Last week I attended a lecture by Prof Scot Mcknight (North Park College, Chicago) on “conversion” and why people – especially young people – leave the faith. Here is a summary of the content:

Psychological / Social / Theological
Model of Conversion

Model of Conversion

Conversion is defined as a “transformation of a person’s personal autobiography”.

This model contains the 7 dimensions of conversion. It does not mean that it follows the numbered sequence, but “conversion” can start anywhere. For example, an “encounter” (# 4) can trigger a “crisis” (# 2).

The process of “conversion” is also an ongoing process. It never ends, doesn’t matter where or who you are. For example, conversion to one thing can be followed by a conversion to something else (= “apostasy” from previous conversion). Or it entails an intensification of current conversion.

Main Reasons Why People Leave the Church

There is a crisis in the church – why are so many people walking away from the faith? Between 30-40 % of young people brought up in the church do not participate in Christianity.

Most common reasons for leaving are:

1. the authority of doctrine and scripture, that is, its claims of inerrancy or infallibility. The Bible looks much like a man made product. This is related to next reason;
2. science, especially the debate between evolution and creationism. Churches do not create a safe environment for questions being asked. The church needs to make room for questioning and variety, and must be capable to address questions from within the community of faith.
3. because of the churches and behaviour of Christians themselves (ie abuses, hypocrisy)
4. the doctrine of hell. What is the justice in a person being damned to hell for eternity?
5. The God of the Bible (especially Old Testament) – he is mean, demonstrates human weaknesses, is sometimes even worse than a human being, and he is incapable of preventing evil.

We can’t pretend to have all the answers.

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Food for thought!

The HTS (Hervormde Teologies Studies) Journal, given by the faculty of theology, University of Pretoria, is now available online.  The most amazing thing is that it will be available, articles and book reviews and all, for absolutely free!

Go check it out: http://www.hts.org.za/index.php/HTS/index

The first edition (2009) is already out – although only two articles – but the new layout is very attractive, and which is downloadbale as PDF’s.  The articles from 2008 are also available.

A: They say he died for our sins.

Z: Yes, but why did he have to die?

A: God is holy and perfect. People are sinners. The consequences of sin is death. Jesus died in our place.

Z: So what. People die in any case. Of old age, disease, war, or accidents. We are the product of evolution, and as nature tells us, all biological organisms die at some or other stage.

A: Maybe Jesus died standing up for his principles.

Z: Maybe he was in the wrong place at the wrong time? He had a following and went to Jerusalem during the Passover festival. Pilate made use of the opportunity to make an example out of him. “Thinking of causing trouble”, he tells them, “Look then what will happen to you”.

A: Maybe he died understanding it to be God’s will.

Z: So God essentially killed him.

A: Some would say, God killed himself.

Z: Or do we kill him, everytime we do not love?

A: Maybe he died to confuse the living hell out of people asking why he had to die. Or perhaps he set an example that the way to salvation is the complete dying off and humiliation of the self.

Z: Even so, who of us asked to be here? Who of us asked to have a self and our own will? Who asked to be here and to be told you have a choice: heaven or hell? Who of us asked to be in our bodies, cultivate thoughts both evil and good, and ultimately be judged as utterly hopeless and sinful, and that without God’s grace we are lost? And why can’t we be made perfect to begin with?

A: Your point being?

Z: Think about it. We are here, something not of our own choosing, but now that we are here, some or other remedy is needed for our wrongheaded existence. You are required to be lumped with guilt, something that could have been prevented, or differently engineered, and indeed, makes no existence preferable. Certainly, I would think it proper to have been given the choice!

A: Havn’t you heard? You are a lump of clay, and not entitled to an opinion on these matters.

Z: Still, I have no power over the fact that I’m here, or now that I am here, that I am so useless, that somebody had to die in my place!

A: To exist or not to exist, what is the advantage or disadvantage of both?

Z: The advantage of the former is that you are privileged and able to listen to my dribble. The disadvantage is the choice appears to be heaven or hell. Your destiny, oh reluctant sinner, is one of compulsion, either way. Of course, heaven is the obvious choice, but the illusion of choice is another matter altogether.

A: But is existence really just about that?

Z: About what?

A: I mean, we are here and given a choice between heaven or hell?

