, if you are going to use them, you need to use them correctly and he did not), and his arguments would have given him an F in a freshman logic course. It was, in a word, sad. I expected better of him. (yes, if you need examples of this I can provide those in a future blog. But his book is nearly forgotten already)

And when I read Hawking’s new book I was once again stunned at how shallow and poor the arguments are that are slung against faith in God. He starts his book with the big questions. “How can we understand the world in which we find ourselves? How does the universe behave? What is the nature of reality? Where did all this come from? Did the universe need a Creator?” He continues with questions along this line and then makes this rather stunning statement: “Traditionally, these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead…As a result scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge.”

Seriously? Philosophy is dead? And how does one determine that unless one engages in philosophy? And, in fact, Hawkings spends most of his book engaging in philosophy without, evidently, being aware of the fact. That is shocking. Perhaps it wasn’t that philosophy didn’t keep up (as he states) with science so much as he didn’t keep up with philosophy. His statement is ludicrous. It is also logically incoherent because it is a metaphysical, philosophical statement made to the effect that philosophy is useless and dead. Note – he didn’t make (nor does he in the rest of his book) a scientific statement to the effect that philosophy is dead. No, he made a philosophical statement. For there is no evidence upon which he can make a scientific statement.

Scientism – the idea that science is the only way to truth – is discarded as nonsense by most scientists, even those who are his peers at Cambridge. One of them is the world’s premier mathematician, John C. Lennox. Professor Lennox holds three doctorates (!) and has destroyed Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins in debates for he is also a devout Christian… and he doesn’t let them get away with the sloppy thinking. (read his books “God’s Undertaker” and “God and Stephen Hawking”).

In this he is joined by Nobel Prize Winner Sir Peter Medawar in “Advice to a Young Scientist”) “There is no quicker way for a scientist to bring discredit upon himself and upon his profession than to roundly declare… that science knows, or soon will know, the answers to all questions worth asking.” Einstein and Richard Feynman also wrote and spoke extensively against the very kind of hubris and over-statements that make up Hawking’s book.

The main thrust of Hawking’s book is that something can come from nothing. He even calls it “spontaneous generation” even though that term and the idea it describes has been thrown in the trash bin since Pasteur found out that life does not spontaneously generate itself from non-life. He writes “because there is a law of gravity, the universe can and will create itself out of nothing.” I am stunned that he or his editor did not catch this statement – which he repeats several different ways throughout his book – and note that it is inherently contradictory. If you have a law of gravity you most certainly do NOT have nothing. You have a law that follows certain rules of behavior and result. It is a something.

And, besides, laws don’t create anything. Laws merely describe what exists; they do not make those things happen. A universe such as described by Hawking’s only exists in Lewis Carroll books, not in reality. Professor Lennox puts it this way: “It is seldom that one finds in a single statement two distinct levels of contradiction, but Hawking appears to have constructed such a statement. He says the universe comes from a nothing that turns out to be a something (self contradiction number one), and then he says the universe creates itself (self contradiction number two). But that is not all. His notion that a law of nature (gravity) explains the existence of the universe is also self-contradictory since a law of nature, by definition, surely depends for its own existence on the prior existence of the nature it purports to describe.” And this type of self contradiction flows throughout Hawking’s book. It is a fairy tale that goes against all known rules of science, physics, and logic… but most people don’t know those rules and haven’t been trained in any of them and, therefore, they are easily impressed by people like Hawking when they make pronouncements and act like they are facts.

Professor Lennox put it this way – “…nonsense remains nonsense, even when talked by world famous scientists.” Hawking has proven that great degrees and great standing in your field does not keep you from making elementary mistakes over and over again.

Hawking not only ascribes creative power to a law that existed before anything existed (???), he dismisses the possibility of any agency which would be involved in creation. Lennox uses Sir Frank Whittle as a way to explain how this is foolishness. Sir Frank invented the jet engine. The materials used in jet engines already existed as did all of the laws of nature that make it work. However, the jet engine did not exist until an outside intelligent agency (Sir Frank) worked within the laws with the materials at hand and created the jet engine. In Hawking’s world, the laws of nature would have to bear the burden of bringing all the materials into existence — out of nothing but laws — and then arrange them into the exact form of a jet engine. Preposterous. The laws of physics cannot create a jet engine. Ask any scientist and they will tell you so. However, we are supposed to believe — merely because he said so — that the laws of physics created the universe, tadpoles, people, and mountain ranges? Even if laws could create, it has always taken intelligence, imagination, and scientific creativity to arrange created materials into useful forms. Why, if this is true in all of recorded history and in every experiment ever devised, are we to believe that it was otherwise “once upon a time”? Lennox, again, says “Matter may be humble stuff, but laws cannot create it.”

Science is designed to answer the question “how” very well but it isn’t very well placed to answer “why” questions, especially when those questions are of a philosophical, metaphysical, or religious kind. And science has never done anything or discovered anything that disproves the existence of God. No — atheistic assumptions exclude God from creation, not science.

