Book Plunge: Essential Asatru

What do I think of Diana Paxson’s book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

I always try to be going through at least one book that either directly disagrees with me or is from a worldview that I do not share. In this case, while looking for another one, I remembered how a couple of years ago I had been at Wal-Mart and I think I had a book on the resurrection with me and someone saw it. He then told me that he was a follower of Norse religion.

I had enough experience in the field to recognize this as Asatru. I went to Kindle immediately to see if I could find a good book on the topic really trying to explain it well. It would be easy to find something that didn’t treat it seriously but was more on a popular level, but I wanted something as scholarly as possible.

In the end, I chose Essential Asatru, by Diana Paxton. I started the book then, but just never finished it as other things came up, but when I wanted something new, I decided to go back and start it again. I wanted to know what these people really believed and also why they believed it.

To many of us, it can sound strange to be a follower of Norse religion. Most of us when we hear that think of Thor and then we think of the Avengers. You want to follow a deity who is in a comic book? (That is a topic that never came up in the book. Many followers consider themselves heathens and I would like to have known what they thought of a deity of theirs being a comic book character. Are they allowed to see the movies or read the books and enjoy them or is that sacrilege?)

Yet as I pondered it further, I thought perhaps it isn’t that strange. Areas like Iceland still hold to a lot of tradition such as a large number of people over there believe in elves. If you’re going to believe in some deity or deities, and I contend secularism has left such a hole, and for whatever reason you don’t want to go with the monotheistic faiths, why not go back to the religions that have some historical precedent?

The book has several chapters with each starting with a scene from a get-together in the Asatru religion involving passing around a horn filled with ale of some kind and sharing together. Then each chapter will go into a different point about Asatru and how practitioners worship in it. It is certainly a look into a world unfamiliar to most of us.

Many of this is also a history of beliefs of the people in Scandinavia with many times talking about how Christianity intersected with the culture. There can be a bit of what can look like ancestor worship, but I suspect it’s much more just wanting to honor the great heroes of the past. The closest parallel I can come up with from the Christian perspective is the way Catholics and Orthodox tend to have feasts and days to honor saints, all the while not worshipping them.

Then the book goes into a description of the different deities in Norse religion, which yes, includes Thor. If you are interested in Norse mythology, as I do happen to have an interest in such though mainly in Greek, this could be a fascinating part for you. Loki is included and I found it interesting that different gatherings have different rules on how to treat Loki and it’s best to ask before coming to one’s first meeting.

The final chapter deals with day to day lives of heathens and how they are when they gather together. This includes ethical beliefs as well as how religion is practiced with regard to priests and priestesses and events like weddings and funerals. Would there be such a thing as an Asatru seminary one day? It doesn’t look like there will be any time soon, but the writer herself is a priestess so they do exist.

So in the end, of course, I don’t agree with Norse paganism beliefs, but I am glad I am now more informed about them. I suspect that as time goes on, we will see more and more such beliefs rise up as secularism leaves a hole and many people have too many negative associations with Christianity (Such as supposedly hating people who are same-sex attracted or being anti-science). While we as Christians disagree, we can recognize the clues of the God-shaped hole and the longing of people to seek something beyond themselves.

It’s up to us to give them that.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

 

Book Plunge: The Critical Qur’an

What do I think of Robert Spencer’s work? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Robert Spencer has gone through the Qur’an and given us information on the passages as well as pointed to leading scholars, past and present, to tell us about the origin of the Suras and about textual criticism. I had got this book several months ago, but I chose to wait until I finished the book before I reviewed it. I also wasn’t reading one sura (our equivalent of a chapter) every day, seeing as these can be long. A small number even have more verses than Psalm 119.

Some of you might be thinking this could be like the Skeptics’ Annotated Bible. I am pleased to say that it is not. It is not the case that Spencer jumps on anything that could be an inconsistency. There are times he even says that a claim against the Qur’an here is a poor one. Of course, he points out problems, but generally, it looks like his biggest goal can be to help with understanding.

