Unfundamentalist

Above All, Love

zach christensen

When the Bible Doesn’t Give You History

by Zach Christensen in Christian Issues

“If you can’t trust the Bible on one thing, you can’t trust it on anything.” This sentiment is popular among many Christians and is the measuring rod by which they evaluate the Bible. They impose specific standards on the Bible, demanding that it behave in accordance with their expectations. The Bible is either facts or it is fairy tales — there allegedly cannot be any other categories.

But what if the Bible doesn’t line up with history? Was Abraham really a camel herder when camels weren’t domesticated until several centuries after he would have lived? Did a literal two million Israelites leave Egypt without leaving a trace of evidence? Did Jesus die on the day of Passover, as Mark’s Gospel says? Or did Jesus die on the Day of Preparation, as John’s Gospel says?

I remember facing these questions years ago and having an onslaught of anxiety, feeling the need to force the Bible to fit into my assumptions of how it ought to be. However, I realized that if my understanding of the Bible was hanging on how the previous questions were answered, I wasn’t allowing the Bible to speak for itself and be what it is.

In the ancient near-eastern world, history was viewed differently than it is today. Instead of compiling lists of facts, people took history and reshaped it for didactic (or teaching) functions.

I believe there is a historical core behind the Abraham stories, but he was probably a herder of donkeys, and the stories of Abraham were probably written down after… [Read more…] about When the Bible Doesn’t Give You History

I Desire Mercy, Not Masochism

by Zach Christensen in Christian Issues

In the fourteenth century Europe was struck by the bubonic plague, the deadliest disease outbreak in history. During this time, there emerged a group of Christians called the Flagellants. They would publicly whip themselves and inflict brutal lashings upon their bodies. People in the Middle Ages knew nothing about viruses or how infections worked, so a common religious explanation was that sickness showed God’s wrath toward some sort of misbehavior. The Flagellants believed that if they punished themselves severely enough, then they would win God’s approval, and his punishment would be withdrawn. This belief was rooted in an ancient and primitive spirituality, in which people believed that God or the gods would be angry if they were not satisfied, and must be appeased through endless cycles of sacrifice.

This idea is so deeply embedded in the human psyche that it still shows itself today. In the Western Christian world, God has often been seen as a punishing deity that is easily angered and swiftly hands out discipline. Not remedial discipline to change the behavior of people, but vindictive, punitive judgment that only serves the desire for revenge. This vision of God usually twists people into self-deprecating, guilt-laden zombies with a mindset not that different from the Flagellants. Many religious people today seem to constantly hold themselves in contempt, perpetually highlighting their shortcomings, and denigrating themselves to no end. It is a blatant dishonesty to… [Read more…] about I Desire Mercy, Not Masochism

When Jesus Said "Love Your Enemies," I Think He Meant "Don't Kill Them."

by Zach Christensen in Christian Issues

I am sometimes asked, “How can you be a Christian and not support the death penalty?” The answer I usually give is quite simple: when Jesus said “Love your enemies,” I think he meant “Don’t kill them.”

I never really understood how important this issue was until I became a Jesus follower, and even then it took me a few years to really get my mind around it. During my time as a sociology and criminology student, I came to find that there really was no evidence to suggest that the death penalty deters murder rates where it is practiced. The death penalty obviously kills people who are not guilty, it is also incredibly expensive, and it is a long and drawn out process that is very painful for anyone involved with trials and hearings.

While statistical data as well as more subjective and anecdotal accounts have steered me away from the death penalty in the past, I eventually reached the impasse where I had to ask: How can someone worship a God who dies for his enemies and then proceed to kill their own enemies? This was an idea that I could not harmonize. I also had to face the fact that if human beings are made in the image of God, then that means they possess innate dignity, are intrinsically sacred, and hold irrevocable significance.

What cheapens or increases the value of a human life? Is it what someone does or doesn’t do? Is it what they say? What they believe? What the color of their skin is? What their sexual orientation is? How much they possess materially? What vices… [Read more…] about When Jesus Said "Love Your Enemies," I Think He Meant "Don't Kill Them."

An Inappropriate Christmas

by Zach Christensen in Christian History

This past Sunday, many people began celebrating Advent, the season in which the majority of Western Christian churches commemorate the birth of Jesus. As we progress toward Christmas, there will be a many sermons preached about shepherds, wise men, innkeepers who are total jerks, and unplanned visits from angels. However, there is one passage from the birth narrative of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew that I think truly captures the meaning of Christmas.

In Matthew 1:1-17, there is a genealogy of the family tree that led up to Jesus. If you have ever read the Bible, you usually skip this part (at least at face value, it is about as interesting as reading a phonebook). Why would the author lead with something like this? But there is something included in these verses that is not often noticed.

Over the course of the genealogy, the writer deliberately includes the names of four women. In a patriarchal world that considered women to be second-class citizens or property, this was an extraordinarily radical thing to do (if you read all of the other genealogies in the Bible or from any literature from the time, none of them include women). More importantly, the women included are not what anyone would ever expect.

In verse 3, the writer lists Tamar. In the book of Genesis, Tamar was widowed, disguised herself as a harlot, was taken by her father-in-law (Judah, who did not realize it), and bore a child named Perez. By the standards of their day, this was considered incest, and is… [Read more…] about An Inappropriate Christmas

The Real Story Behind Genesis

by Zach Christensen in Christian History

The first chapters of Genesis were not written to communicate history or science. Creation stories had an entirely different purpose in the Ancient Near East. They were written to give people a vision of their place in the world, and to help them make sense of existence. In other words, they gave people a narrative in which they could live their lives. This is not an outdated idea, as people today still live within functional narratives that cause them to see the world in a certain way. Perhaps the most forceful element of all creation stories is that they explain the essence of what it means to be human.

One creation story that was written before Genesis is the Babylonian creation tale, known as the Enuma Elish. This story has its own way of explaining humanity. The god Marduk kills the goddess of primordial chaos, Tiamat, and forms the heavens and earth from her body. He then kills one of Tiamat’s sons, a rebellious god named Kingu, combines Kingu’s blood with clay, and fashions humans from this mixture. Marduk creates humans to be slaves, in order to do the dirty work so that the gods could be free to enjoy leisure. The picture of what it means to be a person in this story is that human beings are innately worthless and consigned to endure the evil curse of labor without any meaning. This is a story in which many people still live today.

The format used in the opening chapters of Genesis clearly resembles the Enuma Elish, but it tells a completely different story.… [Read more…] about The Real Story Behind Genesis