Lenten Meditation

Grinding Axes in the Dark

The late Christopher Hitchens liked to frighten little children with horror stories about the evils of religion.  Often times he was more narrowly referring to the religion of Islam, but he did not hold back from the “evils” of Christianity, either.  Of all the things that offended him, the offence of the Cross of Christ was the most acute.  He wrote:

The idea of a vicarious atonement, of the sort that so much troubled even C.S. Lewis, is a further refinement of the ancient superstition [of atoning sacrifice]. Once again we have a father demonstrating love by subjecting a son to death by torture, but this time the father is not trying to impress god. He is god, and he is trying to impress humans. Ask yourself the question: how moral is the following? I am told of a human sacrifice that took place two thousand years ago, without my wishing it and in circumstances so ghastly that, had I been present and in possession of any influence, I would have been duty-bound to try and stop it. In consequence of this murder, my own manifold sins are forgiven me, and I may hope to enjoy everlasting life. [Cited by Tim Challies, quoting from Hitchen’s God Is Not Great.]

Against this, the Apostle Paul provides the counterpoint:
 

For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. . . . But we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.  [I Corinthians 1: 18, 23.]

Hitchens, despite two millennia of human “evolution”, has not moved one iota beyond or away from the Greeks of Paul’s day.  He is stuck in their spiritual time warp.  He, like they, still finds the crucifixion of Jesus Christ to be greatly offensive–and in so doing bears testimony to the truthfulness of Scripture.  He cannot help himself.  Apparently, evolution embarrassingly stopped somewhere along the way.

But Hitchens’s animus  is useful insofar that it testifies to this abiding indictment: the crucifixion of Jesus is offensive to all but Christians.  To Christians, the Cross is our glory, our power, our hope, and our motivation to love God and His Christ with all our hearts.  It represents the very power of God Himself.  But to Unbelievers, it is the ultimate insulting offence.

Why?  Why should Unbelief find the Cross so offensive?  On its own terms, Unbelief is prepared to recognise, even celebrate, the sacrifice of one for another.  It concedes happily that Sydney Carton’s sacrifice for Darnay, Lucie, and their child in the Tale of Two Cities was a glorious act.  It acknowledges willingly that Evans’s stepping outside into the freezing Antarctic cold to die in the vain attempt to save Sir Robert Scott and his colleagues was heroic, an act of true self-sacrificing love.  

More deeply lies another animus.  The Cross of Christ is hated because of what it says about the Unbeliever.  It testifies to the evil of every man.  Worse, it declares that this human evil is not a mere failure, or childish mistake, or bumbling error, or something which will be smoothed out in the endless centuries of evolutionary development.  Rather, the Cross of Christ declares that every man is truly and thoroughly wicked.  Moreover, it declares that death and eternal damnation is the certain consequence as we, sinners all, are indicted before a holy God.  Therefore, the Cross is not just foolishness or silly or primitive or childish–it is hateful, and despicable because of what it says about us.   Since it indicts humanity so powerfully, sinful hearts–being true to their nature–attempt to deflect the guilt and the blame back to God. 

Thus for Christ’s sacrificial cross, only contempt is forthcoming.  While folk may honour sacrifice as noble, not so Christ’s cross.  The reason is not hard to find.  It lies here: Christ was dying to satisfy His heavenly Father.  Therefore, whilst Christ may be noble, God must be a tyrant.  Consider this: had Sir Robert Scott asked Evans to lay down his life for his colleagues, whilst Evans might be considered a tragic hero, Scott would be regarded in a very negative light.  In the same way, the cross of Christ represents an evil deity. It thus becomes an outrage, a thing to be loathed. 

These deeper realities and truths had an ardent witness in Christopher Hitchens.  But his rage against the Cross had a deeper, inchoate malevolence that would have been embarrassing to acknowledge.  He hated God because he could not betray his own sinfulness–to which he defiantly clung until the end.  He was a true scion of Unbelief.

When God confronted Adam after his rebellion, Adam protested that the fault was not his.  It was God’s.  “The woman you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit and I ate.”   Adam blamed Eve as the immediate cause of his sin.  But he also blamed God as the first and ultimate cause.  He implied that if God had not given him the one who was “bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh”, he would never have fallen into sin.  Thus, Hitchens (along with all who despise or neglect the Cross as irrelevant) would indict and blame God.  If there is anything wrong with humanity, it is God’s fault. 