One big problem some Muslims could have with the work is that he definitely shows textual variations that occur within the book. This is a problem since Muslims will often argue that there are no variations in the text. They say that the Qur’an is an eternal document that has always been with Allah. Of course, this gets us problems when we get to the abrogated passages, and that too will be discussed.

As I indicated earlier, Spencer interacts as well with Muslim sources of the past. This is important since it would be akin to us going to the church fathers to show the earliest handling of the text. These people were the ones closest to the writing of the book and were the ones most invested in the work.

This isn’t just a book for people who have never read the Qur’an. When I saw David Wood of Acts 17 Apologetics talking about the book, he said that he got new information on his look at the very first sura, and Wood has done a lot of work on dealing with Islam. That was enough to convince me that this was a resource that I could use.

Thus, you have a work here that goes through the Qur’an and yet thankfully, unlike the work of Skeptic’s Annotated Bible, I find to be fair. Spencer deals with misconceptions of the text. While there is no doubt he is opposed to Islam and the Qur’an, he also wants to be accurate in all that he says. He’s not going to jump on anything to go after it and he wants to make sure bad arguments against various passages are also dealt with.

One caveat though and I suspect it’s one that Spencer would not have a problem with. If you wanted to read something like Skeptic’s Annotated Bible, I would encourage you to at least read just the Bible first without any feedback along the way. In the same way, if you have not read the Qur’an on your own, as I had, then I encourage you to read it first and then come back and read the Critical Qur’an. It’s all about being fair with the text after all.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

 

Book Plunge: Our Father, Abraham

What do I think of Marvin Wilson’s book published by Eerdmans? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

It is always a temptation for some to look for Christianity outside of the Jewish heritage. It’s easy to jump straight to the Greeks. This was much more common before the holocaust took place and then we decided we needed to recover the Jewishness of Jesus. One such book looking at this is Wilson’s book which is not about just the Jewishness of Jesus, but the Jewishness of Christianity.

Wilson’s contention is that the early church did move away from the Jewishness of Christianity early on and to an extent, this would be true. After all, just a few centuries later you have a number of statements of hostility against the Jewish people being made by even church fathers. It is not long before we see the charge of Christ-killers being applied. I do consider it problematic that as far as I know, all the church fathers were non-Jews.

We do damage to ourselves when we do this and we fail to do evangelism to the Jewish people. Wilson’s goal in this book is to return us to how the Jews looked at life. This is not just about theology as theology, but it is also about how Jews looked at every area of life because all of life was about their walk with YHWH. This includes work, marriage, and education.

To begin with, Wilson gives us the history of the relationship between Christianity and Judaism. This involves the way the Jews saw the world and then what happened when the Christians came along. Naturally, this includes questions about who Jesus is and His deity and what it would mean for Him to be the Messiah.

From there, he goes on to look at where the church went wrong. This includes ideas coming up that he considers foreign to a Jewish mindset, such as the idea that someone who is a priest could never marry. In this area also, the way Jews and Christians have approached marriage is quite different. Even in a musical that Wilson recommends, Fiddler on the Roof, tradition is still at the heart of everything and the idea is that the daughters of the main character will have their husbands picked for them and they will be Jewish as well.

One other difference is we tend to think rationally about our faith while Jews think more experientially.  We will have hot debates in Christianity about the relationship between God’s sovereignty and man’s free will. Jews thought in block logic where both were to be embraced and somehow it all worked out in the end.

I particularly appreciated the section on learning. Learning is seen as an act of worship. Some Jews might be in situations where their stomachs are empty, but their minds are to be full of the heritage that they were raised in and what we call the Old Testament and the teaching of their rabbis.

Jewish and Christian relations are something that need some more attention in the apologetics and Christian community. I only know of two apologists right off that are doing work in the area of Jewish apologetics. We disagree with Jews on many matters, but we do share a common heritage and we need to be able to use that to reach out to them.

In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)

Deeper Waters Podcast 8/1/2020

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Throughout history, the Jewish people really haven’t seemed to care much for Jesus. He’s been branded as a traitor in their history and many ancient writings from Jewish circles about Jesus were far from friendly. Jesus could be depicted as suffering in the very worst circles of hell.

