Inter-Generational Adult Study
Current Series: Serious Answers to Hard Questions
We will begin to look at some of the most serious obstacles to faith for us and others. I know we will enjoy and grow from this journey together. Simply come to the church parlor (right down the hall from the sanctuary) at 9:15AM on Sunday. All our materials will be there, no need to bring a thing. Also, there is no cost to you for participating. And if you can’t make it this Sunday, simply come the next. We’ll be happy to have you when you can make it.
We will be taking approximately 2 weeks on each of the following topics. (Descriptions below): Evil, Religion and Science, Other Religions, Evangelism and Tolerance, the God of the Old Testament, Jesus and Christianity, Resurrection, the Gnostic Gospels, Forgiveness, and lastly, the Sins of the Church
1. Evil
Evil. The very word has the power to conjure up a sense of threat and make us stop and wonder. And not only us but human beings from the beginning of time have struggled with the reality and power of evil in the world. Why is there evil? What is it exactly? Where does it come from? Can it be defeated?
Questions like these have been answered in different ways by different traditions over time. Some religions deal with the challenge of evil by denying that it really exists. According to this view, what we call evil is in fact an illusion or misconception. Accordingly, the proper response to the perception of evil is to rise above it, by understanding that it is really just a part of the way things are and have to be.
Another and almost contrary view holds that evil is a fundamental power in the universe, as basic and powerful as goodness itself, a kind of second god alongside the good God who is worthy of worship and praise. This view sees goodness and evil locked in eternal combat, with each side gaining temporary victories here and there, but neither side ever able to defeat the other completely.
Christian faith, together with Judaism, takes a different view, because the Scriptures that it holds sacred also take a different view. On the one hand, Christians acknowledge the reality of evil. They take it seriously. They do not simply declare it an illusion or misconception. They acknowledge its destructive presence and power in our lives, even as they do not claim to be able to understand everything about it. And because evil is real, they acknowledge the importance of resisting it. But at the same time, Christians affirm that however real evil may be, it is not a second god. Evil, we affirm was not here originally, and it will not be here ultimately. Ultimately, it will be vanquished. Moreover, we believe that the power that is able to deliver us from evil is already in our midst - the power of love.
Addressing this very challenging subject is Dr. Kendall Soulen, the highly regarded Professor of Systematic Theology at Wesley Theological Seminary.
2. Religion and Science
The questions are tough and seemingly endless. Does religion have a place in the modern world or has it been supplanted by science, which replaces myths and superstitions with cold, hard facts. Or, viewed from the other side, does science have anything important to teach people of faith? Are not many scientists themselves dogmatic in their claims? And is science really value neutral? If not, then who determines which values prevail, which experiments are permitted, which procedures are allowed, which drugs are manufactured, which weapons technologies are pursued? If religion does not decide what is possible, should it at least have a say in what is permissible?
The relationship between religion and science is perhaps the defining question of the modern world, sometimes called modernity. The split between religious fundamentalists and liberals in the early twentieth century occurred under the pressure of this question, with one extreme holding fast to tradition at the expense of modernity, and the other holding to modernity at the expense of tradition. The majority of Christians have positioned themselves somewhere in between, trying to keep a foot in both worlds, to learn what they can from both teachers.
Is it possible to be a scientifically informed person of faith? One who has answered yes to that question is John Polkinghorne, a distinguished physicist from the University of Cambridge, England, who also served in the Anglican clergy and as President of The Queen's College, Cambridge. Dr. Polkinghorne is one of the world's leading authorities on the relationship between religion and science, and it is our privilege to have him as today's speaker.
3. Other Religions
The world is shrinking. That is, modern advances in travel and communication, plus large movements of immigrant populations, have made us more conscious of our world neighbors than at any other time in history. The model of religious pluralism in this country used to be a platform shared by Protestants, Catholics and Jews. Nowadays, we are likely to have direct encounters with a much wider array of faiths, including, for example, Islam, Hinduism, Sikhism, and Buddhism.
Living alongside people of other religions breaks down stereotypes and expands mutual understanding. It also raises much more acutely the already difficult question of the relationship between Christianity and other faiths. As with most big issues, there is a spectrum of opinion within the church. On one end are those who regard other religions as nothing more than satanic deceptions that hold their adherents in bondage. At the other end are those who see all religions as essentially equal; what is true for one person might well not be true for another. Between these views stand those who seek in one way or another to honor both the particular claims of Christianity and the genuine insight and value of other faiths.
So, how are we to think about other religions? Our guide as we explore this critically important topic is Dr. Sathi Clarke, the widely respected Professor of Theology, Culture and Mission at Wesley Theological Seminary.
