Through a college friend’s Facebook page I became aware of the Barna Group’s new survey entitled “Are Christians More Like Jesus or More Like the Pharisees.” I predict widespread popularity for the article, since it has three things going for it: (a) It comes from the Barna Group, (b) It provides an opportunity for Christians to denigrate other Christians and other churches, and (c) It hurls the ever-popular epithet “Pharisee” while doing so. Really, it’s a can’t-miss survey.
There’s nothing new about people’s claiming that they’re like Jesus while other people are not (see “Historical Jesus, Quest for the”), but a stroll through the annals of Christian History shows us that whenever these episodes arise, the most interesting thing to watch is how people wind up defining the person and work of Jesus. Invariably, the temptation when deciding who among us is the most like Christ is to stack the deck beforehand by defining Christ in ways that make Him most like me. In my opinion, this kind of activity is pretty egregious in this research by David Kinnaman. Let’s look at how Kinnaman defined Christlikeness.
First, Kinnaman defined a set of behaviors that would make a person like Christ:
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“I listen to others to learn their story before telling them about my faith.” According to Kinnaman, if you reply to this in the affirmative, you’re acting like Jesus. My only problem is that I cannot think of a single instance in the New Testament where Jesus actually did this. Of course, I don’t have the New Testament memorized, and perhaps the first twenty comments will involve someone pointing me to lengthy listening-sessions conducted by Jesus in the gospels, but I can still meet my burden of proof. All I have to do is show that Jesus did not consistently do this, which means that all I have to show are a number of situations in which Jesus did not do this.
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With the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus didn’t sit and listen to the woman while she told Him her story. He did tell her some things about her story, but most of them were somewhat confrontational.
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With Nicodemus, Jesus didn’t listen to his story. Nicodemus barely got two sentences out before Jesus demanded that Nicodemus be born again and then insulted Nicodemus’s level of spiritual knowledge.
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With the Rich Young Ruler, Jesus didn’t listen to his story. After a brief back-and-forth (which involved almost none of this young man’s “story”), Jesus unloaded a rather demanding requirement upon him.
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In calling the apostles, Jesus didn’t listen to their stories…not once that I can find. He pretty abruptly called them to leave everything behind and follow Him.
Now, I readily admit that there may be further interaction not recorded in the gospels that would show a less brusque Jesus to us, but it seems to me that one would benefit from a little actual hermeneutical data from the New Testament before branding the entirety of North American Christianity as unChristlike.
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“In recent years, I have influenced multiple people to consider following Christ.” Bingo. No argument here. Jesus was very productive as a spiritual influencer.
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“I regularly choose to have meals with people with very different faith or morals from me..” Ever read Matthew 15:21-28? Jesus was often pretty stand-offish toward those who were not Jewish. I can’t think of an occasion when Jesus actually shared a meal with someone who was not a Jew. Certainly we have no record that He would “regularly choose” to do so. Of course, every meal Jesus took on earth was a meal with people who held different morals from those of Jesus, so there’s some validity in that half of this point, but we have no record whatsoever of Jesus’ having a meal with somebody who worshipped Zeus.
Now, understand me: I (probably like Kinnaman) think it is a good idea for Christian believers to choose regularly to share meals with people outside the faith. I’m willing to join with Kinnaman in pointing out to believers why that might be such a good idea. I’m just not willing to make stuff up about Jesus in order to make my argument more compelling.
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“I try to discover the needs of non-Christians rather than waiting for them to come to me.” Jesus, being omniscient, knew everyone’s needs ahead of time. And yet, we have only a few instances in the New Testament of Jesus’ deviating from His schedule to seek out an individual. Zaccheus is a prominent example. The woman at the well is another. In most other cases, Jesus was content to wait for people to come to Him. He did, it is true, convene large meetings within a reasonable distance of the people who needed His message, that’s true. But so, also, do most evangelical Christians in the USA. Most of Jesus’ interactions with people in the New Testament were occasions when people came to Jesus and not vice-versa.
