+++++ ROSARY-news: Why #Parisagreement #Means4Me a 200 Mio $ impact o...

+++++ ROSARY-news: Why #Parisagreement #Means4Me a 200 Mio $ impact o...: #ParisAgreement #Means4Me a 200 Million € Solar Power Plant with german Patent Licenece landmanagement system for UNFCCC fundings to le...

What #Parisagreement #Means4Me

#ParisAgreement #Means4Me

a 200 Million € Solar Power Plant
with german Patent Licenece
landmanagement system

for UNFCCC fundings
to let Our Rosary Ministries International
Movement grow, according to
 the #CSO53 and #CSO150
an Laudato Si pope Francis`Encyclica.

by Archbishop Rosenkranz





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How to Resolve the Culture Wars . . . Maybe - by Archbishop S.E. Uwe Alfred Erich Rosenkranz, Ma, Dd.

How to Resolve the Culture Wars . . . Maybe

Brian Collins | Mon, February 8, 2016 | Articles 0

In the final chapter of his award-winning book, The Twilight of the American Enlightenment: The 1950s and the Crisis of Liberal Belief, George Marsden offers a constructive suggestion to Christians frustrated with the challenge of living in a pluralistic society.

He suggests we look to Dutch theologian and politician Abraham Kuyper.

For much of American history, Marsden notes, Protestantism dominated the nation. Though the United States never had an established church, the shared Protestant beliefs, values, and heritage unified the moral outlook of most Americans. As the Jewish and Roman Catholic population increased, the nation moved from being Protestant in its ethos to being “Judeo-Christian.”

This increased religious diversity brought conflict, however, increasing the appeal of the (supposedly) neutral common ground provided by secularism. The secular solution to religious conflict in the public square was that religion should remain private. Kuyper describes secularism (using the term liberal to identify the secularist):

This does not mean that each and every liberal wants to be irreverent and disrespectful toward God. It only means that in their opinion religion belongs to the realm of the inner life and that the state as a political power must avoid as much as possible all contact with this inner life. (Our Program: A Christian Political Manifesto, 58.)

Secularists believed that secularism kept religious conflicts from disrupting public life.

Secularism and its discontents

But a secular public square turned out to be less neutral than it promised. Secularists bring their own moral views to the table—while surreptitiously demanding others leave their moral and religious beliefs behind. Harvard’s Michael Sandel notes in his course on justice that such an approach is not the best way to ensure mutual tolerance. If certain moral and religious viewpoints are excluded from public discourse while others are permitted, those excluded become disheartened or angry. Public discourse itself is harmed because certain viewpoints are ruled out of bounds before even being given a hearing. The secularist approach lacks integrity and thus breeds resentment.

Secularists bring their moral views to the table—while demanding others leave theirs behind.

CLICK TO TWEET

This lack of integrity has provoked a number of responses among American Christians, including resentment. Some have been spurred to political action in the hope of “taking America back from the secularists.” They thought if enough like-minded people could be mobilized to vote for men and women sympathetic to their concerns, the country could maintain a Judeo-Christian character. While many Christians still hold to this hope, sometimes modifying it to include broader cultural engagement, many others have become disillusioned by its apparent failures.  

The Kuyperian solution

Marsden proposes Kuyper’s political philosophy as an alternative to both secularism on the one hand and chimerical moral majorities on the other. Kuyper managed to reject secularism while still recognizing the reality of pluralism. Kuyper rejected secularism because he recognized that no human endeavor is neutral. Not even science or mathematics are neutral—even if non-Christian scientists and mathematicians reach the same conclusions as their Christian colleagues. Those conclusions fit into differing overarching worldviews. For Kuyper, life cannot be divided into a private religious dimension and a religiously neutral public dimension. Religious commitments ought to suffuse all of life.

This does not mean, however, that Kuyper advocated using the government to impose a Christian approach on a diverse population. As Kuyper explains in Our Program, his belief in sphere sovereignty placed limits on what the government could demand of churches, families, schools, unions, or industries.

According to sphere sovereignty all of life is under the sovereignty of God, and the sovereign God grants sovereignty to various spheres of life. Thus parents, not the state, are responsible to raise and discipline their children; churches are responsible to evangelize and disciple people—but it does not have the responsibility to write laws or enforce them.

Each sphere has its own set of responsibilities and limitations.  The government’s role is to ensure justice among these groups. When it comes to religious pluralism, Kuyper held that the church had the responsibility to combat heresy, but the government had no sovereign right to combat false religious views (cf. Kuyper, Our Program, 68-72). In the various spheres of life, Christians could organize their own schools, unions, churches, and political parties, but groups with differing moral or religious viewpoints could do the same.

A resolution to the culture wars?

