What's Up With Husband and Wives and Working and Eating?

Paul writes about husbands and wives in Ephesians 5:21-33. A lot of people hate the part about wives. It seems to encourage subjugation of women.

But the hated passage might be lighter than often thought. The reason is simple.

The part about wives is for wives. It's not for husbands to confront wives  with. It's for wives to consider and, as they see fit, to apply. And the part about husbands is for husbands.

But you be the judge.

1. The passage.

This passage launches with the husband and wife's mutual duties. Then it briefly counsels wives. The greatest and last part of this passage counsels (mostly) husbands:
Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Wives, be subject to your husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife just as Christ is the head of the church, the body of which he is the Savior. Just as the church is subject to Christ, so also wives ought to be, in everything, to their husbands.

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, in order to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by the word, so as to present the church to himself in splendor, without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind – yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hates his own body, but he nourishes and tenderly cares for it, just as Christ does for the church, because we are members of his body. "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." This is a great mystery, and I am applying it to Christ and the church. Each of you, however, should love his wife as himself, and a wife should respect her husband. [NRSV.]
2. The shifting audience of the passage.
     
I'm not married, but this seems right for a husband: to live and breath part 1 (mutual duty) and part 3 (husband’s duties). These would apply to husbands.

Part 2, the wife’s duties, is not the husband's business.  It doesn't apply to him. Unless a husband has a special ministry of judging others, it serves him no purpose. The part in the prior sentence about the "special ministry of judging others" was meant ironically.

The wife’s duty is to examine part 2, to interpret it, to decide if it applies to her, and, as she sees fit, to adopt it as her practice. A wise woman doesn't need anyone else's theological pathfinding skills to find her way in this. Though like all of us, she's free to reach out.

3. The guiding principle.

The principle is simple: the Bible is written for all people at all times, but not all parts pertain to every person. And a part might pertain to a person at one time, but not at another. For the student of the Word, discernment and the Holy Spirit are the indispensable helpers.

And, subject to the  Holy Spirit, the narrower principle is this: the Bible wasn't written as a tool to hector people with. It wasn't written to help the husband to control his wife, or for a wife to control her husband. It was written to bring both under the control of God. Husband and wife need to reflect on how God wants them to treat their spouse.

Since the husband controls what he does, he needs to seek God to know his duty to his wife. Since the wife controls what she does, she needs to seek God to know her duty to her husband. And this seeking doesn't end in an answer. It's a conversation. The conversation involves, but is not limited to, the life story of the husband and the wife, the Holy Spirit, prayer, and many parts of the Bible. It neither begin nor ends in Ephesians.

4. The guiding principle in another context: rich and poor.

And it’s a principle that makes sense in other contexts, too.

For example, Proverbs is full of instructions and warnings to the lazy.
The sluggard will not plow by reason of the cold; therefore shall he beg in harvest, and have nothing. [Proverbs 20:4 (KJV).] Or: How long will you lie there, O lazybones?
   When will you rise from your sleep?
A little sleep, a little slumber,
   a little folding of the hands to rest,
and poverty will come upon you like a robber,
   and want, like an armed warrior. [Proverbs 6:9-11 (NRSV).] Or: The lazy person buries a [fork] in the dish,
and will not even bring it back to the mouth. [Proverbs 19:24 (NRSV)(Where I write "fork", the original wording is "hand".)]
But the Bible is also full of admonitions to the rich and powerful about the poor. For example: You shall not pervert the justice due to your poor in their lawsuits. [Exodus 23:6 (NRSV).] Or: You shall not strip your vineyard bare, or gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and the alien: I am the Lord your God. [Leviticus 19:10 (NRSV).] Or: 'I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ [Matthew 25:43-45.]
I don’t think that the proverbs were written to excuse the rich or the powerful when they overlook the poor. I don’t think that the passages from Exodus, Leviticus, or Matthew were written for the poor to use to hector the rich and the powerful. I think the proverbs are God’s special word for the poor or the lazy; I think the other passages are God’s special word to persons of means about their duty to the poor.

5. A contradiction to the principle?

Having said that, here’s this. Some would say it goes against my point.

Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. [2 Thessalonians 3:10.]

 6. Maybe not.

But let me say three things.

First, context matters. And that context shows (arguably) that Paul is addressing those who are "unwilling to work".
For even when we were with you, we gave you this command: Anyone unwilling to work should not eat. For we hear that some of you are living in idleness, mere busybodies, not doing any work. Now such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. [2 Thessalonians 3:10-12.] Second, in another context, Paul says things opposite to and similar to the 2^nd Thessalonians passage about working and eating: Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. [Galatians 6:2 (NRSV).] And: For all must carry their own loads. [Galatians 6:5 (NRSV).] These seems paradoxical and contradictory. Unless, three verses apart, Paul addresses different people.

