The City of Nazareth Makes Headlines Yet Again

“And when they had performed all things according to the law of the Lord, they returned into Galilee, to their own city Nazareth” (Luke 2:39)

According to the Bible, the town of Nazareth was situated in Galilee (Matthew 21:11).  Located in the dimpled center of a hilly area North of the Esdraelon Valley (the Old Testament Jezreel Valley), it was the place where Joseph and Mary made their home (Luke 2:39).  It was the town where Joseph was known as the carpenter (Mark 6:3).  Here, the angel Gabriel announced to Mary the coming of Jesus (Luke 1:26).  It was where He grew up as a child and a young adult (Luke 2:51).  It was where the family participated in Synagogue worship (Luke 4:16).  The town was unrecognized amongst the Jewish aristocracy as there is scant information in Jewish literature of its import, but when the people started talking about the prophet, Jesus of Nazareth, that got their attention (Matthew 21:11).  After Jesus, Nazareth was no longer unknown.

On December 22nd, 2009, while most of us were doing last minute Christmas shopping or making travel plans for the holidays, the Israel Antiquities Authorities issued a press release regarding the discovery of an ancient house in Nazareth near the edifice known as the Church of the Annunciation.  While excavating the foundation for a new structure, archaeologists uncovered several walls and some pottery fragments.  These discoveries were dated to the early Roman period and contained several chalk type vessels.  Due to Jewish purity restrictions, only certain types of vessels could be reused after they became ritually unclean (Leviticus 11:33, 36).  Chalk vessels were among the approved.  This discovery archaeologically confirms that Jewish settlers lived in Nazareth at the time of Jesus.

Archaeology had found evidence for the existence of the city of Nazareth prior to its destruction under Assyria around 720 B.C.  There have also been archaeological confirmations of the city’s existence during the third and fourth centuries A.D. when it was settled by post Constantinian Christians.  However, there was no archaeological evidence of its existence during the early Roman period and the time of Jesus.  Moreover, since Jewish literature, including Josephus, made no references to the city, this led some religious skeptics to doubt the existence of the city altogether.

Of course, this news comes as no surprise to Christians who have long known of the existence of the city of Nazareth by means of New Testament revelation.  Some atheists, however, will now be redacting their writings to accommodate the new archaeological finds.  This discovery provides one more piece in the archaeological puzzle that corroborates the New Testament as being what Christians knew it was all along: God’s truth.  The historical claims of Christianity are once again vindicated.

Posted in Kevin Cauley | Tagged , , | Comments Off on The City of Nazareth Makes Headlines Yet Again

Science and Evolution

Kevin Cauley

There may be no two words loaded with more assumptions than “science” and “evolution.”  What do these concepts entail?  Are they compatible?  Two aspects of science relate to how we understand “evolution.”

First, science concerns itself with things that are observable, repeatable, and demonstrable.  A scientist may observe a rainbow.  He may artificially create a rainbow.  He may demonstrate how a rainbow is made through the refraction and diffusion of light.  A rainbow is an observable, repeatable, and demonstrable phenomenon.

Second, science is concerned with extending such observations to draw general conclusions about the world through the inductive method.  The inductive method entails formulating hypotheses and devising experiments to test these hypotheses.  In an open system, hypotheses can only be falsified.  In a closed system, hypotheses can be both falsified and verified.

The word “evolution” simply means change, but it entails two concepts that lineup with the two aspects of science discussed above.  First, there are those processes of evolution (change) that are observable, repeatable, and demonstrable.  Microevolution is a genetic change that does not result in the emergence of an organism genetically incompatible with its state prior to the change.  Creationists do not doubt these processes.

Second, there is the hypothesis of evolution (known as macroevolution), which refers to extending observable processes of evolution inductively to historical biology.  This hypothesis entails a series of genetic mutations that randomly and chaotically occurs over very long periods of time, resulting in the eventual emergence of all genetically incompatible organisms (i.e., life on earth).  Evolutionists want us to think that observable evolution (microevolution) and the hypothesis of evolution (macroevolution) are both the same process; but this is the assumption that evolutionists must demonstrate!