Not only can laws not bring anything into existence, laws cannot CAUSE anything to happen. Newton’s laws of motion are very well understood but they don’t cause me to fall down, a plane to take off, or a tire to lose grip under harsh cornering. No, some other agency must exist that starts the process that the laws then act upon. C.S. Lewis, though no scientist, understood this a lot better than Hawking does (which is bizarre since most scientists absolutely understand it) and wrote about it in his classic book “Miracles.” He describes the laws of mathematics and how we understand the rules of bookkeeping. Yet, “Book-keeping, continued to all eternity, could never produce one farthing.” In other words, play with the rules for the next million years and you will still not produce a penny. The great philosopher Wittenstein was quoted later by one of the greatest physicists of modern times, Richard Feynman when he warned against his “deception of modernism.” The deception of modernism is the idea that the laws of nature explain the world to us when all they do is describe structural regularities.

[more soon]

I could probably unite these in one question but I won’t. Not every person who reads this blog does so to learn something about the Bible. Some read it in order to attack. Their numbers are small and getting smaller but none of us should expect their voices to get quieter any time soon.

I read your blogs and I’ve heard you speak a few times. It is clear that you hate the church of Christ and you don’t respect the Bible. Why don’t you just leave the Church of Christ and go somewhere you’d be happier? Instead of troubling us and telling us we’re all wrong and making fun of us, why don’t you just leave?

This questioner went on a bit more but you’ve got the gist of it here. And I don’t mind answering this.

In the last month I’ve read Leroy Garrett’s wonderful little book “What the Church of Christ Has to do to be Saved.” Some would be appalled at the title but I hope that they have the nerve to read his book. Leroy has been calling us to more love and honesty for over 60 years. He had a cadre of others join him early on and they wrote the Restoration Review. Some of those eventually were forced out of the CoC such as Robert Meyer who died recently. Meyer edited a series of essays called “Voices of Concern: critical studies in church of Christism” that got him pilloried and verbally crucified everywhere he went. Both of those books are still available to all who have e-readers. I reread that book last month, too. I also read Mike Allen’s “Growing Up Church of Christ” which I found very uneven and not all that helpful; though it was a kind of fun walk down memory lane. My point is that that there are quite a few books out there by former and current Church of Christ members explaining why they left, why they’ve stayed, or what needs to be done to make our church more like Jesus’ intent. Rubel Shelly, a good friend and brother, wrote a book recently with the provocative title “I Knew Jesus Before He Was A Christian and I Liked Him Better Then.” One of my elders back in Michigan — a great man with an open mind and warm heart — didn’t like the title and hadn’t read the book because of it. Sigh.

Leroy Garrett goes on at great length in his book mentioned above on why he would not leave the Church of Christ. I don’t think I can say it any better than him but here is my brief take on an answer. I love the Church of Christ. I love preaching without the strictures of a written creed (and I will not bow to an unwritten one) or the dictates of a central headquarters. I LOVE the freedom in Christ that we have in our church if we will only rise up and take it (Galatians 5:1ff). I love the fact that none of our churches can fire the minister of another church and that each congregation is free to hire their own minister, appoint their own elders, etc. I love the fact that each congregation can set its own pace and decide which traditions it wants to hold and which it wants to jettison. I love it that each of us is free to work out our own salvation (a collective working, by the way. The word “you” was a plural one in this passage) so that we can decide what our worship will look and sound like. Yes, we have allowed bullies to force us into conformity but those bullies’ day is over and they know it. Churches are feeling free to engage with churches from other tribes to do good works. Other churches are using instruments in worship or bringing women into a much more prominent, equal role in worship and administration. Some stay traditional but continue to fellowship those who have changed. I can preach what I think the Bible says and I can lead in the direction I believe the Spirit is leading without fear of being brought up in front of a panel at our denomination’s next Convention and Assembly… for we don’t have one of those. I might not be invited to speak at this or that event or I might not be allowed to teach on this or that campus, but that is a good thing as well for it neatly illustrates our diversity and freedom: no one HAS to listen to me.

Ronald Reagan was once asked why he left the Democratic Party. He responded “I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. They left me.” And he was right. Parties change and that includes the Republican party by the way so don’t send in any snippy political jibes here. The reason I bring up Reagan’s quote is that it reminds me that I have not left the Church of Christ — nor will I ever — for I am really just returning to the grace filled, irenic, open Church of Christ that came out of the Restoration Movement and grew in influence and strength until Daniel Sommer and his crew jettisoned the unity we strove for and demanded a strict conformity to his own conclusions. Others joined him in spirit and our church became more and more narrow, more and more irrelevant. A new generation has arisen that is returning to the Spirit, to scripture, and to our roots as a unity movement. While I am part of that movement I didn’t start it. In the mid 80s I knew my faith was in trouble because I could see that what we taught in the CoC was not what was taught in scripture and that our churches seemed to be made up of equal parts fear and arrogance. At that time I was led to read the works of Leroy Garrett (whose website is a wealth of materials he’s written through his life, all given freely — www.leroygarrett.org), Cecil Hook (“Free in Christ” and all the follow up books — www.freedomsring.org), Carl Ketcherside (one of the harshest, most conservative minsters until he had his own epiphany — www.unity-in-diversity.org), Rubel Shelly and many others. I found out that others felt that same hunger… and that the Church of Christ was the perfect place for us. It was originally set up for freedom, free inquiry, and freedom in thought.

