{"id":39743,"date":"2024-12-02T21:01:06","date_gmt":"2024-12-03T05:01:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=39743"},"modified":"2024-12-02T21:06:14","modified_gmt":"2024-12-03T05:06:14","slug":"were-all-goldfish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/were-all-goldfish\/","title":{"rendered":"We’re All Goldfish"},"content":{"rendered":"

About a year ago, I came across an article proclaiming Aayan Hirsi Ali as a Christian now. I only knew her as an outspoken ex-Muslim atheist from the books I had read. She has been considered the fifth horsemen of the four horsemen of the atheist apocalypse. As I listened to her interview outlining her spiritual journey, she mentioned an instrumental work contributing to her newfound faith, Dominion,<\/em> by Tom Holland. If this book could change this <\/em>academic\u2019s mind about faith, it must be unique. Hollands\u2019 book did not disappoint, as I devoured it over the holidays last year.<\/p>\n

Where to begin? One of the most credible aspects of this book was Tom Holland\u2019s starting point as an intellectual agnostic who assumed the Western conscience was shaped by anything other than the Judeo-Christian faith. Holland proposes that Western assumptions like: \u201cYou can\u2019t treat people like that.\u201d \u201cEveryone should have equal rights!\u201d \u201cAll life is sacred\u201d and \u201cThat group of people matter, too!\u201d are deeply rooted in Judeo-Christian beliefs. This means whether a person is an atheist, religious, liberal, conservative, humanist, feminist, or traditionalist, they all process their morals and ethics within and through a Judeo-Christian matrix. Holland claims we\u2019re \"\"<\/a>all like goldfish swimming in the same water without knowing it.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat every human being possessed an equal dignity was not remotely self-evident truth. A Roman would have laughed at it\u2026The origins of this principle, as Nietzsche had so contemptuously pointed out lay not in the French Revolution, nor in the Declaration of Independence, nor in the Enlightenment, but in the Bible.\u201d[i]<\/a><\/p>\n

That said, Holland also points out that there has always been a struggle between the \u201cletter of the law\u201d and the \u201cSpirit of the law.\u201d The Letter of the Law approach points to Scripture and says look, tradition clearly says this about women, slavery, church leadership, homosexuals, divorce, etc., while the Spirit of the Law approach says, yes, but does this square with the compassion and life of Jesus or Paul\u2019s teaching on being led by the Spirit, or Hebrews proclamation that God’s law would be written on our hearts and minds? There has always been a push and pull of tradition and experience. Tom claims, \u201cThere had always existed, in the hearts of the Chris\"\"<\/a>tian people, a tension between the demands of tradition and the claims of progress, between the prerogatives of authority and the longing for reformation, between the letter and the spirit of the law.[ii]<\/a> He mentions a paradox embedded within the faith. Part of the nature of the Judeo-Christian tradition has always been to challenge aspects of itself. We need BOTH<\/em>. Go figure.<\/p>\n

What is tricky is that legal or literal approaches to tradition usually have the \u201cbetter arguments.\u201d You just point, click, and say, \u201cThere it is.\u201d Simple. However, this method does not always fit our experiences or “Western conscience” as new contexts and situations arise. The New Testament models this tension a few times as the Gospel expands into Gentile territory. Now, what do we do? If we’re honest, there is a lot of \u201ccontextualizing\u201d when attempting to advocate for changes in gender roles in leadership or the home, claim slavery as immoral, justify pluralism, approve same-sex marriage, or permit divorce as the best option when certain verses seem clear on or indifferent to these issues. \u00a0There was a woman at our church who told us that her husband had been abusing her and her daughter physically and verbally for years. However, they endured it because she knew what the Bible said about divorce. It took hours of getting to the heart of the Gospels\u2019 nature and teaching on this to ease her conscience enough to reevaluate her domestic situation. The same thing happened with a Pastor\u2019s wife I knew, who came to the faith later in life. It took a lot of explaining about culture and context from her preacher Father-in-law to relieve her crippling fear that she was going to hell since she had remarried after a divorce. She kept thinking, \u201cYeah, but it says\u2026\u201d.<\/p>\n