Then later on you have strong streams of anti-Semitism, sadly even including Martin Luther. The Jews are often so disregarded that in the last century, you had the holocaust take place. That really opened our eyes to how we need to get at the Jewishness of the New Testament and that of Jesus as well.

And the interesting thing is that the Jews are actually joining in this search. There is a resurgence of scholarship that is coming from a Jewish perspective and looking at the New Testament. It also isn’t an entirely antagonistic look either. For many Jews, Jesus is now seen as a respected and admired figure, even if they’re not Messianic Jews who do hold that Jesus is the Messiah.

What about a question like the resurrection? In this area, it is quite interesting that we have scholarship on the Jewish side that not only studies the resurrection of Jesus, but also affirms it, and even non-Messianic. Pinchas Lapides was a Jewish scholar who came to the conclusion that Jesus was raised from the dead even though he never became a Christian.

Where have other Jews come down on this question? For that, we’ll be discussing with my guest this Saturday. We will be discussing this question and also looking into the Jewish roots of the Christian faith. Not only that, we’ll also be talking about the Israel College of the Bible. So who is this guest? He is a Messianic Jew himself named David Mishkin.

So who is he?

According to his bio:

David Mishkin holds degrees from Northeastern Bible College, Fuller Theological seminary, and the University of Pretoria. He has authored three books (including Jewish Scholarship on the Resurrection of Jesus), and with Craig Evans he co-edited A Handbook on the Jewish Roots of the Christian Faith. He has served on the faculty of Israel College of the Bible in Netanya, Israel for over a dozen years.

We’re still working on getting caught up on past shows, but I hope you’ll be watching for this one. Please also consider supporting us on our journey. Deeper Waters works thanks to people like you.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Do Christians, Muslims, and Jews Worship the Same God? Four Views.

What do I think of Ronnie Campbell and Christopher Gnanakan’s book published by Zondervan? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

When a Wheaton professor wore a hijab, it led to a major evangelical controversy. Do Christians, Muslims, and Jews worship the same God? In this volume, four different views are shared on the topic. If you think the answers are simply yes or no, you’re mistaken. So what are these views?

Wm. Andrew Schwartz and John B. Cobb Jr. both take the view of yes, we all worship the same God. Francis Beckwith takes the idea that in a way, we all do worship the same as a referent. Gerald McDermott holds a shared revelation view where Jews and Christians worship the same God, but not Muslims. Jerry Walls takes the position that none worship the same God.

Now going in, my position was very much that of Jerry Walls. I do think there are generic theistic arguments that can be used for all three of the Abrahamic faiths and you can only know which one is true by special revelation, but when we look at the deities described in the revelation, they’re very different. Namely, it comes down to the view of Jesus. Since Jesus is fully God and fully man, Christians necessarily worship a Trinity.

I found the first view of all worship the same God being the most unconvincing. For instance, it was said that there are many Christianities. At this point, I have to wonder if the authors have any idea what it means to be a Christian because if Christianity can be anything, then it means nothing.

It’s hard to disagree with Francis Beckwith, and as Jerry Walls said in the book, especially when he begins with an analogy involving Superman. (We’ll try to forgive him for never mentioning the Smallville series.) Still, at the end of the day, I just can’t sign easily on the dotted line. It’s hard to think that the Father of Jesus is the God of Muhammad.

Gerald McDermott would agree as he thinks there’s a radical division between Islam and Christianity. However, there was not any dispute among the Jews and Christians at the start about which God was worshipped. Therefore, Jews and Christians worship the same God. Muslims do not. This can make sense, but I agree with Walls that McDermott does seem to move too quickly through the doctrines of the Trinity, the resurrection, and the incarnation.

Finally, we get to Walls’s view. This is the view I did find the most convincing. Now you could say it’s because I approached the book with this view so yeah, bias is always a part, but also when one studies for years, they don’t form positions lightly. In all fairness, the positions of Beckwith and McDermott I did think made some good points.