There is no better place for me. And I love this church. I love its stories. I love its history, even the sad bits. I love the people I have met in this church all over the world. They are my family. And I’m not going anywhere.

Not sure if this is a tentpeg question or not. I am struggling with this one, and can’t seem to get to an answer that I don’t change the next day. What should I do if I hear a brother speaking in public condemn another. Specifically he named a couple of well know preachers in the Church of Christ and called them false teachers and apostate. The men that were named are ones that I look up to, just as I look up to you, and I am sure that you know them personally. They are being condemned for being open minded and honest about the scripture at the cost of our traditions. Am I to try to approach the one who spoke badly of them, or am I to look away and not judge? It does not help that I think many of the congregation agree with him.

I find hundreds of websites up attacking people as false teachers in the Church of Christ. I am mentioned at several of them but of the 30+ times I’ve been written up as a false teacher or some preacher has mentioned me as such at a lectureship, I can count the number of times one of these men had the nerve to come to me (and the love and grace to do so) on the fingers of one hand and have enough fingers left over to play my guitar. Because it has happened once. Exactly once. I have gone to THEM a few times but they don’t come to me, thus violating the scripture they say they love. Sigh. Such is life.

The Bible tells us who false teachers are, especially in places such as 2 Peter 2. And they are never described as people who do not hold our traditions or who might have a doctrine here or there wrong. No… “false” teachers in scripture are those who are immoral, in it for the money, and who go around seducing women and splitting churches. In the scripture, false teachers are people who are false in their hearts and souls. They are evil people, not mistaken people.

If someone disagrees with me on the role of women in the church, that does not make him or me “false.” We are “false” if we are preaching what we preach not because we believe it but because we can get money, power, and sex through teaching it. So when one of these men call another teacher a false teacher, that doesn’t make HIM a false teacher, either. It just makes him wrong. And the whole episode very sad.

As for approaching them, I’m not sure it would help. Instead, offer to pray for them and then do so.

Here is one that is hard to answer without a couple of days in the room with several wise friends. I am making a feeble attempt at it here and invite loving comments to sharpen the answer. Send your questions to tentpegsquestion@yahoo.com.

I have a question about conversion.  I have been a member of the restoration churches for about 16 years.  I became a christian in the churches of Christ that preach (or at least mine did) that you are saved at the point of baptism and i was taught all the reasons why.  About 5 or 6 years ago I began to question how biblical some of the things we were doing actually were verses them just being a part our our traditions.  I began to start studying churches both inside and outside of our brotherhood to see what was actually making them tick.  This topic became a little trouble some for me.  I have a long drive to and from work so I listen to a number of sermons every week.  I listen to you, Rick Atchley, Andy Stanley, Bill Hybels, Rick Warren, Craig Groeschel, Perry Noble, and Mark Driscoll.  I usually cant get to them all (depends on traffic) but I try.  Naturally all most all of these guys all say the bible says something different salvation.

But I also realize this view brings up a host of other problems.  I just want to know if I am on the right track. And I am not looking to cause problems or get myself in anymore trouble, if you know what i mean, but I am trying to understand.

There is no easy way to answer this question, but Peter gave it a shot. When he was asked what the people had to do to be saved he replied “Repent and be baptized every one of you…” I don’t listen to all of the same ministers you do but I read quite a lot and I listen as other ministers speak at conventions and seminars. I know that this is a hot topic right now. All I can do is give you my take. I trust that some of the wise commenters who frequent this page will fill in the (perhaps considerable) gaps.

I have gone to scripture to see if there was a way I could lay baptism aside. It seemed like that would be an easy thing to do as so many religious tribes treat it as an add-on; nice but unnecessary. However, I just can’t make it work. In my opinion, baptism was a very important part of the salvation process. Is that the same as saying that all of those who were not baptized (or not baptized in exactly the way my tribe baptizes) are lost? I do not have authority to say that. All I can do is say that the early Christians were told to be baptized and they were – sometimes en masse.

