Letters to a Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine. Dorothy Sayers book review.

Excellent review from a fellow blogger…

Enough Light

Letters to a Diminished Church: Passionate Arguments for the Relevance of Christian Doctrine, by: Dorothy L. Sayers, Thomas Nelson, 2004. Available here.

I read this book later in 2019, and still wanted to review it. The title speaks for itself, the book being exactly that! It is a collection of 16 essays about why the church desperately needs to refocus on doctrine, as doctrine impacts all of life. If you are not familiar with Sayers, she was a British Christian, scholar, author, and friends with some of the Inklings such as CS Lewis. She is known for writing both non-fiction and fiction, the later would be the detective stories featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. I review another of her books here: Are Women Human?

Sayers has been described as being in a class by herself. She is! She is skilled with wit, that is – intelligent humor, writing things that…

View original post 873 more words

Five Reasons I Don’t See Male Authority in Genesis 1-3

Excellent Article by Sarah J. O’Connor   Sharing with you from her blog,

Sarah J. O’Connor

The Importance of Being Human: A Christian Perspective

I recommend that you visit her site,    https://sarahjoconnor.com       There you can read much more from her excellent study, and her heart for God.

She introduces herself in the paragraphs below. Her biography on her blog is longer, and worth reading.

“A few years ago I went back to school and earned an MA in Biblical Studies from Denver Seminary. I had been doing a bit of reading on what it means to be human, what it means to be male or female, and what it means to be a leader. It became apparent that I needed to study biblical Greek and Hebrew if I hoped to make any sense of so many conflicting views, all purportedly proven by the meaning of one or another biblical text in the original language. So off to school I went. I was pretty certain how it would all come out, since by then I had been following Jesus for a really long time and knew what the Bible said. It’s obvious, right? I knew what God expected of me and my family and the church and probably even you, if you had asked for my input on your personal life. (My children will tell you this is true.)”

“Then came the books and the professors and the hard work, culminating in a thesis on the Apostle Paul’s theology of gender. Rather than merely rehashing the endless debate about who can do what, I hoped to uncover the thinking behind Paul’s words, the reason he said what he said and did what he did.”

Here is her article. Five Reasons I Don’t See Male Authority in Genesis 1-3

I recently recorded another podcast with Dr. Juli Slattery, cofounder of Authentic Intimacy and author of Rethinking Sexuality. This time the discussion was about husbands and wives who control their spouses. The other guest that day was Dr. Ron Welch, a counseling professor at Denver Seminary and author of The Controlling Husband.

Our topic was prompted by this response to an earlier podcast Juli had done with the Welches about how Ron had overcome his tendency to be a controlling husband.

Juli, I would love to hear you discuss this topic, with the added element of spiritual abuse. My husband sounds so much like Dr. Welch, except he also acts as the voice of God in my life. He accuses me of resisting God, of being unsaved and not the kind of woman God esteems, etc. I’m in counseling and have had a pastor friend reach out to him, but he refuses to consider marriage counseling or meeting with a pastor. He says I’m unempowered by God because I’m seeking outside help.[1]

The abuse this woman is experiencing most likely results not only from her husband’s upbringing, personality, and sinful nature, as was the case with Dr. Welch, but also from Christian teachings regarding a man’s spiritual authority. No doubt this man believes he is the spiritual leader of his home and that God will hold him accountable for the behavior of his wife and children one day.

There may be other factors involved, but men who “act as the voice of God” toward their wives have undoubtedly embraced a hierarchical view of the male-female relationship. I know it is argued that male dominance is a perversion of the complementarian position, which is based on the idea of servant leadership, but the fact is that abuse is an all too common outcome.

Teaching men they are the one and only spiritual leader of their home, possessing ultimate authority before God, has the unfortunate result of harming really good men, potentially leading them down a path toward becoming controlling husbands.

What man would want to answer to God for the ways his wife has gone off the rails? None, no doubt.

Better to whip her into shape now.

So, perhaps, he explains how she is wrong and he is right. How, as the spiritual leader, he sees things the way God sees them. She is more easily deceived, like Eve, so she needs to listen to him. He becomes, in the words of this wife, “the voice of God” to her.

When she doesn’t line up with his view of things he may use stronger methods, taking “decisive intervention”[2] through force, coercion, manipulation, and perhaps even verbal, emotional, sexual or physical abuse.

A controlling husband is born.

