The Sabbath in the New Testament - Managing your Time through the Sabbath

In Sunday School at 2^nd Reformed Presbyterian Church this past week we continued our class on the Sabbath and our time. Last week we looked at the purpose for the Sabbath in the Old Testament. This week we examined the purpose of the Sabbath in the New Testament.

1.     Christ’s View of the Sabbath

Many of Christ’s miracles were performed on the Jewish Sabbath and was criticized by the Pharisees for not keeping the Sabbath. In Mark 7:1-13, Christ and the Pharisees debate the role of rituals and customs in society. The Pharisees ask Jesus why his disciples don’t wash their hands. His response is to call them hypocrites because they are concerned with rituals while forgetting the essence of the law. They did not focus on the inclination of a person’s heart. Rather than wanting to keep God’s law, they made it lawful to break God’s law.

Another time, the Pharisees catch Jesus’ disciples picking up grain to eat on the Sabbath in Matthew 12:1-14. They challenge Jesus’ about his disciples behavior. Jesus’ response is to say that works of mercy and works of necessity are allowable on the Sabbath. One should do good on the Sabbath. Helping others have a day of rest is a fitting use of the Sabbath.

In some sense, Christ’s interpretation of the fourth commandments broadens it from how the Pharisees were interpreting it. Rather than limit what one can do on the Sabbath, Christ broadens the fourth commandment to encourage fellow believers to do good to others, especially on the Sabbath.

2.     Paul’s warning about the Sabbath

In Colossians 2, Paul warns the church in Colossea to not allow anyone to pass judgment regarding “questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath.” The reason is that these things are “shadows” of the “substance” which is Christ. Ultimately, these practices have no eternal value for the believer. Rather our substance is found in Christ.

Likewise, the Sabbath’s focus is on Christ. It is a day for Christians to remember what God has done to bring them to Himself. It’s a joyous celebration. The particular practices or “human precepts and teachings” that come out of keeping the Sabbath (like no bicycling on the Sabbath) are not what is fundamental to the Sabbath.

Paul warns the young pastor Timothy to beware of people who have the appearance of godliness, the form, but deny its power (2 Timothy 3:1-5). People who merely keep the appearance of godliness, following right practices, are still in their hearts set against God. This is how Paul describes them:

“lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”

One can keep the Sabbath, keep the structure and follow the rules, but if one’s heart is not set on Christ and love for Him then one is merely following the appearance of godliness.

3.     The Church’s Response to the Old Law

In Acts 15, the church had to decide whether the Gentiles were to keep the old law or ceremonial law. In the midst of the debate, Peter argues that the Gentiles do not have to keep the old law. His reason is put in the form of a question. “Why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? But we believe that we will be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will.”

Peter is saying that the church should not put the burden of the law on the gentile believers because it is by grace that believers are saved. The Gentiles won’t be saved by keeping the law. Keeping the Sabbath is not a burden of the ceremonial law. As it says in Isaiah 58, keeping the Sabbath is a “delight.” Sometimes though, believers practice of the Sabbath can be like keeping the ceremonial law. Rather than keeping the focus on Christ, the focus is on the rules and regulations of a particular place and time.

4.     The Focus of the Sabbath 

In Hebrews 4:1-13, the writer tells the church that one day there will be rest for God’s people in God’s presence. The writer points to the Sabbath as a sampling of what we’re looking forward to. But even more so, the Christian ceasing from work on the Sabbath is a deep and comforting reminder that because of Christ’s work on the cross, Christians do not need to work for their salvation. Pulling back from work on the Sabbath and saying no to what we do during the week gives us a taste of what is to come but also reminds us that our salvation comes from the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

Joseph A Pipa says in his book, The Lord’s Day, “The Sabbath ‘deals the death-blow to our becoming workaholics or to our being obsessed with our favorite recreation or activity.’ - there is the practical side effect of the Sabbath that here is a direct contradiction between what God wants us to do and what we want to do.” (66)

In conclusion, the focus of the Sabbath is on Christ. We use the Sabbath appropriately when we set aside the daily affairs of life to focus on Christ. It is a day of rest in what Christ has done for us.

