Author Archives: Tyler F. Williams

Why “Three Things”?

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My previous blog was called CODEX: Biblical Studies Blogspot (you can explore its content here). I understood the name “CODEX” as both a nod to the many biblical manuscripts that are in codex form (i.e., like modern books) and (at least in my head) it sounded kind of techie. The focus of that blog reflected my interests when I was a professor of Bible & Theology.

The new name for my blog and website is “Three Things.” I picked this name as it represents what I believe are the “three things” that are most important to me and I believe should be most important to everyone who considers themselves to be a follower of Jesus: Loving God, loving one another, and loving neighbour. These “three things” represent the essence of the Christian life and faith.

These “three things” also reflect my current role as pastor at Greenfield Community Church. While I can “nerd out” with the best of them (just explore some of my previous posts on textual criticism), I now have a renewed focus on the essentials of faith. I hold to a generous orthodoxy that is centred on Jesus, and a lived-out faith that is centred on love. I will be the first to confess that I often fall short of this ideal, but that is what I strive toward with God’s help.

I should note that the various images in the main banner are different biblical manuscripts of the commands in Scripture to Love God (The Leningrad Codex of Deuteronomy 6:4; and Codex Sinaiticus of Mark 12:29-31); Love your neighbour (The Leningrad Codex of Leviticus 19:18); and Love One Another (John 13:34 from P66).

I hope you enjoy reading.

New Beginnings

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I’ve decided to resurrect my old CODEX Blog under a new name and a slightly different focus. A lot has changed in my life since I was blogging under CODEX. The college where I taught for a dozen years closed. I moved to The King’s University with a four-year teaching contract, which ended in 2013. Since July 2013 I have served as the lead pastor at Greenfield Community Church and have continued be involved in academics as a faculty mentor through Taylor Seminary/Kairos University and occasional adjunct teaching at King’s.

Transitions

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As many of you know, my position at The King’s University College is coming to a close at the end of the month. The deal brokered between (the now defunct) Taylor University College, The King’s University College, and Alberta Advanced Education for King’s to “hold” Taylor’s four-year B.A. for four years to ensure students have the opportunity to finish their program of studies. As part of that deal, I was hired by King’s to bring them up to the three required faculty members in theology. The plan was for King’s to develop their own four-year degree and my position would have potentially turned into a tenure track position, but, as you know, the best laid plans of mice and men oft go awry. For a variety of reasons, no four-year program was developed and thus as of June 30 2013, there is no need for a third theology professor. So, I knew pretty much since early September I was facing a transition at the end of the academic year — a transition to what was unknown, but a transition nonetheless.

My family and I had also decided that moving away from Edmonton wasn’t an option for us. That meant my transition would more than likely be outside academia. Over the course of the year I considered positions in academic administration, management in not-for-profit organizations, business, as well as the pastoral ministry. But it was to this last option that I kept coming back. When I first became a Christian and embarked on my journey with biblical and theological studies it was to become a pastor. After some pastoral work, I entered the academy and taught biblical and theological studies for over sixteen years. But throughout my academic career always I sought to bridge the gap between the academy and the church and intentionally maintained significant involvement in the local church. I preached and taught regularly, organized and presented public lectures, led Bible studies, and wrote both academic and popular material (particularly in this blog). Over the last number of years, I have also had a growing conviction that the separation between the church and academy, between pastor and professor, as well as the increasing specialization in academia has not served God’s kingdom well. It was with this conviction and sense of calling that I entered into a conversation with a local church to discern the possibility of serving as their lead pastor. Through the application process and multiple meetings and interviews it became increasingly clear that it was a good fit for both the congregation and myself. This last Sunday the congregation voted overwhelmingly (99%) in favour of extending me a call, and I accepted. All this is to say that effective July 1, 2013, I will be serving as the lead pastor of Greenfield Baptist Church in Edmonton, AB.

I find the possibility of using my gifts and abilities within the church in the longstanding tradition of the great pastor-theologians of the early church an exciting prospect.

-Tyler

SmackDown Slam of the Week: Stark vs. Copan’s Is God a Moral Monster?

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Some may be familiar with Paul Copan‘s recent book Is God a Moral Monster? Making Sense of the Old Testament God (Baker, 2011; Buy from Amazon.ca | Buy from Amazon.com). It is an attempt to address the criticisms leveled against the God of the Hebrew Bible by the New Atheists, among others. It’s an OK book, although I am ultimately unsatisfied with his attempts.

But it doesn’t matter what I think! Tony Thom Stark has donned his Iron Man suit and produced a 303-page review of Copan’s book! 303 pages! Talk about the SmackDown Slam of the Week! Copan’s book is only 252 pages to begin with! To say the review is scathing would be a bit of an overstatement, but I do like the advice Stark gives to the reader at the end of the review:

So what do we do now? How do we move on? Where do we go from here? I suggest two courses of action. First, email Paul Copan and ask for an apology for his apologetics. Moreover, challenge him to take his responsibilities, both to the biblical text and to the church, more seriously from now on. Tell him you’re not interested in easy answers; you want to know how to struggle.

