The following news report was published on the website news24.com and can be found here.
Buenos Aires - An Argentine evangelical pastor was born again when a psalm book he was holding deflected a bullet fired at close range, officials in the western province of Mendoza said on Thursday.
Mauricio Zanes Condori, 38, was trying to talk two thieves out of robbing his church, located in the town of Rodeo del Medio, some 1 000km west of Buenos Aires, local judicial authorities reported.
One of the thieves aimed his handgun at Zanes Condori's chest and fired at a distance of two metres.
The criminals immediately fled, and churchgoers who were watching the event unfold in horror called an ambulance.
The bullet however hit the psalm book that Zanes Condori was holding to his chest.
A medic who arrived at the scene said that the book slowed down the bullet and deflected its trajectory, so in the end it only scratched Zanes Condori's chest.
The official report said that a Bible had stopped the bullet, but Zanes Condori later clarified that it was a psalm book.
"That leads me to beieve in a God that takes care of me," Zanes Condor told the online publication Los Andes.
Some discussion is prompted by my recent review of Denise Woods' book. My appreciation to Marie Kuhlmann who asked what one must do with Eph 6:12 - in reaction to my final paragraph's remark:
In all of this, they are actually nailing Jesus back on the cross, because they promote the idea that God is powerless against the devil unless Christians themselves step in and start fighting him off. Why else would it be necessary to chase the devil away by destroying a building as if God hadn’t already declared the victory?
It is obviously an important question, as Ephesians refers in more than one place to the principalities and the "spiritual hosts of wickedness" (see also Eph 2:2).
A simple, text-immanent, reading of the text expects of us to accept the reality of the belief in supernatural powers that are opposed to God. The broader biblical context also helps us to understand that there was quite a large following of pagan worship in Ephesus (see Acts 19:21-40). Archaeological research confirmed that Artemis worship was connected to occult practices which, according to the Jewish worldview, was deemed as demonic. Thus, a modern-day reader will make a mistake if she/he tries to understand the references to the devil in the text only as metaphorically, or if he/she reduces the ancient belief system to mere ancient superstition. For these people, the demonic was a living reality.
The issue therefore isn't to explain their understanding of the demonic, but how to practically deal with it. Taken on face-value it would seem that Eph 6:12 in a stand-alone way exhorts believers to take up arms against the devil as part of a cosmic war that is raging around us. Luckily we know that a single Bible verse cannot be used apart from its immediate context as a foundation for theological theories (such as those theologies dictating the belief in spiritual warfare). In this case, specifically, the immediate context helps us understand what Paul meant with this verse. A few remarks need to be made:
* Paul starts his argument with the exhortation that we must stand strong in the Lord and the strength of His might (Eph 6:10). The focus seems to be on God and our absolute dependence on Him.
* Paul instructs the Ephesian believers to put on God's armour to be able to stand against the wiles of the devil (Eph 6:11). Notice that the purpose of putting on the armour is not to attack but to keep standing when attacked. One must remember that Paul's intention with the letter was the encouragement of the believers, who are besieged because of their faith, and not a call to spiritual warfare-action. The whole context of Ephesians reflects his building-up of their identity in Christ and their missionary purpose as church by living in the presence of Christ. (It is interesting to observe that the whole letter consists - in Greek - of two primary sentences that get expanded verse by verse; the whole of Ephesians should be read as a single unit.) The command to stand is repeated in Eph 6:13, which re-inforces the purpose of standing fast without succumbing to an attack. Paul wanted the Ephesian believers to know that they will be attacked for their faith in an effort to lead them away from God, and that a successful withstanding of such an attack is to keep standing strong in the Lord. Clearly, he doesn't want them to focus on the devil or his works, but on God and God alone.