Sadly, even good men may fall prey to this mindset if they are consistently fed standard teachings on “biblical manhood” which are, in fact, not found in the Bible.

Like the idea that the man is the (only) spiritual leader of the home, the priest of the family, who should direct the family devotions and make the decisions, who ought to be revered and, ultimately, obeyed by his wife.

All of these ideas are inferred from the biblical text; they do not appear directly.

The question is: Are they reasonable inferences?

Complementarian Raymond C. Ortlund Jr. finds this male preeminence in Genesis 1-3, citing five reasons: 1) the image of God has to do with holiness, not ruling authority; 2) God names the human race “man”; 3) God is uninterested in unqualified equality; 4) Adam demonstrated authority over Eve when he named her; 5) the idea of equal rights in an unqualified sense is unbiblical.[3]

Today I will explain how I disagree with each of Ortlund’s points. But as you read I want you to think about the wife suffering under her husband’s spiritual abuse. This is not an academic exercise to me; it is pastoral. Christians will never change our high rate of divorce, or our perhaps even higher rate of unhappy yet committed marriages, until we change how we teach manhood and womanhood.

Here we go.

The Image of God

Ortlund’s first argument is his definition of image-bearing. Even though men and women “display the glory of God’s image with equal brilliance,”[4] Ortlund thinks it…

…probable that the image of God in man [humanity] is the soul’s personal reflection of God’s righteous character. To image God is to mirror His holiness.[5]

My first response here is that personal holiness is an insufficient explanation of what it means to image God. Bearing God’s image has everything to do with authority and rule and very little to do with anything else. Genesis gives dominion as the explicit reason human beings are created in God’s image, so it is difficult to claim that imaging God is about something other than ruling authority.

Yes, we are created as moral beings, with the capacity and responsibility to reflect God’s holiness, but not as an end in itself. We are thus constituted so that we are capable of ruling this earth for God’s glory. It is but a convenient work-around to define God’s image within us in moral terms, thereby removing equal dominion-authority from women and granting it primarily to men.

Naming Humanity

The second reason Ortlund presents in favor of male authority over women is the way God names humanity:

He names the human race, both man and woman, ‘man.’ …Surely His referring to the race as ‘man’ tells us something about ourselves….God’s naming of the race ‘man’ whispers male headship. …God did not name the human race ‘woman.’ If ‘woman’ had been the more appropriate and illuminating designation, no doubt God would have used it. He does not even devise a neutral term like ‘persons.’…Male headship may be personally repugnant to feminists, but it does have the virtue of explaining the sacred text.[6]

The main error of this line of reasoning is that Ortlund’s argument only works because he is sourcing the English text. In Hebrew, in fact, the word is not “man” but adam, a word which means “human being, person, humanity, mankind.” In the plural it means “men + women” or, as we would say, “people.”[7]

So God did, in fact, use a neutral term like “persons.” That is what adam means. There is a different word in Hebrew for “man” – ish – and a word for “woman” – ishah. God used neither of those when he named the human race.

God didn’t name us either “man” or “woman,” in spite of what Ortlund asserts, but rather “humanity.”

The confusion arises because God created the first adam – the first human being – and he came to be called, unsurprisingly, ha adam – “the human.” And then, over time, adam became his given name.

If we were to translate literally, the first man’s name would not be Adam in English. Instead, it would be Human or Person.

This is akin to what happened with the first man named Smith. He was a blacksmith, that was his trade, and in time his trade became his given name: Smith. In the same way, the first man was a human, that was his identity, and in time his identity became his given name: Human.

Or, in Hebrew, Adam.

So it’s not at all that God named humanity “man,” but rather that the Bible calls the first man “Human.”

Then, as the world became increasingly interpreted from a masculine perspective, essential humanity came to be defined as male, or maleness. The truest expression of what it meant to be human was found in the male; females were but an incomplete, deformed expression of humanity.

So a word that was neutral, that applied equally to male and female, was translated into other tongues with the gender-specific word “man,” losing its original import.

This all happened long before Bible translators understood the importance of translating back into the original language in order to check the wording, a practice regularly employed today. To do this you get a separate team of experts to take the translation you’ve just created in English or Latin or Spanish, for example, and put it back into the original language, in this case Hebrew.

If Jerome or Wycliffe or Reina and Valera or the King James crew had done this they would have figured out their mistake, since they would have ended up with ish (“man”) where the original employed adam (“human”).

Luther got it right, though, when he used Mensch (“human, person”) not Mann (“man, male”) in Genesis 1.

