False Dichotomous Smoking Devices

This morning I was blessed, fascinated, saddened to come across yet another theologically liberal Emergent blog. I'm sort of a glutton for punishment in this regard. I follow things like this because I like to see what some of these folks in these strains of left-wing theology are saying. The blog I found today was nothing more than a quote from a book by John A. Sanford. I have always been of the opinion that it is best to keep up on what others are saying and teaching who are outside of my main group of people and influence. Of course, in this case, that would be things outside of Confessional Lutheranism. I am a Confessional Lutheran by choice, of course, and that means I am unashamed to hold to the teachings and doctrines laid out in Scripture and summarized by the Lutheran Confessions, namely, the Book of Concord.

I'm not a Lutheran pastor, so I'm going to keep my hat out of the ring on the latest big thing running through online Lutheran circles: paedocommunion. So, I'll just say that I am not in favor of paedocommunion because I think the Confessions don't allow for it. I think guys like Todd Wilken are in the right on this one, and Mr. Wilken has been very vocal and critical of the paedocommunion advocates lately on facebook and over at his blog The Bare Bulb. It's best to let our clergy sort these things out. And that's that.

But I came across the Emergent Village Voice blog at Patheos this morning and found this absolute gem of a quote.

The problem is not that Paul is such a bad person, but that he was an historically conditioned personality who, however inspired he might have been in certain respects, did not go beyond the prevailing collective opinions with regard to the psychological problem of the persona and the Shadow. Jesus was sufficiently conscious that he was able to transcend the collective thinking of his time. Paul was not able to do this. It is unfortunate that the Church elected to follow the admonitions of Paul rather than the teachings of Jesus in this regard. But that was inevitable. Given the general level of consciousness of the Church, it was certain that the teachings of Jesus would be disregarded, and the words of Paul would be followed, for this is where people were at that time. Nevertheless it is unfortunate for a great deal of psychological damage could have been avoided had the teachings of Jesus been followed with regard to the dynamics of human personality." (John A. Sanford, Evil: The Shadow Side of Reality, pp. 75-76.)


Patheos, Emergent Village - Jesus vs. Paul




The link to the blog where I found the quote is given above. This short quote actually contains a lot of information that tells us about the errors of the Emergent Church "conversation," as they like to call it.


1. "The problem is not that Paul is such a bad person, but that he was an historically conditioned personality..."

The opening statement of the quote conveys one of the Emergent presuppositions that is in error. They read the bible through culture. What I mean by this is that instead of Scripture being God's Word then as it is now and will be forever, it's more of a culturally conditioned document that we are allowed to update to conform to what our culture's values are today. So, they would argue that St. Paul wrote in a specifically Jewish culture then, but we're not in that culture anymore. So there are many statements in St. Paul that are not true for us today; such as St. Paul's very clear complimentarian stance regarding the roles of men and women. Things are different in our culture they say, so we are free to take an egalitarian stance on the topic.

2. "It is unfortunate that the Church elected to follow the admonitions of Paul rather than the teachings of Jesus..."

Here is another whopper of a statement. The author argues in essence that Christ was able to transcend culture but St. Paul was stuck in his. Therefore, what Jesus taught and what St. Paul taught were different and even opposed to one another.

Here we have a major false dichotomy implied in this statement. Do you see it? It's all over the quote from Sanford's book.

Sanford argues that Christ transcended culture and St. Paul didn't; therefore, St. Paul taught things very different from Jesus Christ, and we need to be following what Jesus said -the red letters- and not what St. Paul said.

But this is false. It forces a false choice. There are other options here. How about the fact that St. Paul was the chosen Apostle of Christ to the Gentiles (Acts 9, anyone?) and that St. Paul's epistles accurately and properly interpret the words of Christ?

St. Paul didn't change the teachings of Christ, nor did he teach something different. He expounded on them accurately and properly. So when Sanford says that "It is unfortunate that the Church elected to follow the admontions of Paul rather than the teachings of Jesus" he is erecting a strawman and a false dilemma. The answer is: Yes, both. We follow the teachings of Jesus and of St. Paul, precisely because they are in the same ballpark. St. Paul accurately and properly gives us doctrine, just like Jesus did. They're not opposed at all.

3. The entire statement denies the inerrancy, infallibility, inspiration, and authority of Scripture.

In short, the author is claiming that St. Paul is just plain wrong sometimes. Jesus transcended culture and St. Paul didn't. And the church is in error to follow the teachings of St. Paul over against the teachings of Christ. So, St. Paul is wrong, pretty much. He may have been right in that culture, but he's not anymore.

The statement actually calls into question the entire Scriptures. If St. Paul is in error, so is St. Peter. After all, St. Peter called St. Paul's epistles Scripture (2Pet 3:16). And if St. Paul and St. Peter got all sorts of things wrong and couldn't transcend culture, then how do we know that St. Matthew, St. Mark, St. Luke, and St. John didn't do the exact same thing? You know, they wrote the Gospels where we read most of what Christ said. So why not say the authors of the Gospels were culturally conditioned too and they were wrong?

In short, why believe anything in Scripture at all? Why not say the whole thing is culturally conditioned and can be rejected and/or tweaked to fit what our culture says is correct now days, including the red letter words of Christ, which were recorded and written by culturally conditioned men?

So stop playing Jesus vs. St. Paul Emergents. Stop the false dichotomies. The whole argument betrays what you really think about Scripture and Christ as well. You may say you love Jesus, but the Jesus you love is an invention because you ultimately reject the authority of the Holy Scriptures that tell us about Him and are given to us by inspiration.

Your foolish statement proves way too much, as it were. It's a joke.

Put that in your false dichotomous pipe and smoke it.