7.   But maybe.

But third, I accept that you plausibly could reject explanations 1 and 2.

Yet the larger idea is that scripture is written for all people at all times, and for particular people at particular times. Maybe in Thessalonians 3:10, God addresses me, and people like me, and he says, "Make your neat principles. I am God. And I burst out of neat principles."

Amen.

The Bible on Itself

The Bible says a lot about itself.

1. (Imperfect) knowledge.

 In scripture we know God, but our knowledge will be imperfect.

So says the apostle Peter in his second letter. He speaks of the "lamp" of scriptural prophecy that shines in the "dark place" of our times. He contrasts that lamp shining in a dark place with the coming light of dawning day. 2 Peter 1:19 (ASV):

And we have the word of [scriptural] prophecy made more sure; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day-star arise in your hearts.

Peter’s point that scripture illuminates and his point that it does so (relatively) dimly are expressed elsewhere in scripture. For example, Jesus appears unrecognized to certain disciples, after his resurrection. He explains to them how his sufferings were foretold in scripture. He reveals himself, he leaves, and his disciples said, "Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?" (Luke 24:32 (ASV).) This shows the illuminating power of scripture.

The imperfect quality of our present knowledge is also told elsewhere in scripture. The apostle Paul says:

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (1 Corinthians 13:12 (KJV).)

And the apostle John says that we are children compared to the adults that we will become in the presence of God. 1 John 3:2 (KJV):

Beloved, now are we the sons (NIV:children) of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

2. Important to the believer.

The Bible makes clear that scripture is important to the believer. 2 Peter, quoted above, makes this point well when it speaks of the scriptural prophecy as a lamp in a dark place. Other biblical passages also discuss the believer’s need of scripture.

Scripture is useful for our learning, and it gives us comfort and hope. Romans 15:4 (KJV):

For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

Scripture gives wisdom. Paul speaks to his disciple Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:15 (KJV):

[F]rom a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

Jesus was led to the desert to fast. After he had fasted for 40 days, the devil came and tempted him. Every time, Jesus answered the devil with scripture. Matthew 4:3-10(KJV):

And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,

And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

Even before he began his ministry, we see Jesus immersed in scripture. Jesus’s parents left him behind in Jerusalem, realized their mistake, went back, and found him in the Temple, with the teachers. Luke 2:46-47 (ASV):

And it came to pass, after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers, both hearing them, and asking them questions: and all that heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers.

So scripture is a lamp; it gives us hope, comfort, and wisdom unto salvation; it gives answers.

3. Potentially dangerous.

But the believer must approach scripture humbly and carefully. Jesus in the desert answered the devil according to scripture, but also the devil used scripture to tempt him.

2 Peter 3:16 cautions the believer against being misled by scripture. Peter speaks of Paul’s letters and of scripture:

[I]n [Paul’s letters] are some things hard to be understood, which they that are unlearned and unstable wrest, as they do also the other scriptures, unto their own destruction. [ASV]

So scripture can lift up, but it can also cast down.

4. Moved by God and God-breathed.

The Bible speaks of divine influence in the origins of the Bible. 2 Peter speaks of prophets – "holy men" – speaking as God "moved" them to speak. 2 Peter 1:20-21.

Elsewhere, the Bible speaks of itself as being "God breathed". 2 Timothy 3:16 (ASV):

Every scripture inspired of God (NIV: "God-breathed") is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for instruction which is in righteousness.

This is poetic language. It’s meaning is not obvious. In the Bible, the breath of God has different meanings.

Sometimes it means the destructive power of God. So, for example, 2 Thessalonians 2:8 (ASV) says:

And then shall be revealed the lawless one, whom the Lord Jesus shall slay with the breath of his mouth . . ..

Also, for example, Isaiah 40:7 (ASV):

The grass withereth, the flower fadeth, because the breath of Jehovah bloweth upon it; surely the people is grass.

And Ezekiel 21:31(ASV):

And I will pour out mine indignation upon thee; I will blow upon thee with the fire of my wrath; and I will deliver thee into the hand of brutish men, skilful to destroy.

Other times, the Bible speaks of the life-giving breath of God. For example, Genesis 2:7(ASV):

And Jehovah God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Also, Job 33:4 (ASV):

The Spirit of God hath made me, And the breath of the Almighty giveth me life.