Why did God Give Ancient Israel the Sabbath - Managing your Time through the Sabbath

At 2nd Reformed Presbyterian Church I am teaching a class on the Sabbath. Last week we looked at the question “Why did God rest?” This week we are asking the question, “why did God give ancient Israel the Sabbath?”
The general goals of the class are:

1. To know why God rested 
2. To know how Legalism and Antinomianism creeps into our Sabbath 
3. To process our redeeming the time through the Sabbath 
4. To perceive the Sabbath as the reference point for how we use our time 
5. To prepare our hearts and minds for worship 

This week we’re going to pay special attention to the second goal, specifically through Israel’s response to God’s command to “remember the Sabbath.”

1. Israel’s Heart Toward the Sabbath

It says in Amos 8:4-6:

Hear this, you who trample on the needy and bring the poor of the land to an end, saying, “When will the new moon be over, that we may sell grain? And the Sabbath, that we may offer wheat for sale, that we may make the ephah small and the shekel great and deal deceitfully with false balances, that we may buy the poor for silver and the needy for a pair of sandals and sell the chaff of the wheat?

Amos was written near the end of the Northern Kingdom of Israel. Rather than having hearts and minds for God, Ephraim turned its hearts were greedy. Consequently, the Sabbath became a burden to them. It was something they wanted to throw off. 

The Northern Kingdom’s attitude is very different than when God first gave the command, “Keep the Sabbath Day.” The writer of Exodus describes the state of Israel when they were slaves in Egypt:

During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew… Then the LORD said, “I have surely seen the affliction of my people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings... (Exodus 2:23-25 and 3)

Israel did not rest while they were enslaved. In his last public address, Moses reminds the Israelites that they are to “Observe the Sabbath day, to keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you.” Because “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.” (Deuteronomy 5:12 and 15)

When Israel first received the law, the Sabbath reminded them of their former slavery in Egypt and the freedom God gave them in the promise land.

2. God’s command to Israel

The command of God to Israel, to “not do any work,” on the Sabbath was strict. The command goes as far as to say, “Six days work shall be done, but on the seventh day you shall have a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on it shall be put to death. You shall kindle no fire in all your dwelling places on the Sabbath day.” (Exodus 35:3) Why did God give a strict structure to the Sabbath?

It was to give Israel a break. Bruce A. Ray explains in Celebrating the Sabbath:

A man is refreshed when, having exhausted himself, he recovers his breathe. The Sabbath, therefore, is a God-given opportunity to catch our breath in the midst of our weekly routine of work. It is intended to be a break, an opportunity to pause and be refreshed, to catch our breath before going back to work. (61)

In order to give people the chance to “catch our breath” We need boundaries. The purpose for not even “kindling” fire on the Sabbath is to show that keeping the Sabbath takes preparation. Work needs to be done on the six other days. Fires need to be kindled before the Sabbath, not during the Sabbath. In Psalm 42, David remembers what it was like to keep this solemn and holy day:

These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
how I would go with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and songs of praise,
a multitude keeping festival. (Psalm 42:4)

David remembers the Sabbath day as a day of keeping festival, full of joy and shouts of praise. The boundaries set up by God for Israel created a space for Israel to celebrate and have a joyous occasion. 

3. Israel’s Response

While wandering through the wilderness a man is caught collecting sticks on the Sabbath. Here is what happened:

While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath day. And those who found him gathering sticks brought him to Moses and Aaron and to all the congregation. They put him in custody, because it had not been made clear what should be done to him. And the LORD said to Moses, “The man shall be put to death; all the congregation shall stone him with stones outside the camp.” And all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones, as the LORD commanded Moses. (Numbers 15:32-36)

Israel’s response to the Sabbath is to follow God’s command. They are willing to take a man’s life for breaking God’s law. But why did God command the stoning of a man for just picking up sticks, and why the whole community?

The context is helpful in answering the first question, why did God command the stoning of a man for just picking up sticks? Just prior to to the story in the text, instructions about people who intentionally break God’s law and unintentionally break God’s law are given:

If one person sins unintentionally, he shall offer a female goat a year old for a sin offering. And the priest shall make atonement before the LORD for the person who makes a mistake, when he sins unintentionally, to make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven. You shall have one law for him who does anything unintentionally, for him who is native among the people of Israel and for the stranger who sojourns among them. But the person who does anything with a high hand, whether he is native or a sojourner, reviles the LORD, and that person shall be cut off from among his people. Because he has despised the word of the LORD and has broken his commandment, that person shall be utterly cut off; his iniquity shall be on him. (Numbers 15:27-31)

Israel was chosen by God as a holy people. To be pure before the Lord. For them to have one who intentionally sins against God and to “revile the Lord” is to have someone who is a traitor to their country. Just like any country would put a traitor to death in our day, so Israel did the same. There is also a deeper reason.