There have been attempts to coat the Cross with saccharin.  Unbelief can remake it into a noble sacrifice, a moral example, an heroic act by Christ.  But Hitchens could see more clearly than that.  He could see that the “problem” with the Cross lay not with Christ, but with the Father–that God would require this of His Son in order to save His people.  It is what the Cross tells us about God which offends.  But this was not all.  His fulminating against God had a deeper motive.  For Hitchens, it is what the Cross said about him that was most offensive.  When confronted with true moral guilt before an angry God, if submission in humble belief is not possible, the only response left is bitter, sarcastic mockery, which is what he gave out.

As Easter approaches, these things will play out once again around the world.  To Believers, the Cross both humbles us into the dust and lifts us to the eternal skies.  We cherish the old rugged cross and all it represents–about God the Father, and His only begotten Son, and about us.

But to Unbelievers, the word of the cross will remain as it always has–folly.  In this way, even Unbelief testifies to the truth of God and His Christ, despite itself.   

Lenten Meditations

True Truth and Real History

As we approach the season of Passover and the once-for-all-delivered-to-the-saints Atonement, here is an interesting piece on the actual date of Messiah’s crucifixion.

Justin Taylor refers us to an article recently published in First Things, which discussed the evidence for the exact date of Jesus’ death. 

April 3, AD 33

In our new book, The Final Days of Jesus: The Most Important Week of the Most Important Person Who Ever Lived, we assume but do not argue for a precise date of Jesus’s crucifixion. Virtually all scholars believe, for various reasons, that Jesus was crucified in the spring of either a.d. 30 or a.d. 33, with the majority opting for the former. (The evidence from astronomy narrows the possibilities to a.d. 27, 30, 33, or 34). However, we want to set forth our case for the date of Friday, April 3, a.d. 33 as the exact day that Christ died for our sins.

To be clear, the Bible does not explicitly specify the precise date of Jesus’s crucifixion and it is not an essential salvation truth. But that does not make it unknowable or unimportant. Because Christianity is a historical religion and the events of Christ’s life did take place in human history alongside other known events, it is helpful to locate Jesus’s death—as precisely as the available evidence allows—within the larger context of human history.

Among the Gospel writers, no one makes this point more strongly than Luke, the Gentile physician turned historian and inspired chronicler of early Christianity.

The Year John the Baptist’s Ministry Began
 Luke implies that John the Baptist began his public ministry shortly before Jesus did, and he gives us a historical reference point for when the Baptist’s ministry began: “In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar . . .” (Luke 3:1).

We know from Roman historians that Tiberius succeeded Augustus as emperor and was confirmed by the Roman Senate on August 19, a.d. 14. He ruled until a.d. 37. “The fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar” sounds like a straightforward date, but there are some ambiguities, beginning with when one starts the calculation. Most likely, Tiberius’s reign was counted either from the day he took office in a.d. 14 or from January 1 of the following year, a.d. 15. The earliest possible date at which Tiberius’s “fifteenth year” began is August 19, a.d. 28, and the latest possible date at which his “fifteenth year” ended is December 31, a.d. 29. So John the Baptist’s ministry began anywhere from mid-a.d. 28 until sometime in a.d. 29.

The Year Jesus’s Ministry Began
If Jesus, as the Gospels seem to indicate, began his ministry not long after John, then based on the calculations above, the earliest date for Jesus’s baptism would be in late a.d. 28 at the very earliest. However, it is more probable to place it sometime in the first half of the year a.d. 29, because a few months probably elapsed between the beginning of John’s ministry and that of Jesus (and the year a.d. 30 is the latest possible date). So Jesus’s ministry must have begun between the end of a.d. 28 at the earliest and a.d. 30 at the latest.

This coheres with Luke’s mention that “Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age” (Luke 3:23). If he was born in 6 or 5 b.c., as is most likely, Jesus would have been approximately thirty-two to thirty-four years old in late a.d. 28 until a.d. 30, which falls well within the range of him being “about thirty years of age.”

The Length of Jesus’s Ministry
Now we need to know how long Jesus’s public ministry lasted, because if it went on for two or more years, this would seem to rule out spring of a.d. 30 as a possible date for the crucifixion.