Sometimes the breath of God is the act of creation. Psalm 33:6 (KJV):

By the word of the LORD were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth.

So the breath of God can stand for a number of things.

5. God-breathed like humanity.

 Here are my imperfect thoughts on the meaning of God-breathed.

Whatever else God-breathed means, it means that scripture reveals God. Paul says that the Bible is God-breathed; the Bible says that Man was created by the breath of God. Breath and breath. God-breathed Man is God’s likeness. (Genesis 5:1; James 3:9.) Just so, the God-breathed Bible reveals God.

I don’t think that God-breathed means that God himself created scripture in the sense of Psalm 33:6, where the "breath of God’s mouth"created the stars. I don’t think it means that God created scripture in the same way that he created the Ten Commandments. Exodus 24:16 says that God wrote the Ten Commandments and gave them to Moses:

And Jehovah said unto Moses, Come up to me into the mount, and be there: and I will give thee the tables of stone, and the law and the commandment, which I have written, that thou mayest teach them. [ASV]

Exodus shows that the Bible can say that God wrote something – like it says that God wrote the Ten Commandments. But it makes no such claim in general about scripture.

Scripture doesn’t start with the words: "God said:" It doesn’t end with the words, "So said God." Where it quotes God, or it quotes Jesus, it makes clear that it is quoting. When that is not made clear, we are left with poetic words moved and God-breathed to describe God’s role in shaping the words of the Bible. For all we know, that poetic language means different things in different parts of the Bible.

6. Not from the Lord.

God is a moving force behind scripture. But perhaps not all of scripture.

Paul, if fact, makes a point of saying that some of what he says in his letters is not "from the Lord": 1Corinthians 7:10-13 (ASV):

[U]nto the married I give charge, yea not I, but the Lord, That the wife depart not from her husband (but should she depart, let her remain unmarried, or else be reconciled to her husband); and that the husband leave not his wife. But to the rest say I, not the Lord: If any brother hath an unbelieving wife, and she is content to dwell with him, let him not leave her. And the woman that hath an unbelieving husband, and he is content to dwell with her, let her not leave her husband.

This is another reason to be careful with scripture.

7. Sufficient.

 Maybe the Bible says as much about the origin of scripture as we need to know. Maybe the Bible itself must be a mystery, like the mystery of the meaning of many of its parts. Maybe in the brilliant compactness of the Bible, a hint of the Bible’s origin is sufficient.

There are other places to go to learn about the mechanics and origins and inspiration of the Bible. History books can tell us about why certain books were put into the Bible and others were left out. People study the history of the Bible for decades, and among them there is widespread common ground that sometimes even a single book of scripture is spliced together from the writings of more than one author. People have studied non-Jewish texts from before the Hebrew Bible was written. These people have seen a likeness between those texts and parts of the Bible such as some Psalms and Proverbs.

But the Bible does not lay out these mechanics and origins and inspiration. Perhaps this is because these things are external to the purpose of the Bible: they do not make us "wise unto salvation".

8. Conclusion.

 I started out talking about Peter’s second letter, which suggests that our knowledge will be imperfect in this world. Paul supports this. And John.

So if scripture is like a lamp compared to dawning day, if we see as through a glass darkly, if we are as children until we come into God’s presence, so be it. We can plumb scripture from youth to old age, and never reach its depth, or the depth of God, in this world.

Paul had a bodily ailment that he prayed for God to cure. But God told him, "My grace is sufficient for thee: for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthinas 12:9 (ASV).)

I hope I don’t stretch scripture too far to say that God’s word to Paul could apply the same way to our imperfect knowledge from the lamp of scripture. We might want answers more exact than the Bible gives us. But God’s power is made perfect in weakness.

Certainty and Uncertainty

The apostle Paul saw and heard the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. He spent the rest of his life preaching the gospel. He is a hero of the biblical book of Acts. We study his life and letters two-thousand years later.

You’d think that such a man would believe that he knew what he knew. But no. Paul knew that his knowledge was narrow and hindered by life in this world:

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (1 Corinthians 13:12 (KJV).)

Paul freely confessed the limits of what he knew.

We Americans today are unlike Paul. At the risk of simplifying: spiritually, we are a People Who Know. We do not, like Paul, know the limits of our knowledge. The Unknown is a stranger to us.

Instead, we make a friend of Certainty. We are certain about religion. We are certain about scripture. We are certain that scripture is inerrant. And we are certain about our interpretation of scripture. We believe that scripture is easy, and that to interpret it, we need only to "believe" it, which often means to read it literally. Sometimes, a biblical answer is as simple as finding a Bible verse on an internet-Bible search engine.