Marsden thinks that a Kuyperian approach could resolve the American culture wars. Disagreement about public policy would still exist, but Christians, adherents to other religions, and non-believers alike would recognize the right of the others to make their case in public. No viewpoint would be ruled out of bounds simply for being religious. What is more, the government would protect the right of Christians (and everyone else) to develop their own institutions in all of the various spheres of life according to their own principles.

Others are not as convinced that a resolution to the culture wars is desireable. They argue that Kuyper’s willingness to accept religious pluralism is inconsistent with his declaration, “there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign overall, does not cry: ‘Mine!’” Kuyper’s political pluralism simply allows Christians to be able to have their own associations in every sphere of life. It falls short of Kuyper’s own call to conquer every sphere for Christ.

Others think Kuyper’s approach is acceptable in a religiously diverse society, but they hesitate to say it should be applied universally. They approve Christianity’s privileged place in past societies. Still others wonder if Kuyper’s approach could work with all religious viewpoints. Some might have religious beliefs that include practices the rest of society finds so immoral and unacceptable that they can in no way be tolerated (polygamy and human sacrifice are often given as examples).

I am less sanguine than Marsden that the Kuyperian approach to pluralism will resolve our culture wars, but I am sympathetic to the view that Kuyper offers an alternative to secularism that has a chance of succeeding in a pluralistic society. In any event, Kuyper’s political philosophy is worthy of receiving a serious, if critical, hearing.

 
Brian Collins is a Worldview Specialist at BJU Press and blogs atexegesisandtheology.com.

 

Get a free Kuyper book!

For a limited time, you can get the first volume of Abraham Kuypers Common Grace totally free! Part of Lexham Press’ groundbreaking new collection of Kuyper’s Collected Works in Public Theology, Common Grace is the perfect introduction to Kuyperian thought. Get your free copy while you still can—this offer ends on February 29.

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Genesis Chapter 1: Functional Creation vs. Material Creation -via Archbishop Uwe AE.Rosenkranz

Genesis Chapter 1: Functional Creation vs. Material Creation

What if taking the Bible “literally” doesn’t mean what you think it means?

In The Lost World of Genesis One, Dr. John Walton of Wheaton college affirms that Genesis 1 is talking about a literal seven days of creation—but he also argues that “creation” might not mean what you think it means.

“When someone insists that Genesis 1 should be interpreted literally,” Walton says, “It is often an expression of their conviction that the interpreter rather than the author has initiated another level of meaning.”

The problem, of course, is that reading the Bible in English creates layers of interpretation before we ever see the words on the page.

Related post: Outsiders: Reading the Bible Out of Context

We have to look at what the Hebrew text says if we really want to determine exactly what the English text says. “It does us no good to know what ‘create’ literally means,” Walton says. “We have to know what bara literally means.”

If you aren’t fluent in Hebrew, don’t worry. When it comes to language, many scholars believe usage determines meaning. This means that even without knowing the language, we can see how Hebrew scholars have determined bara was used in every instance it appears in the Old Testament.

Walton considers functional creation to be the moment purpose is established, whereas material creation is the moment physical shape is formed.

So does bara pertain to material creation, or functional creation? Can we even determine that for certain?

“If all occurrences [of bara] were either material or ambiguous,” Walton says, “We could not claim support for a functional understanding. If all occurrences were either functional or ambiguous, we could not claim clear support for a material understanding. If there are clear examples that can be only functional, and other clear examples that can only be material, then we would conclude that the verb could work in either kind of context, and ambiguous cases would have to be dealt with on a case-by-case-basis.”

In the 50 or so occurrences of bara in the Old Testament, “grammatical subjects of the verb are not easily identified in material terms, and even when they are, it is questionable that the context is objectifying them.” Walton goes on to clarify, “That is, no clear example occurs that demands a material perspective for the verb, though many are ambiguous.”

Is Genesis 1 talking about functional creation?

In The Lost World of Genesis One, Walton uses a number of analogies to highlight the difference between functional and material creation. Consider the creation of Solomon’s temple.

“We must draw an important distinction between the building of a temple and thecreation of a temple,” Walton says, “. . . a temple is not simply an aggragate of fine materials subjected to expert craftsmanship. The temple uses that which is material, but the temple is not material. If God is not in it, it is not a temple. If rituals are not being performed by a serving priesthood, it is not a temple. If those elements are not in place, the temple does not exist in any meaningful way. A person does not exist if only represented by their corpse. It is the inauguration ceremony that transforms a pile of lumber, stone, gold and cloth into a temple.”

In other words, with functional creation, the act of bestowing a purpose on the materials is what actually determines the moment of creation. To many Christians, an explanation like this will almost immediately sound like an attempt to accommodate modern science, or to use science to interpret Scripture.

The problem, Walton argues, is actually the other way around—some Christians try to use the Bible as a science textbook. But when you look at what mattered to the ancient Hebrews, when you look how the ancient cultures around them describe creation, the functional creation of the earth is what was most important. The material creation was inherently assumed—it didn’t need to be explained in a step-by-step process.