The man was not just picking up sticks. He was creating a different culture in the camp that would have made it more difficult for others around him to keep the Sabbath. This is why the whole community participated in his execution. Keeping the Sabbath is a communal activity. You cannot keep the Sabbath alone. The man was participating in an economic activity would have put him a step above other competitors in his profession. This would have created pressure for others to start working on the Sabbath as well.

How we spend our time on the Sabbath, as in any other day, has an effect on people around us. In fact, the decision of how we spend our time is an ethical decision. Judith Shulevitz in The Sabbath World says:

The Sabbath – God’s claim against our time – implies that time has an ethical dimension. We rest in order to honor God and his creation, which suggests that not to rest dishonors both. So must we say that the speeding up of everything is not only psychologically harmful but morally wrong? (24)

Ultimately, Israel’s strong response to dwindled. By the time of Zedekiah’s reign, Israel did not keep the Sabbath:

Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he began to reign, and he reigned eleven years in Jerusalem. 12 He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord his God. He did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke from the mouth of the Lord. 13 he also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God. he stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the Lord, the God of Israel. 14 All the officers of the priests and the people likewise were exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations. And they polluted the house of the Lord that he had made holy in Jerusalem. 15 The Lord, the God of their fathers, sent persistently to them by his messengers, because he had compassion on his people and on his dwelling place. 16 but they kept mocking the messengers of God, despising his words and scoffing at his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord rose against his people, until there was no remedy. (2 Chronicles 36:11-16)

Consequently, Israel was taken into captivity for their disobedience. All the while, God spoke to them by the prophets, warning them to turn their hearts toward him:

“If you turn back your foot from the Sabbath, from doing your pleasure on my holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight and the holy day of the LORD honorable; if you honor it, not going your own ways, or seeking your own pleasure, or talking idly; then you shall take delight in the LORD, and I will make you ride on the heights of the earth; I will feed you with the heritage of Jacob your father, for the mouth of the LORD has spoken.” (Isaiah 58:13-14)

Israel had rejected God’s blessing of the Sabbath. Rest brings life and the Sabbath is a day of “keeping festival.” Instead of receiving this wonderful blessing, Israel returned to slavery and exile from the promise land. Eventually, Israel was allowed to return to the promised land and the faithful began to keep God’s law.

What’s interesting, prior to their exile is how Israel stopped keeping God’s law. Then, they began to keep God’s law but it got to the point where they kept it the extreme. After the fall of Jerusalem, The Talmud was written. In it, as a way of clarifying God’s law, additional regulations and rules were added to the Sabbath. Eventually, about 1,500 regulations were added to explaining what it meant to keep the Sabbath. Israel flipped from not keeping God’s law to adding to God’s law.

The danger is that we begin to fall back into a list or set of rules that are not of scripture and even if they are of scripture, we give them higher priority than what scripture speaks of in general (helping the poor, giving to those in need, loving others,) and that is actually an act of pride. We’re putting ourselves in control of the Sabbath and not recognizing God’s sovereignty over the Sabbath – that he in his omnipotence has chosen one 24-hour period for a day of rest. 

Questions for Reflection:

1. Is there a time in your life where you have seen yourself swing from antinomianism to legalism or vice versa? 
2. Keeping the Sabbath takes discipline and work. What are ways where how we spend our time will influence our Sabbath? 
3. Why does it take a community to keep the Sabbath? 

Why Did God Rest: Managing your Time through the Sabbath

At 2nd Reformed Presbyterian Church, I am beginning to lead a new Sunday School class on managing our time through the Sabbath. Each week I’ll be posting a summary of the class discussion for people who were unable to attend.

There are five goals for the class: 

     1. To know why God rested.
     2. To know how legalism and Antinomianism creeps into our Sabbath.
     3. To process “redeeming the time” through keeping the Sabbath.
     4. To perceive the Sabbath as the reference point for how we use our time.
     5. To prepare our hearts and minds for worship.

This week we looked at, “why God rested on the Sabbath” and how that relates to our daily lives.

Your position on the Sabbath is inevitable. Automatically we decide how to use our time on the Sabbath. The Sabbath was given to us by God and inevitably we use it. In her book, Receiving the Day, Dorothy C. Bass quotes sociologist Edward T. Hall:

Time talks… It speaks more plainly then words. The message it conveys comes through loud and clear. Because it is manipulated less consciously, it is subject to less distortion than the spoken language. It can shout the truth where words lie. (xi)

Similar to money, how we spend our times says a lot about who we are and what we value.