Consider the potential logical fallacy of extending something that is observable, repeatable, and demonstrable beyond the immediate conclusion.  The ancient astronomer Ptolemy did exactly this.  The phenomenon of the Moon going around the Earth was an observable, repeatable, and demonstrable phenomenon.  This phenomenon in the ancient world was confirmed through observation of lunar and solar eclipses.  However, the same concept was then extended to the Sun, the planets, and all of the stars as well.  Ptolemy then drew the unwarranted conclusion of geocentrism (i.e., the idea that the Earth is the center of the solar system).

This is the same fallacy evolutionists make.  They observe, repeat, and demonstrate small changes in the genetic code, and then conclude that these small changes are responsible for the “creation” of all life from a single organism.  Such may be a hypothesis, but it does not fall within our first category of science.  Such changes are not observable, repeatable, and demonstrable precisely because such changes are said to be historical. Unless scientists have invented a time machine, they still cannot observe, repeat, and demonstrate history.

Moreover, the evolutionary hypothesis rests upon an invalid logical premise as well.  As noted, science concerns itself with the inductive method.  In an open system, conclusions using the inductive method can be falsified, but they cannot be verified.  Historical genetic changes are part of an open system.  The best scientists can do in such a system is to conclude that nothing has falsified the hypothesis.  The bottom line, though, is that the hypothesis is still a hypothesis, and a hypothesis is not the same thing as an inductively verified fact.  It is an invalid conclusion to state that the evolutionary hypothesis is a verified fact from an open inductive system.

What is disturbing about macroevolution, however, is that evolutionists permit no historical information to falsify their theory.  But if no falsification is allowed, that places the conclusion of the evolutionary hypothesis outside of the inductive method.  And if those conclusions are outside of the inductive method, they are outside of the realm of science.

Any way you look at it, the evolutionary hypothesis is not scientific.  It is not observable, repeatable, or demonstrable.  Nor is it a verified conclusion from the inductive method.  Moreover, historical evidence can be brought forth that falsifies the hypothesis of evolution, but such is beyond the scope of this article.  Other historical evidence that claims to prove evolution to be true has also been falsified.  If you would like to see some of that evidence, please visit http://www.apologeticspress.org.

Kevin Cauley is a graduate and instructor at the Southwest School of Bible Studies.  He is also a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin (B.A.) and a Master’s candidate at St. Edward’s University.  You may contact him at k.cauley@swsbs.edu.

Posted in Kevin Cauley | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Science and Evolution

“He That Sweareth To His Own Hurt”

Kevin Cauley

“LORD, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? who shall dwell in thy holy hill? . . .  He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not.”  (Psalm 15:1, 4)

In the year 2000 I lost my job at EDS and began searching for employment.  I picked up some part time work in the interim.  While I was committed to a project, I got a call from the Compaq Corporation.  I scheduled the interview and met with a manager.

The job they wanted me to do was a “dream job” in the computer industry.  I would be technical support for the outside sales department.  I would get a company car, have access to a large computer lab facility, be able to take clients out for lunches on a regular basis at the company’s expense, and all the perks.

At the end of the interview, the manager looked at me and said, “I would like to hire you.  When can you start?”

I replied, “I have a previous commitment with another company to do a temporary project and in two weeks after that project is done, I can start.”  He said that he appreciated my honesty and character; we parted company and he never called back.

We live in a society that by and large values compromise above principle, subjectivity over objectivity, and relatives over absolutes.  It would be an understatement to say that it is easy to get away with not keeping one’s promises in our society.

“Things happen.”

The weather changes.  We don’t feel good.  Other people don’t follow through.  There are any number of reasons that we could enumerate and by and large most would accept our excuse.

In contrast to our society, God’s people, God’s society, are called to a higher standard.  It is a standard that transcends the bounds of society, time, and culture.  It is a standard based upon the eternal character of God.  It is a standard upon which God expects us to live (Romans 12:1-2).

Our God is a God who always keeps his promises (Hebrews 6:17-18, Titus 1:2).  If we desire to dwell in His holy hill, His tabernacle, His church today, we must practice His standard of righteousness.  When we are willing to suffer to keep our promises, God says that is when we are most like Him.

May we, as God’s people, resolve to keep our word and dwell in unity with our God.

