[books i've been reading]

Zealot

by Reza Aslan

Some people have made a lot of hoopla about Aslan being a Muslim, as if this detracts from his scholarly work. (I don't think it does) When it comes to books about Jesus (and especially about the "historical" Jesus), bias and preconceived notions are everything. No scholar--whether liberal or conservative--approaches the subject of Jesus from a neutral standpoint. We should get over ourselves and enjoy what Aslan brings to the table.

In Part One of the book, Aslan charts the rise of revolutionary sentiment among the Jewish peoples, focusing on the various revolutionary groups who spent as much time fighting one another as they did the Roman overlords. Aslan's portrait of Israel as a hotbed of revolutionary activity, culminating in war with Rome and the absolute destruction of Jerusalem, is superb. While no one quite captures the fall of Jerusalem as well as Adrian Goldsworthy did in his book In the Name of Rome (Goldsworthy approaches the event from the Roman perspective, whereas most histories approach the event from the Jewish P.O.V.), Aslan's history of the turbulent times shatters any preconceived notions that the Israel of Jesus' day was a quiet, peaceful, fun place to live. It was on the verge of outright rebellion, and blood was already being spilled in the days of Jesus' ministry.

In Part Two, Aslan presents Jesus as a renegade disciple of John the Baptist, taking the Baptist's message, tweaking it a bit here and there, and going on a wider circuit. Jesus performed "miracles" by the use of magic, and his anti-priestly and anti-Temple sentiments landed him in hot water with the priests and, especially, the high priest Caiaphas. Jesus understood himself as Messiah, the King of the Jews, and the culmination of his career of prophecy, condemnation on the priestly elite, and healings throughout Israel was being crucified by the Romans as an insurrectionist. According to Aslan, the story of Jesus ends here; Part Three looks at how Jesus, an obviously failed revolutionary, became the messiah, the Christ, in the growth of the church into the wider Gentile world.

In Part Three, Aslan begins with the question of the resurrection. While acknowledging that something must've happened to give birth to the messianic movement in the wake of Jesus' death, Aslan dodges the question by saying it's a matter of faith and not of history. That's a classic dodge of the question, since historians have been trying since around AD 30 to explain Jesus' resurrection in a way that does more justice to the evidence than the claim that he actually rose from the dead. As N.T. Wright shows in The Resurrection of the Son of God, the resurrection is an historical event that can be approached from an historical standpoint; but because no historians have presented a theory that makes sense of the evidence better than orthodox Christianity's claims, the resurrection has been sidelined (read: done away with) into "faith" rather than "history." Aslan knows Jesus couldn't have risen from the dead because, as we all know, dead people don't rise from the grave. He must find another way to explain the rise of the church, and building upon the works of famous "Jesus scholars" down the ages, he presents a portrait of the early church that begins with a city-wide evangelistic effort aimed at the Diaspora Jews who're in town for Passover. Aslan's "rise of Christianity" goes something like this: the church finds its beginnings in Jerusalem and adheres to the Mosaic Law while supplementing that Law with faith in Jesus; it isn't until a renegade heretic named Paul gets his hands on the Jesus Message that we begin finding Jesus seen as divine. Aslan portrays Paul as an arrogant, self-serving bastard poaching off the Jerusalem church and preaching a message they don't agree with. Aslan goes so far as to say that the Judaizers whom Paul deals with in many of his letters, and that the "false apostles" of the Corinthian communities, were none other than missionaries sent by Peter, James, and John to correct Paul's Greek-inspired errors. Paul the Pseudo-Apostle and James the real Apostle are at odds with each other throughout their various careers; the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, and the subsequent ruining of the Jerusalem church, opened the gates for Christianity to be dominated by Gentiles, and thus Paul's writings gained more credence and became more authoritarian than anything James wrote (like the Epistle of James). It reads like a fun story, but Aslan chooses those texts that best fit his purposes while ignoring those that contradict him, and he presents early church history in a way that doesn't do justice to the complex issues. His treatment of the writings of Paul and James is rudimentary at best, something that wouldn't even get a passing grade in college courses. His attempt to provide a better "working story" for the emergence of the church has its merits, but it has more holes than sustenance.

My major criticism of this book is that he tends to take controversial subjects within gospel studies and consider them settled. For instance: in order for his theory regarding Jesus to work, he has to date the gospels sometime after the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70. This in itself isn't unique; liberal scholars tend to go in that direction, because to put Jesus' prophecies regarding the fall of Jerusalem before the fall of Jerusalem would be problematic. Despite good arguments that the gospel texts were written prior to A.D. 70, this simply will not do. Aslan sidesteps the tricky debates and considers it a matter of historical fact that the gospels were written after A.D. 70. Furthermore, Aslan relies on the Q hypothesis to build much of his argument about how the gospels evolved to deal with different issues facing the early church. The Q Hypothesis, while popular, doesn't have a shred of historical evidence in its favor; it's a theory to explain some of the differences and similarities between the synoptic gospels. The Q Hypothesis is just one of many explanations, but Aslan writes as if it's established fact. Because he theorizes that the early church added Jesus' pacificism into the gospels to distance themselves from the zealots who garnished a bad reputation during the Jewish Revolt, the Q Hypothesis gives him an excuse to prioritize those gospel texts favorable to his theories and to discard those that stand against his theories. This "picking and choosing" in and of itself isn't a mark of a bad scholar; my criticism is that he does this matter-of-factly and treats his arguments as if they are the end of every argument.

