Facebook: Which Protestant denomination should you join?

Usually I don’t populate Facebook items here, but this was a recent quiz that I thought some might find interesting (HT: Mike Beidler) – not sure if it’s available in a non-Facebook format. My result is particularly interesting to me in that Disciples of Christ shares a common root with the quasi-denomination that I grew up in, the Independent Christian Churches/Churches of Christ. Both come from the Restoration Movement, which emerged from the Second Great Awakening in the early 19th century.

There’s quite a bit here that I agree with and a little bit that gives me pause. I’ve highlighted the specific items that resonate strongly.

Your Result: Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

The Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is a renewal movement that sought to unify the Church on Scripture alone. Influenced by both the Presbyterian and Baptist Churches, the polity is both congregational with the leadership of local elders within the congregation. Rejecting Creeds and Denominational Confessional Statements as a test of fellowship, they maintain that the Good Confession that Jesus is the Christ the Son of the Living God is the only mandatory confession. There is a strong heritage of congregational autonomy which leads to great diversity within various congregations. Diversity in liturgy, music and organizational practices are prevalent. Ultimately a strong sense of the Churches unity is a unifying force within the movement. Baptism of adults by immersion into the one Body of Christ is practiced, although those who transfer into the Church having been baptized other ways are accepted. Holy Communion is celebrated weekly with both clergy and laity serving at the Table. The ultimate authority is Scripture as each believer is given the freedom to interpret Scripture within the community of faith. the heritage of the Church’s history, specifically the early church, which is held in high regard. Although initially a fairly conservative movement, the Disciples (as they are often called) believe in the equality of all believers. Therefore, it is not uncommon to have women in position of leadership as well as baptized youth.

The last two sentences seemed fair enough to me until I looked up one of the local congregations, where I found this statement on their home page:

We are thoroughly committed to the Christian tradition, but we reject the notion that Christianity must condemn all other religious traditions. A summary of the way we think is that we seek to be the people of God only, without claiming to be the only people of God.

Is that really what is meant by “the equality of all believers”? That’s not how I originally read it, but maybe it has multiple meanings. I’m trying to reconcile that with my understanding of Jesus in John 14:6 as “the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through [Christ].”


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In community on a desert island

As part of the ongoing thread on “best uses for different Bible versions“, Dave S. posted his various preferences (NASB, ESV, HCSB, NLT), then followed up with the following anecdote:

I told my friend about my “favorite four” post above. He said, “That sounds good but which one would you choose if you could have just one; you know, the deserted island thing?” I hate the deserted island question. It’s not based in reality but I played along and said “It depends.” “Depends on what?”, he queried. “Are there any other people stranded on the island with me or am I alone?” “What does that matter?”, he said with a puzzled look. So I explained… “If I was alone, I’d pick the HCSB. If I was with someone else, I’d pick the ESV because it would get read out loud.” “No other reasons?”, he asked. I said, “Sure, but that pretty well sums it up. They’re both good for multipurpose use.” He shook his head, then shrugged his shoulders and said “Hmmmm” So I added, “And since I live in a world with other people around me, where the bible is read out loud, I tend to use the ESV most.” to which he replied “I’m ok with that I guess.” We smiled and we left it at that.

It’s a brilliant conclusion and one worth remembering for those of us who live with stacks of different Bible translations by our computers. Like it or not, the vast majority of us live in community with other people and I’m not meaning the blogosphere. For me, it happens to be a “NIV community”, though I prefer the TNIV or HCSB as similar translations. My “desert island” translation is the NEB or REB, but it’s hard to find common ground with other people when using an idiosyncratic text that I may not even understand completely.

I have concerns about the long-term viability of both the TNIV and HCSB, as most recently illustrated here, so I am still faced with a dilemna of choice, assuming that I do not adopt the NIV as my primary text. It seems that, from a marketing perspective in the early 21st century, the mainstream evangelical translations will be the ESV, NIV and NLT – so which community do you identify with?

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Misled, duped and deceived

I was flipping through the prophets a few days ago and couldn’t resist this idiosyncratic rendering in the REB, which I offer compared to examples of traditional, median and functional translation.