Score one for the Lutherans.

In this case, then, Ortlund’s whole point rests upon an inaccurate Bible translation born out of patriarchy.

Unqualified Equality

Ortlund’s third reason why men’s authority over women makes perfect sense is that God is simply not interested in unqualified equality:

The paradox is this: God created male and female in His image equally, but He also made the male the head and the female the helper. …Consider the obvious: God does not value intellectual or aesthetic equality among people. He does not value equality in finances, talents, and opportunity. It is God who deliberately ordains inequalities in many aspects of our lives….God is not interested in unlimited equality among us.[8]

Here I think Ortlund is confusing God’s sovereignty with man’s inhumanity to man, and equality with the beautiful wonder of human diversity. All human beings, no matter how intellectually or aesthetically lacking Ortlund may consider them to be, stand as equals.

No matter their finances, their opportunities, or their “talents,” all are equally human. All possess the same value, the same worth, and the same ruling authority God grants to all of us as human beings.

This is, in fact, the wildly counter-cultural message of Genesis. Unlike all the other ancient creation stories – yes, every single one – all human beings image God – black, white, rich, poor, male, female, third world, first world, educated, uneducated, urban, suburban.

Therefore every single person who has ever lived fully embodies God-given, God-ordained, God-sanctioned ruling authority. According to Genesis, there’s no sliding scale of dominion authority. That’s an idea popular with bigots, racists, slave traders and the like, not Scripture.

Are we the same? Hardly.

Are we equal? Absolutely, amen and amen.

It is God himself who came up with the idea of equality.

Ortlund then applies his theory of God-ordained inequality to the issue of male and female:

So, was Eve Adam’s equal? Yes and no. She was his spiritual equal and, unlike the animals, “suitable for him.” But she was not his equal in that she was his “helper.”… A man, just by virtue of his manhood, is called to lead for God. A woman, just by virtue of her womanhood, is called to help for God. … We must define ourselves not by personal injury, not by fashionable hysteria, not even by personal variation and diversity, but by the suprapersonal pattern of sexual understanding taught here in Holy Scripture.[9]

Perhaps unlike some who promote the equality of the sexes, I believe in the beauty of male and female as distinct realities. I am a woman, my husband is a man. During 39 years of marriage we have figured out that we are quite different, not only in our personalities but also in the way our respective genders impact how we think.

We find this beautiful.

Fashionable hysteria aside, however, I do not believe the differences between my husband and me lie in a differentiation in the level of our God-given dominion authority, for that is the fundamental identifier of human existence.

Unlike the animals, human beings rule; that is what we do.

For complementarians, in contrast, the “suprapersonal pattern of sexual understanding” is all about male authority. Other differences between men and women are only secondary concerns.

They may debate whether a mother should work outside the home or if it’s okay for a woman to share during the church service (if her pastor approves), but the one non-negotiable for complementarians is that men possess ultimate authority over women.

Yes, the woman was created as the man’s face-to-face-help. Yet a woman can be a helper, rightly understood, without being a “second-in-command,” as Ortlund would say. After all, in the Bible God is called “helper” more often than anyone else.

And God is certainly not our “second-in-command.”

Think of it like this: when you need help running your business, you can either find a partner or you can hire an employee. When God gave Eve to Adam, he gave him a life partner, not an employee.

Naming the Woman

Eve’s naming by Adam is Ortlund’s fourth argument for male authority, the bedrock of the role reversal argument. Here’s how he explains it:

He [God] allowed Adam to define the woman, in keeping with Adam’s headship. Adam’s sovereign act not only arose out of his own sense of headship, it also made his headship clear to Eve. She found her own identity in relation to the man as his equal and helper by the man’s definition.[10]

It is not precisely correct to say that Adam defined Eve. What really happened is that Adam identified the two of them, for the first time, as intricately connected to one another. Up to this time, as you know, the man was Mr. Human – adam – and the woman was Ms. Face-to-Face-Help – ezer-kenegdo.

Now, however, they are ish and ishah – man and woman.

In other words, Adam recognized that he and Eve were made for each other, so he came up with names that demonstrated that fact.

The point, then, is not Adam’s sovereignty, but their interdependence.