Posted in Kevin Cauley | Tagged , , | Comments Off on “He That Sweareth To His Own Hurt”

Philosophical Underpinnings of the Emerging Church

In the Spring of 1994, I took a philosophy class entitled, “Interpretation and Translation” in which I was exposed to a theory known as “Reader-Response Criticism.”  This theory suggests that the meaning of any particular text is not so much what the author originally intended as much as what the reader personally experiences when reading.  This theory suggests that there is no one peculiar meaning outside of the context of the reader.  The text could potentially have as many meanings as those capable of reading.  As a result, there are no right or wrong meanings; there are only subjectively understood meanings.

Such a method of reading applied to the Bible would produce any number of “legitimate” teachings.  According to this theory, the important thing is not the intentionality of the author, but rather, the understanding of the reader.  Consequently, the reader’s understanding becomes the ultimate legitimate “truth” and it ceases to be of interest to talk about “right” or “wrong” interpretations.   The only thing that would matter would be to discuss the various interpretations.

This approach to understanding literature is but one facet in a larger cultural movement which re-centers the search for truth upon the truth-seeker as opposed to the truth-Teacher.  It reflects a fundamental choice as to whether we are going to think anthropocentrically (man-centered) or theocentrically (God-centered).  Anthropocentric thinking has been (and is) presented to our culture in the postmodern philosophy of existentialism.

The fundamental tenet of existentialism has been expressed in the formula “existence precedes essence.”[1] Basically, this means that the personal experiences of the subject (i.e. one’s existence) define reality (and all of reality’s accoutrements such as purpose, meaning, truth, etc.).  The concept that reality can or should be defined in terms of absolutes (essences) is shelved.  Postmodern philosophies tend to reject any epistemology that does not based solely on the individual subject.

Consequently, postmodern thinking is not concerned with the absolute truth or falsity of propositions; truth becomes a relative term which makes sense only in the context of one’s personal experiences.  Paramount, rather, is the individual’s expression of those experiences.  This expression takes the form of a narrative or conversation as an individual allows his personal experience to refine his sense of truth.[2] Hence, truth is anthropocentric.

Christologically, postmodernism prefers to focus on how the resurrection narrative affects one’s personal experience.  This emphasis is also anthropocentric because it seeks to explore how one reacts subjectively to the resurrection narrative without presumption of any truth claims posited in the gospel accounts.  Such thinking reflects the “existence precedes essence” doctrine of existentialism.

As “Reader-Response Criticism” was being touted secularly, a parallel postmodern theological movement emerged as well.  Today, this movement is known as the Emerging Church.[3]

The Emerging Church’s self-proclaimed effort is to engage the postmodern culture with the gospel.  This is laudable.  However, it proposes to do this through postmodern methods and presumptions.  The movement is nebulous.  It includes both individuals who have embraced the core tenets of postmodern thought and individuals who are simply seeking to engage a postmodern culture with the gospel in a postmodern way.

The method the Emerging Church uses to do this involves 1) a surface acceptance of pluralism, 2) engaging the postmodern individual in an open-ended conversational manner, 3) an avoidance of dogmatic assertions which are seen as a consequent of failed rationalistic methods (philosophical modernism), and 4) an effort to affect the postmodern individual through authentic personal behavior or example.  Some consequences of practicing this method are 1) more open forms of worship, 2) communalism, and 3) ecumenism, and 4) concern for social justice.[4]

The approach the Emerging Church uses is appealing, especially to a postmodern culture.  For the Christian, however, it is dishonest.  How so?  Eventually one’s commitment to absolute truth is going to surface into the “conversation” and the appearance of a pluralistic acceptance of all opinions is going to be exposed as a deception.  At this point, one will be unable to avoid dogmatic assertions and one’s behavior will be judged as inconsistent at best and hypocritical at worst.  The individual employing the Emerging Church’s methods will then be forced to evaluate himself.  Since, he will come to the conclusion that he has been dishonest or inauthentic, he will ultimately decide to accept the methods of the Emerging Church as fundamentally true in order to be more consistent in his approach.   Having accepting these methods, he embraces a wholesale abandonment of absolute truth and the adoption of postmodern philosophy.  This becomes painfully obvious when we contrast the basic tenets of Christianity with the Emerging Church’s methods.