Related post: 5 Questions to Ask When You Encounter New Ideas in Bible Scholarship

Here’s the paragraph that I think best encapsulates Walton’s argument inThe Lost World of Genesis One:

“If the seven days . . . concern origins of functions not material, then the seven days and Genesis 1 as a whole have nothing to contribute to the discussion of the age of the earth. This is not a conclusion designed to accommodate science—it was drawn from an analysis and interpretation of the biblical text of Genesis in its ancient environment. The point is not that the biblical text therefore supports an old earth, but simply that there is no biblical position on the age of the earth. If it were to turn out that the earth is young, so be it. But most people who seek to defend a young-earth view do so because they believe that the Bible obligates them to such a defense.”

He is not suggesting that we cannot disagree with the scientific community—and in fact, he frequently suggests that we should disagree when the scientific community attempts to use what we know about the material world to “disprove” the spiritual world or determine the purpose of the material world (in other words, why we exist). But the biblical obligation to defend the material creation of the earth as “defined” by Genesis 1, Walton argues, simply does not exist.

“We need not defend the reigning paradigm in science about the age of the earth if we have scientific reservations, but we are under no compulsion to stand against a scientific view of an old earth because of what the Bible teaches.”

Now you may be wondering, “So if Genesis 1 isn’t about the material creation of the earth, when did that happen?”

Make no mistake: Walton absolutely believes God is the material creator of the earth as well, and he suggests (as I’ve quoted above) that the ancient Hebrews would have inherently understood God’s role as functional creator to also imply his role as the material creator.

“Viewing Genesis 1 as an account of functional origins of the cosmos as temple,” Walton says, “does not in any way suggest or imply that God was uninvolved in material origins—it only contends that Genesis 1 is not that story.”

Why is Genesis Chapter 1 so important?

For me, like some of you, interpretations of Genesis 1 have a very personal significance. To some, suggesting that Genesis 1 is talking about anything other than the material creation of the earth undermines the reliability of all of Scripture. Regardless of what Bible scholars say about Old Testament genres, to them, Genesis 1 must be taken literally. But as Walton suggests, in order to understand what the Bible is literally saying, you have to know what it was actually saying to the people it was originally written to.

On the other side of the spectrum, the church is bleeding—we regularly lose people to the perceived divide between religion and science. My brother and his wife both left the church after pursuing their biology degrees at a private Christian university—in part because they couldn’t reconcile what they were learning to be true about creation with the church’s inability to consider if that were in fact true.

My brother and his wife have M.A.’s in ecology and biology. I have a B.A. in English literature. My brother now works in a lab at a university, researching the human genome and studying the biology of Neanderthals. The conversation about functional creation vs. material creation in Genesis 1 doesn’t matter to me because I want to compromise Scripture for the sake of science—it matters to me because I love my brother. I want to use the best available apologetics as a conversational tool to point him to Jesus. And if the Bible doesn’t ask us to defend a particular position here, why create additional walls for unbelievers to overcome?

Walton addresses people caught in the middle of this perceived divide: “It seems to many that they have to make a choice: either believe the Bible and hold to a young earth, or abandon the Bible because of the persuasiveness of the case for an old earth. The good news is that we do not have to make such a choice. The Bible does not call for a young earth. Biblical faith need not be abandoned if one concludes from the scientific evidence that the earth is old.”

Again, Walton is not saying that one cannot make a case for a young earth. He’s saying that if Christians truly take Genesis 1 literally, the Bible doesn’t call for us to make that case.

How do I learn more about Genesis 1?

While there are certainly lots of incredible commentaries on Genesis out there, this is the perfect time to take advantage of Logos’ Free Book of the Month Plus One. All through February, you can get John Walton’s Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology for $1.99. (Though you should certainly check out The Lost World of Genesis One for yourself as well.)

In Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology, Walton focuses less on the implications of Genesis 1 for the origin debate, and more on how ancient cosmology comes into play here. There is, however, a lot of overlap in the conversation.

Drawing heavily from ancient near eastern literature, Walton says, “My intention, first of all, is to understand the texts but also to demonstrate that a functional ontology pervaded the cognitive environment of the ancient near east.” In other words, he says, “I posit that, in the ancient world, bringing about order and functionality was the very essence of creative activity.”

After building his case for this pervasive functional ontology, Walton spends the second half of the book showing how this ontology affects our understanding of Genesis 1.

You can get Genesis 1 as Ancient Cosmology for $1.99 all through February.

Filed Under: Bible Study Tips, Church Resources, Christian Books Tagged With: old testament, creation,creationism, evolution, cultural context, genesis 1, john walton, seven days of creation, material creation,functional creation, young earth, old earth, intelligent design, ancient near eastern literature, taking the bible literally, ancient cosmology, origins debate, origin of the earth, the lost world of genesis one, genesis 1 as ancient cosmology

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