* It is just as important, when looking into the language structure of the original Greek, that Eph 6:12 was written as an expanding argument to Eph 6:10-11. This means that Paul wanted the Ephesians to know for certain that their suffering is the result of human hatred brought about by these people's unbelief in God - remember in Eph 2:2-10 the conclusion is made that people who do not believe in God, are for all practical intents and purposes under the control of powers that thrive on sin - the devil himself. In itself, this helps us to understand the role Paul in Ephesians attributes to the devil: He can only control people through their own unbelief (i.e. not accepting Christ as Lord) that leads them to live from the urges of their own sinful nature (see also Eph 4:17-20). They are indeed enslaved to the devil because of their unbelief and their sinful thoughts and deeds.
* One should also understand that Paul's use of army language in Eph 6 as the utilizing of to them-familiar imagery in order to convey religious meaning. As all his readers would undoubtedly have known how a Roman soldier's attire looks - moreover, what purpose each piece of the armour is supposed to serve - he could bank on this insight when he re-employs the imagery in religious terms.
* Roman soldiers girded their loins to leave their legs free for quick movement. Their breastplates covered the upper part of their bodies to protect it against attack. They wore shoes for the same obvious reason we do today - to protect our feet and be able to move easily on rough terrain. The use of a shield was also protective, as was the helmet a Roman soldier put on. The only (standard issue) part of a Roman soldier's armour that was intended to be engaged in a fight, was the sword.
* Upon re-employing this image, we find an interesting observation: Paul indeed was concerned about the believers steadfast faith and not about any battle with the devil they should be engaging in. That is why he equated the girding of loins with truth (the standing against any lies the devil spreads), the breastplate with righteousness (standing in their identity in Christ), shoes with the good news of peace (in the Greek language the word for gospel - euanggelion - actually means good news), the shield with faith (to hold on to the living reality of Christ), and the helmet with salvation (in order to protect our patterns of thinking). Clearly, Paul's view of a Christian "soldier's" armour is focused solely on Jesus Christ, the message of his salvation and the ability to hold on to this faith in times of tribulation.
* The only weapon left for a believer is the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. When we as Christians have the opportunity to "attack," our only weapon is to say what God said. That actually equates to spreading the gospel, to testify about the goodness of God!
* Furthermore, Paul put a very high premium on prayer (Eph 6:18) as part of a Christian's standing firm in the strength of the Lord. We should speak to God, plead with Him for ourselves and also for other believers and specifically ask Him that all believers will be able to boldly proclaim the mystery of the gospel.
What, then, is my conclusion?
There is no way that Eph 6:12 can be understood as Scripture basis for what some modern-day Christians view as spiritual warfare. The context of this verse leads us to God and his victory through Jesus Christ. We are reminded that the battle for our souls is not by occupying earthly places or binding people through suffering, but by aiming at believers' relationship with Christ. The devil isn't trying to take control of this world, he is trying to cause Christians to lose perspective in their ongoing faith walk and their struggle to be freed from the effects of their sinful nature. In short, he wants Christians to believe Jesus wasn't victorious at all, and to think living in a relationship with Christ is in vain.
The only way to achieve a withstanding of the devil's attack, is to focus on Christ and what it means to be strong in the Lord (i.e. growing in faith). It has absolutely nothing to do with the devil. It's all about God and how we focus on Jesus Christ.
Thanks to Ben Witherington I saw this interview with Tom Wright and found his insight in the modernistic problem of accepting the resurrection of Jesus very enlightening. His remarks about modernity are food for thought.
The regional synod leaders of the Dutch Reformed Church got together for a retreat some time ago (early May). As result of this fellowship, they issued the following declaration (translation my own):
Difference of opinion in a church is a good thing. It helps us to distinguish the wheat from the rubbish. We distinguish between different viewpoints especially by talking to each other. This we do through letters, articles, books and speeches, to name but a few. Without such a robust, distinguishing conversation a church cannot adequately conduct theology. It helps us be be obedient to the Lord. We think that the conversation about the resurrection of Jesus Christ over the past couple of years has lost track and became very personal. This is a sorry state of affairs and doesn't fit in a church that presupposes the faith in Jesus Christ, the confession of our church and the Word of God to bind us together. Through this, confusion is spread and the message of Jesus Christ is discredited.