Jeremiah 20:7

REB TNIV
You have duped me, Lord,
and I have been your dupe;
you have outwitted me and prevailed.
All the day long I have been made a laughing-stock;
everyone ridicules me.
You deceived me, LORD, and I was deceived;
you overpowered me and prevailed.
I am ridiculed all day long;
everyone mocks me.
ESV NLTse
O Lord, you have deceived me,
and I was deceived;
you are stronger than I,
and you have prevailed.
I have become a laughingstock all the day;
everyone mocks me.
O LORD, you misled me,
and I allowed myself to be misled.
You are stronger than I am,
and you overpowered me.
Now I am mocked every day;
everyone laughs at me.

Read the translation notes from the NET Bible to possibly shed some light on the differences.

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When Pharaoh was a woman…

The April issue of National Geographic has an interesting article on Hatshepsut, daughter of Thutmose I (ruler, 1504-1492 BC), and married to her step-brother, Thutmose II (ruler, 1492-1479 BC). When Thutmose II died,  his son (Thutmose III, by another wife) was still young and Hatshepsut acted as regent and then co-ruler of Egypt from 1479-1458 BC, one of a small handful of female Pharaohs.

According to the NLT Study Bible (and presumably other sources), the most generally accepted dates for the events of Exodus are in the 1400s, with some evidence suggesting later dates as an alternative. Assuming the former, I found some intriguing points to speculate about in the article (which you really ought to read for context):

  • It is impossible to know how many Pharaohs there actually were in the Exodus timeline. Most of the early rulers of the 18th Dynasty (Ahmose) ruled for only 20 years or so before dying. The Exodus narrative includes potentially large gaps in the timeline when one or more of these rulers could have passed by (cf. Exodus 1:11-14, 1:20-21, 2:11).
  • That said, that there are possibly as many as four specific Pharaohs in the early chapters of Exodus. The first “knew nothing about Joseph or what he had done”. The NLTSB indicates that this period likely corresponds to the ascension of Pharaoh Ahmose (Hatshepsut’s grandfather), who expelled the foreign Hyksos rulers that had been so sympathetic to the Israelite patriarchs. The second Exodus Pharaoh – if not the same as the first – is the ruler who ordered the death of the baby boys (cf. Exodus 1:22). The third Pharaoh is the one who dies while Moses is in Midian (cf. Exodus 2:23). The last, and most prominent, is the ruler that Moses negotiates with on his return to Egypt.
  • Hatshepsut’s uncle was Amenhotep I, son of Ahmose. He was unable to have a son and heir – might this have led in part to an edict to kill the Hebrew sons when they were born?
  • Hatshepsut had a daughter, Neferure, with Thutmose II. Might this be the Pharaoh’s daughter of Exodus 2:5-10? Or might it even be Hatshepsut herself if the events of Moses’ birth are a generation earlier?
  • Note the similarity between “Moses”, “Ahmose” and “Thutmose“. In order to keep the dynasty going due to Amenhotep’s lack of a heir, Hapshetsut’s mother married an army general, Thutmose I, who was not of royal lineage. If Hatshepsut is the daughter of Exodus 2, there might be some irony at play here, perhaps a dig at the legitimacy of a Pharaoh grafted onto the royal family.
  • By all accounts, Hapshetsut recorded her rule over Egypt as if she were a man, so any male references in the Bible to the Pharaoh are reconcilable. I do find it very interesting that the third Pharaoh mentioned in my second point above is known as “the king of Egypt”, not “the Pharaoh”. While normally “king” is a masculine gendered term, there is evidence that Hapshetsut appropriated the title for herself. Was this the author’s Moses’ way of denoting a difference between Hapshetsut and the male Pharaohs that came before and after her?

Many accounts indicate that the Pharaoh that negotiates with Moses might have been Thutmose III, step-son of Hatshepsut. He was a successful military leader and led many campaigns, including tours of Canaan and Syria, presumably while Moses and the Hebrews were wandering in the Sinai desert. Would it be irony if God used the same Pharaoh who opposed Moses to then “soften up” the Promised Land for the Israelites’ later conquest?

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How much do you have to hate someone?

I don’t know if this video made it around the blogs in the last few months, but it was used as an illustration point a month or so ago at our church and I thought it was worth sharing. Regardless of what you think about Penn Jillette (Penn & Teller) as an atheist, his question at about the 3-minute mark is worth repeating:

If you believe in heaven and hell, how much do you have to hate someone to not proselytize them?

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