Also, God wants us to use our timely wise, as Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.” (5:15-16) The King James phrases it as as “redeeming the time.” We all are given a certain amount of time in our lives and some day, like the servants in Jesus’ parable of the talents (Matthew 25:14-20), we will have to answer for how we have spent our time.

Why did God Rest? 

God commands all people to keep the Sabbath day holy. This command stems from when God created the world, “And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.” (Genesis 2:2-3) But this raises an interesting question, God has no need to rest, so why did God rest?

Joseph Pipa in his book, The Lord’s Day (28-31) offers three reasons for why God rested:

1. To Declare his Work as Creator was Completed

All the work that God had done in the first six days was complete, and so, God came to the seventh day with no additional work that needed to be done. Certainly, God had work. Jesus says in John 5:17, “My Father is working until now, and I am working.” Resting on the Sabbath does not mean the mere ceasing of all work.

2. To Express Delight in Creation

God enjoyed the Sabbath. It was a day of refreshment for him. All His weekly work was complete and He was able to relish in it Exodus 31:17 goes as far to say that God was “refreshed.”

3. To Picture the Rest He Provides for Humanity

There is an eternal rest for all of humanity found in Christ Jesus. The writer of Hebrews says, “So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his.” (Hebrews 4:10) Christ’s resurrection, which we celebrate on the first day of the week, is not the end or fulfilment but is the beginning of life eternal, of the abundant blessed rest in Jesus. Sunday is a taste of the saints’ experience in heaven.

In light of these ideas about why God rested on the seventh day, what does this say about us and the Sabbath?

How God's Rest Relates to Us

1. Come to the Sabbath with your Work Completed

It important to recognize that this is not a command of Scripture but a sign of what is going on in our lives. A sign is a mark or signal of the presence of something else.

When you find yourself at the end of the week wishing you could work on the Sabbath then you have a sign of something deeper going on in your heart. It is a sign that something is beginning to take the place of God in your life. That your desires are being turned away from God and to something that God created. The Sabbath is a good litmus test to see what idols we have in our lives.

2. Enjoy the Day

Judith Shulevitz in her article "Bringing Back the Sabbath:

Most people mistakenly believe that all you have to do to stop working is not work. The inventors of the Sabbath understood that it was a much more complicated undertaking. You cannot downshift casually and easily. This is why the Puritan and Jewish Sabbaths were so exactingly intentional. The rules did not exist to torture the faithful. They were meant to communicate the insight that interrupting the ceaseless round of striving requires a surprisingly strenuous act of will, one that has to be bolstered by habit as well as by social sanction. 

A part of having “rules” about Sabbath keeping comes from a desire of being able to enjoy a day of rest and refreshment. In Deuteronomy, God reminds the Israelites that when they were enslaved in Egypt, they had no rest. The Sabbath was given to them to remind them that “God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.” Because they were free from slavery, God wanted them to work hard at creating a day of rest.

It takes work to enjoy the Sabbath. You have to be mindful that what you commit to doing on Monday influences whether you’ll come to Saturday night ready for a day of rest. Without careful prep, it is difficult to rest.

3. Remember What the LORD has Done

Christ calls “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28) He is saying that those who are burdened with their sin can come to Him and he will ease their burden. The Sabbath is a special day to remember what Christ has done and then to live it out in our lives. We can take off the toil of work and relish in what Christ has done.

Conclusion

God calls all people to rest. It is a day he intended to be full of rest and relief. Yet, to get to this point of resting, it takes work during the week to prepare for the Sabbath. Next week we’ll be looking at the purpose for the Sabbath in the Old Testament.

Questions for Reflection:

1. What are we to remember specifically on the Sabbath day? Also, what are practical consequences for how we are to go about remembering
2. If an infinite being would rest, why can’t you? 
3. Do work, hobbies and activities during the week hurt your ability to rest on the Sabbath, why? 

What is Ancient Western Philosophy?

It can be a tricky thing to explain when something begins and ends. Political era and wars are fairly easily to define. The Obama Administration began in 2008 and most likely will end in 2016. The War on Terror began in the year 2001. But even these can be hard to define. For instance, Wildrow Wilson was virtually incapacitated for his last year in office as president. Can we really say his term ended in ’21 since his wife essentially took the reigns of his presidency? Perhaps its more accurate to say that for two years, the country was run by the First Lady, like many a Empress Dowager of China? Here we are splitting hairs but it goes to show that it can be precise when saying when something began and when something began. Explaining when Ancient Western Philosophy began is of this sort.