Second, keep struggling, but don’t do it on your own. Find a community that will allow you to be honest with your doubts, a community that won’t force you to comply with phony definitions of faith that allow for no dissent and no despair. Find a community that will not only allow you to struggle openly, but one that will struggle with you, without the need to force easy answers onto questions that won’t allow for them. Find a community that knows how to argue, both with one another, and with the text. The Bible is an argument with itself. Find a community that knows that joining in that argument is exactly what it means to be a people of the book. Find a community that doesn’t let experts speak over the top of the ignorant. Find a community that holds those who doubt in high regard, and one that treats those with all the answers with the kind of care appropriate to the mentally ill.

If you’ve already found such a community, find someone who hasn’t. And if you haven’t found one yet, keep looking. They’re out there. I’ve found mine. You’ll find yours. Christian or not, we all need such communities; it’s what it means to be human. There may not be any answers forthcoming, but woe to the one who has questions and no one to throw them at.

“Email Paul Copan and ask for an apology for his apologetics” – I love it!  Now, to be fair, Stark’s review is written in a conversational tone, so that in part explains the length. And he isn’t mean spirited; in contrast he is truly concerned for the problems that Copan’s approach raises for the academic and Christian community.

Stark’s review, entitled, “Is God a Moral Compromiser? A Critical Review of Paul Copan’s Is God a Moral Monster?“, is available from his website here. If you have read Copan, or are planning to read Copan,  I encourage you to download it and read it alongside Copan.

[I should probably mention that my recommendation to read Copan and Stark together in no way implies that I agree with either of them!]

(HT to my buddy Randal Rauser for drawing my attention to Stark’s review)

Yahweh’s (Inexplicable?) Response to Job

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One of the most marvelous passages of Scripture in the Tanak is found at the end of the book of Job where Yahweh (surprisingly) responds to Job from the whirlwind (Job 38:1-42:6).  I’ve tended to understand Yahweh’s reply to Job as a series of unanswerable questions that put Job and his so-called friends in their place, so to speak. If Job doesn’t understand the workings of the world in which he finds himself, then how does he expect to understand the workings of God’s moral universe?  The questions are to humble Job and underscore human finititude. The questions should elicit epistemic humility in Job (and the reader). In my mind, they highlight that the theme of the book of Job is less about “suffering” or “theodicy” than it is about “Who is truly wise?”  That is, who understands the question of suffering?

The other day my theology colleague brought to my attention a short section on “Job and Inexplicability” in an essay by philosopher Slavoj Žižek. The essay is from the recently published volume edited by John Milbank, Paul’s New Moment: Continental Philosophy and the Future of Christian Theology (Brazos, 2010; Buy from Amazon.ca | Amazon.com). In this section, Žižek understands God’s response to Job also highlights that God doesn’t even understand his own creation. He notes:

The rationalist points out that the fine thing about the world is that it can all be explained. But this is the point that God’s reply explicitly opposes — if I may put it so — to the point of violence. God says, in effect, that if there is one fine thing about the world, as far as people are concerned, it is that it cannot be explained. He insists on the inexplicableness of everything.

….

Again, to startle humans, God becomes, for an instant, a blasphemer. One might almost say that God becomes, for an instant, an atheist. He unrolls before Job a long panorama of created things… The Maker of all things is astonished at the things he has himself made. Again, here the point is not that God knows the deeper meaning, but it is as if God himself is overwhelmed at the excess of his creation (pp. 177-78).

While Žižek’s notion is provocative, I’m not sure that it is borne out by the text itself.  I agree with the first paragraph above;  the world we find ourselves in is ultimately inexplicable from our vantage point. I am not so sure I agree with the second paragraph, that God himself also doesn’t “know the deeper meaning.” The force of the rhetorical questions is that while Job (and all humans) may not know, Yahweh does. While I believe this is implied throughout the entire passage, it is explicit in a number of places:

“Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations? Speak if you have understanding” (Job 38:4)

“Have you penetrated the vaults of snow, Seen the vaults of hail, Which I have put aside for a time of adversity, For a day of war and battle?” (Job 38:22-23)

“Who sets the wild ass free? Who loosens the bonds of the onager, Whose home I have made the wilderness, The salt land his dwelling-place? He scoffs at the tumult of the city, Does not hear the shouts of the driver. He roams the hills for his pasture; He searches for any green thing” (Job 39:5-8).

That God knows and understands is even more clear in his second response to Job, IMHO. So while Žižek’s comments are intriguing, they are only partially correct. What do you think?