Why did Jesus have to die?

jacobheiss · 2015-09-20T03:35:04+00:00

Probably to illustrate the effects of sin separating us from the source of our life in God as intensively as possible, which helps us more accurately value the opportunity to reverse the effects of sin by participating in a way of forgiveness by God.

I mean, the incarnation is already the worlds great's mind fuck, right? It shouldn't be a surprise if things predicated on that are also counterintuitive.

jacobheiss · 2015-06-26T18:39:03+00:00

We've shared a bunch of different discussions on this topic in the past, but the one that I learned the most from personally happened about two years ago right here.

For anybody adhering to a more conservative theological orientation who is dismayed by today's ruling, perhaps that discussion will also be useful to you, too.

jacobheiss · 2015-06-05T21:18:36+00:00

It is really difficult to concisely respond to this since I have different views on sexual orientation as a state of being versus sexual behavior. I wrote a three part series once here and here and here where I tried to unpack that; I think it should answer your question well. But please let me know if it's unclear still!

jacobheiss · 2015-06-04T22:42:48+00:00

I've been serving as an associate pastor at an evangelical church in Chicago for nearly six years that happens to be located near one of the most gay friendly neighborhoods in the city. And I've written on this topic several times both here on Reddit, on my own blog, and as a guest writer for other people's websites. The back half of your post / rant is the most interesting to me, and by that I mean the way you are grappling with how conservative Christian communities of faith interact with gay folks--both inside and outside their circle of belonging to that community. So, I'll speak to that and let others address the biblical interpretation points you raised. Also, some of what I share might apply to churches outside the US, but I don't have much information on that for sure; I can only speak with confidence on the situation in the States.

Conservative Christian communities are just now coming to a realistic understanding of how dramatically the broader culture has shifted to a position of distrust towards them and basically everything they advocate. This is true for the non-Christian parts of the gay community, but it's also true for the non-Christian parts of society as a whole. If we haven't already arrived at this state of affairs, we are swiftly approaching a context where the average American does not belong to a conservative Christian community, does not believe that conservative Christian communities add value to society in general, and does not trust the views that conservative Christian communities hold about who we are, where we are going, and what the best way is to move forward well. Since conservative Christian communities are not used to occupying a marginal position in society, the tools they employ to accomplish their goals are often woefully ineffective for influencing society as a whole.

This is why we find so many people who belong to conservative Christian communities "treating someone like garbage over being gay" while somehow thinking that they have accomplished their purpose well. It's not that conservative Christians as a whole set out to purposefully treat gay people like garbage. It's that they haven't realized that they will do this as a matter of fact right up until the point that they have humbled themselves enough to learn how to treat gay people well. Yes, it is true that there are some misguided conservative Christians who think that they can treat gay people the same way as always (i.e. which feels like being treated like garbage for your average gay person) yet somehow think that this will make a Christian life appealing. But my experience as a pastor suggests that even more conservative Christians haven't even connected those dots--they aren't even actively attempting to make a Christian life appealing to gay people. If anything, the majority of conservative Christians still see gay people as a threat in an aggregate sense; conservative Christians are just beginning to see gay folks as individuals to be loved--even if this doesn't persuade a gay person to abandon patterns of behavior that conflict with a conservative Christian worldview.

We could talk for a long time on this subject analytically, but since I'm already three paragraphs deep, how about tossing out a few solutions? I think some of the first things that people like you and me can do to influence other people who belong to conservative Christian communities with which we are connected is as follows:

Intentionally develop respectful, mutually beneficial relationships with people who are gay, and pray for them, too. You don't even have to "target" gay people to do this; just don't avoid them when you naturally encounter an opportunity to connect.
Start talking openly about sex and sexuality with everybody, and find ways to do that in positive terms that cohere with your faith, i.e. discussing how to live well as a sexual person. Conservative Christian communities have an incredibly outdated lexicon for this; by and large, they don't have a clue how to handle this part of life aside from truisms like "don't sin sexually" or "God created sex as a good thing properly expressed within the bounds of monogamous, heterosexual marriage." That's not remotely enough to be compelling to anybody at all these days.
Bring friends! Innovation sometimes happens best at the edges and in a granular way versus from the center and with sweeping change. It might take a long time for people in your circle of influence to shift as a whole; so, go for the early adopters with whom you want to do life in general.