On the side, I do defend my decision to not talk about Eastern Philosophy in this series. It is a practical reason. There is not enough time to cover that much material in a summer. On top of a practical reason there is a conceptual one. Eastern philosophy is a whole different ball game then western philosophy. Perhaps, if this goes well, that will be a future project.

So when did Ancient Western Philosophy begin? Most history of philosophies will begin with Thales as the first ancient Greek thinker. This is not to say there was no one before him. I am not saying Thales discovered philosophy like Isaac Newton discovered the law of gravity. Rather, the earliest writings we have of western philosophy, aka Greek philosophy, are attributed him. But when does it end? This is where the dilemma really begins.

The resolution is simple. My goal is to reach Neo-Platonic philosophy that began around the 200s A.D. If I get beyond that then I will have more then accomplished my goal. In other words, ancient western philosophy ends when the summer ends and a real answer to the dilemma is forth coming.

An Overview of the Summer’s Postings

The series is broken up into four parts. First there are the Pre-Socratics. These are philosophers who lived before Socrates or were not influenced by him. This will lead us up to the big three: Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. Then there is Hellenistic philosophy. I am considering breaking these posts up into explanations of philosophical systems rather then philosophers. Readers input here will be quite helpful. Lastly, there will be Roman philosophy. You will see that I have divided ancient philosophy chronologically with the exception of The Big Three. I hope breaking the series down into these sections will help show while highlight how ancient philosophy changes over time yet certain questions remain throughout this rich time in world history.

Who Cares about Ancient Western Philosophy?

Welcome to the first in a series of explanations of ancient western philosophy. I hope you find these articles helpful and thought provoking.

You are probably wondering why read about ancient western philosophy. This knowledge does not add practical value to your life nor is it entertaining. In fact, there seems to be no value in thinking about ancient western philosophy.

Since you are still reading you may find it worthwhile to spend a couple minutes thinking about the reason for learning about ancient western philosophy. Perhaps you can’t put your finger on it, but you have an inkling there is worth in pursuing knowledge of ancient western philosophy. Intuition is not enough. The skeptic’s attack drowns out the hint. The skeptic’s claim is: 

Ancient western philosophy is not a worthwhile investigation. It does not add to our lives. Our time and energy is best spent on things of pleasure and practical value.

At first glance this claim seems to take the wind out of our sails, and we haven’t even left the harbor. Certainly, the “pleasure objection,” as we will call it, has some force. If I have a choice between reading Plato and taking in the aroma of facebook, I often choose facebook. Likewise, cats chasing lasers tastes better then reading Zeno. Yet, this is not what the pleasure objection is saying. It is saying that ancient western philosophy is worthless.

The irony of the pleasure objection is that it follows the path it objects against. By offering the claim ancient western philosophy is worthless, it is promoting a specific philosophical position that lies within the tradition of ancient western philosophy. Really, the objection is saying that it thinks itself has no value. That is a self-defeating claim.

A Stronger Objection

Perhaps we can salvage the pleasure objection. We will call it the sophisticated pleasure objection. It goes something like this. Humanity has gone beyond ancient philosophy. Technology and science are the foundation. Man is becoming more and more sophisticated and the world a more complex place. Ancient western philosophy is no help because we live in such a different world. In other words, there is no longer a need to study ancient western philosophy because it is obsolete.

We are forced to concede something. First, we agree that the world is much more complicated then it was back when ancient western philosophy wasn’t ancient. Furthermore, Western society no longer functions even just a 100 years ago, much less over 2,000 years. The foundational principles of the west have eroded away. A pseudo-postmodernism reigns triumphant. We see it in art, movies, and culture. At its foundation lies trust in science and technology to solve problems and make sense of the world around us. This we are forced to concede.

Yet, we are not forced to concede to the objection if we can show on the contrary that ancient western philosophy is not obsolete.

We can’t stop people from thinking but we can stop people from thinking poorly.

Good thinking doesn’t come naturally. It comes from constant hard practice and from a teacher. That’s what philosophers do. They teach us how to think well. When you read and consider Plato’s forms, you are not just figuring out if he has gotten it right but being taught how to think from one of the influential minds of the west. Over time, it will rub off on you if you are committed to constant hard practice.