Equal Rights

Summing up his discussion of male authority,[11] Ortlund has this to say about human rights:

Does God really grant husbands and wives equal rights in an unqualified sense? Surely God confers upon them equal worth as His image-bearers. But does a wife possess under God all the rights that her husband has in an unqualified sense? …The ideal of ‘equal rights’ in an unqualified sense is not biblical.[12]

This is perhaps the most damaging of Ortlund’s assertions, since it leads godly men to believe their wives do not possess the same rights as them, that women are not their equals, that male-female inequality is God-ordained.

It leads men to think Christian responsibility and authority travel in one direction, from man to woman, so that it is appropriate for husbands to direct their wives but inappropriate for husbands to receive direction from their wives, and good for men to challenge women but bad for men to be challenged by women.

Unfortunately, the teaching that the concept of equal rights is unbiblical ultimately leads to the type of abusive Christian marriage I noted at the beginning of this post. Frankly, I see no way around it.

You can’t teach men their wives are not their equals without causing a great deal of harm.

Marital abuse is a fundamental rupture of the truth of the gospel, which teaches respect toward all. It has happened and does happen and will continue to happen, until we change how we teach the wondrous beauty that we embody as male and female.

Here are the five reasons I don’t see male authority in Genesis 1-3: 1) the image of God has everything to do with ruling authority; 2) God names the human race “humanity”; 3) God himself established equality; 4) Adam demonstrated interdependence with Eve when he named them; 5) inequality leads to abuse, contradicting the gospel.

---

[1] Comment by A. R., posted 9/13/18 under Authentic Intimacy podcast #48, “My Controlling Spouse,” published 9/10/18. Unfortunately, podcasts older than six months are accessible only to subscribers. Check out more recent recordings and other resources at authenticintimacy.com.

[2] According to Raymond C. Ortlund Jr., Adam’s big mistake in the garden was “allowing the deception to progress without decisive intervention,” in “Male-Female Equality and Male Headship: Genesis 1-3,” in Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: A Response to Evangelical Feminism, ed. John Piper and Wayne Grudem (Wheaton, Crossway: 1991/2006), 107. I agree that Adam should have said something; the problem is that teaching men they should take “decisive intervention” gives the wrong impression of how men and women should work together and too often leads to abuse.

[3] Ibid., 95-112.

[4] Ibid., 97.

[5] Ibid., 96.

[6] Ibid., 97-98.

[7] See Francis Brown, S. R. Driver and Charles A. Briggs, eds., The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson, 2010), 9.

[8] Ibid., 99-100.

[9] Ibid., 102.

[10] Ibid., 103.

[11] The idea that headship has to do with a man leading a woman is a very common assumption, but it is very likely erroneous. In ancient Greek thought, being the “head” did not imply authority or even leadership, but rather an intimate, life-giving connection to the “body.” Male headship, I am convinced, is not about authority. Rather it has to do with being the source of life to another, in all its various meanings. For further reading see my posts A Husband is Not His Wife’s Shepherd, Jesus as Head of the Church, Heads, Hats and Honor: Man as the “Head” of Woman in 1 Corinthians 11, and Is a Husband Supposed to Be in Charge of His Wife?

[12] Ibid., 105.

All the World’s a Stage… Really?

“All the world’s a stage…”, so said Shakespeare, and he depicted seven ages for each man and woman who might pass across this stage. Well and good for William, but I have been thinking about this stage in some different ways lately… not so sure I like the staging that is taking place. More of us are led to believe that we are major players, that we will change the world, and maybe we will. More than likely, however, we may find that we are observing a play that annoyingly is hanging on to some very old habits. Some of the players we thought had exited, did not do so completely, or maybe not at all. The current public dialog is infested with sarcasm, with fight talk and spite talk, and sad, sad, sad verbiage… the kind of verbiage that destroys relationships, families, and communities.

Spotlights move about, and get jealously fought over, and they exchange one target for another… so much so, that characters we thought were gone only show up again. Slavery, racism, sexism, financial and political corruption, are still with us, and sometimes in bigger proportions than before. The spotlights were not shining on certain groups over the last couple of decades, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there… or that they won’t come around again. More frustrating, is a haunting realization that while we criticize previous generations for not changing their world, we may not be changing our world, either. My generation didn’t do it, and your generation won’t do it either.

I find many stage managers calling for my attention and cooperation. But, who has made them the managers? What if I don’t want to play?

The job will never be finished, and it will always be a job we should be doing. Making a contribution to a needy world will always be the calling we receive.