4. Evangelism and Tolerance
We have already considered the question of the relationship between Christianity and other religions. The issue of evangelism is in many ways parallel, although it applies to everyone, religious and non-religious alike. Do Christians have an obligation to try to convert others? Do they even have a right to do so? Isn't it best if we all just believe and let believe? Is there a place for evangelism in a tolerant society?
Evangelism has gotten a lot of bad press, and, looking at what often passes for evangelism, that's understandable. One popular stereotype is the fiery, wild-eyed, tent-and-sawdust revivalist, neither well educated nor well mannered, who, one suspects, is probably in it for the money or the attention--or both. A more recent variant is the evangelist as oily television personality, well coiffed and well practiced, who can shed a tear according to script and who can bring an audience to its feet or its knees on cue.
Is that what evangelism is all about? And does evangelism have a legitimate role in today's church? These and related issues will be tackled by today's speaker, Dr. Scott Jones, a well-known Wesley scholar who served as Professor of Evangelism at Perkins School of Theology, and who is now a bishop of the United Methodist Church.
5. The God of the Old Testament
Christians are of two minds about the God of the Old Testament. We relate to the God who is the friend of Abraham and Sarah, the God who is the good shepherd of Psalm 23, the God who protects David and inspires Isaiah. But the God of Israel is also an obstacle to faith for many. In fact, this has been the case for a very long time. One of the most heated and consequential debates within early Christianity concerned the relationship between the new faith and the creator God of the Bible. In the second-century, an influential member of the church of Rome named Marcion proposed that the God who made the world and gave the Law was not in fact the God of Jesus but was instead an inferior, temperamental being who should be rejected by Christians. It was Jesus = mission to reveal to the world the loving, compassionate heavenly Father who frees humanity from the clutches of the God of Judaism.
Even while avoiding such extremes, many subsequent Christians have found reason to keep their distance from a God who, among other things, ordered the destruction of the Canaanites, demanded B or at least pretended to demand B that Abraham kill his son Isaac, required animal sacrifices, and destroyed the firstborn of Egypt after hardening the heart of Pharaoh.
Nevertheless, it is clear that Jesus himself and the NT authors with him believed in Israel = s God. Moreover, a fair reading of the Bible shows that the contrast between God as wrathful judge in the Old Testament and God as loving parent in the New Testament is greatly oversimplified. One can hardly claim, for example, that the God of the NT book of Revelation is non-judgmental. But extending the problem to the New Testament does not solve it. What are we to make of the God of the Bible, who in some passages seems capricious and even vengeful? To put the matter bluntly, who can believe in a God who appears at times less moral than we are?
We are fortunate to have as our teacher today someone well qualified to speak to this issue, Dr. Amy-Jill Levine, the E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Professor of New Testament Studies at Vanderbilt University Divinity School.
6. Jesus and Christianity
Twenty-five years ago, the prominent New Testament scholar Leander Keck wrote a book titled A Future for the Historical Jesus in which he defended continued historical study of Jesus. In light of subsequent events, it might appear surprising that such a book ever was necessary. For the past decade, bookstore shelves have strained beneath the weight of ever new historical Jesus studies. Indeed, there are now almost as many Jesuses on offer as there are scholars searching him out between the lines of ancient texts.
An especially popular representation, one that goes back nearly three centuries, is Jesus the good but misunderstood teacher. According to this scenario, Jesus was a kindly, respectable ethicist who never regarded himself as messiah or Son of God. Simply put, Christianity is a mistake, the invention of people--the apostle Paul being the usual suspect--who came along years later and who fundamentally misrepresented Jesus. Thus, the modern scholar's job is to strip away the heavy layers of Christian distortion and so reveal to the world the unvarnished Jesus. Not coincidentally, the Jesus so exposed tends to look rather like his recent discoverer. So in the present day, Jesus is often portrayed as the embodiment of 21st century virtues such as multi-cultural tolerance and non-judgmentalism.
But is the revisionist Jesus the real Jesus? And what was the historical relationship between Jesus and Christianity, in particular, between Jesus and Paul? Is Christianity a mistake--or worse, a hoax foisted on the gullible by the unscrupulous?
These are the vital questions being addressed by today's teacher, the leading biblical scholar Richard B. Hays, who serves as George W. Ivey Professor of New Testament at Duke University Divinity School.
7. Resurrection
The apostle Paul, who himself claimed to have seen the resurrected Jesus, wrote that "...if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile....If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But Christ has been raised from the dead..."