John’s Gospel mentions that Jesus attended at least three Passovers (possibly four), which took place once a year in the spring:

• There was a Passover in Jerusalem at the start of his public ministry (John 2:13, 23).
• There was a Passover in Galilee midway through his public ministry (John 6:4).
• There was a final Passover in Jerusalem at the end of his public ministry, that is, the time of his crucifixion (John 11:55; 12:1).
• And Jesus may have attended one more Passover not recorded in John but perhaps in one or several of the Synoptic Gospels (i.e., Matthew, Mark, and Luke).

Even if there were only three Passovers, this would still make a date of a.d. 30 all but impossible for the date of the crucifixion. As noted above, the earliest likely date for the beginning of Jesus’s ministry from Luke 3:1 is late a.d. 28. So the first of these Passovers (at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry; John 2:13) would fall on Nisan 14 in a.d. 29 (because Nisan is in March/April, near the beginning of a year). The second would fall in a.d. 30 at the earliest, and the third would fall in 31 at the earliest. This means that if Jesus’s ministry coincided with at least three Passovers, and if the first Passover was in a.d. 29, he could not have been crucified in a.d. 30.

But if John the Baptist began his ministry in a.d. 29, then Jesus probably began his ministry in late a.d. 29 or early a.d. 30. Then the Passovers in John would occur on the following dates:

Read the entire piece:

Islam’s Cultural Fruit

Saudi Arabian Enlightenment

At the root of all cultures is a religion–a shared belief in ultimate realities (of one kind or another).  All human beings are religious.  All have beliefs in the ultimate.  Even those who insist that everything is relative and there are no ultimates or universals governing all of life are espousing their particular ultimate belief.

When a religion becomes widely shared, it produces a dominant culture which in its turn governs the law, the state, the family, education, relationships between the sexes, between parents and children and so forth.

In Arabia, Islam has been the dominant religion for 1500 years.  It has produced a certain culture.  The prevailing wisdom amongst the Commentariat in the West is that Arabia is economically primitive and therefore is peopled by the ignorant, the barbarian, and savages.  The subtle sub-text is that Arabians are Islamic because of their ignorance.  That is, if they had the “privileges” of a Western education and the benefits of a Western standard of living they would evolve to hold Islam in a nominal sense only.  This is the same perspective the West holds upon the Christian religion–it is part of our tradition, but a fairy story, a myth.  No more, no less.  Wise men gave up on long ago. 

The notion that ignorance begets adherence to Islam in Arabia paternalistically reverses history’s cause and effect.  If Islam had been a recent innovation in Arabia, the case may be arguable.  But not when the religion of Islam has controlled Arabia for one and a half millennia.
  Now the only possible way of interpreting Saudi Arabia today is that it is because of Islam that Arabia remains ignorant, barbaric and savage.  Islam, the dominant religion, has shaped and created the dominant culture.  Saudi Arabia is Islam.  The culture of Saudi Arabia is Islamic.  The laws, the institutions of governance, marital and familial relationships are Islamic.  Saudi Arabia is Islam externalised in the culture and and internalised in the human heart.

By their fruits ye shall know them, the Bible teaches.  So what are the fruits of Islam?  This from the NZ Herald:

Seven convicted of armed robbery in Saudi Arabia face execution today.

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Speaking over a smuggled cellphone from his prison cell, one of seven Saudis set to be put to death today by crucifixion and firing squad for armed robbery appealed for help to stop the executions.

Nasser al-Qahtani told the Associated Press from Abha general prison yesterday that he was arrested as part of 23-member ring that stole from jewellery stores in 2004 and 2005. He said they were tortured to confess and had no access to lawyers.

“I killed no one. I didn’t have weapons while robbing the store, but the police tortured me, beat me up and threatened to assault my mother to extract confessions that I had a weapon with me while I was only 15,” he said. “We don’t deserve death.”

A leading human rights group added its appeal to Saudi authorities to stop the executions.
Al-Qahtani, now 24, said he and most of the ring were juveniles at the time of the thefts. They were arrested in 2006. The seven received death sentences in 2009, the Saudi newspaper Okaz reported then.  Last Saturday, he said, Saudi King Abdullah ratified the death sentences and sent them to the prison. Authorities set today for the executions. They also determined the methods.

The main defendant, Sarhan al-Mashayeh, is to be crucified for three days. The others are to face firing squads.  