Think about two things Jesus said about the world stage. In Matthew 18:7 he said… “Woe to the world because of its stumbling blocks! For it is inevitable that stumbling blocks come; but woe to that man through whom the stumbling block comes!”
Inevitable, he says, we are always going to have the stumbling blocks we have, even if the spotlights are off for a bit, the problems are inevitable and the spotlights will return. However, my first obligation is to make sure I am not part of the problem. Let me contribute to the solution, not to the stumbling block.

Second, Jesus said much about doing good things for “the least of these” and thereby doing good toward him. He gave the example of the Good Samaritan and more hospitals, children’s homes, and charities have been named after this very example than any other story.

Still, this kingdom of love and service is not brought about by anger and protest and politics. Spotlight or not, stage management or not, stage or no stage, it is a lifestyle of being Christ-like and active in his name that will make the contribution the world needs. Christ-like and active…

From the Counseling Room

Here are a couple of thoughts from the Counseling Room where I work and minister. I need to say that these are not about any particular client… their confidentiality must always be protected… rather, these are some comments I have heard several times, in different ways.

 

And, before I begin, I want to say thanks to those who have signed up to get e-mails about when my articles appear. I am making some changes to the blog at the end of August, to economize and improve the blog. I will only be using Word Press to publish the blog, instead of a separate Web Host. I am not sure how things will end up… SO… I have already written an article, and it is ready to go out on Sept. 3 (Monday). If you have gotten notices before, but do not get a notice on Sept. 3, please let me know at gfordcounsel@yahoo.com  I will try to fix things. Now, to the thoughts.

Dear Client,,, I have often said to you that you should “find your voice” and I still say that. You have heard it from many other sources. It is a common phrase in the world of Assertiveness and Self-Improvement materials. But lately I have become aware that that encouragement is incomplete. I should be encouraging you to find your ears, also. When you use your voice and expect people to listen, bear in mind and heart that you are more than likely talking with a person who ALSO wants to be heard. As Daniel Wile says, we will all generate some kind of symptom when we believe we are not getting our leading edge thoughts and feelings across.

The other thought is this… Sometimes when I encourage a person to think before they speak they respond with something like, “But, I am no longer going to just stay silent, and…..” To this I say, well and good, I am talking about being accurate about what you have heard and seen, clarify first if there is room for doubt, and the dialog positive… firm and assertive, yet positive. A first impression, not vetted, can be way off target.

 

See you in September…

The Locust Effect, part 2

I did finish reading the book, The Locust Effect, a few weeks ago, but just now am putting together some thoughts about the conclusion of the book. It has been a book that is unsettling, dealing with real examples of poverty, violence, and human suffering. I will say, however, that the authors, Gary A. Haugen and Victor Boutros, have made excellent suggestions for responding to the problems. I encourage you to read the book, especially for the conclusions and suggestions for being part of the solution. Here are a few of the challenging but optimistic proposals.

Is There Hope?

They tell us that, “It has been done before.” Citing examples of cities around the world, including the United States, at different times in history, they point out that seemingly impossible changes have been made before. It was estimated that in 1890’s New York City 90% of people arrested did not receive due process. Theodore Roosevelt became the Chief of Police and things began to change for the better. Los Angeles of the 1870’s saw violent pogroms against the Chinese population.

These and many other stories tell the powerful truth, that change is possible.

I want you to read the book, so I don’t want to give away the ending. I will tell you that chapter 10 gives several “common themes” (pages 229-240) of the changes that have happened before, and can happen again. Here are a few…

“Each movement of criminal justice reform required local ownership and leadership of a very intentional effort to transform the justice system.” Now here is a tough issue to deal with… Haugen and Boutros state that they believe, “in every society there are people, interests, and institutions that are intentionally trying to make the justice system fail and to make poor people and marginalized groups weaker and more vulnerable to violence.”

“Committed community leaders and reform-minded elites played a critical role.” Yes, we need even the elites, even though this word is often used disparagingly against people who seem to have social power. Simply, sometimes it takes a good elite to catch a bad elite.

“The priority goal of effective transformation efforts was a criminal justice system that prevented violence and crime and built trust with the people.” It looks as though both of these are needed, and that we cannot afford to have either one of them to fail, or even get behind the other.

Projects of Hope

The next signal of hope being restored is what the authors call Projects of Hope. These are selected areas in which the principles discovered and advocated by the International Justice Mission can be organized, funded, staffed, and put into action. These will then be used to demonstrate the accuracy and effectiveness of the approach.