We therefore call on all parties in the theological conversation to speak to each other with compassion, teachability and openness. Otherwise we won't be able to hear each other good enough and we don't reflect each other's viewpoints fairly. The conversation turns degrading and even malicious instead and threaten the unity ofd faith between us.
The confusion and lack of unity on such a core theological issue brings us to the conviction to call on the Dutch Reformed Church to confess the following about the resurrection of Jesus Christ:
* That Jesus Christ rose from the dead in bodily form on the third day after his crucifixion (Luke 24);
* That his physical body was taken up in his resurrected body in such a way that we cannot fully comprehend it (1 Corinthians 15);
* That our bodies will also rise from the dead, just as He promised (John 11; 1 Corinthians 15).
This is the core confession of the Bible as well as our official creeds. It is also what binds us as Christians to each other on a profoundly deep level. And this is what we want to believe and confess with all discussion partners.
My friend, David Hayward, posted this cartoon on his site, The Naked Pastor. It can be misinterpreted, I'm sure, but the humorous truth of his drawing says something more about religious life and traditions than you'd think!
Recently, there was a debate in the letters column of the Afrikaans newspaper, Beeld. The thing was started by a person who, along with some children, visited the Voortrekkermonument on a cultural tour. He was shocked by the keeping of condoms in the monument’s rest rooms and wrote a letter about it. In reply another reader referred to a book by Denise Woods (“Oes die Stormwind van Volksgodsdiens”) and re-iterated her thesis that the Voortrekkermonument is a temple to the sun god, a place where the devil lives, and should be destroyed. This prompted other responses, some in favour of this view, and others opposing it. As I read the book, and wrote a review of it for Kerkbode (Afrikaans news paper of the Dutch Reformed Church), I decided to translate my thoughts and publish it hear, in somewhat adapted form.
Upon reading “Oes die Stormwind” I was filled with trepidation. This is the first systematic publication in Afrikaans that demonstrates fundamentalistic theology (if you can dare call it theology) in action.
At the core of “Oes ...” lies the belief that the Voortrekkermonument (an Afrikaner cultural site situated in Pretoria) is actually a temple for the glorification of the sun god. As such, the Afrikaner people is contractually bound in a spiritual marriage with the Evil One. Therefore, all blood shedding during apartheid, the current violence in South Africa and the dissolving of family life and marriages in the country is the direct result of the collective idolatry of Afrikaners during 1938-1949. This idolatry must be purposefully ended in our generation, as it was prophetically established that the flame of revival will come forth from South Africa and influence the rest of the world.
However, it isn’t the content of the book that filled me with trepidation. It is the way in which ms Woods combines her arguments, use the Bible, and enmesh theology with superstition, that left a taste in my mouth. She successfully establishes an alternative world view where the supernatural plays a central role and in which white South African Christians are enslaved through demonic binding. It is as if we use the same Afrikaans words and religious terminology without speaking the same language. At the heart of the book’s logic – and this is one thing I can concede to ms Woods: she writes coherently and logically; it is easy to believe her – lies a theological approach that interprets the Bible from a radically different way as standard theology does.
First of all, she reads Old Testament texts without taking into account its context. Prophesies made about Israel are contextualised for today with total disregard of the fact that the situations and cultures differ vastly. The language and metaphors of Old Testament Hebrews are totally ignored and the modern day translation of the original text is used as primary interpretive framework. This leads to allegorisations all through her book – prophecies by Isaiah to Egypt are used as referring to the whole of Africa, for example. Moreover, the immediate Scripture context of the verses she quotes and their trains of thought are ignored, reaching a different interpretation as it would have been when read into its context – as she did with the prophecy in Is 19:1 (p. 9).