Alexander Campbell got into trouble with his answer to this question. A lady from Lunenburg, Virginia wrote him asking if unbaptized people were lost. Later researchers have traced this letter back and tell us that it was written by the wife of the founder of the Christadelphians; a group that broke off from the Stone-Campbell Movement (aka the Restoration Movement). They believe the letter was written to stir up trouble and break off more of Campbell’s followers in the hope that they would join the Christadelphians. Regardless, Campbell’s first article included these words that did, indeed, send shock waves throughout his followers and their congregations.

“But who is a Christian? I answer, Every one that believes in his heart that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, the Son of God; repents of his sins, and obeys him in all things according to his measure of knowledge of his will. I cannot, therefore, make any one duty the standard of Christian state or character, not even immersion into the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and in my heart regard all that have been sprinkled in infancy without their own knowledge and consent, as aliens from Christ and the well-grounded hope of heaven. There is no occasion, then, for making immersion, on a profession of the faith, absolutely essential to a Christian—though it may be greatly essential to his sanctification and comfort. . . But he that thence infers that none are Christians but the immersed, as greatly errs as he who affirms that none are alive but those of clear and full vision.”

The uproar against him was so loud that he wrote two more articles on the letter. In the second, he stressed that he was talking about those who innocently didn’t understand the need for baptism, NOT those who were rebelling against the teaching of scripture. By his third article, he stated pretty much what I did in the first paragraph –“ Now, in our judgment, there is not on earth a person who can have as full an assurance of justification or of remission of sins, as the person who has believed, confessed his faith, and been intelligently buried and raised with the Lord.”

Some writers have accused Campbell of backtracking on this but I disagree. I think he was trying to be honest. The scripture absolutely elevates baptism and makes it an incredibly important step in salvation. However, it is NOT the ultimate, singularly necessary step that some have made it. The Bible also tells us that belief and repentance are important steps but I know of a great many unrepentant baptized people; those who were baptized because they lost the argument, because it was expected, because other friends were being baptized, etc. but NOT because they had a “come to Jesus” moment and wanted to be free of their sins. Should we say these people are lost? I wouldn’t.

I trust Jesus to do the right thing. I trust God when He says He is love. I trust Jesus when he tells us that we will be known by love. To state that we know the only way to be saved and that we know the exact moment of salvation is to state too much. We should say what we know – and that includes Acts 2:38 – but no more.

Why? Remember that most Christians had no access to Acts 2:38 for 1700 years. For the first few hundred years of the church a congregation would count itself quite fortunate to have one or two books of our present Bible read to them. Some might even have all of the Old Testament and three or four of the New, but a great many of the people would not be able to read them. When we blithely say “the Bible says” and flip back and forth among half a dozen or more books to prove our point are we even slightly aware of how few humans in history have been privileged to hold that book, much less read it? Are we then to assume that all of those centuries full of sincere believers who – many of them – loved the Lord more than we do, sacrificed all for Him, and even were martyred for their faith were lost because no one had gotten all the books to them yet? (and let’s remind ourselves that many were martyred for WANTING to read the Bible)

Jesus didn’t treat others as if they were enemies. He told his apostles not to forbid others to teach in his name even though they weren’t of the disciples. Apollos was not treated as an enemy or non-Christian because his teaching wasn’t correct. He was taken aside and taught, but there was no animosity there.

You might respond “Well, the people have the Bible now!” and you would be partially right. Don’t forget that a large number of people do not have one and will not have one due to our failure to do the mission work our riches allow us to do and due to their own repressive governments. And those who do have it but still believe that baptism is merely “an outward expression of an inward grace”? They got the Bible, but only after their religious traditions were firmly in place. They read the Bible through the lenses of their tradition and history… as do we. As does everyone.

I am still trying to find a way to answer the question “is salvation a process?” I believe that it is an event, just as conception and birth are events. However, sanctification is a lifelong process if we do it right. While I have not always been closer to God each year of my life, I can look back and see that we were getting somewhere together. I want to be better than I am now before I die, not in order to be saved but because I AM saved and I want to please my Lord in return.

Martin Luther was often tempted and had his own besetting sins. When he caught himself in time he would say aloud “But I have been baptized!” as a way to shock himself into correct behavior. I have copied his strategy. Because I’ve been baptized. And I think that is very, very important.

Weigh in to help me fill in the gaps, to clarify any of this, or to correct me. As long as it is in love, I’ll listen.

The holidays are over and my two months long insane travel and speaking schedule is about to begin. Before that happens, let’s get two interesting – and completely unrelated – questions taken care of.

…my dad said you are a scientist as well as an outstanding preacher. So I have a question for you: According to mathematicians they have supposedly found multiple infinities. Do you believe in multiple infinities? If there are infinite infinities then where does God fit in that picture? God couldn’t be the biggest infinity because there are infinite amount of them, right? I’m confused. Georg Cantor the Russian mathematician is the one who came up with the multiple infinities theory. I know that if you have never heard of multiple infinities your head might be exploding right about now. Also, are there some finite numbers that are so big that we won’t ever be able to touch them in a sense? Do you think any number is too big a number for God? Thanks so much for taking the time to read this! I’ll be looking forward to your answers.