That worked pretty well for Jesus, since He had omniscience and omnipotence in His corner. Our connection with those attributes is a bit different than His, and our calling and mission can be differentiated from His, too. It’s probably a good idea for us to go out looking hard for people and to pursue individuals for the gospel. Doing so is more a matter of making us Christ-obedient rather than Christlike.
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“I am personally spending time with non-believers to help them follow Jesus.” Is there an unbeliever in the New Testament in whom Jesus invested more than a single hour (presuming that they did not become a believer during that hour)? If so, I don’t know who they were.
The post then moves from actions to attitudes, highlighting five of those that the research model correlates with Christlikeness:
- I see God-given value in every person, regardless of their past or present condition.
- I believe God is for everyone.
- I see God working in people’s lives, even when they are not following him.
- It is more important to help people know God is for them than to make sure they know they are sinners.
- I feel compassion for people who are not following God and doing immoral things.
These, like the “Actions Like Jesus,” are a mixed bag. It might be fun to see a statistical analysis of the Sermon on the Mount to learn how many sentences could reasonably be construed as communicating to people that they are sinners versus how many could reasonably be construed as communicating to people that “God is for them.” There’s a lot of strength in the last attribute in the list, and Jesus’ statements about the lilies of the fields and the birds of the air could make strong evidence for the first statement. As for the Pharisees and Sadducees, Jesus seemed to say a lot more about how He saw Satan working in their lives than God. Most of these statements are attitudes that were evident in Jesus’ actions and statements at least a lot of the time with regard to a lot of people, but at some points, extrapolating them to universals seems to do some violence to the New Testament record of Jesus’ life and ministry.
Things really get fun when we look at Kinnaman’s measures of Pharisaicalism.
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“I tell others the most important thing in my life is following God’s rules.” This is presented to us as an indicator of living like a Pharisee. Presumably, the assumption is that the Pharisees did this, Jesus did not do this, and that this difference between the two comprises some portion of the complaint that Jesus had against the Pharisees. But would Jesus pass Kinnaman’s test? The Jesus who told people in His most prominent sermon, “Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven”? The Jesus who at multiple times and in multiple places characterized His life’s priority precisely as one of following the Father’s rules (“I do nothing on My own initiative, but I speak these things as the Father taught Me. And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him”)?
Was Jesus Pharasaical? Or is this just a really inaccurate instrument for measuring Pharasaicalism?
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“I don’t talk about my sins or struggles. That’s between me and God.” OK, just direct me to a single forum in which Jesus talked about His own sins or struggles.
Again, it is probably good for US to “confess [our] sins one to another,” but for precisely the opposite reason that Kinnaman is giving—not in order to be like Jesus, but because often we really aren’t like Him much at all.
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“I try to avoid spending time with people who are openly gay or lesbian.” I’m willing at some point to engage in informed speculation about how Jesus would have interacted with people who were openly gay and lesbian if any had showed up in Nazareth one Tuesday night, but I’m also happy to acknowledge that there would have to be some level of speculation involved. We have no reason to believe that Jesus ever spent any time with anyone who was openly gay or lesbian. That’s not a political statement or a cultural statement; it’s a factual statement from the data of the New Testament.
In saying so, perhaps I’m being a bit too harsh on this one. Jesus did interact with prostitutes, so there’s a stronger foundation for this speculation than for a whole lot of what’s going on in this article. But, that fact notwithstanding, Kinnaman is again using his extrabiblical speculations about Jesus as the standard by which he is branding other people as Pharisaical.
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“I like to point out those who do not have the right theology or doctrine.” We know that the Pharisees tried to critique Jesus’ behavior on multiple occasions. We know that they brought difficult, tricky questions to Jesus to try to trap Him into saying something controversial to drive down His popularity. How many occasions can you think of in the gospels in which a Pharisee tried to correct someone else’s theology or doctrine? They probably did it. They probably did it a lot. But that is not a prominent feature of the Pharisee stories in the gospels.