Although I disagree with Aslan's proposal that Jesus was a "zealot before his time", his historical study on the sociopolitical climate of Israel in the first century A.D. is excellent. This history, which he presents in a very readable prose, illuminates countless gospel texts, forcing us to think about them anew; that's something that thrills me to the bone. You don't have to agree with Aslan's conclusions to find value in the history he presents.

1.12.15

Today marks what would've been the One Year Anniversary with the Wisconsinite. I felt in a glum mood most of the day, reflecting on the past year and where I'm at now versus where I was at then. To be honest I feel that everything Mandy did to me still haunts me. I feel weakened by what she did, like I'm a shadow of my former self. It still feels like a part of myself is gone, a sort of dismemberment. There's still lots of anger and sadness, and I still miss her often. It can make me sick to my stomach to dwell upon what was lost. It isn't just about her. I was happy and excited, I had a purpose and an identity; and she ripped all that away with broken promises and empty words. I still feel trapped by what happened. 

Her actions, they've paralyzed my life and my heart. I miss the happiness, the excitement, the purpose, the identity. I'm thinking I miss that more than I miss her.

My faith has suffered. To have your greatest prayers answered, to have them thrust before your eyes and then wrenched away without a reason... 

How can you just keep going? 

How can you not pause and think? 

To have your shitty life culminating in a Good Ending, and then to have that Good Ending taken away, to be in worse shape than before... How can you just shrug your shoulders and say, "It's okay, God has my best interests at heart." 

Really? Does He, though? 

Where's the evidence of that? 

Why does being in God's "favor" have virtually no effect on a person's life? Wouldn't you expect God's hand of blessing on His people (and His wrath on those who refuse Him) to actually manifest itself beyond dusty words on cracked parchment? 

I'm not looking for a sign.

I just want something that makes sense.

Maybe the reason I want there to be some "hidden purpose" in Mandy is because I want there to be some evidence, even if it's not the kind I like, that God's involved. I want to have that hope. But maybe He's not involved. Maybe He just lets things pan out, perhaps making tweaks here and there, answering a casual prayer every once in a while; but maybe the vast majority of our lives are left to chance. It sure doesn't look like He's involved, and it bothers me that a major branch of Christian theology revolves around explaining why God doesn't do what He says he'll do. 

I crave the confidence and trust I had with God. Her actions, they corroded that confidence and trust. Or maybe she just showed up my confidence and trust for what it really was? But if you can't trust God with those purest things that matter the most, what can you trust Him with? 

I don't go to church all that often. It sickens me to see people who haven't had their lives torn apart, to be around people whose prayers were answered, to be around people with such confidence and trust. I hate seeing their joy and hope because I envy it. 

I try to pray, but it all just feels forced. He hasn't listened before; why expect anything different? If the point of a prayer is to bear your heart so God knows what matters most to you (and therefore what He can take away to cause the most pain), then maybe the best bet is to not pray at all. 

I try to meditate on scripture, but it just feels like words.

Well-worn words stripped of their life and vitality.

I don't like this feeling, this sensation of being lost, out-of-place. I feel like I've lost my way, took a turn down the wrong lane; I feel like the Prodigal Son who was welcomed home and then spit back into the pigpens when He didn't measure up.

Ashley prayed that if God wanted us together, He'd make me attractive to her. She didn't find me attractive when we first started hanging out. But God answered that prayer; "I've never been more attracted to anyone, and I literally have no desire to even look at another man." I pray earnestly that if He wants the two of us together, He'll heal my heart and enable me to move forward, even to love Ashley more than I loved Mandy. But my heart doesn't seem to want to heal.

Why does God answer her prayer but not mine?

Or is her "answered prayer" the same as mine was: self-delusion?

I want to think this is normal. I want to think I'm not crazy, that this will pass. But sometimes I doubt it will. Sometimes you're just damaged, irrevocably ruined, and nothing--no therapy, no relationship, no church, and no prayers--will alter that fact. I fear that what I thought was the greatest thing to ever happen to me, and the greatest proof of God's love for me, will be in the end the worst thing that ever happened to me, and the thing that pushed me away from the faith altogether. I fear that my faith will weaken and die, that my heart will become calloused and cold, and that I'll never be able to love again. I fear that will be the legacy the Wisconsinite leaves on my life.

the 60th week

Monday. Today was a helluva good day, albeit busy. It began with writing at The Anchor, followed by hanging out with Ams at her apartment and swinging by to see Ashley before heading to Blake's. Ams met us there, and we hiked down to Fountain Square and met up at Rock Bottom to see Corey & Mandy, who're in town from Oregon. Lots of people were there, not least of all Mr. Harvey. Amos and I headed up to Tyler's after Rock Bottom to see him and Julia, and then we went back to Blake's and played Cards Against Humanity with him, Traci, and Ams. The best "card" was something about George Washington's speech regarding how ripping out a man's still-beating heart results in lots of blood. I left Blake's and went by Ashley's to see her for a bit. We were going to watch a movie, but it was sleeting and I wanted to get the drive home over with. I headed back to Covington in near-blizzard conditions, and I panicked and flooded the engine and had to pull off to the side of the highway to let the mixture reorient itself. #embarrassing

Tuesday. I braved snowy roads for coffee and reading at The Anchor. I was up late last night watching The Avengers, so I took a power nap before my 2-8:00 shift in Blue Ash. I forgot my computer charger at home, so I got a lot of reading done while the guys were at Band Practice. I finished The Challenge of Jesus (next up: Zealot) and made good progress on A Blaze of Glory. After talking on the phone with Ashley for a bit, I watched some Band of Brothers and went to bed.