The fundamental claims of Christianity are that Jesus of Nazareth died, was buried, and rose again to a new life.[5] To suggest, as postmodern philosophy does, that there are no absolute truths (or in a softer form, systems of truths), reduces the New Testament’s claim to nothing more than how one personally feels about the subject and makes out the witnesses of Jesus’ resurrection to be sophisticated liars.

This is a problem for the Emerging Church movement as Scot McKnight, a self proclaimed member of that movement, says in Christianity Today Magazine.  “Unless you proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ, there is no good news at all—and if there is no Good News, then there is no Christianity, emerging or evangelical.”[6] Put another way, postmodernity’s rejection of absolute truth systems entails the rejection of the Gospel as an absolute truth system.  This is the fundamental failure of the Emerging Church.

This highlights the choice the Emerging Church must make between anthropocentric and theocentric thinking.  To reject the Gospel as an absolute truth system causes one’s fundamental focus to be upon man instead of God.  Emerging Church theology reflects this shift in thinking by focusing upon the gospel accounts as solutions to social problems (man vs. man) instead of theological problems (man vs. God).  This focus upon the man vs. man conflict is fundamentally anthropocentric and existentialist in flavor.

Some of the specific terminology used in the movement also reflects its acceptance of existentialist thought.  For example, the term “authentic” is employed to describe personal worship practices.  Practices that are inclusive of individual participation such as personal testimonies, liturgical reading responses, sharing meals, lighting candles and prayer are termed authentic inasmuch as they are perceived as involving the subject in the worship experience.  Being “authentic” is defined, in fact, in a way that is consistent not with objective truth, but with one’s own personal feelings.  Dogmatic propositional presentations of the gospel message are considered inauthentic because they deny the personal feelings of the individual.[7]

The application of these terms, authentic and inauthentic, were employed in existentialist thinking by Martin Heidegger.  He suggested that authentic existence consisted in one’s individual and personal acceptance of his unique, subjective, and independent existence from societal norms and standards blithely accepted by the masses.[8]

The Emergent Church seeks to use that same concept but in a theological way, namely, to suggest that one’s religious experience must be personal and subjective in order to reflect something meaningful.  One’s personal involvement in spirituality is not encouraged because it is fundamentally necessary as a tenet of truth, but personal involvement infuses the subject with his own truth.  In this way, then, the movement would have individuals disengage from the formal and dogmatic religion of the masses that currently presents itself in the form of evangelical Christianity.[9]

The Emergent Church easily attracts individuals disenchanted with religious formalism.  The problem is that it throws out the proverbial baby with the bath water.  Instead of seeking to personally involve them based upon absolute standards of truth (the gospel), the movement replaces absolute standards of truth with a subjectivist standard where truth only has meaning in relationship to the individual’s personal experience.

In contrast, while true faith approaches God based upon God’s absolute truth, it also must be done with a sincerity of spirit that is truly authentic (John 4:24).  In such a model, however, authenticity comes not from one’s personal involvement independent of any normative teaching, but rather, in conjunction with it.  One is truly authentic when one sincerely believes the truths that are taught in the gospel and behaves accordingly.  A mere personal subjective acceptance of the gospel is neither sincere nor authentic because it denies or at best ignores the very claim the gospel makes regarding the historical truthfulness of Jesus’ resurrection.

More questions need to be answered regarding the Emerging Church.  Why is it critical of formal religion?  What aspects reflect sound theological practices in contrast to denominational Christianity?  How does the Emerging Church’s ecclesiology differ from the New Testament teaching of the church?  This brief overview really has only served to introduce the concept of the movement, its self professed relationship to postmodern philosophy, its ties with existentialism, and its anthropocentric nature.

The Emerging Church movement presents spiritual danger because of its de-historicizing of the gospel, making spirituality a wholly subjective matter, and relegating truth to each individual’s discretion.  Its effect upon these foundational matters will reverberate with harmful consequences in other areas of Christian doctrine as well.  We ought to reject any system (and this movement is a system regardless of its proposed rejection of theological systems) which rejects the concept of absolute truth.

[1] Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism is a Humanism trans. Carol Macomber, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007) p.22.  An online English translation is available at <http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.htm>.

[2] See for example, Eckhard Tolle, A New Earth (London: Penguin, 2005) p.71, “There is only one absolute Truth, and all other truths emanate from it….  The Truth is inseparable from who you are.  Yes, you are the Truth.”