Instead, what we find in the gospels over and over again is Jesus repeatedly pointing out that the Pharisees did not have the right theology or doctrine: “You are mistaken, not understanding the Scriptures nor the power of God.” Jesus, as we know His relationship with the Pharisees from the gospels, is far more “guilty” of this behavior than were the Pharisees.
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“I prefer to serve people who attend my church rather than those outside the church.” Jesus served people outside His inner circle. He healed the sick and raised the dead. He did amazing things. But His most profound acts of service—those in which He humbled Himself the most—were reserved for His disciples. He washed their feet, for example. I’d be uncomfortable saying that Jesus preferred to serve His inner circle, but I’d also be uncomfortable asserting categorically that He did not. His preferences in this regard are not a clear matter of record in the New Testament.
Well, generally when I’m getting tired of writing something I can rest assured that you’re getting tired of reading it, so let’s rush through the Pharisaical attitudes:
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“I find it hard to be friends with people who seem to constantly do the wrong things.” Jesus had a lot of friends who USED to do the wrong things a lot. The story of His life was the way that people’s behavior tended to be transformed by His holiness, love, and grace. Can you think of a long-term friend of Jesus’ in the gospels who was a persistent, ongoing rebel against God?
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“It’s not my responsibility to help people who won’t help themselves.” Great observation. Jesus found people who were helpless and consistently helped them.
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“I feel grateful to be a Christian when I see other people’s failures and flaws.” Again, a good point. Jesus was never dismissive nor triumphal toward other people’s failures and flaws. The sins of people made Jesus sad, sometimes angry, often compassionate, never dismissive nor triumphal.
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“I believe we should stand against those who are opposed to Christian values.”This seems profoundly self-contradictory to me. Here we have an article designed to teach what Christ’s values were and to take a stand against those who are opposed to them (by branding them as people who are living more like the Pharisees lived than like Christ lived). One of the survey’s standards used to identify those who are opposed to Christ’s values (in order to take a stand against them) is to find those people who like to take a stand against those who are opposed to Christian values. Confused? So am I.
All in all, I’d say that Jesus pretty consistently stood against those who were opposed to His values.
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“People who follow God’s rules are better than those who do not.” I think that Jesus would entirely, 100% agree with this statement. In fact, He came pretty close to saying so on more than one occasion. It’s just that when Jesus did so, He was speaking of an empty category (“People who follow God’s rules”). Nobody follows God’s rules. If there were a person who followed God’s rules, that person would be better than all of the rest of us who do not.Now, if we want to ask instead if people THINK that they are following God’s rules a whole lot better than the other people out there, then that would tell us a lot about how much someone resembles the Pharisees. This survey instrument? Not so much.
WWJD is a worthwhile mnemonic tool to encourage us to “let this mind be in [us] which was also in Christ Jesus.” And yet so often, when people drill down to specifics, we wind up learning more about those individual people than we actually learn about what Jesus would do. Why is it that we feel such certainty about what Jesus would do when in measure after measure we demonstrate such an appalling lack of familiarity with what Jesus actually DID do and say? At some point don’t we run the risk of taking the name of Jesus in vain? Have we no fear that Jesus might take offense at our audacity in redefining Him on a whim (if the antinomianism that so often passes for modern evangelicalism is capable of fearing God)? Can Christlikeness and Pharisaicalism be so blithely defined without a single cogent reference to the gospels? Can this kind of statistical research be undertaken and distributed abroad without any attempt at laying a foundation of hermeneutical research?
Indeed—mustn’t we ask—would Jesus, who so carefully and repeatedly quoted and cited the Old Testament to undergird His teachings, publish anything remotely resembling this?
I run the risk of letting this post be nothing more than a screed against a poorly designed survey instrument when my real goal is something much deeper and much more broadly applicable. I want to call us all, myself included, to be careful when we talk about Jesus. So many grandiose theories of Jesus founder on the rocks of some bewildering passage in the gospels. Being careful about the generalizations I make about Jesus simply amounts to respecting Jesus and recognizing, between Jesus and myself, which one of us it is who fully comprehends the other. We should resist the temptation to intuit Jesus, always doing instead the hard work of exegesis when it comes to speaking about our Savior. And certainly we should avoid the temptation to undergird a weak argument by resort to our Jesus-intuition when it might be more honest simply to admit that we are writing about our own personal preferences.