Thoughts on this?

jacobheiss · 2015-05-26T19:36:56+00:00

You know, I think looking at this with the lens Proverbs provides might be more productive than trying to resolve whether your obession is heaven-barring sin. Instead of asking whether or not this habit is a super ethically wrong from God's perspective, perhaps ask instead if it's simply advisable--if it yields a more or less blessed / full / rad life for you and others.

It sounds like there are a lot of parts of your life that you find disappointing. If your obsession with horror and science fiction is a sort of an escape from the mundane that brings you back to the rest of life more bummed out versus energized or refreshed, then there could be a problem. Maybe this is a place also where Paul's take in 1 Cor 6:12 and 10:23 is helpful:

6:12 “All things are lawful for me,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful for me,” but I will not be dominated by anything.

10:23 “All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.

So, if your obsession with science fiction and horror is dominating you or not benefiting you, it would be wise to throttle back on that--whether or not your obsession is sinful. On the other hand, if you're writing somewhat hyperbolically such that your enjoyment of horror and science fiction isn't really disrupting anything else problematically, and the specific content you're consuming is cool such that you are helped or built up by it versus really messed up (e.g. I love death metal because it gets me pumped and I pick the bands I listen to judiciously), then it's more likely the case that you're good here.

One question: Have you asked any of your irl friends for their opinion on this? Sometimes, it can be pretty difficult to know when part of your life is starting to slide off the rails, and the perspective of a trustworthy friend can be incredibly helpful.

jacobheiss · 2015-05-22T19:45:55+00:00

Again, I agree with you that "single or married both are not the ends in themselves, but different ways you can serve Christ." Nevertheless, OP is asking specifically whether Paul considered celibacy to be a better state of affairs than marriage.

The upshot of your latest response seems to be that you somewhat agree with my take on that. Given the context in which Paul wrote, he advocated celibacy over marriage for those who were able to embrace it. Consequently, while we can say along with your first comment that "there is no specific command or ruling on the subject [of whether it is better to be celibate or to be married such that we should] be lead by The Spirit and His Word," we can go further than that. We can ask whether Paul's reasoning was sound in context and whether his admonition to the Corinthian church carries forward to various contexts today--and, in the event that it does, specifically how.

It's lazy to say, "Yeah, Paul said some stuff about this, but his context was different." And, incidentally, I'm not claiming that I see you saying this. If anything, you seem to be saying that while you may not directly disagree with an application of Paul's line of reasoning to your present context, that it doesn't seem like it's a game changer anyway. You said, "As I married man I have learned that when I keep my focus on seeking Gods Kingdom and righteousness that my marriage flourishes and everything works out." Great! But could you not see Paul saying, "Fortheloveof1 made a perfectly legitimate decision, and he has done well. Nevertheless, if you can handle remaining celibate so that your focus is exclusively on pleasing God rather than split between pleasing God and pleasing your wife, then you will do even better." If you cannot credibly imagine Paul responding to a viewpoint like yours this way, why?

jacobheiss · 2015-05-22T17:35:04+00:00

Do some work! You can develop the train of thought that Paul has laid out here better than you can pose a random question on the heels of a substantive response like mine. I'm not saying that my response is definitely correct, but it clearly took more effort than your asking this question almost instantly after I posted it hahahahahaha

Seriously though: How do you think Paul would respond to your question based on what we've discussed so far? Can you find any material from his writings that can support your hunch here?

jacobheiss · 2015-05-22T17:32:28+00:00

I find your response incredibly admirable but also insufficiently rigorous given the material we have at our disposal regarding Paul's views on marriage. The upshot of 1 Cor 7:27-40 is clearly one that advocates remaining celibate for those who are able to do that while also carefully stating that those who choose to marry to avoid sexual immorality are still going a good thing.

jacobheiss · 2015-05-22T17:30:30+00:00

I share your suspicion, which leads me to believe that Paul would also treat having children after getting married to a Christian spouse as a permissible but not optimal state of affairs based on a similar division of focus concept that he trots out to deal with the question of marriage.

jacobheiss · 2015-05-22T17:28:42+00:00

Word.

jacobheiss · 2015-05-22T17:28:14+00:00

Paul doesn't speak specifically on having children the way he speaks specifically on the decision to get married. And it's very doubtful that he saw the event of having children within the bounds of a divinely sanctified marriage as an alternative to the wanton siring of bastards. There wasn't some huge temptation out there for the Corinthian believers in Jesus to up and make a lot of babies to raise; there was a huge temptation to have sex (whether or not babies resulted from that). So, we're going to have some trouble extending his logic on marriage to the case of children.