Walls also did bring up something else that needed to be discussed. Even if we think they all worship the same God, does that count towards salvation for them? I wish the other authors had said more about that question. I don’t think Beckwith and McDermott would hold to a pluralistic view, but I wonder if the first authors might.

There are also two essays afterwards, mainly on evangelizing Muslims. These are good to have, but shouldn’t we include something on evangelizing Jews as well? Judaism is much smaller in number to be sure, but why not have one chapter on Muslims and one on Jews? Jews need their Messiah too, after all.

If this question interests you, then you should get this book. The extra benefit besides just the replies to the authors on their essay is the author of each essay gives one quick counter-reply to all the others. I like this touch and wish it would be used more often.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 10/12/2019

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

For many of us living in America, that Jesus is the Messiah doesn’t mean much to us. It should, but your average churchgoer doesn’t know what that means except some special title among the Jews. If you’re a Jewish person, that title means something.

It really matters to you if the Messiah has come or not. It matters to you that the God of Israel will be glorified. It matters to you that the promise made to Abraham and the other patriarchs has been fulfilled and the promise made to David has been fulfilled.

Yet many Jews today balk at the idea of Jesus being the Messiah.

Even if Jesus rose from the dead, what difference does it make? How does that show he is the Messiah? Answering Jewish people on this requires a whole lot more than just a minimal facts approach or something similar. it requires an understanding of Judaism and how it is that the Messiah fits in.

Fortunately, I do have a friend who does just that.

He will be joining me this Saturday on the show. We will be discussing evangelism to Jewish people and how to tell them the good news that the Messiah has already come. He is indeed the Messiah of the Jews as well as the Gentiles. My friend who has studied this has recently written the book The Resurrection of the Jewish Messiah and his name is Eric Chabot.

So who is he?


He has an MA from Southern Evangelical Seminary and has spoken several times at the National Apologetics Conference in Charlotte, NC. He is a graduate of the Cross Examined Apologetics Instructors Academy and a member of the Evangelical Philosophical Society. He is an instructor at the Messianic Studies Institute in Columbus, Ohio and Adjunct instructor at Xenos Christian Fellowship there as well. He has been doing outreach since 2004 and is the founder and director of Ratio Christi at Ohio State University and director at Columbus State University College Ratio Christi. He is a speaker for CJF ministries and has spoken at numerous churches and other locations. He has written a short booklet on “Is Yeshua The Jewish Messiah?” and co-authored a work called “Does God Exist? Why It Matters.”

(We still hope he affirms the virgin birth, which I do affirm.)

Jewish apologetics is something we don’t see much of, but it is a needed field. I am thankful to have someone in the field studying it since the Jewish people are the ones that brought about our Messiah and brought about the Old Testament for us. We owe it to them to tell them the good news about Messiah Jesus.

Be listening please and leave us a positive review on Deeper Waters.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: The Resurrection of the Jewish Messiah

What do I think of Eric Chabot’s self-published book? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Resurrection apologetics when interacting with Jewish people is often an entirely different animal. I remember seeing a debate live that Michael Brown did against a rabbi. At the end, I went up to the rabbi, sadly with a crowd, and asked about the resurrection. I just got the reply, “Didn’t happen” and then he turned to answer others.

Okay. Thanks for that information. Glad we had the discussion.

A Jewish scholar like Pinchas Lapides actually believes Jesus rose from the dead and yet doesn’t see Him to be the Messiah. I am sure there are many who would not be convinced even if they knew the resurrection happened. Why? Because Israel has not been restored and the Messianic age has not been brought about.

Christians need to take these concerns seriously.

After all, Messiah means something. Christ is not the last name of Jesus and He is not the son of Mr. and Mrs. Christ. Messiah means that Jesus is the King and the King of Israel specifically. Many of us today have lost that kind of thinking.

Eric Chabot does specialize in answering Jewish objections to Jesus, a needed ministry today. While debating with Jews isn’t as prominent normally as it is with Muslims or atheists or other groups, let’s remember that these were the chosen people of God. They are the ones who gave us our Old Testament and who gave us our Messiah, King Jesus.