Z: Who knows. But here we are and supposedly equipped with free will, so choose your heaven or your fire, but never be in control of your existence to begin with, nor the nature of alternative destinies. What about choosing non-existence! Even better, not existing at all. Then Jesus needn’t have worried dying.

A: So what about the advantages or disadvantages on non-existence?

Z: I think, to begin with, the advantage would be that you will be completely oblivious to nonsense such as this. The disadvantages … well, I cannot think of any really.

A: What is the whole thing about your life’s purpose then?

Z: Still, I would have appreciated having the choice.

A: Maybe Jesus died because he was so great, and the world, well, can be a place filled with stupid people. And if he was raised from the dead, it shows that stupid people won’t have the final say.

Z: You mean the same stupid people who didn’t ask to exist and who didn’t really ask to be stupid?

A: Jesus wasn’t stupid. Compared to us he was marvelous.

Z: True, which begs the question, what did he know, that we don’t?

A: It’s a mystery.

Z: A most unhelpful, but perhaps, most appropriate answer available.

A: It’s also a mystery why he had to die. That’s why we keep on coming back for more.

Z: Like moths to a flame?

A: If we are truly creatures thrown into a stew not of our own making, is our task not to enjoy the stew, and accept what has been decreed?

Z: You mean, submit to something like a divine will, if something like that really exists.

A: Yes.

Z: I find that a most intolerable solution.

A: Maybe you are to full of yourself.

Z: Perhaps, but I have the right to understand.

A: The stew has decreed you only have the right to believe.

Z: Believe?

A: Yes.

Z: OK. I will buy my ticket for the journey I never chose to take. Happy?

A: At least you are part of the journey. Let it take you where it leads.

Z: How Stoic of you.

A: No, you choose not to choose. Someone already made the right choice for you. Its like putting a puzzle together. You can choose to fit the pieces together, but what that picture looks like is already decreed.

Z: And what if I choose to choose?

A: Then you will always ask why Jesus had to die.

It is with delight that I announce that Wipf and Stock have agreed to publish a new book I’m working on. It will concentrate on ethnicity theory and will be a combination of work old and new. The proposed title is: Walking In Their Sandals: A Guide to First-Century Israelite Ethnic Identity. It should be ready some time towards the end of the year.

I am really going to miss being at the CGM this year. Stimulating papers, discussion and feedback, and socialising, oh, wish I could be there. I hope that the plans for the CGM to come to South Africa in 2010 will happen, then most can get a taste of SA culture (and of course, food!). Wishing all fellow contexters a great time.

BTW, I have received “The Social World of the New Testament. Insights and Methods” (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 2008), edited by Jerry Neyrey and Eric Stewart for review in Neotestamentica. At least this will help a bit.

I should also mention that I picked up the book from the wife of Prof Gert Steyn (Department New Testament, University of Pretoria) at the hospital where Prof Steyn was undergoing heart surgery.  Unfortunately I could not see him, but I wish him a speedy recovery.

I have recently finished reading the book, “The Life of a Galilean Shaman: Jesus of Nazareth in Anthropological-Historical Perspective”, written by Pieter Craffert.  Unfortunately I could not attend a discussion on it today in Pretoria (due to the responsibilities towards wife and our newborn baby) but had attended one last month at the NTSSA annual meeting where it was briefly discussed. 

Overall I find Craffert’s approach quite convincing, well, at least most of it, barring that he falls short of explaining Jesus’ arrest, trial and execution, and other aspects as well (eg why he was believed to be Israel’s Messiah), which also was not the purpose of the book. The description below of the book is from memory and aims to give a brief overview of Craffert’s most salient arguments.

Craffert argues that historical Jesus scholars are trapped in the positivistic historiographical framework which basically points to the following: the real Jesus cannot be like the Jesus portrayed in the gospels.  The real Jesus lies somewhere beneath the text and must be approached by identifying “authentic” material.  Historical reconstructions are then based on these “authentic” materials.  Craffert argues, however, that scholars must move away from their ontological monism, and accept that there are a plurality of worldviews, the first century Galilean context of Jesus notwithstanding.  In this regard the historical Jesus lies within (not somewhere beneath) the text (something he also emphasised to me in a personal conversation).  The gospels must be seen as cultural artifcats produced by a particular culture about a specific type of social personage.  Using a cross-cultural approach this social personage can be understood, or better approached when appreciating the cultural context, quite different to that of the western world.