I’ve been preaching through Acts on Sunday nights, and noticing how many of our modern “rules of thumb” for evangelism were violated by the Apostles.
They were confrontational. Direct. They exposed sin. They pushed Christ on people who had no interest in him.
And I also began to think about the Pharisees and their work as well. The series I am currently writing deals with who the Pharisees were. The easy answer – they were strict religious fundamentalists – is not quite as justified as many assume.
Excellent article.
We’re going through Acts on Wednesday nights. Just last night I was explaining how Gamaliel the Pharisee came to the rescue of the apostles, the way that the Sadducees were more directly responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus than the Pharisees were, and the way that the Apostle Paul appealed to the Pharisees to come to his defense against the Sadducees.
The Pharisees were badly messed up, but our popular critiques of them are often dissimilar from Jesus’ critiques of the Pharisees and seem to conflate the Pharisees and Sadducees at times.
I’ve been preaching thru the Book of Acts, as well…..I’m on chapter 9, right now.
David
Just to add to the fun, our pastor just recently finished preaching through Acts on Wednesday nights.
I’m in chapter 9 as well, David. I will send you my notes so you can improve your preaching!!
Gee, thanks, Dave…..I know my Church will thank you, too…
🙂
David
I am not preaching through the Book of Acts right now.
CB,
Obviously, you should have been…..do you not see that everyone else is preaching thru the book of Acts? This is a sign…..start preaching thru the book of Acts wherever you possibly can, as soon as you can, or else, your dogs will get fleas, and you’ll get toe fungus on 2 toes.
David
Vol,
Thank you. I will begin preaching through Acts. I do need you notes along with those of the other guys here who are preaching through Acts.
I’ll tell you what! Since Herschel Ford died and quit writing those sermon books, I have had a hard time coming up with material.
Can you overnight those notes to me? ‘Cause “it’s Friday, but Sunday’s Coming.”
Is it OK to preach through Acts on Sunday, or does it have to be on Wednesday night? I preached through Acts once in another church – on Wednesday night. I didn’t realize this was a requirement!
Hi BART,
I would be interested to see what your own survey would be like, if you designed one yourself.
Great question, Christiane. I’d say that a survey is unlikely to be an instrument effective at determining who is living like a Pharisee. When Jesus critiqued the Pharisees, he did so along these general lines:
1. They were stubbornly resistant against what God was trying to do.
2. They were hypocrites because their outward appearance did not line up with the true content of their hearts.
If you are creating an outward appearance that differs from the content of your heart, a pollster’s survey is going to be one of the easiest things to trick. True Pharisees would simply lie while replying to the survey, wouldn’t they?
The Talmud says:
“We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.”
Also, I just want Dave Miller, and David Rogers, and Debbie, and some others to know that I just got thru participating in a National Day of Prayer Meeting, which our Pentecostal Pastor, here, led. I was on the program….along with some other Pastors. So, I joined with people of other denominations for something!!!!!!!!
See, I’m not such a stuff shirt, meanie, Landmarkist, after all….
David
proud of you
🙂
Great to hear! I just got back from a similar meeting here as well. God is good.
Well, David, I’m reporting you to J. M. Pendleton and sending somebody to collect your Trail of Blood Commemorative Decoder Ring.
Bart,
Rats….I was really partial to that ring.
David 🙂
Bart,
I am leaving this morning. I will give you the ring in Houston – – if there is resistance, I will give you the finger as well.
lol
Now, C. B., don’t give me the finger. It’s not polite.
Sorry, Dr. Barber.
Sometimes I do get carried away and I do tend to talk with my hands.
Wow.
LOL, you are all out of control !!!!