Because we are certain about scripture, and because we are certain that we understand it, we are certain about our salvation. We quote Acts 16:31:

Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house. (KJV)

We are more certain than we should be.

We are certain because our world seduces us into false confidence. Technology hides spiritual risk behind the mirage of easy living.

See how we live. Jets whisper us to far places. Computers in our cars warn us about engine problems before we are stranded on the freeway. Unemployment insurance protects us from the economic wreck of job loss (somewhat), and social security and 401(k) plans shelter us in old age. Police and firemen are a 9-1-1 call away, and 9-1-1 also summons an ambulance to rush us to an emergency room. Please do not infer that I am against these things; I say only that they hide the uncertainty of life in this world by making our lives more cocooned than the lives of our forebears.

Our forebears were moved to accept uncertainty by the uncertainty of the lives that they lived. In this country, they might leave behind what they knew and travel for months by wagon to the unknown. Death along the way was a known risk – death by heat, cold, hunger, thirst, sickness, injury, or attack. Pioneers carried guns because government protection was days or weeks away. Their wagons carried supplies that they would need, because chances to re-supply were few. A lame animal could doom a family.

Even urban life in times past had risks that are rare in our time and in our country. In times past, doctors could help only if you did not get too sick. A wound that modern medicine easily treats could be deadly in the times before antibiotics. Doctors did not wash their hand or clean their surgery tools before cutting into flesh, because they did not know about germs. Pregnancy came with danger, and birth came with only a hope that the child would live to adulthood. This was important, because children were the chief hope for livelihood in old age.

There was no social safety-net.

Diseases regularly decimated populations.

So the lives of our forebears were filled with risks that our own are not. Our benign world must affect the way we see our God, our lives, and ourselves. It leads us to see differently than we would see if we lived in the harsh world of our forebears. The ease and seeming-certainty of our material world mask the danger and uncertainty of the spiritual life.

The world of our forebears taught the right lessons; ours misleads us. They were hardscrabble; we are rich. And riches, we know, deceive. (Matthew 13:22.)

We are all on a countdown to the end of life. This countdown has no visible clock that tells us when our time will be up. That uncertainty is a metaphor for the uncertainty, corporeal and spiritual, of our lives. We turn away from this broad uncertainty at our own risk.

This is the beginning of my argument that we should bind uncertainty to our hearts.

A Further Defense of the Despised Westboro Baptist Church

I listened to a sermon by Rev. Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church. I would be pleased to say that his sermon reeked from the moment he cleared his throat to his last "Amen".

But I can’t say that. Agree or disagree with it, Phelps’s theology -- at least from this sermon -- is consistent and not outright laughable. It demands to be taken seriously.

1. The serious theology of Rev. Phelps.

Phelps drew the sermon that I listened to from the Biblical book of the prophet Jeremiah. Phelps emphasized from Jeremiah imprecatory prayer: prayer to bring harm upon a person, a people, or a nation; a curse. Phelps directs his imprecatory prayer toward America, just as Jeremiah directed his imprecatory prayer toward Judah, the remnant of the Jewish state before Babylonian captivity. For example, Jeremiah prayed:

O Lord of Hosts who art a righteous judge, testing the heart and mind, I have committed my cause to thee; let me see thy vengeance upon them. (Jeremiah 11:20 (NEB).)

And:

Drag them away like sheep to the shambles;
Set them apart for the day of slaughter. (Jeremiah, 12:3 (NEB).)

So Rev. Phelps preaches imprecatory prayer.

That an American pastor would curse America might shock, but it shouldn’t surprise. We’ve seen this before. Remember Jeremiah Wright? Remember "God damn America!"? Phelps is Jeremiah Wright, version 2.0.

2. God and America.

But here’s the thing. For all we know, Phelps might be right. His monomania about gays reveals shallowness; but it might be that God is in the process of withdrawing his blessing from America.

I say withdrawing his blessing, because I cannot look at American history without seeing divine protection and abundant blessing. Here is the briefest possible proof: in times of greatest peril, we have been gifted with indispensable leaders. We had irreplaceable George Washington when we needed George Washington. We had irreplaceable Abraham Lincoln when we needed Abraham Lincoln. We had irreplaceable Franklin D. Roosevelt when we needed Franklin D. Roosevelt. This is only a glimpse of the hand of God guiding, protecting, and strengthening America.

God has kept us safe in times past, but America today is different than what it has been. We are more distant from God than our forebears. The evidence of this is that throughout our history, our culture was infused with scripture; that is no longer true. "The pervasiveness of the Bible in American culture from the colonial period onward has often been observed . . .." (Robert Alter, Pen of Iron, 1) But "[t]he Bible is surely not ubiquitous in American culture as it once was . . .." (Ibid., 6.)