One such place is Cibu City, of The Philippines. Funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a team from IMJ were given four years to do two things, 1) transform local law enforcement in the fight against sex trafficking of minors, and 2) demonstrate to outside auditors a measurable 20 % reduction in the availability of children in the sex trafficking industry of Cibu City. When the four years were finished, there was 1) a 1000% improvement in the rescue of victims and in the prosecution of perpetrators, and 2) there was a measurable 79% reduction in the availability of children in the commercial sex trade.

This success story, in addition to others, allows the advocates of the IJM approach to point to demonstrable evidence that the approach works. This Hope for our world is not a Hope Deferred.

“…they took the truth that everybody knew(about corruption, incompetence, and abuse), and they made it a truth that nobody could ignore.”

 

The Locust Effect

For this article… I want and need your feedback. (Helpful, serious, positive, resolving, but no snarck)

I’ve begun reading a challenging book, The Locust Effect, by Gary Haugen and Victor Boutros. I say it is challenging because it has startling reports and statistics about violence, poverty, injustices, and many stories of people facing awful, devastating trauma, and facing it daily. Reading it causes feelings of anger, and also despair, over the horrible elements of the human journey. I don’t want to feel sad, or disgusted, or angry, but neither do I want to be ignorant or oblivious to the issues dealt with in this book.

When I finish, I will let you know how it all looks at that point, but I want to address a couple of things while I am about two thirds through the book; things which have stood out from the first. One of the themes of this book goes against an idea commonly held. The common idea is that violence comes to a neighborhood, or a country, because of the awful poverty that is there. Poverty causes violence because of the anger of the victim. The theme of the authors is the opposite, that poverty comes to a neighborhood, or a country, because of violence. Violence comes in a variety of ways, but it comes, whether the one lone bully, or a much more complicated set of individuals whose world lacks the goodness and conscientiousness to make it a better world for others as well as for self.

Haugen and Boutros state that “endemic to being poor is a vulnerability to violence”[1] Then, I have read enough, including some heartbreaking examples, to see that the authors are telling us that violence 1) causes poverty, 2) preys upon poverty, and 3) perpetuates poverty.

The book is mostly about violence and poverty in the “developing world”, but I hear the words that are often spoken about violence closer to home. I hear people say that this or that neighborhood in the United States has become violent due to the poverty found there. This never sounded quite right and I believe the message of this book explains why. What if it is the violence that comes first? Could it be the violence that is causing the businesses to suffer, sometimes leave the neighborhood, or to otherwise fail if they try to stay in the neighborhood? Could it be that people leave the neighborhood if they can afford to leave it, due to the violence, not due to the poverty. Living next door to a poor person doesn’t really seem to be a motivation to move, but living next door to a violent person does seem to be an obvious motivation.

People who can’t afford to leave a violent neighborhood must stay even though they may suffer violence. Some in this group choose violence because they see it as a road to power. This is not power with others that helps solve problems, but power over others to dominate. Others may choose violence because they believe it is the only way to survive. Either way, these choices are about the misuse of power; the same wrongdoing as held by the violent people who started the problem.

 

Another main theme of the book is about police and the justice system. The poor suffer more from police absence, or justice absence, than they do from police racism. (They do suffer from both.) In many countries the police are viewed as working only for the elite and the politically powerful. It stems from the old tradition of feudalism where the wealthiest fellow in the country-side hired his own army to keep the peace, so you had to be in his favor to be safe. It continued through colonialism where police and the courts were there to protect the colonial powers but not the indigenous peoples. The authors illustrate the plight of the poor in many countries. In certain parts of developing and established countries you will find businesses growing in the twenty-first century, but right alongside you will find the police and the justice systems operating in the fifteenth century. The businesses hire their own private police force. Everyday protection for the everyday poor person in these places is practically non-existent. The theme of The Locust Effect is that it is the violent, and not the poor, who want it that way.

So many questions come to my mind. I don’t know if the last portion of the book will deal with these or not. I do know I will be thinking of the questions more deliberately, thanks to this book.

• Is a poor person more likely to become a violent person than is a middle-class or well-to-do person? If so, is there a real cause and effect at work, or is it for other reasons?
• How do we explain the many people who move through poverty and never become violent?
• How do we explain the many people who come through poverty, and leave poverty, without ever becoming violent?
• Can we see violence, and the illegitimate power that goes with it, causing poverty in the United States today?
• Can we see violence preying upon poverty in this country?
• Can we see violence in the United States perpetuating poverty for the advantage of the violent people themselves?
• Are there lower levels of police protection, and justice system follow-through available for the poorer neighborhoods? Just what are “the numbers?” What do the numbers mean?
• What do we need to understand about the different levels of legal representation available for the different levels of socio-economic standing among people?