Great thoughts, Bart. If you had only written this line it would have been worth it:
“Invariably, the temptation when deciding who among us is the most like Christ is to stack the deck beforehand by defining Christ in ways that make Him most like me.”
Thanks!
I agree with Robert. That was a very great line.
Me, too.
I applaud your insightful assessment of that article. Candidly, there are many issues which need to be addressed. I understand that to write what I deeply feel & sense about this report will cause many to be angry & question who ‘in this world’ this guy is (talking about me)? Or better said, “Who does he THINK he is?”
Honestly, as far as being ‘known’, I am a nobody but a small church pastor in small town, USA. That said, this report from the Barna Group is disturbing on so many levels that to write an article hoping to bring Biblical truth to it, is almost pointless.
QUALIFYING STATEMENT: It is interesting to me that I have just read this report today, when just last night in Wednesday night service, I offered my congregation this question: Could the reason the church in the USA has become so impotent be that the church has developed a Pharisaical attitude? However, not one of the ‘points’ offered by the Barna group ever surfaced (because I had not read their report). I do believe the Pharisaical attitude permeates the average local church today – but the reason I believe this has little or nothing to do with things in that report.
NOW for the part which I could be crucified over: For the first 20+ years the Barna Group was in existence, the reports seemed to be very helpful for the church and the gospel. For me (a personal observation & opinion), beginning with the 2005 book “Revolution” & most of what I have read since then have had a decided different approach to them. I did buy the 2007 book “Unchristian” but began to find that the definition of terms had begun to change their meaning. Obviously, the report “Are Christians” has taken this redefinition of terms to a new level. Certainly the application of so many (not all, but many if not most) points are presented subjectively instead of objectively.
This seems to be a reflection of our culture. Years ago, George B released the report, “The Day America Told The Truth” and we gleaned some great insights. This report seems to have begun with an agenda, questions were developed with the idea of proving that agenda, and when they received the responses they desired; it was written to change or rewrite the public’s impression of Jesus.
I agree that the contribution made by the Barna organization was generally stronger in its earlier days. Good insight. Thanks.
Jerry,
With each passing year, I am less enamored with church research–Barna or otherwise. Having read some of the “loaded” questions in the raw data, I’m just not sure we’re getting the most accurate information.
Even if some of it were actually true, we have to then ask the question, “Does this simply describe the way worldly people DO think or the way Godly people SHOULD think?” If we’re not careful, we will start taking our cue from them instead of urging them to take their cue from us, as we declare the Word of God.
BTW, if you’re a nobody from a small town, and I’m in that same small town, that pretty much makes me a nobody too! 🙂
Yea – but you’re moving UPTOWN!!! 🙂
Jerry Watts and Rick Patrick,
You are not “nobodies.” You are both frontline missionaries and soldiers of the cross in an ever growing area of lostness: The Southland.
Barna has always had methodological problems with his surveys. Most of them trace to pushing his own views on “born again” and “evangelical” as categories. In a broad, sweeping generalization, I agree he is–in the sense of the accusation Bart levels–a Pharisee. He is very willing to reduce his view on people to external categories as they seem to have been also willing to do. Jesus’s complaints against them primarily had to do with not fully understanding the impact of the Law and of trivializing it. But then there is the whitewashed sepulchre comment that applied to at least some of them as well… I thought Bart’s blog was good but snarky. I think it would have been better aimed at the audience that actually isn’t seated behind the preacher at most (at least traditional) Southern Baptist churches. I think often SB preachers fall into the trap of enjoying the choir’s loud amens. That’s fun. And it certainly makes the difficult task of preaching more palatable if someone actually provides acclamation during the act of preaching. But it might not be what the preacher needs to hear. That said: the methodology of the survey reveals it is really on the order of a push poll designed to shape the opinions of the people polled both for general dissemination and to influence their answers. But if you have any experience with statistics at all, you should be extremely leery of pretty much every “poll” that presumes to call as few as just over 1,000 respondents and declare a whole nation has been surveyed. Or the appeal to expertise that is statistical analysis of polls. That stuff works great on data collected from presumably natural processes and observed / measured by neutral measurements. But even then, in pharmaceutical tests they use double blind administration methodologies and placebo administration to create a control group because the administrator can influence the outcome. But we don’t demand similar rigor from pollsters? Polls provide a general indication of how a group of people respond to a specific set of questions. They’re not trustworthy. They can’t be made trustworthy. There is no way to remove the perspective of the questioner from the content of a question. It simply is not possible. You can fake it. But at the end of the day the term “science” in “social science” must be seen for what it is: “glorified opinion… Read more »
Would it help at all if I said that the rough draft was snarkier? 🙂
Snarky tone is difficult to avoid when adopting the format of a point-by-point rebuttal…at least it is for me.