Chabot’s book deals with many areas that will be common to us today. What about oral tradition? Why did Paul change his mind and see Jesus as Messiah? Did Jesus really exist? Was He just a copy of pagan gods. (Although it would have been nice to have seen a bit more about the virgin birth, which I do affirm.)

He also gets into why this matters for Judaism. Why would it be that the Messiah would need to be resurrected? How does this fit within the promises of Israel? What about the question of where the Messianic age is?

If you’re looking for general information on the resurrection to help with dealing with atheist friends, there is a lot of good material in here that you can use. The book is short and can be read in a day or two. There is plenty of scholarly interaction as well.

However, it also has the bonus of being a book with information on Jewish apologetics specifically. Christians need to recognize this as we too often treat the Old Testament as an add-on to this real book called the New Testament and gloss over the story of Israel entirely. Paul told us Israel’s story is our story and they are our people as well. We need to learn from them and learn how to reach the Jewish people God loves.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Book Plunge: Christianity At The Religious Round Table

What do I think of Timothy Tennent’s book published by Baker Academic? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

In the past, a Christian growing up would likely never encounter a Hindu, a Buddhist, or a Muslim, at least in a place like America. Now, you encounter them in a wide number of places. A church my wife and I attend has a ministry to Indian people in the area. Many Hollywood celebrities practice Buddhism. Oprah Winfrey regularly shares Eastern thought on her broadcasts. Islam seems to always be in the news and 9/11 has a permanent memory with many of us.

Even if a Christian lives out somewhere in the boondocks surrounded by Christians, if they get on the internet, they will encounter other worldviews. Nowadays, learning about other worldviews for a Christian is not just an option. It is mandatory.

Fortunately, Timothy Tennent has written a book where he does interact with other worldviews from the perspective of one who has spent some time in serious study of those worldviews. Tennent gives a brief explanation of major ideas in Hindu, Buddhist, and Islamic thought. Then he has a dialogue with holders of those worldviews and lets us see how the interaction is to take place.

He also has three bonus sections at the end that aren’t dialogue, but do look at how one interacts with other religions and how some have done it in history. Anyone interested in interacting with this kind of thought needs to go through this area as well. There is also a section beforehand on different views of exclusivism and inclusivism so Christians can see where they fall on the spectrum.

The information in the book is certainly excellent. Be warned that when many of us read sections on Hinduism and Buddhism, self included, it is easy to get lost. This is because you really do get to see how different Eastern thought is from the way that we generally think and the terminology is terminology that we are not familiar with. I don’t think this is the fault of Tennent at all when it’s sometimes hard to follow. I think it’s just that we’re so far away from the system that we don’t know how to process it.

Some people might be surprised that the information on Islam doesn’t cover terrorism. The book was published after 9/11, but I suspect Tennent wanted to focus more on the doctrinal issues than that. That could be a good topic of further dialogue in the future if one is interested.

If anything would be changed, I would have liked to have seen some names attached to the participants in the dialogue and perhaps rather than just long pieces, have more immediate give and take like a conversation. Names would have made the dialogue seem more personable. Perhaps we should have some sections of longer parts and some of shorter parts. For shorter parts, I think of the writings of Peter Kreeft he has, such as those with Socrates.

Still, if you want some good information on these beliefs, this book is an excellent place to go. You will walk away with a better understanding of these worldviews. Again, you have to have this knowledge if you want to be effective today.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

Deeper Waters Podcast 3/30/2019: Timothy Tennent

What’s coming up? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

If you grew up in, say, the 1950’s, odds are you could go through life in America without ever really encountering a Buddhist or a Hindu. Fast forward to the 1980’s and you’re probably not as likely, but you will see ideas from the East having much more of a showing here in America. Now as the second decade of the 21st century comes to a close, it’s far easier. Not only can you encounter Hindus and Buddhists, but you don’t even have to leave your house to do so. Just get on Facebook and it’s easy to encounter people of a totally different religion.

