Lord Alli’s Amendment to the Equality Bill, enabling Civil Partnerships to take place in Churches was rushed through the House of Lords last week. If it stands, this change in law will be used to pressurise Churches into holding Civil Partnerships, contrary to the teaching of the Bible.

Sign the petition to Gordon Brown and Harriet Harman, asking them to block this change.

In a nut shell, historical criticism involves a series of principles that are purported to help scholars determine whether a purported event or person took place or existed respectively. Think of how a police officer gathers evidence to find the perpetrator of a crime. The parallels are striking.

One of the principles of historical criticism is correlation, does the document or story match the time in which it is purported to be in. For example, if a document says the clock tower tolled noon, and the story is alledged to have occurred in 4000 B.C. (before clock towers were invented) then we can be suspicious of that aspect of the document. Collaboration is another principle which asks, “Does external evidence support the claim?” Do we have other documents form enemies or disinterested parties who also comment on an event or person? The proximity principle refers to how close (in distance and time) to the original event/person was the record made? The bias is that testimonies closer to the event would be more reliable than those later. For example, should we believe Islam’s claim that Christ never died (a claim made by a religion that started in the Arabian desert miles from Israel and centuries after Christianity?) or should we believe Christianity whose documents were written by people from Israel and can be placed in the first and second centuries A.D.?

Up to this point, there isn’t anything that Evangelicals would consider controversial. But there is another element that is debated and that is the principle of replication. Critical scholars ask does the purported event seem reasonable? For instance, if the Bible says Jesus healed a blind man, scholars ask, do miracles happen? They frequently say “No.” because they don’t see miracles today. Christians say “Yes.” Here biases regarding the nature of reality lie at the center of the controversy.

The question for the public is, “Why would a bunch of Jewish fisherman preach that Christ performed miracles and suffer martyrdom for it, if it didn’t happen?” Your answer to that question determines whether you think Christianity is true or not.  

Next week, I will explain why Christians need to think about the nature of historical evidence as it is an important consideration in order to ground one’s faith in something that is reasonable rather than fideistic.

Stephen M. Vantassel is a tutor of theology at King’s Evangelical Divinity School and specializes in environmental-theology.

Copyright 2010 Stephen M. Vantassel

If we are not on the right side of the imaginary fence and don’t already have this faith, how do we get it? I can only answer this by quoting the words of Jesus: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened” (Matt 7:7-8). To do as Jesus says, we need to remember Hebrews 11:6, open our mind, and admit that just maybe we’ve been wrong up to now. This may mean eating lots of humble pie and backtracking, which may in turn make us look stupid in front of our family and friends. Well if that’s the case, so be it.

I’ve always believed that if we reach the point where we are truly seeking God, ready to get off our imaginary fence (and our high-horse) and take the first faltering steps towards him, then God’s hand is already on our shoulder, gently guiding us towards himself. Put another way, if we’re searching for God, he’s already found us. There is a great mystery here. “You did not choose me, but I chose you” says Jesus to his first disciples (John 15:16). I believe he says the same to those of us who believe in him and follow him today.

You can read about it on Justin Taylor’s blog. All good Bible translators should take stock of exegetical commentaries and I expect this will be a must read for an epistle that hasn’t always been served well by technical comment. One thing I’ve noticed about O’Brien is that his commentaries are particularly well suited for those dealing with translation questions: he just seems to have a knack for dealing with questions that come into the mind of a translator. I don’t know whether this is by accident or design (and he’s not known for his work on translation theory/practice) but it does seem that his commentaries are especially useful for those engaging in translation work.

On a theological point, I believe that Peter O’Brien is most closely aligned to New Covenant Theology and if that’s correct, I think this will be one of the few commentaries on Hebrews that looks at issues from that perspective. Finally, KEDS students on introductory courses in New Testament as well as module 203 Hebrews, will benefit from reading the introduction available free online.

Andy Cheung is a lecturer in New Testament at King’s Evangelical Divinity School

In one sense, the question of environmentalism is anachronistic. People in Christ’s day had enough trouble just staying alive, let alone worry about whether a specific species was going extinct. But on another level, we can inquire and gain some insight on how his behavior should be a model for ours? For example, many people worry about whether they are recycling enough or feel guilt about the bottled water they bought because they were thirsty.
Consider Christ, he killed a fig tree simply because it didn’t bear fruit when he wanted it (Mk 11). Does this exemplify behavior of someone who is supposedly calling us to environmentalism?Christ killed a tree simply to make a point. Is that right? Couldn’t he have just made his point in a more environmentally responsible way?

I think a couple of points should be considered. First, Christ is Lord of Creation. He can do with his property as he wished/s. Second, since Christ was fully human, it means we too can destroy elements of God’s creation in God’s service. That may shock some people, but it is true. When you eat an animal, you destroy God’s creation but no moral stain obtains. The key is to judge oneself accurately and truly, by asking, “is this destruction to God’s glory or yours?”  While that is a humbling question, we should also consider that Christ’s yoke is easy and his burden is light.

Stephen Vantassel is a tutor at King’s Evangelical Divinity School and author of Dominion over Wildlife? An Environmental-Theology of Human-Wildlife Relations (Wipf and Stock, 2009)

Americans tend to support the government option. Our stable society run by the rule of law has demonstrated the effectiveness of this approach for almost 100 years. In Africa, private owners appears to achieve more secure environmental results. Understandable given the levels of corruption that is apparently endemic in so many African governments.
What is ironic is that many environmentalists see capitalism, of which private ownership is a cardinal doctrine, as evil. They contend that the desire of profit, particularly the maximization of profit, causes people to exploit their resources in harmful and unsustainable ways. There is no doubt that short-term desire for profitability can have negative environmental results. I think this kind of harm is most likely to occur when owners are more distant from the effects. For example, stock holders will usually not be aware of what the office manager is doing at the job site hundreds of miles away. As a stockholder myself, I can tell you that companies regularly do what I don’t want them to do as a shareholder (CEO pay is one of the most irritating; I believe that the company can find someone else who is just as incompetent for half the salary).
But what about owners who live in the area where they work? I suspect that they would maintain long-term goals providing that government regulations and taxes don’t create economic conditions that diminish the value of long-term thinking.
Bottom line, it is too simplistic to call capitalism as the problem for environmental degradation. A more nuanced approach and treatment of capitalism is in order.

Stephen Vantassel is a tutor at King’s Evangelical Divinity School