A great deal of the work in quantum physics and theoretical mathematics is an attempt to explain what our standard systems of physics and mathematics cannot. I really enjoy reading the ideas, theories, and possibilities published by a large variety of authors. However, do not confuse or equate the explanation with the fact it attempts to explain.

An example: when I say that a car is red, I am really just describing a narrow band of the entire light spectrum that is reflected by the molecular material of the paint on the car. That band is not “red” but a collection of electrons that vibrate at a certain frequency… and even that isn’t quite right. We know that our cute little models of atoms aren’t reality. We know they don’t even accurately represent reality. However, they work. By that I mean that we can use those models and those words (explanations) to give us an adequate understanding of what is going on and what to expect. These are workable, usable, useful myths. And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Perhaps you’ve heard about the Butterfly Effect. In brief, it says that a monsoon or hurricane on the other side of the world might be able to be traced back to one butterfly flapping its wings at just the right – or wrong – time. One effect causes another and then another and then… Katrina. Well, mathematicians and physicists have to deal with the fact that there are an infinite number of molecules out there and all it takes is for one of them to spin a bit differently and then… chaos. Georg Cantor was really just trying to mathematically quantify that possibility for chaos. Other mathematicians will tell you that chaos theory is rubbish; that everything is reducible to predictable mathematical formulas. Chaos simply looks like it is chaotic, in other words; in reality, it is predictable and orderly.

To try to describe that universe in which there are no limits to what might happen, what could cause something to happen, and what those occurrences would then effect… we have to use words. Once you say the word “infinite” you have leapt out of what can be measured and into the realm of improvable theory. If you want to really impress people with how fragile and complex this universe is, you ratchet it up even more and call it “multiple infinities.” By this, we are using words to describe how many possibilities might exist. We will never be able to quantify those kind of numbers – there just aren’t that many numerals or space to put them. However, the mind of God sees them, sees the possibilities, and walks with us through them.

Many Christians get confused in these discussions because they assume there is only one future and it has been absolutely planned and laid out by God before the creation of the world. When we look at our unstable and volatile universe (and lives) we question that… and we should. My recent series of blogs on God at War deal with that and I would direct you back to those. In the meantime, as we try to describe our universe – its vastness and its possibilities – that should only make us more proud of a God who could create such a wonderful place. No number is too big for Him for, remember, numbers are merely an attempt to explain what we see… and He sees all.

As usual,  I would like to thank you for your Tentpegs Blog. Lots of good reading there for those of us recovering from legalism. Forgive me if this question has already been answered somewhere. In my Wednesday night Bible study we are studying the book of Romans. Every time we encounter the word “faith”, the preacher notes that the word in the Greek means “the faith” (with a definite article) and explains that it means the “system of faith including obedience to all God’s commands”. If he is correct it really changes the meaning of many important verses in Romans. I think he is incorrect, but I am no Greek scholar ( I passed Greek I with a D grade). I know that you are not a Greek expert either, but if you can shed any light on this is would be very helpful.

In a word – no. He is wrong. Even a cursory jog through a Greek New Testament shows quite a few appearances of the word “faith” in the Book of Romans without a definite article in front of it. And the word he uses in Romans (several words are translated “faith” but Paul uses only one of them in this book) is best translated “reliance on the truth of…” It is not a reference to a legal code but to a statement or principle or person.

When Paul defines the faith, he never defines it as a system of doctrines and ordinances. He defines it as relying on the story of Jesus as true. Remember, he even says he preaches only what he knows and that what he knows is that Jesus came down to live among us, was crucified, was raised on the third day, and is now in heaven. That was his “system” and it had nothing to do with obedience to all God’s commands. Paul, in fact, goes into great detail about the impossibility of keeping all of God’s commands (not sure how your minister missed that) and says that if fail to keep one you’ve failed to keep them all! His response to this fact isn’t to call us to more fervid and fearful obedience but to a reliance on the grace of God in Jesus.

If your minister was correct, he would be lost for there is no way he has kept all the commands of God. Ask him. If he admits that he hasn’t, then tell him that by his own definition, he has no faith. Or if he has it (after frequent repenting) he only keeps it as long as his next impure thought or failure to act (in mercy, justice, etc.). Exactly how is such a slippery salvation anything approximating “good news”?

Our faith is not in us, in our interpretations of scripture, our logic, or our traditions and it is certainly not in our ability to keep all the laws God intended for us to keep. Our faith is in the power of Jesus to save us by grace when our lives are imperfect and our righteousness is, as Jesus said, as “filthy rags.” The arrogant need not apply.

Here’s a Christmas present for you — a last Tentpegs for 2011. I will get back to this, Lord willing, after the 1st of January. Thanks to all for your kind emails about the last three blogs. My inbox runneth over.