Will you share your thoughts?

[1] Page xi

Another to share, from Tim Fall

via Rejecting the Peacemakers

Hope deferred makes the heart sick…

A friend recently asked a question about Proverbs 13:12. Here are a few thoughts I’d like to share here, also. …remember that I am a counselor, so those passages that talk about depression, hope, despair, and recovery stand out to us.

About Proverbs 13:12… the first thing I see is that this is an example of Hebrew poetry.

In this verse, the first half of the verse makes a statement, then the second half states the opposite in order to paint a full picture of an idea. Proverbs 13 has many such examples of this poetry.
1. Hope deferred makes the heart sick,
2. But desire fulfilled is a tree of life.

The Hebrew word for hope seems to be a word that means “expectation” and it parallels the words in the second half of the verse, “desire” fulfilled. The sickness of the heart (first half) that comes from the disappointment of hope deferred is the opposite of the pleasure of the tree of life (second half). Let me add that this expectation seems, at least to this reader, to refer more to the daily purposes we have, and the things we want to accomplish in this life. It doesn’t exclude eternal life issues, but I believe the main focus of this expectation is our daily journey, and the spot of the horizon we pick for our aim.
This verse can have several applications. Here are my initial thoughts, though it is not a complete list. Please add more to the list.
• I need hope (healthy expectations and desires) to keep my heart healthy.
• I should understand, and make good choices about, the wants that I live for. They make up a good part of who I am, and whom I will become.
• “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.” Proverbs 4:23
• “Listen, my child, and be wise, and direct your heart in the way.” Proverbs 23:19
• One source of depression is the neglect, or laying aside, of hope.
• My hopes should be centered in the seeking of the Will of God.
• The gifts and calling God has given me are meant to be lived out and put to work.
• “Desire realized is sweet to the soul,
But it is an abomination to fools to turn away from evil.” Proverbs 13:19

The verse does not directly instruct me to do so, but nevertheless I find myself challenged to inspect what it is that I want. In his book, You Are What You Love, James K. A. Smith speaks a warning to us about our “unconscious loves”. (p. 32) He tells of a film by Andrei Tarkovsky, Stalker, in which the main characters are invited to enter a place known as The Room. When one enters The Room, they get what they most deeply want. But, the characters get cold feet. What if what they most deeply want isn’t what they think they want, or what if it is not what they wish that others will learn about what they want. (p. 27ff)

Smith asks a great question about what we truly and deeply want….. Early in the morning we read our Bible and pray. Later that day, we go to Home Depot or the Mall. Where do we worship most deeply?

Next in my study…
I did a word study on the word translated as “deferred”, and found some interesting information.
It is the Hebrew word מָשַׁךְ mashak ; a primitive. root; to draw, drag:—

• NASB – away(1), bore(1), continue(1), deferred(1), delayed(2), deployed(1), drag(1), drag me away(1), drags(1), draw(3), drawn(2), draws(1), drew(2), extend(1), follow(1), go(1), led(1), long blast(2), make a long blast(1), march(1), prolong(1), prolonged(1), pulled(3), sounds a long blast(1), sows(1), stimulate(1), stretched(1), tall(2), wield(1). [The numbers refer to how often the word appears with a particular translation in the New American Standard Bible.] —Brown-Driver-Briggs (Old Testament Hebrew-English Lexicon)
A primitive root; to draw, used in a great variety of applications (including to sow, to sound, to prolong, to develop, to march, to remove, to delay, to be tall, etc.):—draw (along, out), continue, defer, extend, forbear, X give, handle, make (pro-, sound) long, X sow, scatter, stretch out.

[ The use of this word translated as “sow” is a depiction of the action of casting seed by a sweeping motion of the arm.]