As a social personage, Craffert argues that the best model that fits Jesus is the shamanic complex.  Shamans (and related spiritual experts) regularly enter ASC’s (altered states of consciousness) which translates into healing and new wisdom/knowledge for their communities.  Craffert sees Jesus baptism and the transformation on the mountain as ASC’s, for example.  Also like shamans, Jesus was “possessed” by a spirit, but in this case it was claimed to be the Holy Spirit.  He also sees that Jesus’ regular visits to the divine world explains the language of Jesus as “Son of God” and the “Son of Man”. 

Also Jesus’ healing must be seen within its context.  Craffert, and here much controversy will ensue, argues that Jesus healing was aimed at culturally conditioned illnesses .  Jesus’ reputation as a healer spread and performed “biopsychosocial” healing , where illness and cure was determined as much by people’s beliefs and the social/cultural environment as belief in the healer (similar to the placebo effect).  If believing in something can make you ill, believing in a doctor or a pill, much like a healer will also affect healing.  I just wonder whether biopsychosocial healing can explain all the healing accounts in the gospels.

Craffert also argues that the birth narratives would have taken shape already in Jesus’ lifetime, due to his reputation, and were not later legendary material added to the tradition.  The resurrection appearances can also be explained in terms of ASC’s of his followers.  They continued in what was already ocurring before Jesus’ death – this argument I do not find convincing in all cases.

What Craffert’s book does is to open a world very different to that of the westerner and to appreciate the otherness of Jesus, his person and his social and cultural world.  The challenge for historical Jesus scholars is to follow in the footsteps of Craffert and thoroughly take their investigations into this alien world and to reconstruct Jesus as part of that world, and not their own.  The other challenge remaining would be to translate that Jesus for contemporary relevance, so that Jesus is not merely a Galilean Shaman that lived in the first century, but a Lord who is understandable and also lives in our world today.

 

On a more personal note, my wife Joy and I today celebrate our first wedding anniversary.  Thanks to my lovely wife for a wondeful year!

Here is a photo from our wedding day:

As he had promised at the Context Group Meeting in Portand (March, 2008), Douglas Oakman sent me a copy of his latest book, “Jesus and the Peasants” (Cascade Books, 2008).  It is published in the same series my book was published: Matrix: The Bible in Mediterrannean Context).

Containing both previously published and new articles, the outline of the book is as follows:

Part 1: Political Economy and the Peasant Values of Jesus
1. Jesus and Agrarian Palestine: The Factor of Debt
2. Jesus and the Problem of Debt in Ancient Palestine
3. The Buying Power of Two Denarii (Luke 10:35)
4. How Large Is a “Great Crowd”? (Mark 6:34)
5. The Ancient Economy
6. The Ancient Economy and St. Johns Apocalypse
7. Money in the Moral Universe of the New Testament
8. The Economics of Palestine

Part 2: The Jesus Traditions within Peasant Realities
9. Social Meaning and Rural Context: The Mustard Seed Parable of Jesus
10. Rulers’ Houses, Thieves, and Usurpers: The Beelzebul Pericope
11. “All the Surrounding Country”: The Countryside in Luke-Acts
12. Was Jesus a Peasant? (Luke 10:30-35)
13. Cursing Fig Trees and Robbers’ Dens (Mark 11:12-25)
14. The Lord’s Prayer in Social Perspective

Part 3: The Peasant Aims of Jesus
15. Models and Archaeology in the Social Interpretation of Jesus
16. Jesus the Tax-Resister
17. Jesus, Q, and Ancient Literacy in Social Perspective

Also present are a number of models and figures.  I have not read it as yet, but I look forward to doing so!  Thanks Doug!

I came across the following “brain teaser” recently:

The statement below is true
———————————————-
The statement above is false

Try it out.  It ad infinitum makes the one and the other statement variously “true” or “false”.

Perhaps a usefull model for post-modern interpretation of the Bible?  – or perhaps a reminder of the oftimes arbitrary statements of scholars regarding events or Jesus sayings being “true” (authentic) or “false” (inauthentic)?

For those who are interested, some of my published articles are available on-line.  See the “Publications” page where I added links to the relevant articles.