Also, I agree with you about the validity of polling. The title of this post suggests that I’m casting aspersions upon Christian pollsters as a whole. And although I’m not doing so, the title deliberately gives that impression. I wanted my title to parallel the effect of Kinnaman’s title, so I made it an overgeneralized comparison to a figure who is not known for the virtues (careful research, devotion to accuracy) likely to be embraced by demographers.
I see what you did there…
Let’s do a SBC Voices survey of our own on being Snarky.
“Are Bloggers more Snarky Than Non-Bloggers”
Let’s quickly conduct the survey non-statistically and close it and report the results: what sayest thou, CB? 😉
Hey, I am for it. I would also volunteer to write the survey. If I do, gathering the results will be easy. I already have the snarky list compiled. All we have to do is hand-pick the non-snarky guys.
All the non-snarky guys are Quakers or something.
Am I snarky? I’ve always thought of myself as a big ole, lovable, squeezable, Teddy Bear.
David
Even snarkier are pseudo-bloggers who are supposed to write posts but then don’t.
I thought Doug was going to go for the pseudo-bloggers that only write comments longer than the original blog…(speaking of my own, too frequent behavior.)
I did not get the “snarky” aspect of this. Maybe that is because I agreed with it in general.
Snarky is, I suppose, largely in the eye of the beholder.
Well, without going into elaborate detail, let’s imagine for a moment that–in spite of our own thought process–that Mr. Kinnaman is earnestly committed to his philosophical framework and believes it is valid for determining what is Christ-like behavior. If so, he is more likely to base that on behavior of the disciples and others after Pentecost. In which case Philip interacting with the Ethiopian eunuch starts with the situation of the person and then Philip offers to explain what he is reading. Jesus being God doesn’t mean we have to act like God does when we’re Christ-like. In fact, we simply can’t act like God does without his attributes. So we have to act like the human side of Jesus might as interpreted through his followers under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, which is almost certainly the point Mr. Kinnaman was reaching for with his framework. But his reach was beyond what Scripture supports even then. When Jesus nakedly and boldly states that “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life and no man comes to the Father except by me”, that really leaves the non-believer with very few choices for approaching the Father. And then when Jesus confirms the audacity of his claim by in the Matthew 28 version of the Great Commission claiming “all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me”, we know–as C.S. Lewis famously put it–that we’re either dealing with a lunatic (on the order of the guy who claimed to be “an egg”), or someone truly mischievous (if not downright evil), or with God himself. Triangulating from that to “Christ-likeness” certainly should be done with a bit less presumption than Mr. Kinnaman has done which is what I viewed as the point of Bart’s comments. But claiming you haven’t read the whole New Testament to make that point (among others) is, well, snarky. And, yes, it is in the eye of the beholder. But the beholder I specifically framed as being of interest would be someone other than the people sitting behind the preacher on Sunday morning. Which is to suggest practically anyone that didn’t agree with Bart. I guess the point is whether our messaging–not our message–needs to be packaged in order to transmit our message to a particular audience. Paul suggests it does in numerous places, of course. And proving my point is an exercise left to… Read more »
Actually, when I said that I hadn’t memorized the entire New Testament, I wasn’t being snarky. Rather, I was sincerely allowing for the possibility that I have missed something. It does happen…frequently…for me that I discover something new in the Bible.
