And here’s the third installment of my thoughts on Mark Driscoll’s speech on the emerging church (or you can read part 1 and part 2)…

3. The danger of guilt by association and selective quotation

Toward the end of his speech, Mark had some good things to say about the importance of incarnational ministry. He understands that “the world has changed” and that “the assumptions of modernity no longer hold.” He talked about the need to be about both “God’s Word and God’s world.” On the whole, pretty good stuff.

But as good as Mark’s comments on incarnational ministry, some of his criticisms of the emerging church were equally careless.

At times, he blended a more-or-less accurate assessment of emerging Christianity with something less than the whole enchilada. Like when he said emergents believe in having conversations about what God said—true—as well as whether God meant what he said—not necessarily true. (I’ve linked to it a couple times already, but for a good introduction to the emerging church by someone who understands that it’s not a monolith, go here.)

Another example was when Mark addressed Rob Bell’s comments on the virgin birth in his book Velvet Elvis. According to Mark, Velvet Elvis “actually calls into question the virgin birth of Jesus Christ.” He even characterized Rob as saying, “‘Now I believe in the virgin birth, but I’m just saying we don’t need it.’”

What’s interesting is the way Mark combined direct quotation (reading an excerpt from Velvet Elvis) and loose paraphrase—without telling his listeners which was which. By doing this, Mark misrepresented what Rob actually said. In Velvet Elvis, Rob affirms his belief in the virgin birth as part of the historic Christian faith—one he wants “to pass… on to the next generation.” Rob’s point (at least what I took from it) was that for him, even if the virgin birth were somehow disproved, he would still find Jesus more compelling than anything else out there. That’s not the same as saying, “We don’t need the virgin birth,” or calling it into question.

Elsewhere, Mark criticizes Rob’s use rabbinical sources in his interpretation of the New Testament because, in Mark’s words: “If you don’t love Jesus, you’re a bad Bible scholar.” (Never mind that the oral traditions of rabbis like Hillel and Shammai predate Jesus.)

But the rabbinical sources can help us better understand Jesus because much of what he taught was interacting with other rabbinical interpretations of scripture. Jesus himself, though he lived before the term rabbi evolved into a formal title, followed many of the common practices of rabbis—such as choosing a select group of disciples and teaching in the synagogues. Many of the sayings and even exact phrases Jesus used (such as “binding” and “loosing” in Matthew 16:19) come straight out of the rabbinic tradition.

Here again, Mark builds his case on selective quotation—or more precisely in this case, no actual quotation at all. He says that Rob “holds up rabbinical authority as the key to Bible interpretation and hermeneutics.” In the more than three-and-a-half years I spent at Rob’s church, I don’t remember hearing him claim that rabbinical authority is the key to biblical interpretation. The reality is that Rob, like most good pastors and teachers, uses a number of sources to help him better understand the scriptures.

Elsewhere, Mark goes after Brian McLaren, but his criticism rests largely on Brian’s endorsement of a few books—including one by John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg (who are not evangelicals) and another by Steve Chalke (who is evangelical). Of Crossan, Mark says he “does not give us anything biblical regarding the person and work—including the resurrection—of Jesus.”

I’ve read two of Crossan’s books and one of Chalke’s. I’m smart enough to know I don’t agree with everything they write—particularly Crossan, who doesn’t believe Jesus rose from the dead. But that doesn’t mean they can’t offer some valuable insights that I can benefit from. I’m also smart enough to know that endorsing a book doesn’t necessarily mean you agree with everything that’s in it, either. Listening to people with different perspectives is part of what sharpens us.

Mark—and others—may have legitimate reasons for disagreeing with someone like Brian McLaren. But any case they wish to make would only be stronger if they built it on what the person actually said and not who they’re associated with or which books they read.

Tomorrow, part 4: the danger of forgetting the best of your own theology.

This is a picture I took a couple years ago in an olive grove halfway up Mount Carmel in Israel. According to our guide, the trees in this grove are more than two thousand years old.

Notice the newer branches growing out of the stump. It makes me think of the practice of grafting—where a branch from one plant is fused into the trunk of another. I don’t know if that’s what happened to this tree, but the end result is pretty much the same: something new growing out of something old.