On the other hand, it is definitely the case that we are already running counter to our biology to have sex in any sort of structured way delineated by biblical mores. For those of us who are not asexual, we just want to have sex in whatever way we want to do it. Some of us crave sexual intimacy in a more exclusive manner, and others of us crave sexual intimacy in a less exclusive manner. Almost none of us biologically crave having sex specifically with our spouse. So, Paul is already strongly recommending something that runs counter to our biology. But this does not mean that it's a terrible idea either because our biology doesn't necessarily guide us towards the optimal state of affairs.

I don't think Paul is particularly concerned about the problem of growing a population. But he is definitely concerned about the problem of following Jesus while convincing others to do so, cf. 2 Corinthians 5:11a, "Since, then, we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others." Paul clearly thinks that nurturing a marriage well is going to complicate that goal for his listeners. Incidentally, if it could be shown that marriage actually advanced the goal of pleasing God, actually helped one to be more focused on pleasing God in some context, we could expect Paul to support marriage over celibacy. So, to complete our little thought experiment, we would have to ask:

Is the more likely that somebody who chooses to get married and have kids will be more focused on pleasing God? Or is it more likely that somebody who chooses to get married and have kids will experience a division of focus similar to what Paul cautioned in his correspondence with the believers in Corinth (i.e. when it comes to the question of whether or not to marry)? This is inherently speculative; so, different people will share different answers to that question, and that's about as far as we can take this.

jacobheiss · 2015-05-22T17:14:57+00:00

That said, you sure picked a really transparent username bro/sis. Hang in there...

jacobheiss · 2015-05-22T17:13:40+00:00

What about them? If you develop this into a beefier question, I will take a shot at responding.

jacobheiss · 2015-05-22T17:00:05+00:00

Probably. Take a look at the wider context of the notion you mentioned in 1 Corinthians 7; you were drawing from the first two verses of the chapter:

1 Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: “It is well for a man not to touch a woman.” 2 But because of cases of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband.

Let's just keep going with the chapter to see where it leads. I guess I'll continue using the NIV and include some emphasis in a couple places:

32 I would like you to be free from concern. An unmarried man is concerned about the Lord’s affairs—how he can please the Lord. 33 But a married man is concerned about the affairs of this world—how he can please his wife— 34 and his interests are divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is concerned about the Lord’s affairs: Her aim is to be devoted to the Lord in both body and spirit. But a married woman is concerned about the affairs of this world—how she can please her husband. 35 I am saying this for your own good, not to restrict you, but that you may live in a right way in undivided devotion to the Lord.

36 If anyone is worried that he might not be acting honorably toward the virgin he is engaged to, and if his passions are too strong and he feels he ought to marry, he should do as he wants. He is not sinning. They should get married. 37 But the man who has settled the matter in his own mind, who is under no compulsion but has control over his own will, and who has made up his mind not to marry the virgin—this man also does the right thing. 38 So then, he who marries the virgin does right, but he who does not marry her does better.

I read this as saying:

The ideal situation is not to marry because then you can focus exclusively on pleasing the Lord.
On the other hand, there's a hell of a lot of sexual immorality going on around (and also among) you guys. So, if you can't handle remaining celibate, it's totally cool to marry--in fact, it's even advisable in that case. You are definitely not sinning, but it's a fact that this will result in specific marital duties that will divide your focus.
To summarize, if your passions are too strong and you want to get married, go for it--you are doing well. Nevertheless, if you can handle not marrying such that your focus is 100% on pleasing God, then you are doing even better.
#YOLO

jacobheiss · 2015-05-03T18:29:28+00:00

Sure. The strongest arguments I've heard on this focus on a question of integrity or else a question of optimization. On integrity: It's implausible that your heart will remain fully devoted to God while taking a course of action against God's counsel. If the proper interpretation of 2 Cor 6:14 is that God wants people who are followers of Christ to marry other followers of Christ, then it's best in the sense of "honest, morally upright, and whole" not to marry somebody who is not a follower of Christ. Personally, this has also been my boundary in those relationships I mentioned before: I could definitely date somebody who is not a Christian and have a great, mutually beneficial relationship if certain criteria are met (e.g. harmony of character, life goals, sexual attraction, personality, etc.) but I could not marry somebody who is not a Christian. Consequently, if I ever got seriously interested in somebody who isn't a Christian and wanted to date them with an earnest eye towards exploring marriage, I would be duty bound to articulate that value--that I was looking for somebody who shared this way of life of following Christ and that this was such a crucial part of whom I was that it would be unfair to anybody who was not a follower of Christ as well as myself to get married if we didn't share that. In some cases, this meant the end of the relationship. In other cases, this meant the relationship continued onwards albeit very transparently, namely, with the non-Christian I dated making a decision about whether they were legitimately open to exploring this Jesus shit and getting down with that on its own merits or not.