America’s alienation from God is supported by an argument from scripture.

3. America as Babylon.

I cannot read parts of the Book of Revelation without an unease that I am reading about us. Not necessarily America as it is today, but America that is becoming. Revelation chapter 17 prophecies what will happen just before the end of history and the coming of the eternal Kingdom of God: the destruction of Babylon. And we might be Babylon.

Revelation chapter 17 describes Babylon as "the great whore that sittith upon many waters". (Revelations 17:1 (AV).) It also speaks about "The seven . . . mountains, on which the woman [Babylon] sitteth." (Revelation 17:9 (AV).) These two passages puzzle scholars. Historical Babylon sat on canals – "many waters" – but it had no seven mountains. Historical Rome had seven hills, but although the Tiber flowed through it, this hardly is "many waters." But Babylon and Rome were the superpowers of their day, as we are today. So a plausible interpretation of "Babylon" is not a particular city at a particular time, but any profane superpower. I draw on George Eldon Ladd’s fine A Commentary on the Revelation of John in this analysis, though Ladd’s interpretation of Revelation chapter 17 is somewhat different than mine.

There is more that points from Babylon to America. After Babylon’s swift destruction, nations will mourn her – at least, they will mourn their loss of wealth from trading with her:

The merchants . . . which were made rich by her, shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, and saying, Alas, alas that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls! For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off, and cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city is like unto this great city! And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate. (Revelation 18:15-19 (AV).)

This passage in Revelation reveals that Babylon was loved for its capacity to make people rich; but it also implies the catalyst for Babylon’s downfall – its love of luxury. (1 Timothy 6:10: "[T]he love of money is the root of all evil . . ..") I submit for your consideration that all superpowers share this vulnerability, including America. Our love of comfort and consumer goods crowds out our love of God. And what nation but America is the vortex of world trade?

There are hurdles to this interpretation of the Book of Revelation’s Babylon; one hurdle is not so insurmountable. That is, the Book of Revelation speaks of Babylon’s deadliness toward the people of God: "And I saw the woman [Babylon] drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus". (Revelation 17:6 (AV).) Well, we aren’t known for assassinating prophets and Christians.

But the time might come. Prophets provoke. In fact, authoritative commentator Abraham Heschel finds it remarkable that the people of Israel and Judah tolerated the prophets at all:

The striking surprise is that prophets of Israel were tolerated at all by their people. To the patriots, they seemed pernicious; to the pious multitudes, blasphemous; to the men in authority, seditious." (Heschel, The Prophets)

I can imagine an America further from God than it now is, and a prophet who desecrates a cherished, even a patriotic, belief, provoking us beyond our capacity to endure. Those who dispose of the prophet or the prophets, and those who give silent assent to this, will become the agents of Revelation 17:6.

4. Signs of America’s plunge.

Just like a person can stand by a river and know that there was a flood upstream by the flotsam going by, an observer of America today can see evidence of America’s flight from God in the pollution of American morals.

When I started out in law, yes, lawyers lied; but the ones who lied stood out. Now I confront in my profession a tsunami of liars. What once evoked my outrage now gets a checkmark in the margin. Also, I hear shameless, unselfconscious lies from political leaders and from the media. I don’t remember this in earlier times. I see this calculated un-tethering from reality as the dead canary in a moral mineshaft foretelling fatal fumes. Jeremiah lamented commonplace lies before God destroyed Judah by foreign conquest.

They . . . never speak the truth; they have trained their tongues to lies; . . . deceit follows deceit." (Jeremiah 9:5-6 (AV).)

5. Conclusion.

So Rev. Fred Phelps’s theology of God’s outrage at America is far from laughable. Perhaps pastors who assure their congregations that God wants them to be rich do worse than Phelps.

The credibility of Phelps’s theology is another reason that I hope that the Supreme Court does the right thing and protects him and his provocative congregation. His theology is serious, but unpopular. And if he commits outrage to call attention to his beliefs, at least he succeeds in bringing attention to a word that is heard in few other places, so far as I know. If you are hearing these kinds of things from your pulpit, I would like to hear about it.

One last thing. Writing about religion makes me self-conscious. I really, really hope that I don’t come across as touting my own holiness. I have none. And I don’t mean that in the Apostle I-am-the-chief-of-sinners Paul sense. I mean that, truly, I am appalling.

Note:

I provide a link in the text to Amazon.com when I cite a book.  This is only for your convenience.