Not everyone who has read the last two blogs has been pleased. Some wrote in via emails but two commented on the blog. I usually just let comments stand, even those who take me to task or, worse, attack. But I have decided to go ahead and answer this one by posting it here and inserting my comments. Why? Because the lack of thought and evidence brought by this commenter is the standard that we allowed ourselves to be ruled by for nearly eighty years. And it is time that it is answered. By the way, I know I am not alone in answering it – I see the Church of Christ changing as our young people stand up and say “enough” to arguments like… well… these.

This commenter is my brother. But he is not happy with me. And I doubt this will make him any happier. Still, we will be in heaven together one day and this will seem as nothing.  My comments are in bold italics.

Patrick,
I’m somewhat surprised that there are not more comments detracting from the views of the last two blogs. This sister has summoned the courage to speak while almost every one else has parrotted your views. A lightning rod must not be surprised when it attracts the striking current. I’m confident you are grounded, however, a little more dialogue would be enlightening to me. Some questions that come to my mind are:
1) How much should our experience of the Lord’s Supper be grounded in our understanding of the Hebrew feast it originally accompanied including the very clear instructions to the Jews that no leaven would be present?

Not at all, for this was after the Passover feast and Jesus was not establishing an add-on to that feast or a new Jewish feast. To import anything from the Jewish code and slap it on a new institution is to mix the new wine in old wineskins.
2) Where are the “rules of literature” written that to you are binding on us all that would have us interpret the texts in the way you have interpreted them ie: as narrative, instead of binding teaching from apostolic authority.

They are the rules of the English language and are available in any good textbook. I used illustrations to help explain them such as the mention of my office staff party. You somehow confused and conflated that with a discussion of the character of the keeping of the supper when it was plainly about how language works. Please re-read it. To say we met on a certain night and did a certain thing does not mean that we did that every week on that night and that night only. That was the point.
3) The comparison of the Acts 20 meeting with an office party to me seems to fall short of the gravity of what Paul was doing. See above. You were confused. I see a consistent meeting taking place. If the synagogue emerged out of necessity and with support of the Messiah himself, then why not a regular first day observance under the new covenant? This could not be more inaccurate were you to try. The Messiah came hundreds of years after the synagogue was established. He had nothing to do with its emergence. In fact, its emergence was in direct opposition to nearly everything in Leviticus and Deuteronomy about how to worship or approach God. Yet, because that is what they could do, God accepted it. That is a great example of grace. And hundreds of years later when Messiah came, he attended synagogue. Once again, that shows God’s willingness to accept what we can offer when we can offer it. Now, if the second part of that sentence – which doesn’t follow the first – is meant to ask if it is all right that we take the Supper on the first day of the week, I would answer “yes!!!” But that doesn’t make it God’s intention or law any more than the establishment of the synagogue made that God’s intention or law.

In addition to this it could be assumed in Acts 20 that more than one meal took place: A communiion meal at the beginning of the meeting on the first day of the week and a meal some time after midnight. After all, they were there for 12 hours or more, so I am sure they had more than one meal. It is not necessary to believe they had communion on Monday. I will allow you your assumptions though you don’t like to allow me mine. At the same time, look at the timeline. And then try to find someone who can make the clock go backwards and make the supper before midnight. Rick Atchley and several others have done the hard work on this with the Greek text and I won’t duplicate their words here. Their work is part of the public record.
4) If there is no mandatory assembly in the New Testament with specific covenantal observances, then why was Hebrew 10:25 written? Ah, I knew this one was coming. We don’t know who wrote Hebrews but we DO know that it was written in that first century when, as the scripture says repeatedly, the daily gathering of Christians was the norm. There is nothing in this passage – or Hebrews – to indicate that Sunday was THE day. Every day was the day. The writer was telling the believers to stay with the group because hard times were coming.
5) I have known you and followed your teaching for over a decade, but the tone of these blogs on the Lord’s Supper to me seem to be of a deconstructionalist nature. Some things need to be deconstructed. Wouldn’t you agree that the Roman Catholic Church needs a lot of deconstructing? Any barnacle like accretions need scrubbed off so that we can see not our church, our traditions, and our ways but our Lord. Alot of our legalistic constructs need to be replaced, however, to suggest muddy water and moldy bread are the same as fruit of the vine and unleavened bread is equivalent to say that sprinkling is the same as immersion. You didn’t get that from me. I didn’t say other elements were the same as bread and wine. As a scientist, I would have to say that’s impossible. However, I absolutely believe that Jesus was not trying to limit the supper to bread and wine – or grape juice. And I believe it was a supper. Where you came up with the baptism thing is beyond me. I didn’t say it. People were pardoned in Hezekiah’s day who were not ceremonially cleansed, but an exception does not make a rule. Actually, it does. Read one of our foundational documents (in the Restoration Movement), Barton W. Stone’s “Letter to the Churches of Christ” and see what he says about that very very thing.