Doctoral work ingrained in me an overwhelming fear of absolute claims (“This idea appears NOWHERE in the Bible”). I quake in my boots when I make claims like that one. All somebody has to do is find one single instance in 66 books and they’ve dismantled my argument.
You’re right, of course, and it is consistent with what I know of you. As I said, I agree with what you wrote.
But it doesn’t dismiss the point I was making. The points you were making seem more likely to impact the person originating the discussion–Mr. Kinnaman or others that would agree with his version of “Christ-like”ness–if tone and exaggeration were managed better.
Or the more general point that when we put up a piece that specifically plays to the audience most likely to hear it, we might be falling into the trap of seeking acclamation rather than conveying a message. Even if the message is carefully and precisely in the package that falls so neatly on ready ears.
But I’ve written too much on it and clearly this isn’t a problem in Southern Baptist life. So I withdraw my comments.
Christian statistical researchers are like the Republican researchers, they
thought they had the numbers but failed, and can’t figure out why.
Jess Alford,
We know why we failed. The Democrats cheated.
When I was in seminary, I felt as if some of my profs. would like to see Barna’s work canonized. He certainly was quoted more than the Apostle Paul by some. The mantra was, “This is a new era. We must change everything or the church will be a thing of the past.” The problem is many of my classmates believed it.
That’s true, Keith. There’s a place for statistical research in ministry. I did, after all, just finish reading through the Book of Numbers. But this kind of research has been far too influential for far too long.
Keith and Bart,
Agree.
David
This is a very interesting post.
All humans want to enlist Jesus as a supporter of their own lifestyles, beliefs, personality traits etc. This even happens in secular matters. Didn’t the President say a year or so ago that Jesus would approve of his budget or some such thing?
The fact that we all do this shows how badly we need a savior. We are all capable of appropriating God for our own agenda, careers etc.
God will have none of this, of course.
Another thing about which these questions remind me is how we confuse Jesus and his calling with our own.
Jesus is God the Son. He had a very specific and unique calling on this earth. We are not to mimic Him, but to believe on Him and follow His teaching for our lives.
So Jesus’ prophetic voice is divine. Ours is not. It may not be that we should dialogue with the woman at the well as He did. We should not use a whip to drive money changers out of a temple. We should not call a gentile woman a dog because she is outside the faith, as Jesus did.
A story that Tony Campolo tells shows the opposite side of this. It’s probably a made up story, but anyway, he says that some military person is struggling with whether his job of potentially dropping bombs on people is consistent with this faith. He goes to see his non-Christian superior and tells him of his struggle and supposedly says, “See, I am supposed to do what Jesus would do, and I don’t know if Jesus would drop bombs on people.” To which, the superior replies, “Of course Jesus wouldn’t drop bombs on people.”
You get the point.
The problem with this illustration is that Jesus’ calling and our calling are not the same. In this fallen world we often have to do unpleasant things that Jesus would not have done. His calling, His ‘office’ so to speak is completely different from ours.
That needs to be remembered here, too.
Absolutely true, Louis. In fact, I heard a great presentation not long ago in rebuttal against people who say that we should use more stories in our preaching because Jesus used parables and we should communicate like Jesus did. Adam Dooley made what I would call an invincible case against that rationale. Jesus said that He used stories and parables in order to make his preaching more difficult to understand, not easier to understand. Unless we’re trying to elude the grasp of Pharisees and Sadducees, those who tell us to be more narrative so we can preach like Jesus are left without a leg to stand on.
I want to drop a bomb. Here is comes:
One problem in this thread is that too many people are quoting Campolo who has already dropped too many bombs on Evangelical Christianity. It is kinda like the preacher that is overly fond of quoting Ghandi in his opinion of Christians.
Now, I will quote a real and true quotable guy and state, Quote Campolo? Quote Ghandi? “That dog just won’t hunt.”
Amen
CB,
What if I quote Hitler?
David
Vol,
It is OK if you do it in the fashion of President George H.W. Bush (Papa Bush).