Paul uses the grafting analogy in Romans to explain why he brought the gospel to Gentiles and not just Jews:

If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: you do not support the root, but the root supports you. You will say then, “Branches were broken off so that I could be grafted in.” Granted. But they were broken off because of unbelief, and you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but tremble. For if God did not spare the natural branches, he will not spare you either.

—Romans 11:17-21 (TNIV)

This passage is used by lots of people to make a lot of different points. It’s part of a larger section of scripture, Romans 9-11, that many in the Calvinist tradition consider the linchpin of their argument for individual predestination—the belief that only those handpicked by God for eternal life have any real hope of salvation. The rest, are (depending on what kind of Calvinist you are) either predestined to hell or simply passed over. This is what I used to take from this passage. Never mind the fact that Paul is quick to point out that the original branches, which represent ancient Israel, were only broken off because of their “unbelief.”

Among evangelicals, there are at least two major views on the relationship between Christians and Jews—and both camps appeal to Romans 11:17-21 for support. One camp argues there is a clear distinction between Israel and the church. The church, they say, is sort of a parentheses or interlude in the middle of God’s dealings with his chosen people, Israel. This view emerged in more or less its current form back in the 19th century, and it gave rise to Christian Zionism, a unique blend of theology and foreign policy.

The other camp argues that the church has replaced Israel; the church is the new Israel and baptism is the new circumcision (and pork is the new lamb, presumably). Ancient Israel had its chance and blew it, according to this view. And now the distinction of being the “chosen people” has been transferred to this thing called the church.

And of course, there are plenty of nuances to both views and many good efforts to arrive at some sort of middle ground between the two. But in the end, I think both camps miss the point of Romans 11:17-21. Maybe if we pay better attention to the analogy Paul uses, we can avoid making the same mistake.

In horticulture, grafting is done for a number of reasons: to increase fruit yield; to create new, hybrid breeds; to improve plant hardiness; to repair damage… the list goes on. Whatever the reason, grafting is a lot like God’s idea of marriage: two things, previously separate, becoming one.

Saying either that the church is totally separate from ancient Israel or that it has replaced Israel as God’s chosen people both lead to the same conclusion: missing out on a big part of our heritage.

If, on the one hand, we reduce the church to a mere parentheses in between God’s dealings with Israel, then for those of us in the Christian tradition, the Hebrew scriptures are of little use aside from their historical value. And the church—God’s best plan for putting his love on display—will be reduced to a mere historical footnote. We may even forget the redemptive role we have to play in this world and waste our time with lesser things.

On the other hand, if we say that we have replaced God’s formerly chosen people, then like the wild branches in Paul’s analogy, we’re in danger of thinking ourselves superior. We might forget that we’re building on a foundation someone else laid for us. We may end up making the same mistake that some Jews made in Jesus’ day, thinking their lineage gave them an all-access pass to God’s kingdom (Matthew 3:9-10).

The good news of Romans 11:17-21 is that as Christians, the Hebrew tradition is our tradition. Their promised blessings are our promised blessings.

But the even better news of Romans 11 is that God’s economy does not operate according to the principle of the zero-sum game. Just as God always meant to extend his blessing beyond the original “chosen people” (Genesis 12:3), our blessing does not have to come at the expense of theirs (Romans 11:30-32).

There is room in God’s kingdom for all of us.

Flipping through my Bible this afternoon (actually, using an online Bible search tool, but somehow that just doesn’t sound the same), I came across this passage, which I’m sure I’ve read a thousand times before:

Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.

— Matthew 23:23 (TNIV)

Some translations have it as the “weightier matters of the law.”

In the Hebrew scriptures, there were 613 commands… a lot to keep track of, if you were Jewish. Rabbis spent countless hours debating which laws were more important than others—which laws were “greater” and which were “lesser.” Which were “heavier” and which were “lighter.” After all, a comprehensive list, sorted by order of importance, might come in handy, should you find yourself in a situation where obeying one law requires you to break another.

What should you do, for example (assuming that you’re an observant Jew living in ancient Israel) if someone’s donkey collapses under a heavy load… on a Sabbath? On the one hand, you would be obeying Exodus 23:5 (not to mention Leviticus 19:18) if you lent a hand. On the other hand, by doing so you would violate Exodus 20:8-11. Dilemma.