God’s grace can cover alot of things, but not willful destruction of revealed truth. Be careful. Equating your preferences and teachings to God’s revealed truth and then accusing anyone who doesn’t agree of willful destruction of that law is going too far. You are not God and are not to speak like this without a thus saith the Lord. And you don’t have one. If Sunday communion was normative within 100 years of Christ’s death and resurrection, we may safely conclude that the Apostles and the early church had something to do with the establishment of these godly traditions. One bishop over a congregation was also normative within a hundred years of the apostles and infant baptism was also making an appearance. May we make the same assumptions with those practices? I wouldn’t.

We are a people of covenant. Baptism and the Lord’s Suppeer are the two most visible signs of our keeping this covenant. Not according to Jesus or to his apostles. Jesus said love would be the most visible sign of who we were. James said it would be caring for widows and orphans and keeping unspotted from the world. And I could on. You have no scripture to back up what you just wrote. They are both commanded by our Lord and enough information is present in scripture to discern a correct way to observe them. Then please present evidence for that statement. Our fellowship used to tolerate many ways to observe them but we were hijacked by Daniel Sommer in 1889 and by a new group of his followers in the late 1920s. We are now going back to our roots as a unity movement based in love and offering freedom of individual thought.

[thanks to two commenters who made corrections. I think I've got them incorporated in the text now]

The comments were flooding in after the last blog and many of them had questions. Some were posted on my Facebook page (please don’t do that) and others were sent via email (that’s fine) or posted here (best option). I will deal with some of them here and, of course, I’m always open to taking more questions… and to changing my mind if facts and the Spirit lead me to do so. I’ve done that a lot!

One of the real issues we have to acknowledge right off the bat is that when we try to use the Bible as a book of rules and legal codes we end up with broken churches and broken hearts. The Bible is a narrative; it tells our story. We can read it and join in the story by emulating Jesus’ way of life, following his teachings, and learning from others who followed him “back in the day.” When we try to make it a book of rules we have to ignore vast swathes of scripture where God showed that — now that Christ has come — we aren’t ruled by law. Even the elders in Jerusalem, when approached by people wanting to know the rules and boundaries for Gentile Christians, refused to give them any except to direct them away from immorality and pagan worship. No other rules were given and the elders said expressly that the Spirit of God told them not to give any more rules! And yet, we have many, many men willing to step in and make the Bible into a patternistic, legal code with tons of written and unwritten rules that are all binding and, if broken, will lead to destruction. How twisted is that? We do not read the Bible to find new rules. We read it to find God and ourselves.

1) Is Sunday a rule? A few asked if Sunday was the only day we were told to gather or if we HAD to gather on Sunday. The practice of gathering on Sunday is an old one but it isn’t without its detractors. The Sabbatarian churches, including the Seventh Day Adventists, tell us that Sunday is not the day of worship that God has declared for us. They claim that Saturday is still the Sabbath and that the Sabbath is still binding on all of us. They teach that Constantine and later emperors changed it. As usual in arguments such as these, there is a tiny bit of truth there… and a lot of nonsense. Remember that Sundays were not a day off in Roman times. In Romans 14 and Colossians 2 we are plainly told that we are not to judge each other over what days we consider important… and Sabbath is mentioned as an example. Romans even says one person keeps it and another doesn’t and that both are fine with God. When Paul told Christians to lay some money aside on the first day of the week, he wasn’t trying to establish a weekly collection on Sunday morning. He had a specific situation in mind — the needs of the poor– and he wanted money there for them when it was time to send it along to Jerusalem. But he did say “the first day of the week.” Why? Because most of his audience were Jewish Christians and they were still going to synagogue (not the temple as these were in Corinth, far away from the temple). They would be giving money on Saturday at the synagogue. Paul tells them to set aside more money the next day.

To be honest, much about this period has to be gained from reading all the literature that survives from this time period — in other words, we are not given an express command (for the New Testament isn’t really written that way) but a story. To find our place in it, we read as carefully as possible and decide how we are going to join in… or if we are. Many went from the synagogue on Saturday to a second worship gathering — with Christians. These usually went into the evening. As they gathered “daily and from house to house” these evening gatherings were the norm, not the exception. Some of the writers of this age reckoned time the Jewish way, from sunset to sunset while others, like Luke, used the Greek system which we use today, from midnight to midnight (which would have put the celebration of the Communion and fellowship meal in Acts 20 in the early hours of Monday, not on Sunday at all!!!). So why the confusion? Because it doesn’t seem to be as important to God what day we gather on as it does to those in charge of religious institutions.

Are Sundays important? Yes! For a host of reasons. For one, it became so common to meet on Sunday that it became known as “the Lord’s Day” by 100 AD. Ignatius and a couple of others use two reasons for this name: Jesus was resurrected on a Sunday and they remembered that each week and 2) it had become customary. Both of those are legitimate but we cannot escape the fact that God had a LOT of opportunities to mandate one day and one day only — and He didn’t seem to be shy about that in the Old Testament — and He didn’t do so. Rather, as in the passage mentioned above, He warns us against requiring everyone to view days and times and seasons in the same way.