Wednesday. More snow fell overnight, and the temperature dropped to about twelve degrees. Unfortunately my new car doesn't have the greatest heat. I warmed up with coffee and writing at The Anchor, and I headed to West Chester to spend the afternoon with Ashley and Zoey before my 3-7:00 in Blue Ash. I took Jason to Ballroom Dancing and rounded out the evening with Subway and Band of Brothers. 

Thursday. Gorman Heritage Farms were closed: the temperature with the wind chill is -25. I went to The Anchor before my 8:30-4:00 shift, and after work I spent some time with Ashley and the girls before heading to The Anchor to get some writing done. I headed back to the Hobbit Hole and rounded out the night watching Band of Brothers, playing Birds of Steel, and reading Zealot by Reza Aslan (not, not the lion). #myexcitinglife

Friday. My morning was spent writing at The Anchor, and I inadvertently took a five-hour nap. I refreshed myself with coffee and writing at none other than The Anchor, and then Ashley came down to see me. We devoured Subway, watched Burn After Reading, and talked late into the night about everything and nothing. I gave her a lecture on the differences between hadrosaurs and lambeosaurs, and she would tell me later that it kept her up all night. #excitingstuff

Saturday. Ashley and I went to The Anchor for coffee and prayed together before she headed out. I spent the afternoon playing video games and then worked an Overnight in Blue Ash. Ashley and the girls had a "slumber party" at Ams' apartment, and Ams said Chloe kept trying to snuggle with her throughout the night. "I wonder where she gets it," I told Ashley. She just groaned.

Sunday. The girls were with their father today, so Ashley came down and we grabbed Subway for lunch and watched The Eye. We had lots of great talks about faith, dinosaurs, creationism, the Hebrew scriptures, different takes on Adam & Eve. She was introduced to my "liberal" slant towards theistic evolution, something I could talk about for hours. Also: we found out how seashells are made! (Hint: it has something to do with mollusks) She headed out, and I went to The Anchor before my 8-Midnight in Blue Ash. It started sleeting really bad, and my drive home felt rather perilous. At least I made it safe!

[books i've been reading]

The Challenge of Jesus

by N.T. Wright

I'm rereading N.T. Wright's The Challenge of Jesus as a precursor to his earlier work, Jesus and the Victory of God. This book looks at the main arguments of the latter and makes them succinct and easy-to-understand for lay readers (such as myself). My hope is that my rereading this book, I'll be better geared for tackling these subjects in-depth when I get to Jesus and the Victory of God. Wright seeks to frame Jesus within 2nd Temple Palestinian Judaism, highlighting him as prophet and Messiah and locating him within the geo-political events of his day.

In Chapter One, Wright looks at the contemporary scholarly atmosphere regarding the study of Jesus, criticizing more liberal movements (such as the Jesus Seminar) and locating himself on the spectrum. He asks the question, "Why should we study Jesus afresh?" This question is pertinent, since more conservative Christians balk against any "fresh" readings of scripture (forgetting, perhaps, that their own Protestant leanings have their roots and foundation in that which they condemn). He writes, "Historical research... by no means tells us to throw away the Gospels and substitute a quite different story of our own. It does, however, warn us that our familiar readings of those Gospel stories may well have to submit to serious challenges and questionings and that we may end up reading even our favorite texts in ways we had never imagined." (27) Wright's aim is to shed light on Jesus' vocation, identity, and actions by looking at his context in 2nd Temple Palestinian Judaism; the consequent changes to how we interpret various texts (such as the parables of the Prodigal Son and the Sower, which he examines in Ch. 2) can be disturbing but also enlightening. As one reviewer of the book said, "Many Christians will find [Wright's] conclusions unsettling." But if the conclusions make sense, then we shouldn't be so apt to discard them in defense of preserving our cherished status-quo. 

In Chapter Two, Wright lays out two foundational premises about Jesus: "First, he believed that the creator God had purposed from the beginning to address and deal with the problems within his creation through Israel. Israel was not just to be an 'example' of a nation under God; Israel was to be the means through which the world would be saved. Second, Jesus believed... that this vocation would be accomplished through Israel's history reaching a great moment of climax, in which Israel herself would be saved from her enemies and through which the creator God, the covenant God, would at last bring his love and justice, his mercy and truth, to bear upon the whole world, bringing renewal and healing to all creation." (35) The first point is that of election; the second is that of eschatology. Though the geographical exile in Babylon had ended, Israel's theological exile continued, since she was ruled over by pagan superpowers. The Jewish people yearned for the true end of exile, and this would come when God's kingdom broke forth. In this vein, Wright frames Jesus as a prophet of the "kingdom of God," a phrase pregnant with meaning, not least that of God's rule being brought to bear on the present world. Jesus' contemporaries believed that God's rule would be brought to fruition, but they disagreed on how. Some Jews were isolationist: separate from the pagan world and just wait for God to usher in His kingdom. Others were compromisers: connive with the pagan forces ruling over Israel and hope to accomplish what you can in this way. Still others were revolutionaries: these zealots believed that God's kingdom would come forth through holiness and a good amount of spilled blood. Throughout the gospels we see the second two options prominently, and the days of Jesus' ministry were marked by escalating revolutionary fervor that would culminate in flat-out rebellion a few decades after Jesus' crucifixion. Jesus, as a prophet of the kingdom of God, spoke against this revolutionary zeal, and he advocated a different way of being Jewish: not living by the sword but by turning the other cheek. Jesus abhorred violence, and he declared that those who lived by violence were forsaking their calling as Jews and would meet a violent end. 