[3] Carson, D. A. Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church. Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 2005.

[4] Scot McKnight, “Five Streams of the Emerging Church” Christianity Today Magazine, 11 February 2007. Available online at <http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/february/11.35.html>. Accessed on July 8th, 2008.

[5] 1 Corinthians 15:1-4.

[6]Scot McKnight, “Five Streams,” 2005.

[7] McLaren, Brian, A Generous Orthodoxy (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004) p. 107, 151.

[8] Heidegger, Martin, Being and Time, trans. Stambaugh (Albany: State University of New York Press: 1996) pp. 169-170.

[9] This is typical Kierkegaardian existentialist theology, his primary thesis being “Truth is subjectivity.”  Kierkegaard, Soren, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, trans. Hong, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1992.

Posted in Kevin Cauley | Tagged , | Comments Off on Philosophical Underpinnings of the Emerging Church

The Muddy Waters of the “Emerging Church”

Kevin Cauley

In August of 1991 my wife and I visited Vicksburg, Mississippi on our honeymoon.  One sight we could not miss was the Mississippi River.  The United States Geological Service estimates that approximately 373 billion gallons of water flow by Vicksburg every day.  That water comes from the thousands of lakes, rivers, streams, and creeks that flow into it creating the river’s distinctively muddy character.

Christians today live in a world that, not unlike the muddy Mississippi, is influenced by multiple streams of ideas, thoughts, and philosophies.  This period has been characterized as postmodern because of its anti-rational thinking and its complete acceptance of any and all ideas regardless of how ridiculous they may seem.  This is illustrated for us in the chorus of a Charlie Daniels’ song entitled, “Muddy Mississippi.”  “Everybody is alright / Ain’t nobody uptight / Dancing in the moonlight / Muddy Mississippi roll on.”

It should not surprise us that some are placing a special emphasis upon taking the gospel to the postmodern world.  This effort is known as the “Emerging Church.”  It is a pan-denominational effort to engage the postmodern world around us with the gospel, but with a subtle twist.  The “Emerging Church” wants to do this with the acceptance of postmodern presuppositions.

“Emerging Church” adherents do not believe that we ought to characterize the message of the gospel as either true or false.  This, they claim, buys into a failed system of knowledge.  Instead, they seek to engage the postmodern culture “non-confrontationally.”  This entails that we simply sit down to have a “conversation” about things; no one is right or wrong; no one is exhorted to give up false doctrine and embrace truth.  All ideas and philosophies are equally legitimized and somehow the postmodern culture is evangelized.

It reminds me of the 1990 movie “Pretty Woman,” in which a rich businessman hires a prostitute to act as his escort.  During the course of their relationship, the businessman ends up realizing that there is more to life than money; the prostitute ends up leaving her life of sex for money.  Both are somehow redeemed from their formerly wasted lives without condemning or being condemned.

In that regard, the “Emerging Church” movement is analogous to evangelizing a prostitute by fornicating with her.  While that seems harsh, some in this movement would accept that analogy as an accurate characterization.  The only “evils” in society are defined as things that cause human suffering and Christianity is simply equated with an effort to solve social problems such as hunger, homelessness, and racism.

Some Christians have even been caught up in this kind of thinking.  They need to be reminded that Jesus didn’t die for the philosophies of men, but for man’s salvation from the philosophies of men (1 Corinthians 2:1-5).  Jesus proclaimed His message as “truth” (John 8:32) and severely chastised those who did not believe it (John 8:44-45).

The disciples confessed Jesus as the one that they knew and believed to be the Holy One of God (John 6:69).  They died willing to confront a similarly pluralistic culture with the absolute truth that Jesus was the way and the gospel was the truth.  If we, as Christians, are unwilling to stand up for the absolute truth of the resurrection of Jesus, then we’ve been evangelized instead of evangelizing.

The muddy waters of the Mississippi are broad and deep, but it is impossible to see anything clearly when surrounded by them.  If we surrender truth to engage the postmodern world with Christianity, we’ve surrendered the whole war.  Let us not seek to be conformed to the world, but transformed out of it (Romans 12:1-2).

Posted in Kevin Cauley | Tagged , , | Comments Off on The Muddy Waters of the “Emerging Church”