I love Sundays. It is a time when we can all join in the story, celebrate our faith and He whom came to us, and hear the needs of those in the community; those in the story with us. In Paul’s time there was much more time in the evenings to join with each other in songs and suppers while helping each other with left over work from the day. Today, as our schedules tighten, Sundays are even more important as a time to set aside everything else so that we can join with those others who have joined with Jesus. If I found a church worshiping on Tuesdays I would not tell them they are sinning for I have no authority to do so. But I would invite them to join with us, to share their stories with us, and to walk with us. And I would suggest Sunday as a good, customary time for that.

As in our family stories, we have a choice which customs we will walk in. Around Christmas, many of you have set up different rules and ways to celebrate it — or avoid it. However, we all know that it is good for the family to be together and that applies to Sundays. When the family gathers, I want to be there. It isn’t sin if I’m not, but I am missing out on a wonderful opportunity to be with family.

2. Does 1st Corinthians 11 mandate the Lord’s Supper on Sunday? No. He doesn’t specify Sundays in this chapter at all. He says “when you gather” which would indicate that the Supper was taking place much, much more frequently than one time a week or quarter or…

3. Doesn’t taking the Lord’s Supper weekly make it more routine and less meaningful? I’ve heard this often in my life and there are those who have told me that they used to take it weekly and are now in a religious tribe that takes it once a month, quarter, or twice a year and it means ever so much more to them… and I believe them, but I still don’t get it. Let me tell you why. When my son was in the Marines, I looked at his picture every single day. Every. Single. Day. I teared up and prayed for him, wrote him, and thought about him every single day. And it never got rote or routine. I would stop by the Veteran’s Memorial in Oakland County or up in Lake Orion as often as I could and every single time it was meaningful. When I take the Lord’s Supper weekly, it isn’t routine and if I took it every day it wouldn’t be routine to me for someone died. And someone gave me a family. And that family is surrounding me. And I am comforted by knowing that the portions of my family who are not in the room with me are still part of this story, still taking this supper and thinking of Jesus… and me. How that can grow old or routine escapes me but, again, some tell me that when it comes to them, it does. I used to take the Lord’s Supper 3 times every Sunday morning as we had 3 services at Rochester Church. None of them were rote or meaningless. I rejoiced that I got to take it with new people each time. New family members! How exciting is that?

4. The example of Acts 20:7 tells us to take the Supper on Sunday! Actually…no. Luke reckoned time as the Greeks did and they didn’t get around to the Supper until after midnight. On Monday.

5. Constantine didn’t make Christianity the official religion of the empire. He only legalized it. Kind of correct. The first sentence is absolutely correct. However, he didn’t just legalize it. He codified it, organized it, demanded uniformity, and put its officials in place. Other emperors (except the apostate emperor Julian) just carried that forward until it was very hard to tell a church from a palace, a priest from a king.

6. Acts 20:6 says Paul stayed there seven days. Doesn’t that prove that he waited until the next time to take the supper? Not even a little bit. The two clauses are completely independent. They stayed there for seven days. Next sentence gave the intro to the story of Paul, the sleepy/dead/resurrected young man and the after midnight (Monday!) taking of the supper. To make verse 6 lead to a binding doctrine that would damn men if they missed it is to make God a cruel trickster who only saves lawyers who leap to conclusions (and those who follow them).

7. Does it have to be grape juice and unleavened bread? I probably ought to spend a whole blog on this but, in short, no. That is the food Jesus had to hand. We use what we have. Prisoners of war have celebrated the Supper with brackish water and moldy bread. In Uganda, there are no grape products. They just don’t grow there. I know of several churches that use Orange Fanta in the Supper. When I told someone that once they were very upset and said that we should send them grape juice immediately so that they would no longer be sinning. Excuse me? Did you catch what you just did? You indicated that the Bible gave us a law (when it gave us a story) and that Ugandans would go to hell unless they had a connection to rich first world types who could afford to send them enough grape juice to get them to heaven. That is a classic example of a “Jesus And” doctrine that should give us all headaches from head slapping and face palming. That type of attitude also leads to divisions as we try to determine the rest of the “magic equation” such as when do we break the bread — before or after a prayer? Can we use multiple cups or are we mandated to one? Two prayers or one? Juice first or bread? Wine or grape juice… and so on ad infinitum. This is why the One Cup section of my religious tribe — which is already very tiny — has fractured into six different recognized fellowships, none of them fellowshiping the others. When you read the Bible as a rule book and not a narrative, broken churches and broken hearts result. I love our tradition of using juice and bread but I can remember Jesus and celebrate the family with other elements. He never mandated otherwise.