When it comes to Islam and Mormonism and Jehovah’s Witnesses, we might have an easier time understanding because we share a cultural milleu in that these share a lot in common with Western thought. Not so with Buddhism or Hinduism. These religions can be so foreign to our way of thinking that they are difficult to understand. It has been said you need a Ph.D. in philosophy to really understand Buddhism, for example.

A couple of months ago my wife and I visited a Hindu temple here in Atlanta. I did encounter a foreign world to me and as I left, I realized I needed to do a show on the topic of Hinduism and Buddhism as well. Few of us in apologetics really know how to approach the kind of thinking in these religions. I needed someone who understood both of these well and had a passion for teaching on the topics. I found that person in Dr. Timothy Tennent.

So who is he?

According to his bio:

President Timothy C. Tennent has served as president since July 2009. Prior to his coming to Asbury Theological Seminary, Dr. Tennent was the Professor of World Missions and Indian Studies at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary where he served since 1998. Ordained in the United Methodist Church in 1984, he has pastored churches in Georgia, and in several of the largest churches in New England. Since 1989, he has taught annually as an adjunct professor at the New Theological College in Dehra Dun, India. He is a frequent conference speaker around the country and throughout the world, including numerous countries in Asia, Africa and Europe.

Not only will we be talking about these religions, but I also plan to talk about how to approach other religions in general. It is tempting if we’re apologists to seek to study a religion just to find out what’s wrong with it. Is there a better way to approach a foreign religion? Even if we know the facts about other religions, how is the best way to communicate this to those who hold to those religions?

Please be watching your feed for the next episode of the Deeper Waters Podcast. Also, go on iTunes and leave a positive review of the show as well. It really means a lot to me to know that there are so many of you out there that appreciate the work that is being done here.

In Christ,
Nick Peters

 

Book Plunge: Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy

What do I think of Andrew Stephen Damick’s book published by Conciliar Media Ministries? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.

Damick’s work is the one that I have seen that is most apologetic in the area of Orthodoxy. Damick interacts with other religious beliefs and tries to treat them as fairly as he can. There are many aspects of his criticisms that I would agree with, but overall, I still remain unconvinced about the truth of Orthodoxy.

For instance, on pp. 118-119, Damick speaks about an anti-intellectual tradition in many Protestant churches today. In these churches, if you don’t go to Bible College or Seminary, that’s a mark in your favor. I have encountered this way too many times.

There are many times Damick will criticize attitudes he sees in Protestantism and many times I agree with him. I agree with the problem of so many people claiming that they hear from the Holy Spirit. I agree that these people are really setting themselves up as infallible because, hey, the Holy Spirit told them otherwise.

One area about Damick’s work that does concern me is how much time is spent criticizing Roman Catholicism and Protestantism and then there’s one chapter on other religions. I would think that we should be more concerned about these other religions than other religions that I think are still within the fold of Christianity. There are about 100 pages+ plus on Protestantism and about 20 or so on other religions.

On p. 65, he starts talking about Sola Scriptura, he never really defines what it is. The problem is apparently every believer becomes authoritative in interpreting the Scripture. Yes and no. Some people do have more validity than others. Joe Blow down the street who has never read a book outside the Bible or the professor of NT Greek at the seminary down the street both have an interpretation but all things being equal, the professor’s interpretation should have more weight.

What we do with this is that we can discuss what we read in the Scripture. How do we know what the text of Scripture means? How do we know what the text of any work means? We have to study it and understand any surrounding context and if needed look at the original languages.

Damick also says that Sola Scriptura is the rejection of tradition, but this is false. It is simply the saying that Scripture is the final authority and it alone is the infallible message from God that we have. We have no problem with tradition as tradition. I have no problem with the tradition of the Trinity, because I see that abundantly in Scripture.

Now consider traditions like praying to the saints and the Marian viewpoints. I cannot see those in Scripture, so I look at them with Scripture. If they don’t measure up, then I reject them. If there is some other evidence they’re reliable, I’m open.