It is not just the barbaric extremity of the punishment that established Islam requires, it is the lack of due process, the complete inability to presume the innocence of the accused until proven guilty, and a requirement that guilty be proven beyond reasonable doubt.  Saudi Arabia employs torture to get “confessions”.

Al-Qahtani faced a judge three times during eight years in detention. He said that the judge did not assign a lawyer to defend them and did not listen to complaints of torture.  “We showed him the marks of torture and beating, but he didn’t listen,” he said. “I am talking to you now and my relatives are telling me that the soil is prepared for our executions tomorrow,” he said, referring to the place where he will be standing to be shot.  Saudi Arabia follows a strict interpretation of Islamic Shariah law under which people convicted of murder, rape or armed robbery can be executed, usually by sword.

Crucifixion is one of the most terrible ways to die.  It is cruel, barbaric, and inhuman.  We believe Amnesty International has it right. 

Several people were reported crucified in Saudi Arabia last year. Human rights groups have condemned crucifixions in the past, including cases in which people are beheaded and then crucified. In 2009, Amnesty International condemned such an execution as “the ultimate form of cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment”.

Why does Islam produce such barbaric cultures and nations?  There are several reasons.  The first is that Islam is completely locked into an authoritarian culture.  Allah has spoken and speaks.  The only correct and pious response is obedience, total obedience.  But, since Allah speaks through prophets and teachers, some human authority (the one who asserts Allah that has appointed him to rule) implicitly carries the same absolute authority as Allah himself.

This explains why representative democracy never fits comfortably with an Islamised culture.  Disputation, differing views, argumentation, factions–these are implicitly non-Islamic.  So, when a particular faction achieves control–in this case the House of Saud–it will be held with an authoritarian, iron grip.  It is the way of Allah.  It is a true representation of this idolatry, of this demi-god.  The same pattern is repeated throughout the Middle East: Syria, Iran, Iraq, Jordan.  The ultimate and frequent way of dealing with differences is to kill, to dominate, to enslave, to gain submission by force.  Then once power is gained, it is enforced ruthlessly. 

When it comes to justice in the courts, the rights of the accused are as nothing.  Authoritarian control reflects who Allah actually is believed to be, not justice.  Proven beyond reasonable doubt is unimportant as long as vengeance is manifest.  When it comes to marriage, women are under fierce control; they are regarded as lesser human beings.  The authoritarian chain of command is  manifest in Islamic families and marriage–as indeed in every area of life.

The West cannot bring itself to acknowledge this.  On the one hand, it wants to manifest an effete tolerance towards all.  So Islam must be spoken of respectfully.  On the other hand, it holds to a view that Arabia is peopled by primitives, who, once more civilized and westernised, will relinquish their fanatical adherence to Islam.  Yet again, the West believes that underneath the skin of every Arab, both man and woman, lies a Western democrat, with a longing for freedom, justice, ice-cream, and MacDonalds and feminism.  Liberate them, give them the vote and voila, Western democratic values will emerge.  Unfathomable.

Note how the article printed in the NZ Herald goes on to provide a socio-economic, pseudo-Marxian explanation for the present atrocity in Saudi Arabia.  Note the advancing of relative poverty as a reason for oppression, not the heart of the matter which is Islam itself.  This is a classic example of how the West processes such horrors when it comes to Islamic nations.  They are fit into Western narratives about class conflict, disparities of wealth, and the need of socio-economic equalities. 

Abha is located deep in the southwestern province of Asir. Southerners face systematic discrimination, and people there are perceived as second-class citizens compared with those in the most powerful central region, where the capital and Saudi Arabia’s holy shrines of Mecca and Medina are located. Political analyst Mohammed al-Qahtani said the central region got the best services and treatment.

“The verdict is very harsh, given all the circumstances of detention and trial with no access to lawyers, but part of the problem is selectivity,” he said. “If one person belonged to political heavyweight regions, the verdict wouldn’t have been harsh.” He added: “The south is marginalised.”

Christ alone can save Saudi Arabia from itself.  Until the people humble themselves before the Lord of glory and repent of Islam and all its cultural manifestations they will remain trapped in its barbarism and injustice and oppression of the weak and the voiceless.  When they turn to Christ they will find that His burden is easy and His yoke is light and that He is gentle and humble of soul.