In Chapter Three, Wright paints a portrait of the Pharisees not as legalistic thought-police but as self-appointed teachers of Torah whose aim was to preserve Israel's purity and unity in the face of paganism. The Mosaic Law wasn't given, Wright argues, as a "code of conduct" by which one might scale the ladder to heaven; rather, the Law was given to preserve Israel from her pagan neighbors, and good Israelites respected the boundary-markers (the "works of the Law") that separated them from the pagans. Jesus stirred up controversy in many ways, not least of all by demolishing cherished boundary-markers, condemning the purists for missing the whole point of what it means to be a good Jew, and by threatening the purity of Israel itself by redrawing the boundary-markers around himself. Wright looks at some of the major "thought paradigms" in Jewish belief (the Sabbath, food laws, beliefs regarding the Israelite nation and its land, and the Temple) and shows how Jesus redefined them around himself. Much of the chapter revolves around Jesus' actions and declarations regarding the Temple as a focal point of his prophetic career. "[Jesus'] deepest belief regarding the Temple was eschatological: the time had come for God to judge the entire institution. [The Temple] had come to symbolize the injustice that characterized the society on the inside and on the outside, the rejection of the [Israelite] vocation to be the light of the world, the city set on a hill that would draw to itself all the peoples of the world." (64) Wright shows not only how Jesus prophesied the Temple's destruction through verbal prophecies and symbolic reenactments, nor does he stop at showing how Jesus' Temple-action condemned the Temple because of its focal point in Jewish nationalistic revolution, but he also shows how Jesus took the functions of the Temple--the place where YHWH dwelt and where forgiveness of sins could be procured--and wrapped them around himself. In Wright's words, "[During] his Galilean ministry, Jesus acted and spoke as if he was in some sense called to do and be what the Temple was and did. His offer of forgiveness with no prior condition of Temple-worship or sacrifice, was the equivalent of someone in our world offering as a private individual to issue someone else a passport or a driver's license. He was undercutting the official system and claiming by implication to be establishing a new one in its place." (65) This "new system" had Jesus at the center: forgiveness of sins was found in him, the dwelling place of God was found in him, and to be identified as a true Israelite wasn't to adhere to the Jewish boundary-markers but to be identified in him. "[Jesus' healings] were the symbolic expression of Jesus' reconstitution of Israel... His healings were the sign of a radical and healing inclusivism--not simply including everyone in a modern, laissez-faire, anything-goes fashion but dealing with the problems at the root so as to bring to birth a truly renewed, restored community whose new life would symbolize and embody the kingdom of which Jesus was speaking." (68-69) Wright summarizes his points in Chapter Three: "Jesus remained utterly anchored within first-century Judaism. His place there, however, was the place of a prophet, warning that Israel's present course was leading to disaster and urging a radical alternative upon her. His aim was to reconstitute the people of God around himself, to accomplish the real return from exile, to inaugurate the kingdom of God." (73)

In Chapter Four, Wright seeks to perform the historian's task by asking, "What was Jesus' motivation? What were his controlling stories? Who did he see himself being, and what purpose did he see in his death?" He begins with a succinct analysis of Jewish Messianic hopes, pointing out that no one expected the Messiah to be in any sense divine. Furthermore, Messianic expectations were muddled; there was no clear-cut consensus on what to expect. Given this, Wright offers a brief synopsis of the general Messianic expectations. The Messiah would be a royal king, and as such he would rebuild (or restore) the Temple and fight the decisive battle against God's enemies. The Messianic hopes were the "sharp edge of the hope of the nation as a whole, the hope for liberation, for the end of exile, for the defeat of evil, for YHWH to return to Zion." (76) Wright then looks at various Gospel texts illuminating Christ's vocation as Messiah, showing how he understood himself to be the Messiah but in a way no one else had expected. "He came as the representative of the people of YHWH to bring about the end of exile, the renewal of the covenant, the forgiveness of sins. He came to accomplish Israel's rescue, to bring God's justice to the world." (82) Wright examines the Last Supper, framing it as a renewed Passover meal: "The Last Supper was Jesus' own... kingdom-feast, the new-exodus feast." (84) Examining Jesus' crucifixion, Wright seems to take the christus victor approach to the cross: the cross was the moment and means by which God decisively defeated and dismantled the evil powers. "If we are to follow Jesus' own understanding of his vocation, it was the moment when the evil and pain of all the world were heaped up into one place, there to be dealt with once and for all." (93) Looking forward to the Christian life, Wright says, "When we speak of 'following Christ,' it is the crucified Messiah we are talking about. His death was not simply the messy bit that enables our sins to be forgiven but that can then be forgotten. The cross is the surest, truest, and deepest window on the very heart and character of the living and loving God; the more we learn about the cross in all its historical and theological dimensions, the more we discover about the One in whose image we are made and hence about our own vocation to be the cross-bearing people, the people in whose lives and service the living God is made known." (94-95)