AV – draw 15, draw out 3, prolonged 3, scattered 2, draw along 1, draw away 1, continue 1, deferred 1, misc 9; 36 [The numbers refer to how often the word appears with a particular translation in the King James Version.]
Here are other places where this Hebrew word appears.
Along, Judges 20:37. Away, Psalms 28:3. Continue, Psalms 36:10. Deferred, Proverbs 13:12. Draw, Judges 4:6, 7. Job 21:33. Song of Songs 1:4. Isaiah 5:18; 66:19. Ezekiel 32:20. Draweth, Job 24:22. Psalms 10:9. Drawn, Deuteronomy 21:3. Jeremiah 31:3.
Drew, Genesis 37:28. 1 Kings 22:34. 2 Chronicles 18:33. Hosea 11:4. Extend, Psalms 109:12. Forbear, Nehemiah 9:30. Give, Ecclesiastes 2:3. Handle, Judges 5:14. Long, Exodus 19:13. Joshua 6:5. Out, Exodus 12:21. Job 41:1. Psalms 85:5. Hosea 7:5. Prolonged, Isaiah 13:22. Ezekiel 12:25, 28. Scattered, Isaiah 18:2, 7. Soweth, Amos 9:13. Up, Jeremiah 38:13.
—Exhaustive Concordance (KJV Translation Frequency & Location)

Back to the word that we usually translate as “deferred”. Many Hebrew verbs are word pictures about actions.
In this one, the picture is about casting to the side, scattering, or otherwise neglecting hope.

Here is this proverb’s big punch…….

It is not hope that is taken away from us by another person or by circumstances. Rather, it is hope that is deferred by our own lack of attention or self-discipline.

We are responsible for the care and feeding of our expectations. We are responsible for choosing wisely, as we put together our hopes and desires. We may not be able to change another person’s mind, but by that same truth, they cannot change ours either. Even if our family was dysfunctional, we can say, “For myself, I am taking a different road, and no one can keep me from independent choices, without my permission. I won’t neglect the care and feeding of the hope I have, nor will I assign my tasks to someone else. I won’t cast my hope over to the side.”

For this reason we are challenged, “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.” Proverbs 4:23

Is it Easy?

Often in the counseling room I notice when a client will use words like, “happy”, “easy”, “fun”, and “quick”, in clumps, and also frequently. When these words appear so frequently, and together so often, I begin looking and listening for references to addiction, to frequent shut-downs in growth, and to excessive complaints about other people around them. These connections do often show up. It is not that I object to happiness, ease, fun, or quickness in life, but I believe that when someone insists on these things being primary and predominant characteristics in life, they will concurrently refuse the acceptance of life’s difficulty, and its risks. In that refusal, they find that their “life muscles” don’t sufficiently develop.

Ken Chafin, a dear friend of long ago, and a mentor I didn’t get to be around near as much as I had wished, once told of a relative of his who joked on his way out of church one Sunday, “I am thinking of never coming back here… every time I hear you preach, I learn something for my life, and I’m not sure we are supposed to do that at church.” In our modern times and modern churches our worship experiences are more sensual than they were years ago, and they are not as growth provoking as they should be, and I am not sure they were always growth provoking years ago, at least not so in many locations. But, sometimes, a situation, in church or in everyday life, is not growth provoking largely because that is not what someone is shopping for.

I see the challenge in counseling, also. As powerful as the moments in counseling may be for transforming life… there are limits. During a discussion of the transformative effects of therapy, Seth Bernstein, an excellent therapist in Corvallis, Oregon, said, “Life is our greatest teacher, not psychotherapy.” But, what happens if we don’t want to learn from life? What happens if avoiding life’s difficulties is the main thing someone wants? Counseling can help someone get unstuck, then provide encouragement and guidance in learning from life, but it can’t work when we won’t take life on with a purpose in mind.

Those of us in Christian counseling will take Bernstein’s reminder a step further. We will say, “Christ— and Life in Christ– is our greatest teacher.” One of the greatest misunderstandings of the Christian life is the misunderstanding of the Union with Christ. (Romans 6:8-11)

Someone once said that the Christian life was not meant to be difficult, it was meant to be dangerous. That is true, I believe. We see our new identity, we see that sin no longer works (if it ever really did), we see that the new power in our life is the rule of Grace , and we discover that this means our life is going to involve sacrifice, growth, change, I guess if someone considers that to be hard, then the answer to the question, “Is it easy?”, has to be answered with a “No”. But, if we understand the true nature of the transformation that is ours in Christ— the questions about “ease, fun, quick, and happy” all get left behind. The Joy of the Lord is ours, even when life is difficult, and life cannot really be about Avoidance, anymore. The mature and active disciple is no longer a glutton for ease.

Cultural Hegemony… a guest post

May I share an excellent post by Tim Fall

via Authoritarian Husbands – the failure to follow Scripture and revere Christ