The second aspect driving ms Woods’ logic is her understanding of the place and function of the supernatural. In the book it becomes evident she separated the world into visible and invisible parts, with demons in control of everything. As such, she believes demons can take up residence in physical structures, bind people, demonise Christians and so forth. On a personal level, being also subjected to this belief system, I came to the conclusion that this is based on a elementary understanding of texts such as Ex 20:5, Deut 28, Esechiel 18:2 and James 4:7. This understanding of Scripture is furthermore integrated with a creative, revelation-based expansion of what the Bible really teaches about demonic forces. In this way is Daniel 9 interpreted to accept that demons are organised in worldwide territorial forces and people (who unknowingly get involved in matters where supernatural forces are involved) provide “legal grounds” for these demons to bind them. As evidence of this demonic binding serve the existence of depression and miscarriages.
Thirdly, ms Woods bases her argument on the reception of revelations and prophetic words that the Holy Spirit apparently gave to believers in South Africa and Nigeria. It is remarkable how she gives a central role to Nigerian prophets. On the basis of a prophecy that was given from 1 Kings 13:1-3 (p. xvii), a whole movement is established to break the power the devil through the Voortrekkermonument has over South Africa. Thus, the thoughts in the book aren’t new, it is basically a capturing in writing the arguments heard from several people involved in spiritual warfare over some time already.
Though the writer tries hard to award some legitimacy to her subject through the inclusion of scholarly references, she only succeeds in exposing her inadequate research by this use of historical sources – even though she states that her book wasn’t meant to have an academic foundation. It is amazing that she refers to older sources from Afrikaner history to show the Afrikaner nationalist notion that they are God’s chosen people, have a higher calling, a specific task in Africa without critically evaluating the philosophical background of the time frame in which it was written. While she tries to defend herself against accusations of fundamentalism (p. xx), her theological approach is precariously close to extreme fundamentalism. It makes for a very dangerous book: theology and superstition is welded together to mislead "good faithed" (but definitely not gullible) readers into believing they are being demonised. She misleads readers with superstition by refining the idea that the devil can intentionally inhabit places so that every cultural relic in South Africa – specifically the Voortrekkermonument – must be destroyed. And she mislead them by implying that the involvement of Afrikaans churches in the era 1938 to 1949 results in these churches being agents of the devil today (p. 186; p. 192). Through all this she recreated the devil into a perfect anti-God, by over-extending the powers that were attributed to him in the Bible. She does this through selective Scripture use and the importance she attributes to prophecies by so-called Nigerian prophets.
One could choose to ignore the book. But it was underwritten by prominent charismatic pastors, and it was published by a mainstream book house. not to mention the resurgence in the newspaper debates about the book. It is urgently necessary to reflect theologically on this sort of fundamentalistic theology and its view of spiritual renewal.The theology presented in this book is leading to a new form of Christendom - one that uses the same Bible as other believers, but who comes to totally different conclusions because of the way Scripture is used as proof-text for visions and prophetic utterances that supposedly come directly from the Holy Spirit.
These believers subsequently castrated God’s authority by reducing Him to an impotent ruler who must cover his wickets against a equally powerful Lucifer. In their belief system the notion that the devil originally was cast out of heaven as punishment for his initial rebellion, is conveniently forgotten. The clear Biblical teaching (e.g. John 16:11) that the devil is already judged is turned into a neverending battle where he is in control and God must fight him for this world. In the mean time the Bible is quite clear that this world belongs to God, that He rules over his creation and that the devil has been conquered at the cross of Jesus. The only power he will have over unbelieving people today, is through their own sinfulness and lust to do all that is wrong. He have no authority over God’s children, as the Bible clearly states nothing can come between God and his children (Romans 8:38-39), and the indwelling of the Holy Spirt enables Christians to live free from the bondage of sin (Romans 6:18).