There is perhaps no more controversial and misunderstood Christian affirmation than the resurrection of Jesus. Is it, as Paul thought, a core assertion at the heart of Christian faith, or is it instead a dispensable relic of the ancient past, irrelevant to modern believers? And, even more basic, what did it mean to assert that Jesus had been raised? What is a "resurrection"? Was Jesus' corpse resuscitated? Or is resurrection about the ascension of the soul, now free of the mortal body? Or does it mean something else still?
Take even a brief look at contemporary funeral sermons, hymns and liturgies and you'll discover a lot of disagreement and confusion in today's church surrounding the issue of resurrection--first the resurrection of Jesus, but then also the resurrection of believers. Should Christians still believe in resurrection or eternal life? If so, what guidelines are there for such belief? Or is one hope as valid as another?
A person who has thought a lot about these issues is the prominent British biblical scholar N.T. Wright, who taught New Testament at Oxford University and who is now Bishop of Durham in England. As a way into this subject, we asked Bishop Wright to summarize the argument of his award-winning and magisterial book The Resurrection of the Son of God.
8. The Gnostic Gospels
Who doesn't love to have insider information? Even more, to possess hidden knowledge about some great mystery? Who isn't drawn, at least a little, by some grand conspiracy theory that purports to tell us what is actually going on behind the scenes? Was the CIA or FBI really behind John F. Kennedy's assassination? What's the Air Force really up to at Area 51? It is human nature to be curious and also human nature to be fascinated by the esoteric, the hidden, the secret.
The ancient world had its share of mystery religions, in which people were initiated by means of secret rites into a secret society possessing secret knowledge. A variation on this theme was the phenomenon of Gnosticism, which takes its name from the Greek word gnosis, meaning "knowledge." Gnostics claimed to possess essential knowledge available to only the elite few. At the heart of Gnosticism is the belief that the physical universe is an error, the creation of an inferior or even evil deity. Many Gnostics clothed their teachings in Christian language. For them, Jesus was viewed primarily as the dispenser of special knowledge that would enable followers to unite themselves with the pure divine spirit.
Contemporary love of special knowledge is demonstrated in the recent upsurge of interest in Gnosticism, and, in particular, with the current popularity of conspiracy theories of Christian origins, such as that found in the best selling novel The Da Vinci Code. Is it really the case that the church has engaged in a massive cover up regarding its true origins? If so, do the Gnostic Gospels actually provide us with a truer picture of the historical Jesus?
Those are the provocative questions addressed by this week's speaker, the prolific author and well-known biblical scholar Dr. Ben Witherington, Professor of New Testament Interpretation at Asbury Theological Seminary.
9. The Sins of the Church
When the church is in the news, it is frequently because of human failure. We have all heard scandalous stories about televangelists who live in luxury and clergy who sexually abuse children. In former times, the Church promoted the Crusades and the Inquisition, and it condoned American slavery. Karl Marx famously called religion the opiate of the masses, the mechanism used by rulers to keep people in line. In academic circles, the church is sometimes portrayed as the source of almost everything wrong with Western civilization, in particular, as the fountainhead of intolerance and repression.
A fair assessment of Christianity must take seriously its failures as well as its successes. How are we to think about embarrassing and even sinful aspects of the Church's history? Is it still possible to believe in God when God's people can so thoroughly disappoint us? That is the subject of today's lesson. Our teacher is the well known historian Dr. Doug Strong, who is Professor of Church History and Associate Dean at Wesley Theological Seminary.
10. Forgiveness
Near the end of the popular movie Shrek, the character Donkey swallows his pride and mends fences with his former companion, the ogre Shrek. When asked why he was willing to take this step, even though it was Shrek who had been in the wrong, Donkey replies, "That's what friends do. They forgive each other."Forgiving even good friends is not easy. Forgiveness costs us something. True forgiveness requires us to give up the right to retaliate. It also means that we drop our grudge, that we stop complaining, and that we quit harboring resentment. We can no longer use our injury as a way of justifying ourselves and winning sympathy from others. Forgiveness is costly, whether it is forgiveness of a friend, or a spouse, or a child.
But Jesus commands not only that we forgive such people, but that we forgive them repeatedly, seventy times seven. Moreover, he commands not only the difficult but also the seemingly impossible: that we forgive, not just our friends, but also our enemies.
Understandably, Jesus' commandment to forgive is a profound obstacle to faith for some people, especially those who have suffered some grave injustice. Is it reasonable or even tolerable to ask parents to forgive their child's murderer? What would such forgiveness actually look like? And is forgiveness compatible with justice?
Surprisingly, perhaps, it can be just as difficult to receive forgiveness, which requires that we admit that we have been in the wrong, that we are in need, and that we are not in control.
Addressing these issues is today's teacher, Dr. Greg Jones, a prominent ethicist and Dean of Duke University Divinity School.