What Patton said? Good!
What Hitler said? Bad!!
What Patterson said? Good!
What Campolo said? Bad!
See how that works for you. Works for me!
Of course Jesus wouldn’t drop bombs on people. Neither airplanes nor droppable bombs had been invented yet…
Unless you see Sodom and Gomorrah as having dealt with an air strike.
Also, when Jesus returns, He will destroy the armies of the world at Armageddon….the blood will run as high as a horses bridle….
David
But did Jesus only use stories and parables so people would not understand?
Didn’t He also use stories that would make things more interesting and easy to understand?
How about the Good Samaritan; and the house built on sand, the other on the rock?
And yes, I confess. I like a good story. People often wake up and begin to listen when a preacher begins telling a good story.
By the way, great article Bart.
David R. Brumbelow
Which causes one to ask, “What makes a good story?” I’m not a story-teller. I don’t like listening to story-tellers. While I certainly like a good story, and Jesus was a good story-teller, I don’t see myself fitting into that particular pattern of preaching.
“What makes a good story?”
Well, once upon a time in a land far way, there…
Getting back to your point,
I suppose I’d say a good story is one that is interesting, usually brief, and illustrates the point the preacher is trying to make.
But I don’t see every preacher as having to do the same thing along this line. Some are more comfortable telling stories in a message than are others.
But me, I love a good book of illustrations.
David R. Brumbelow
Oh, well, illustrations DO fit into my preaching. So maybe I’m mising the point. Guess I’ll just have to live happily ever after.
David,
No good historian could be opposed to the telling of stories. That’s not the point. The point has to do with how we use the example of Jesus as normative for us.
Jesus is “on the record” answering the question of why He spoke in parables. Coming strictly from the data in the New Testament, Jesus’ teaching was interesting to people not because He used stories, but because he taught people as one having authority. Coming strictly from the data in the New Testament, Jesus told parables and stories not in order to retain their interest, but in order to make what He was teaching more difficult to understand.
1. Why did Jesus use stories? Why were people interested in what He had to say?
2. Should I use stories? What will interest people in what I have to say?
We’ve got to ask ourselves, what is the relationship between the first set of questions and the second set. Can we simply presume that the answer to the first set determines the answer to the second set?
Or might it be possible, as Louis said above, that Jesus’ calling and mine differ, Jesus’ nature and mine differ, Jesus’ audience and mine differ, and therefore we might very well be able to conclude safely that David and Bart ought not even to try to preach like Jesus did, and yet David and Bart might be well served by using stories and illustrations in our preaching? I think so. And the underlying conclusion that I’ve drawn here applies also, in my opinion, to a lot of the narrative material in the Bible.
Bart, good point.
CB, I hope you got that I was criticizing Campolo’s point. Campolo was using that story to imply that the Christian faith mandates pacifism. Campolo’s error was taking Jesus’ calling and making it our own.
There is some overlap, for sure, but Jesus had a very specific calling, and we should be very careful when we say WWJD.
For example, Jesus died on the cross to save people from their sins. Christians should not try to die on a cross to provide atonement for the sins of others.
Here’s the deal Louis.
I made an error in that comment. There was another thread that had Campolo up in bright lights. My comment was actually directed to the comments in that thread. It was not until later that I realized my comment made no sense in relation to yours. I had intended to clarify my comment, but my Greek Tragedy becomes worse. I became engaged in the LC thread and forgot my needful correction until now.
Therefore, please accept my apology, Louis. For any rational person would have thought I was dropping that bomb on you. I do hope to see you in Houston in June. I know we have been in some of the same meetings back in the day, but you are still somewhat a mystery to me.
I have a minor in statistics. It makes me very critical and cynical when I see statistical studies within the church. This study is no different.
Bart…IMO you were not nearly snarky enough.
🙂
Thanks for this review of the article. My atheist friend from Italy just sent me Kinnamen’s article and asked me what I thought and I didn’t know where to start! Your comments have been very helpful!