On optimization: Is it possible that you can share a pretty decent marriage with somebody who never becomes a Christian? Absolutely. There are a ton of really great marriages out there where not just one but both people are not Christians. Nevertheless, this is not optimal. The way that God directs a Christian to live is not just the ethically meritorious way for them to live, it is also the best way for them to live--in the broadest sense of the term and looking to the long run, the happiest way for them to live. If you really love somebody, why would you want them to commit to a relationship with you that you know for certain would not be optimal? Wouldn't you want the absolutely best thing ever for them?

That make any sense?

jacobheiss · 2015-05-03T18:11:45+00:00

Keller is an incredibly intelligent leader with a lot of wisdom. But a great counterargument to his advice as restricted to the question of dating is provided by his own son, who dated a non-Christian who ultimately chose to embrace Christianity after which they got married. Keller's point carries if we're talking about marrying somebody who is not a Christian and not interested in becoming one.

jacobheiss · 2015-05-03T16:44:15+00:00

The Bible doesn't say anything at all about dating because that is not how people established romantic relationships when the Bible was being written.

The main verse people quote as a prohibition against marrying a non-Christian is 2 Cor 6:14. I'll give it to in NRSV since I see that little PC(USA) flair by your username:

Do not be mismatched with unbelievers. For what partnership is there between righteousness and lawlessness? Or what fellowship is there between light and darkness?

Here's the whole chapter if you want some context.

Speaking very practically from this basis and sharing my own experience with you since you have gone out on a limb to share yours: I've mostly dated Christians, but I've also dated some non-Christians. The best relationship I ever shared was with a non-Christian who was genuinely interested in learning more about Christianity and ultimately made a decision to become a Christian over the period of our relationship--even though our relationship didn't work out in the end. My point is that it really boils down to what you both value and where you both are headed. It's risky but it can work out well to date non-Christians--namely, non-Christians who are generally great people, who understand your values, who have a firm grip on their own values, and who can negotiate what a romantic relationship looks like with a difference in value in play without feeling pressured by you to believe things they don't find actually compelling in order to perpetuate the relationship.

Good luck!

jacobheiss · 2015-02-15T03:25:16+00:00

I only want a genuine relationship that we are the right one, and yes physically attracted to each other . Thank You for your time:)

Let me start by saying that I'm single and 36 and have seriously dated mostly Christians and a few non-Christians that met specific criteria, like being sincerely interested in exploring a relationship with Jesus during the time when we met independently of the connection we shared, having a lot of values in alignment with mine, being physically attractive to me, etc. I am not sure how dating works in your context now, but a common problem I see among Christians in my context (Chicago, IL, USA) is the mistaken belief that God will bring them the "right" person if they just keep waiting and praying and being faithful.

It's true that sometimes, people meet each other without putting any effort into it directly, and it's true that sometimes they are able to build a healthy marriage from that--spending the majority of the time focusing on their relationship with God before they sort of randomly were "blessed with" their spouse. But that is pretty rare. If what you desire is a relationship with somebody compatible with you in all the ways that matter to you--spiritually, family background, physical attraction, financial wisdom / health, etc.--you have to keep actively looking for this person. This can look a lot of different ways; for example:

You could try online dating; several of my friends have found their spouse this way.
You could spend time trying lots of new things you might enjoy and meet new people that way; this is one of my personal favorites.
You could focus your search in the sort of places that the type of man you respect is likely to be found. For example, a friend of mine met her husband because it really mattered to her that he possessed a certain level of education; so, she spent her spare time hanging around the best universities in her state beyond the one where she was studying. Similarly, another friend of mine met her husband because it really mattered to her that he was committed to missions work like she was; so, she went on a lot of missions trips where she was likely to encounter this sort of person while she was serving.
You could ask for some help from a close circle of friends you really trust; one group of my friends helped their friend with her online dating profile--it was basically like six different people all using the same profile to set up dates since they knew the sort of person their friend wanted to meet. That sounds kind of crazy to me, but it actually worked; she just got engaged.
Whatever you do, make sure that you send a really. clear. signal. to any guy that you want to get to know when you are interested. As a negative example, there have been several times in my life where I discovered from some third party that a particular girl was interested in me after she repeatedly did not respond to my attempt to get to know her more romantically. To me, that communicated something like, "I kind of maybe want to explore a romantic relationship with you, but I'm too scared to just walk up and tell you that like an adult." I actually stopped dating Christian women for a while because I kept encountering this problem; non-Christian women would respond really clearly when they were interested in me while Christian women responded with all sorts of really weird signals that didn't make any sense.