It is not an easy task nor is it for the faint of heart. Careful thinking requires diligent labor. It’s long and hard labor that takes years before fruit begins to grow. The fruit is well worth the wait. So join me in this summer of reading about ancient western philosophy. I think you will find it to be profitable.

A Story for Your Consideration

A couple weeks ago I was discussing with my students the ethics of the Opium Wars between China and the British Empire. I asked my students whether countries are ethically obligated to stop trading a good if the other country asks them to stop. Our discussion naturally revolved around today’s drug wars. One of my classes took the discussion in an interesting direction.

Two claimed it is not possible to answer the question. They said there is no one who can say there is right and wrong, “it’s all just our opinion.”  My response was that there seems to be universals about what is right and wrong. My two students interjected that there are multiple opinions about morality and we can’t clearly see these universals throughout all cultures. “It’s just too hard to figure it out,” said one. Quickly I pointed out that they would agree that actions of genocide and rape are wrong, have always been wrong and will always be wrong. There is no context, for instance, where the Holocaust can be ethically justified. One conceded but the other did not.

He spoke tentatively. “Yeah, the Nazis saw what they were doing to be right and good. So it was right and good for them. How can I figure out how they are wrong?” Sadly, I never answered his question.

What was troubling about the discussion was not my student’s positions but their lack of reasoning. They found the very existence of a contrary moral claim to be evidence that moral intuitions are inherently defective. One student was even willing to go as far as to say he couldn’t find reason to claim the Holocaust is wrong. Clearly one could argue, as the Nazis did, such treatment is justified, but there are a host of reasons to confidently disagree.

Though you might take my student’s position about the relativity of ethics, I hope you can see the shallowness of my students thinking. They hadn’t rubbed shoulders with powerful arguments and claims of thoughtful writers. He probably never will. How do you know you’re not in the same position? It is worth reading about ancient western philosophy because it forces us to think and even to think carefully. So, join me in this blog series on ancient western philosophy.

A Response to Albert Mohler Jr.

Just recently, Albert Mohler Jr. wrote a blog post on the question "should Christian parents send their children to public school?" As a Christian and a public school teacher I think there are issues with Dr. Mohler's post. 

Mohler's Analysis in sum 

Dr. Mohler provides a short history of education from the late 1800s to the 1980s. He says American education originated in "the village." Parents controlled most of the curriculum in their child's school. This began to change with the arrival of the industrial revolution. Cities grew and farm life shrunk. Yet, parents still had a major voice in public schools. 

Things changed. "Educational authorities... pushed for a 'progressive' understanding of education." People like John Dewey pushed for a "liberalism," forced through the separation of church and state, and taught secularism. This took a long time. Also, the Supreme Court handed down decisions that destroyed the local communities. The parent lost control over their children's education. Mohler calls this an "ideological revolution."

Everything from homosexuality, evolution, postmodern concept of truth, revisionism in history and naturalism are coming into the schools. If your school doesn't have it, it soon will. Yes, there are Christian educators, but that's not how things were. So, Christian parents are now saying no. 

Mohler's Answer 

Dr. Mohler doesn't give an answer to the question. I think he implies his answer with statements like"If these developments have not come to your local school, they almost surely will soon." He sounds more like a prophet then a theologian.  

What is wrong with this Analysis

The basic problem with Mohler's analysis is he is not doing theology. He reduces American educational history to this: American education was going really well until the big guys in Washington stepped in and messed it up. This is a philosophical and historical point.  He is giving a philosophical analysis of the state and history of education. He hasn't given a Biblical argument except that parent's have a Biblical responsibility for their children's education.  

I think this is a case where Dr. Mohler needs to be quiet. He is in higher education, not secondary or elementary. He is a theologian, not a historian or educator. He is not working in his role. Let those who are trained in this area do the historical analysis and philosophical work. 

A Thought on Phenomenology

I am taking Phenomenology and Existentialism this semester. I am gaining an understanding of early and mid-20th century philosophy. We have read Husserl, Ponty and now Arendt. They are timely because many theological developments occur during this time. (For instance, the beginning of the culture wars and theological splits in churches.)

I also am understanding why I find continental philosophy to be full of a lot of “huhs” and “duhs.” What I understand, I find to be plainly true and not controversial. What I don’t understand, there seems to be little ways to go about understanding it. What I disagree with, I find no argument to wrestle with. Perhaps it has to do with my background in analytical philosophy, but a professors word of wisdom on continental philosophy was helpful. "Continental philosophy is either nonsense or common."