Stories like these are huge motivators for my NPO project. While in Washington, DC, at the African American History Museum, I saw a book titled \u201cThe Negro A Beast,\u201d or \u201cIn The Image of God<\/em>\u201d.[iv]<\/a> It has nearly four hundred pages of Biblical support on why African Americans are not made in God\u2019s image and are not genuinely human. It\u2019s bizarre and unsettling. Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformer, gives his biblical support in his book The Jews and Their Lies<\/em> for burning the homes, writings, and synagogues of non-Messianic Jews.[v]<\/a> He also recommended their access to roads be restricted, their usury be prohibited, and they be forced into hard labor. Why didn\u2019t the Bible alone nurture compassion or religious tolerance in him and others? Why isn’t it still today? Our religious history is beyond complex, and it shows what happens when the heart and Spirit of Jesus are not at the very center of our interpretations. After all, Christ said to wait for his Spirit,<\/em> and his Spirit would lead us into all truth. According to the evidence throughout this book, compassion for all <\/em>seems to be the fruit and product of the Christian Spirit pulling our culture forward.<\/p>\n

I say all this to applaud Tom Holland for giving an honest assessment of Judeo-Christian\u2019s paradoxical history and for pinpointing some critical things. He acknowledges the faith’s significant impact and beauty while recognizing its darker sides. He showcases Christianity\u2019s influence on social security systems, academics, hospitals, infant rescue, pluralism, liberalism, and social justice issues like women\u2019s liberation, the abolition of slavery, and stopping widow burnings in India. He also acknowledges the violence and oppression the faith has contributed to for a number of reasons. There was a time in my Christian journey when I could only see the good and downplayed \u201cthe bad\u201d stuff in my faith\u2019s history, and another season when I only seemed to notice the bad and overlooked the good. I appreciated what felt like a balanced appraisal, which ironically caused me to value my faith more than ever. I can\u2019t overemphasize how important this approach is for many people today. \u00a0It seemed to help Aayan Hirsi Ali.<\/p>\n

Dominion<\/em> also expanded my perspective concerning the cross. Holland explains that the cross was not only a torture device for death but a public billboard that Rome used to display its might, power, and strength. Holland says the cross Jesus hung on displayed another message: \u201cthat God was closer to the weak than to the mighty, to the poor than to the rich. Any beggar, any criminal, might be Christ. \u2018So the last will be first, and the first last.\u2019\u201d [vi]<\/a> This gave me a deeper understanding of Paul\u2019s statement in 1 Corinthians 1:23, \u201cbut we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.\u201d This picture of Jesus hanging on a Roman cross and all that it represents illustrates a scandalous idea that God identifies with the lowly of the world and used this event to turn the system upside down, which is precisely what happened historically. A unique and otherworldly Spirit began expanding like never before in the West and throughout the earth. I love that the book thoroughly illustrates how we, as Westerners, Christian or not, are oblivious to the fact that God\u2019s plan of bringing the “kingdom on earth” is working in ways we might not suspect.<\/p>\n

Participating in this life-changing program with you all has been a pleasure!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[i]<\/a> Holland, Tom. Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind<\/em>. Paperback edition. London: ABACUS, 2020, 478.<\/p>\n

[ii]<\/a> Ibid., 514.<\/p>\n

[iv]<\/a> Charles Carroll,\u00a0The Negro a Beast; or, In the Image of God<\/em>\u00a0(Forgotten Books, Classic Reprint Series, 2018).<\/p>\n

[v]<\/a> Luther, Martin, and Tryntje Helfferich. The Essential Luther<\/em>. Hackett Classics Ser. Cambridge: Hackett Publishing Company, Incorporated, 2018, 298-300.<\/p>\n

[vi]<\/a> Holland, Dominion, xxi.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About a year ago, I came across an article proclaiming Aayan Hirsi Ali as a Christian now. I only knew her as an outspoken ex-Muslim atheist from the books I had read. She has been considered the fifth horsemen of the four horsemen of the atheist apocalypse. As I listened to her interview outlining her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":171,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2310],"tags":[2649,2630],"class_list":["post-39743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-doctor-of-leadership-3","tag-tom-holland","tag-dominion","cohort-dlgp02"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39743"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39743\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39750,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39743\/revisions\/39750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}