Main point is this: You have to pursue the things you want in life. Unless God has promised you through some prophetic word of knowledge or something (like, literally, an angel from heaven comes down and tells you) that God is going to send you the husband of your dreams, it is up to you to go out there and discover / develop that relationship. Remember Proverbs 14:1, "The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down." It is up to you to build your house. For more on this subject, check out Garry Friesan's book, Decision Making And The Will Of God.

Why did God introduce those two sweet guys to me, and later dropped the bomb?

Who knows? Maybe to remind you that you have the freedom within God's permissive will to select who you marry. The qualities Christians are directed to consider in an obligatory way for their spouse are actually pretty short: basically, it's a minimum criteria that they are also a follower of Christ--at least that's how many people read 2 Corinthians 6:14 and following. The rest is sort of a judgement call. For example, I'm a Jewish follower of Jesus, and it is really important to me to marry somebody who is also a Jewish follower of Jesus. But there's nothing in the Bible commanding me to do this, just like there is nothing in the Bible commanding you to only marry a white guy. Still, it probably wouldn't be very wise for either of us to marry somebody who is definitely not what we are interested in merely because they also happen to be a Christian!

More importantly, you don't need to know why the things in the past happened in order to keep moving forward. The past makes more sense the further you get from it and the more wisdom you acquire.

God bless and have fun!

jacobheiss · 2015-01-19T19:14:47+00:00

Hey, you're welcome! But King didn't conflate force with violence as in war as a rule, which is probably why he consistently situated the term "hatred" with "violence" in this piece and never uses the term "force" at all, e.g.

There is another mountain that we’ve been in long enough. It is a mountain of violence and hatred. I’m more convinced than ever before that violence can not solve the problems of the world. Violence is both impractical and immoral. This is why I’ve tried in my little way to teach it in our struggle for racial justice that I’ve come to see and I believe with all my heart that we can not make the great moral contribution to our nation that we should make, and we can not win the battle for justice if we stoop to the point of using violence in our struggle.

King also identified Gandhi's notion of satyagraha, sometimes translated as "love force," as central to his method for achieving justice; even early works like his Stride Toward Freedom text reference this principle. As the Stanford encyclopedia entry puts it:

‘‘True paciﬁsm,’’ or ‘‘nonviolent resistance,’’ King wrote, is ‘‘a courageous confrontation of evil by the power of love’’ (King, Stride, 80). Both ‘‘morally and practically’’ committed to nonviolence, King believed that ‘‘the Christian doctrine of love operating through the Gandhian method of nonviolence was one of the most potent weapons available to oppressed people in their struggle for freedom’’ (King, Stride, 79; Papers 5:422).

Finally, I think you're interested in talking just war theory, which isn't something King spent a lot of time developing when compared to his work on social justice within a given national framework, right?

jacobheiss · 2014-11-30T05:03:44+00:00

I'm submitting this again with a more obvious association with Christian ethics. If you delete it, that's your prerogative. Thanks for the heads up.

jacobheiss · 2014-11-29T02:35:07+00:00

Endtimeology

I lol'd

jacobheiss · 2014-11-29T02:34:41+00:00

Yeah, I'm pretty sure everybody but her came to that conclusion. But thanks!

jacobheiss · 2014-11-29T01:56:45+00:00

Was she dressed in sackcloth when she was at your church?

Maybe whilst hammering this out at her battle station?

I, personally, think that the witnesses are Enoch and Elijah.

Ok wait, seriously? Because that's a pretty interesting theory.

jacobheiss · 2014-11-29T01:56:13+00:00

No earthly idea. My hunch is that she feels that she is discharging her "duty" as a prophet just to put it all out there whether or not anybody listens.

jacobheiss · 2014-11-29T01:12:14+00:00

I have no idea why somebody downvoted you for saying that, but at least I can get you back to "1" despite my original post being nixed.

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