How do you decide which law to keep and which to violate? Do you go by whichever passage is longer? Whichever has more verses? (Probably not the best method of deciding if you’re an ancient Jew, since your scroll wouldn’t have had verse numbers…)

Do you choose not to help, because the command about not working on the Sabbath was obviously more important, since it made it into the Ten Commandments, while the precise words “love your neighbor” did not?

You could ask some trusted rabbis, but you might not get the same answer twice. The good news is, pretty much everybody agreed that “love the Lord your God” was the greatest command. The bad news is, that’s where the agreement ended.

Some rabbis thought that “you shall have no other gods” was the next greatest command. Others said is was “keep the Sabbath.” Still others nominated “love your neighbor” for the distinction of “number two command in the Bible.”

Jesus weighs into the debate in Matthew 22:37-39, siding squarely with the “love your neighbor” camp—with a twist, of course. He says that the second greatest command in all of scripture is like the first. In other words, you cannot truly love God unless you love your neighbor. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commands, Jesus taught.

Well, that’s nothing new. In fact, I think I’ve blogged about it before. Possibly more than once. (Can you say “one trick pony”?) But slightly less well known is Jesus’ rant in the very next chapter. Jesus works himself into a frenzy, directed at the religious establishment. Seven times he pronounces a “woe” upon them—which the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary says is a word “used to express grief, regret, or distress.” Um, that’s putting it mildly, especially when you read the content of Jesus’ seven woes. Not very nice stuff.

But it’s woe #4 that caught my attention today. The Pharisees and teachers of the law measured out even their tiniest spices to make sure they gave the required ten percent—not an ounce less (and presumably, knowing their hearts, not an ounce more). The problem is, at this point they wiped their hands in satisfaction, thinking they’d done their bit to stay in God’s good books.

Jesus accuses them of getting their priorities out of whack—obsessing with the most obscure minutiae of the law while completely forgetting about the “weightier matters.” And what does Jesus say these weightier matters are?

Justice.

Mercy.

Faithfulness.

In other words, making sure the poor are taken care of matters more than making sure your prayer shawl is on straight. Or, perhaps, making sure we sing the “right” kind of songs (whatever your preference) in church.

In other words, freely extending God’s mercy to everyone we meet (which, according to Scripture, is a nonnegotiable if we hope to enjoy some of that same mercy for ourselves) is more important than making a list of who has and hasn’t got their theology straight and discriminating accordingly.

In other words, spending a lifetime caring for the poor and extending God’s mercy is more important than spending a lifetime playing religious games.

All of scripture matters to God—and the Pharisees were not wrong to make sure their tithes were in order, according to Jesus. But what they were doing was a lot like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

Some scholars think that Jesus was expounding on Micah 6:8 in this particular rant (leave it to Jesus to always be interacting with the scriptures, even when he’s ripping into someone):

He has shown all you people what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

That’s it. And when it comes right down to it, Micah 6:8 and Matthew 23:23 are just different ways of saying this:

Love your neighbor.

End of story.

It’s tempting to think of Christianity as a “Western” religion, invented by Jesus when he walked the earth… possessing its own set of totally unique ideas, practices, beliefs…

…when in reality, Jesus didn’t set out to “invent” as much as we think he did. Sometimes we forget that Jesus was not only Jewish, not only the Messiah… he was also a Jewish rabbi.

Almost everything he said—every teaching, every parable—was interacting with the Jewish tradition…

interpreting the Hebrew scriptures…

participating in the great conversation of his day about who the people of God are and how they’re supposed to live.

After all, it was Jesus who said (speaking about the Hebrew scriptures):

Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. Truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. (Matthew 5:17-18, TNIV)

A couple years ago, I went to Israel and Turkey with Ray Vander Laan, retracing the footsteps of Jesus and his disciples… exploring the Jewish origins of my Christian faith.

To know who you are, you have to know where you’ve been. To better understand the New Testament (and the especially teachings of Jesus), you have to understand the Old Testament. If you’re a follower of Jesus, then the Jewish story is your story, because your faith is fundamentally Jewish in its origins.

Anyway… the plan is to explore Christianity’s Jewish origins more in future posts…