In Chapter Five, Wright asks, "How did Jesus see himself? How did he understand his vocation?" The chapter's title, Jesus & God, catches the thrust of Wright's question: "Did Jesus believe he was God?" Wright reiterates that if we ask that question, we need to define our terms: if Jesus did believe he was God, he wouldn't do so with the Enlightenment's Deist god in mind but with the Jewish God, YHWH, whose identity is wrapped up in the Jewish themes of election and monotheism. Harking back to Exodus 6, Wright identifies this God as the Rescuer. "This God would be known as the rescuer, the one who would... accompany his people through the wilderness, leading them in the pillar of cloud and fire, and giving them his law, his own self-expression of the way of life for his people." (102) Jesus would be well aware of the Jewish hopes for this God's activity in history. "[There] was the expectation of the return of YHWH to Zion after his abandonment of Jerusalem at the time of the exile... [There] was the tradition of the enthronement of YHWH, and of one who somehow shared that throne." (103) Before plunging into the question he begged at the beginning of the chapter, Wright looks at early Christianity's perspective on Jesus' divinity. He demolishes the false trails that tell us Jesus' messiahship, and even his resurrection, prove his divinity. He gives several New Testament texts where Jesus' divinity is assumed and/or implied (1 Cor 8.1-6, the Kenosis Hymn of Phil 2.5-11, Gal 4.1-7, and the cosmic poem of Col 1.15-20). He shows that early Christians did indeed see Jesus as divine, on par with God. Such monotheism was indeed awkward, and trinitarian theology wouldn't develop for a few hundred years. At this point Wright asks the questions, "Did Jesus know he was God?" and "How did Jesus perceive himself?" Wright argues that "Jesus believed himself called to act as the new Temple. When people were in his presence, it was as if they were in the Temple. But if the Temple was itself the greatest of Israel's incarnational symbols, the conclusion was inevitable... Jesus was claiming, at least implicitly, to be the place where and the means by which Israel's God was at last personally present to and with his people. Jesus was... acting as if he were the Shekinah in person, the presence of YHWH tabernacling with his people." (113-114) He goes on, "Jesus in his entire career was acting as if he were bringing about the new exodus. God's people were in slavery; he had heard their cry and was coming to rescue them. Just as the first exodus revealed the previously hidden meaning of YHWH's name, so now Jesus would reveal the person, one might say the personality, of YHWH in action, embodied in human form. He would bring about the final redemption of God's people and thereby set in motion the fulfillment of Israel's destiny to be the light of the world." (115-116) Putting it in different terms, "In Jesus himself... we see the biblical portrait of YHWH come to life: the loving God, rolling up his sleeves (Is 52:10) to do in person the job that no one else could do; the creator God, giving new life; the God who works through his created world and supremely through his human creatures; the faithful God, dwelling in the midst of his people; the stern and tender God, relentlessly opposed to all that destroys or distorts the good creation and especially human beings, but recklessly loving all those in need and distress." (121) As to whether or not Jesus believed himself to be God, Wright speculates on pages 121-122, "I do not think Jesus 'knew he was God' in the same sense that one knows one is hungry or thirsty, tall or short. It was not a mathematical knowledge, like knowing that two and two make four... It was more like the knowledge that I have that I am loved by my family and closest friends; like the knowledge that I have that sunrise over the sea is awesome and beautiful; like the knowledge of the musician not only of what the composer intended but of how precisely to perform the piece in exactly that way--a knowledge most securely possessed, of course, when the performer is also the composer. It was, in short, the knowledge that characterizes vocation."

In Chapter Six, Wright looks at the resurrection of Christ. His mission isn't to determine the historical justifiability of the bodily resurrection of Jesus, but to ask, "If he was raised, so what?" (in other works he's done a fantastic job defending the historicity of the resurrection, but that's not his aim here). "Already by the time of Paul, our earliest written witness," Wright says on page 126, "the resurrection of Jesus is not just a single detached article of faith. It is woven into the very structure of Christian life and thought, informing (among other things) baptism, justification, ethics and the future hope both for humans and for the cosmos." Wright devotes a considerable amount of space to the rise of the early church, showing how it came about both as a "kingdom of God movement" and as a "resurrection movement," with the resurrection of Christ serving as the bulwark for the church's expansion and modus vivendi. The early Christian conviction regarding resurrection, which we see in the letters of Paul and not least in 1 Corinthians 15, isn't that it was "a matter of the opening up of a new religious experience. Nor was it proof of survival, of life after death. [The resurrection of Jesus] meant that the Scriptures had been fulfilled, that the kingdom of God had arrived, that the new age had broken in to the midst of the present age, had dawned upon a surprised and unready world... [The] entire biblical narrative had at last reached its climax, had come true in these astonishing events." (142) Through the lens of the New Testament, Wright establishes five things the early church believed regarding the resurrection (145):

(1) It was the moment when the creator God fulfilled his ancient promises to Israel, saving them from 'their sins,' i.e. their exile. It thus initiated the 'last days,' at the end of which the victory over death begun at Easter would at last be complete. 