One could go on and launch a more in-depth discussion about the use of the specific Bible text ms Woods uses to establish her demonology (as this teaching of the devil’s presumed ability to demonise Christians and inhabit places cannot be viewed as theology). As this is a discussion point on its own, suffice it to say that her isolated use of Scripture undermines the same texts’ actual messages. Ms Woods and the people who, like herself, believe this stuff, cannot shield themselves from theological scrutiny by declaring they are not theologians. Fact is: they make theological pronouncements based on Biblical texts; and they systematically create new scientific thought paradigms based on this Scripture study – they are indeed busy with theology, and bad theology at that.
In all of this, they are actually nailing Jesus back on the cross, because they promote the idea that God is powerless against the devil unless Christians themselves step in and start fighting him off. Why else would it be necessary to chase the devil away by destroying a building as if God hadn’t already declared the victory?
We had a thunderstorm in Cape Town this morning. It is very unusual to have this weather in May. The pictures turned out spectacular, so I thought I'd share some of those who are doing the rounds via email. Congratulations to the people who managed to capture these images on camera.
The theological faculty of the Universit of Stellenbosch, as well as Communitas, co-hosted a conference on the book of Acts this week. The purpose with the conference was to launch a three-year long reading process of Acts to learn more from this book about being a missional church in today's South African context. Seven discussion groups will be formed afterwards that will continue the reading to look more specific into certain themes that presented itself in Acts.
The key-note speakers were proff Beverly Gaventa, Klippies Kritzinger, Scott McKnight and Christoph Stenschke. I had the privilege of presenting a minuscully small paper (it was more a review of a forth-coming publication, actually) at one of the break-away sessions.
It was from the outset apparent that the academic standard would be quite excellent. The research being presented was well done. The perspectives put forth were enligthening. As it was the purpose of the conference to relate the researchers' insight in Acts to being a modern-day missional church, all speakers focused on how Acts help us understand the earliest Christians' efforts to spreading the gospel after Pentecost. It also helps us understand Acts' leadership, its communities and what we should do differently today. It was very good to sit in session after session and work primarily with the text.
I specifically enjoyed the contributions of Beverly Gaventa, lecturer in New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary. She was quite clear in her understanding of the text and the depth of her long investigations into Luke-Acts and the resulting insights was quite evident. I appreciated her clear articulation of the continued presence of the living Christ and her assertion in her first presentation that God actually has the power in the church and not people. Beverly made an interesting and thought provoking remark: If you cannot believe in the devil as personal, you also cannot believe in God as personal.
I also enjoyed Klippies Kritzinger's contribution. He is involved with UNISA's theological seminary as a missiologist. He is one of those theologians with the ability to integrate confession with theology in a coherent way - as his use of the confession of Belhar demonstrated: Mission is to bring about reconciliation between God and people and between peoples of differing cultures. The different stories in Luke-Acts also demonstrate this. And listening to prof Stenschke, I was struck with the fact that an evangelical intent is growing among European Christians; it seems that a new faith-giving spirit is rising again in that context. Although very detailed,he showed us how real cross-cultural evangelisation was understood in the book of Acts.
Unfortunately I totally missed out on Scott McKnight. Today, being the final day, I was called out to attend to my ill son. Thus it was quite a bummer not to be able to hear McKnight's insights on Acts and a missional church. (Luckily it isn't serious, but it's serious enough to have him home-ridden for the rest of the week.)
What I appreciated a lot was the opportunity to reconnect with some of my old class mates from varsity days. They came all the way from Gauteng and the Free State for this conference and we could catch up with each other. In itself, this exchange was quite refreshing and insightful.
I'm glad to be part of this initiative! One thing is clear: God is alive and working in this world. And there are excellent theologians out there who know this living, working God on a very personal level and who are not afraid to testify to that.
I came across this presentatione done by Al Gore, previous vice-president of the USA. He presents some new facts about environmental change. This serves to stress our responsibility towards the planet.
There can be good theology behind the environmental movement as it is not just a secular drive. I wish for example we could start taking our calling to multiply and rule the earth (Gen 1) not from a ruler point of view, but from the servant viepoint that God intended when He issued the call in the first place.