What about academia? Damick tells us scholarship is in disarray, and indeed it is, but some scholarship is better than others and I contend the scholarship in favor of Christianity is better. Damick then asks what happens with the next archaeological finding or manuscript variant? Do we have to revolutionize our understanding of Christianity?

Indeed we might have to. If the evidence is against Christianity or showing that it’s wrong, then we should abandon it. Damick is here showing some anti-intellectualism that he has condemned. I have no fear of research going on into Christianity because I am convinced that Christianity is true and will last.

On p. 81, Damick tells us the only way to make sure you’re reading the text correctly is to do so in the tradition of the apostles. The question now becomes how can we know this? How can Damick be sure that this is accurate? The Catholics say the same about the Magisterium. The Mormons say the same about the teachings of the Prophet. The Watchtower says the same about their publications.

All of this tells me that the text cannot be understood on its own. Why should I think this? Is there something about the text of the Scripture that is written differently than any other text? Are any of these groups giving us the academic insight of the scholarship into the social context of the Biblical world?

On p. 89 he talks about baptism and infant baptism. I am troubled by the usage of Mark 16:16 to make the case since I don’t think that’s authentic. I also think it’s a misusage to say “Let the little children come to me” from Jesus to justify infant baptism. It’s comparing apples to oranges.

On p. 95, he says “if sola scriptura means that all tradition and hierarchial authority are to be rejected and the Bible is to be read in an isolated manner, there can be no method by which theology is corrected and doctrinal orthodoxy maintained.” Yes. IF. Yet shouldn’t it be known if that’s what it means? If it doesn’t, then this is a straw man. I contend this is not Sola Scriptura and I find it troublesome that Danick is not clear on what it is.

On p. 108-109, Damick talks about faith. Damick doesn’t really speak about what faith is much. In the Biblical case, faith means trust in what has been shown to be reliable. Damick says that if you define it as absolute knowledge, you are not in the tradition of the apostles. However, there are times that this happens in the ancient world. Aristotle once used it to refer to a rhetorical proof.

On p. 110 in talking about salvation, Damick says it should be enough to give the words of Jesus. He who endures to the end will be saved. Both of these passages are talking about eschatology and soteriology and the survival of persecution. In Acts 27:31, during the storm while Paul is at sea he says to the centurion, unless these men stay with the ship, you cannot be saved.

Is Paul giving us a way of soteriology? Is Paul saying that the way to be saved is to get in a ship on a stormy sea and stay on board the whole time? No. He’s saying that they will not be spared from the storm if this happens. It is hard to say that you need to stay in the apostolic tradition to understand the Scripture when I see this kind of understanding going on.

We get the same when we come to John 6 and the passage about eating flesh and drinking blood. My contention is that many people are taking that passage far too literally. Jesus is comparing Himself to the manna in the wilderness. As the people there needed to depend on manna for their sustenance, so Jesus must be our sustenance.

On p. 155, Damick has been looking at groups many of us would call cults and asks that if Mary Baker Eddy is wrong, why is John Wesley Right? He lists several people like that. Why should we think one is right while the other is wrong? How about the same standard? Evidence?

Finally on p. 182, Damick tells us that the Church doesn’t have any learning to do because God has revealed Himself to them and by leading the apostles into all truth. I am unsure how to take this. Part of me is concerned that Damick could be saying learning is not needed anymore. Also, just because the immediate apostles were led into all truth, it doesn’t mean that thoes who were immediately after them have the same promise.

Another concern I have with Damick’s work is that I don’t see a defense of Orthodoxy really. The defense is assumed. I can’t say that the criticisms of Roman Catholicism are certain. They look fine to me, but I don’t know enough about Roman Catholicism to speak definitively.

Damick’s book is good in many of its criticisms, but I don’t see the strong case for Orthodoxy yet. To be fair, I don’t think he’s writing for that purpose and I think his intended audience is fellow Orthodox. I appreciate his learning and I think we could have a good conversation together, but I find some of his defenses lacking.

In Christ,
Nick Peters