(2) It involved the transformation of Jesus' body: it was, that is to say, neither a resuscitation of Jesus' dead body to the same sort of life nor an abandonment of that body to decomposition. Paul's account presupposes the empty tomb.

(3) It involved Jesus' being seen alive in a very limited early period, after which he was known as present to the church in a different way. These early sightings constituted those who witnessed them as apostles.

(4) It was the prototype for the resurrection of all God's people at the end of the last days.

(5) It was thus the ground not only for the future hope of Christians but for their present work.

In the final chapter, Wright asks, "So what?" If this is the story of God seen in the story of Christ, what are we to do with that in our postmodern world? To set the scene, he sketches out three aspects of postmodernity on pages 151-152: knowledge and truth, the self, and the story. Taking them in order:

(1) Where modernity thought it could know things objectively about the world, postmodernity has reminded us that there is no such thing as neutral knowledge. Everybody has a point of view, and that point of view distorts; everybody describes things the way that suits them. There is no such thing as objective truth. Likewise, there are no such things as objective values, only preferences. The cultural symbols that encapsulate this revolution are the personal stereo and the virtual-reality system: everyone creates his or her own private world.

(2) Modernity vaunted the great lonely individual, the all-powerful "I": Descartes' cogito sergo sum and the proud "I am the master of my fate, the captain of my soul." But postmodernity had deconstructed the self, the I. The "I" is just a floating signifier, a temporary and accidental collocation of conflicting forces and impulses. Just as reality collapses inward upon the knower, the knower him- or herself deconstructs.

(3) Modernity told an implicit narrative about the way the world was. It was essentially an eschatological story. World history has been steadily moving toward or at least eagerly awaiting the point where the industrial revolution and the philosophical Enlightenment would burst upon the world, bringing a new era of blessing for all. This huge overarching story--overarching stories are known in this world as metanarratives--has now been conclusively shown to be an oppressive, imperialist and self-serving story; it has brought untold misery to millions in the industrialized West and to billions in the rest of the world, where cheap labor and raw materials have been ruthlessly exploited. It is a story that serves the interests of the Western world. Modernity stands condemned of building a new tower of Babel. Postmodernity has claimed, primarily with this great narrative as the example, that all metanarratives are suspect; they are all power games.

"Collapsing reality; deconstructing selfhood; the death of the metanarrative. These are the keys to understanding postmodernity." (152) Within this cultural climate, whatever is the church to do? Using an illustration from the disciples' walking on the Emmaus Road, Wright advocates telling the story differently. And what is this story? "The exile is over--not just Israel's exile in actual and spiritual Babylon but the exile of the human race, shut out of the garden. The new world order does not look like people thought it would, but they must get used to the fact that it is here and that they are not only its beneficiaries but also its ambassadors and witnesses." (164) He continues, "[The] Messiah himself has gone to the place of pain, the place where Israel and indeed the whole world was in deep distress. He has been cast down, oppressed by the enemy... He became the suffering Israel on behalf of the suffering Israel; he went into exile--Israel's exile, the human exile from the garden, the exile of the whole cosmos--to redeem those who were in exile." (165) Wright argues, "We must get used to telling the story of God, Israel, Jesus and the world as the true metanarrative, the story of healing and self-giving love. We must get used to living as those who have truly died and risen with Christ so that our self, having been thoroughly deconstructed, can be put back together, not by the agendas that the world presses upon us but by God's Spirit." (169) The Christian vocation, then, is to "tell the story, to live by the symbols, to act out the praxis, and to answer the questions in such a way as to become in ourselves and our mission in God's world the answer to the prayer that rises inarticulately, now, not just from one puzzled psalmist but from the whole human race and indeed the whole of God's creation: 'O send out your light and your truth; let them lead me; let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling.'" (171)

books read: 2014

Last year I read 40 books. (that's an average of .75 books a week) With any luck this year, I can top that at one book a week, maybe more. GAME ON. As a salute to at least one successful 2014 resolution, here are the books I read in a trendy compilation.

- Religious Books -

Life After Death (Dinesh D'Souza)

What's So Amazing About Grace? (Philip Yancey)

The New Testament & The People of God (N.T. Wright)

The Oxford History of the Biblical World

Israel & The Nations (F.F. Bruce)

Follow Me (David Platt)

Mere Christianity (C.S. Lewis)

The Screwtape Letters (Lewis)

Recovering Redemption (Matt Chandler)

The Gospel's Power & Message (Paul Washer)

Gospel Assurance & Warnings (Washer)

The Gospel Call & True Conversion (Washer)

Ten Indictments Against the Modern Church (Washer)

Hearing God (Dallas Willard)

Celebration of Discipline (Richard Foster)

The Way (Josemaria Escriva)

Victory in Jesus: The Bright Hope of Postmillennialism (Greg L. Bahnsen)

Postmillennialism: An Eschatology of Hope (Keith Mathison)

- Historical Books - 

The American Revolution (Bruce Lancaster)

The French & Indian War (Walter Borneman)

The War That Made America (Fred Anderson)

A Short History of the Civil War (James Stokesbury)

An Army at Dawn (Rick Atkinson)

Eagle Against the Sun (Ronald H. Spector)

Guns, Germs, and Steel (Jared Diamond)

Shiloh (Shelby Foote)

The Conquerors (Allan W. Eckert)

Wilderness Empire (Eckert)

That Dark & Bloody River (Eckert)

The Final Storm (Jeff Shaara)

- Fiction Books -

The Exorcist (William Peter Blatty)

The Stand (Stephen King)

The Shining (King)

On Writing (King)

Airframe (Michael Crichton)

A Case of Need (Crichton)

- Marriage Books -

What He Must Be (Voddie Bougham, Jr.)

The Sacred Search (Gary Thomas)

Reforming Marriage (Douglas Wilson)

The Federal Husband (Wilson)

My Life For Yours (Wilson)

the 59th week

Monday. I slept in till about 9:30, since I was up until about 3 AM last night reading N.T. Wright's The Challenge of Jesus. I swung by The Anchor to do some writing, and then I went up to West Chester to hang out with Ashley and the girls. Chloe and I worked on Layla the Cupcake Monster, her first "professional" book. "You're going to be my first-ever co-author!" I exclaimed, and she beamed ear-to-ear. I showed her my new car by taking her on a trip to Wal-Greens; it took her ten minutes to decide which candy she wanted to get. Ashley took the girls to her sister's, and I headed south and did some more writing at The Anchor before rendezvousing with Ashley at my place. We lit oil lanterns and candles and stayed up late talking about nothing and everything before falling asleep in each other's arms.

Tuesday. Ashley and I went to The Anchor for coffee. "I wanted so badly to come here last week when you broke up with me," she said, "just so I could be close to you." After coffee and conversation we headed into the western hills for lunch at Applebee's; she had a $50 gift card, and we spent every penny on appetizers and entrees. We felt more than bloated as we went across the parking lot to Hobby Lobby. She'd never been there before, and she loves it as much as I do. We took a nap back at my place before she went to get the girls from Rachel's and I headed up to Blue Ash for my 2-8:00. I was going to go see a bunch of good people at Winton Ridge, but I'd been feeling under-the-weather so after work I just headed home to do some reading before calling it a night early. Ashley told me, "Chloe can't stop talking about the book you two are writing, all her hopes and aspirations for it! She's so excited to be doing this with you, you have no idea! Thanks for being such a great man in her life!"

New Year's Eve. The morning began with coffee and writing at The Anchor. I spent the late morning and early afternoon with Ashley and the girls in West Chester. Ashley told me about a pertinent dream she had last night: "You and I had gone to The Anchor one morning, and when we got there it was gone, like the whole building got up and walked away. The only thing that was left was a big pole in the middle of the parking lot that said 'Come Visit Us at our New Location.' You were so upset because you didn't know where it was, and they didn't give an address. No one told you they were moving to a new place. You were pacing around this empty parking lot smoking a cigarette, and you looked up at me and said, 'Get the kids packed up, we're gonna find this place no matter how long it takes.' You were so upset and determined to find where they moved The Anchor to, it became almost an emergency situation. You took complete control of the situation! You were in this panic, you didn't eat or sleep until we found it. When we did find it they'd moved to a little shack in the middle of nowhere covered in these neon signs and blinking lights, and you were upset because it didn't feel like being at The Anchor at all." I told her the dream sounded fairly accurate. Jobst and I met up at the Blue Ash Starbucks to catch up before my 2:30-7:00 shift with the guys. Ashley came by the Hobbit Hole around 8:00 and we hung out for a while. She headed to her sister's to celebrate the New Year, and I did some reading and was in bed by 10 PM. That's how I celebrate on New Year's Eve.

New Year's Day. I broke in 2015 with coffee and writing at The Anchor. I worked 8:30-4:00 and let the guys sleep in till about noon, since they were out until about 3 AM last night partying hard. I spent the morning finishing up my revision of Dwellers of the Night: The Church of 89 Steps. It clocks in around 300 pages. The third (and final) installment of the trilogy is around 550 pages. Yikes! I'll have to trim that down. I headed to Ashley's after work to hang out with her and the girls. I took Chloe on a trip to Wal-Greens, and naked Zoey started screaming because she wanted to go, too. "It's cold outside, and you're not even dressed!" Ashley said. So the little hellion threw on gloves and mittens and ran otherwise naked out to my car, totally ready to go. I wanted to take her for laughs. 

Friday. I went to The Anchor for coffee and writing. "You're not a customer, you're family." Heart-warming words from the classiest waitresses in the Cincinnati metro. Ashley and I spent the afternoon together, watching The West Wing and cuddling on the sofa. She scratched my head and I almost fell asleep. I left come evening, picked up Subway for lunch, and spent the rest of the night watching Band of Brothers; Ashley found the whole collection, it used to be her ex-husbands, and she gave it to me. "It's yours."

Saturday. Another morning at The Anchor led to another afternoon with Ashley and the girls. Ashley, Chloe, and I ran to Aldi's for groceries. Chloe was told to be on strict behavior and to act like an adult, so when she grabbed the cart and started running down the aisles yelling that we had to catch her if we wanted to put anything in the basket, she was grounded to her room for the rest of the day and banished from her tablet for two days. She moped around the rest of the trip, and I told her how Ams and I used to get in trouble at stores all the time. I left Ashley's in time for my overnight shift in Blue Ash. I weighed-in on Ben's scale: 160 pounds, two pounds lost since Christmas. #nailedit

Sunday. I woke in Blue Ash and went to The Anchor to do some writing and then headed up to Ashley's. We hung out with her mom while Zoey slept, and come evening we headed up to Mom & Dad's for a delicious dinner. Mom gave Chloe some craft kits, and Zoey loved playing fetch with "foof-foof" ("baby ffoof-foof" is Grandma's dog Tanner). Mom and Dad fixed steak, baked potatoes, macaroni-&-cheese, asparagus, oriental salad, dinner rolls, and a host of desserts. (Great news: I was still under my daily caloric allowance!) Both Zoey and Chloe have really warmed up to Mom & Dad, are very interactive, and Mom was overjoyed when Zoey climbed into her lap to play "boo" from the "bees." Ashley said, "They have amazing intuition, they can tell your parents are good people." Mom got the girls a Disney Princess-themed tent, and both of them were in it for half the evening, pretending to be camping. At one point, Dad said, "Aren't you going to get drinks for the girls and your wife?" I told him matter-of-factly that I don't have a wife. "Your girlfriend," he stammered, trying to play it cool. But he had a wry smile in his eyes. 

2015: the first post

I broke in the New Year right: ZZZQuil at 10 PM, up at 6 AM, and coffee and writing at The Anchor. I did wake up around midnight to what sounded like tons of guns going off. It rattled me a bit, and then I made the connection: fireworks. I totally forgot last night was a holiday. I fell asleep pretending I was five miles away from Pittsburgh Landing during the Civil War's Battle of Shiloh (I've been reading Shaara's A Blaze of Glory). The drive to work this morning felt like something out of the Twilight Zone: Interstate 71 looked like a ghost highway. Since Ben and Jason were out partying last night, I let them sleep in and finished my revision of Dwellers of the Night: The Church of 89 Steps. Yet another way to break in the New Year! 

A year's first post MUST include resolutions.

Now: as to whether or not these will be accomplished, who can say?

(I did do fairly well with 2014's resolutions, though!)

I've got four on the menu:

Read for an Hour 5 Nights a Week. I tried to write down all the books I read this year by leafing back through this blog and my personal journals, but I lost count somewhere around twenty-five. Not too bad! On average I read about twenty minutes a day, for about 2 1/2 hours of reading a week. I'm hoping to double that pace this year with about five hours of reading per week (not counting the time I read on the toilet, which probably adds up to about an extra hour each week). I would love to read somewhere around fifty books this year. The first two will be Jeff Shaara's work of fiction, A Blaze of Glory; and N.T. Wright's The Challenge of Jesus.

Reach My Healthy Weight Goal. The good news is that I've lost three pounds since Thanksgiving; usually you gain 3-5 over the holidays rather than losing it. My goal weight is 135-140 pounds, with my current weight clocking in around 165 pounds. Ashley and I are sharing this goal; she's shooting for 120-130 (but personally that's a little too skinny for my tastes; I think 150 is an optimal weight for her height and build). We're doing the Warrior Diet (consuming all our calories in the evening so that we burn fat throughout the morning and afternoon), and we're limiting our caloric intake so that we lose around two pounds a week. We're also *attempting* to be more regimented with exercise: we were running and doing aerobics a good amount before the cold weather set in. Once Chloe's back in school, we'll be able to do aerobics while Zoey's napping. I'm not focusing too much on gaining muscle, because Ashley finds muscular men repulsive. That's okay with me: I'd rather diet and read than diet and hit the weight room!

Write Two New Novels. I've been getting my ass back in gear when it comes to writing, and this year I want to write two brand-spanking-new novels. The first will be The Procyon Strain: Book Two (I'm already about fifty pages into it), and I want to write something that doesn't revolve around zombies. I love writing stories in the framework of a zombie apocalypse, but I don't want to get into a rut. I've been toying with some ideas, but I don't want to give anything away. Tacked onto this Resolution is the goal of finishing my revision of the Dwellers of the Night trilogy. I've only got one more book to revise, but it's the longest and most intricate. I'll have to manage my time well if I want to write two new novels, finish the revision, and accomplish my reading goals. Thankfully I'm dating a woman who sees me reading/writing as she watches TV as Quality Time.

Get a Big Boy Job. No, I don't mean becoming a server at Frisch's. I've delayed getting a different job because of everything being up in the air with the ministry position at Mayhill. They're supposed to contact me this month, and if I get that position, I'll be financially set and doing something I love (preaching!). If that doesn't work out, I'm going to use Amanda's contact with the Temp Service to land a better-paying, 9-5:00 position. Walk of Joy is great, and I love my clients, but it just doesn't pay well, and there's no room for advancement. I'll be sorry to say Bye to these guys, but that's how life goes. I'll be sure to keep my three faithful readers updated.

Also, I'll be going back to the original URL sometime soon.
(that's darkerthansilence, for those who don't remember)
This blog has been all over the web, but I want to get back to normalcy.
Things are settling down in my heart, and there's no reason to be melodramatic.
So if you try to come here one day and can't find me, access your bookmarks.