Scripture-ish

Programming Notes

Voiceover. I suppose you have noticed that I have started recording voiceovers for these Substack essays. I’ve been doing it for a while now—months. You can find the voiceover at the top of the page. It’s not AI voice reading to you; it’s my own voice. I’m doing it myself.

Podcast. The voiceovers for these Substacks essays are now also hosted on their own podcast, called Scripture-ish. You can find the Scripture-ish podcast at Apple or Spotify or maybe a few other places. This is probably the way I would consume this content if I were you. It may also be the case that I record episodes for the podcast that don’t overlap with material here at the Substack page—but I might not, and I haven’t ever done it yet.

Thanks for reading Gallagher! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

Berean Series. For about a decade now, Heritage Christian University Press has published an annual Bible study curriculum called the Berean Study Series. It’s designed to provide Bible class material for one quarter (i.e., 13 chapters), and it comes out usually in the late spring or early summer. It’s always written by several people affiliated with HCU. This year, the topic is the seven Ones of Ephesians 4. I previously posted my two chapters on the Holy Spirit for this edition (here and here). Look for the book to be published in a couple months.

I won’t publish here any more of the chapters from this year’s Berean, because I didn’t write any of the others. But I did write the introduction, and that is what I reproduce below.

Church

The New Testament is about the church. Now, don’t get me wrong: it’s about some other things, too. If you said that the New Testament is about Christ, I wouldn’t argue with you. The Apostle Paul once said, “I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). And if you said that God is the main theme of the New Testament, I could defend the point. Or maybe you think it would be best to identify the main topic of the New Testament as not God or Christ exactly but something about them—perhaps the Atonement or the grace of God. All of this makes sense to me. But I still say the New Testament is about the church.

Christ died to form the church. “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me” (John 12:32). So said our Lord, and the Evangelist offers this interpretation: “This he said, signifying what death he should die” (12:33). The death of Jesus drew people to him, and these people are the church, the community who enjoys the blessings of Atonement, upon whom God pours out his grace. Saying that the New Testament is about Christ’s crucifixion or about God’s grace does not mean that it’s not about the church; it’s a matter of emphasis. But certainly the New Testament emphasizes the church. Think about this: every single one of the writings of the New Testament were written for the church, the people of God, to edify Christians in their faith. Many of the New Testament writings were originally directed to specific churches (mostly Paul’s letters, also Revelation). Moreover, the message of Jesus, in summary, was this: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel” (Mark 1:15). Who are those people who have repented and believed the gospel? What is the group of people called over whom Christ reigns as king, who are, therefore, a part of the kingdom of God? The New Testament applies to these people the Greek term ekklesia, often translated “church.” Jesus himself—at least in Greek translation (assuming Jesus actually taught in Aramaic)—applied this very term to the community of his followers (Matthew 16:18; 18:17). I say it again: the New Testament is about the church.

And what does the New Testament say to the church? Yes, it has much to say about the grace of God, and the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus, and the good news that Christ now sits at the right hand of God, interceding on behalf of his people. “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth,” exclaims Jesus following his Passion (Matthew 28:18). The church needs to know all of this; these are things the church should believe, teachings that should shape Christian identity. But what is it that the church should do? What are the responsibilities of the church?

Here, again, there could be several answers. Some people will want to emphasize evangelism, perhaps in reliance on the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19). Others will nominate worship as a primary task of God’s people, citing it as our destiny in the hereafter, as the book of Revelation suggests (Revelation 4–5). Some will want to talk about the church as the “hands and feet” of Jesus, in reliance on Paul’s image of the church as the body of Christ (especially in 1 Corinthians 12), and so the church should do good in the world (cf. Matthew 25:31–46) as Jesus did (Acts 10:38). Yes, yes yes! But, in the New Testament, even greater stress—greater than any of these aforementioned points—is laid on another aspect of church responsibility.

Unity.

Church Unity

What is the church supposed to do? It’s supposed to be united. Christians are supposed to love one another. I think it would be fair to say that this is the main theme of all of Paul’s letters. I mean, he definitely wants to talk about Christ crucified, because the crucifixion is important to us individually, and we rejoice that God was willing to send his son for that purpose, because he loved us, and we marvel that Jesus was willing to endure that suffering on our behalf. And yet, why did Paul want to emphasize Christ crucified to the Corinthians? It’s because the Corinthian church was divided into different factions (1 Corinthians 1:11), and Paul thought that people who acclaim as Lord one who suffered death for others could not possibly get into arguments with each other about who’s faction is better or who best represents Jesus, as the Twelve had earlier (Luke 22:24). If you’re willing to exalt yourself over your brother, then you clearly haven’t reflected enough on the crucifixion of Jesus. That’s why Paul determined to know nothing but Christ crucified. It was for the purpose of church unity.

Or think about that famous Christ Hymn passage in Philippians 2, the one that shows Jesus emptying himself as he dispensed with his divine prerogatives and submitted to a slave’s death (Phil 2:6–11). Why did Paul bring up this account of Jesus? Why mention it here to the Philippians? Paul tells us: he wants the Philippian Christians to “let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” He wants the Philippian church to imitate Jesus in self-emptying. Why? Church unity. “If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies, Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind” (Philippians 2:1–2). The Philippian church, like the church in Corinth, was experiencing some strife, associated with two leading women (4:2), and it was of the utmost importance that the situation not split the church. It was imperative that the body of Christ remain one.

Ephesians 4

Paul addresses the same subject in Ephesians. The point of the church is to represent Christ in the world, which means that the church needs to grow into the image of Christ. Lord knows—and Paul knows—that this will take growth, because we ain’t there yet. But he lays out the goal this way.

But speaking the truth in love, [we] may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. (Ephesians 4:15–16)

We, the church, are the body of Christ, and we are growing into our role as the body of Christ. This image of the church as Christ’s body is itself an illustration of the unity that needs to pertain within the church, as Paul expounds in 1 Corinthians 12, leading to the programmatic declaration, “Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular” (1 Corinthians 12:27). What Paul means in 1 Corinthians is that our role as the body of Christ has very definite implications about how we treat one another, how we love one another, how we rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep. Again, church unity.

And he means the same thing in Ephesians 4 by the image of God’s people as the body of Christ. It is for the purpose of church unity that God distributed different gifts to different people (Ephesians 4:7–12), “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ (4:13). Paul starts this passage by highlighting the humility that Christians should display toward one another, so that they may “keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (4:3). In Ephesians 4, Paul is on his constant theme, the topic he never leaves, the unity of the church.

The hope for the world is a church united, loving one another, representing Christ.

The greatest threat to the world is a divided church.

Paul is on his constant theme in Ephesians 4, but that’s not to say that he doesn’t have new ways of addressing the familiar topic. In this passage, the apostle mentions seven aspects of Christian faith and practice that bind believers together (Ephesians 4:4–6).

There is one body.

There is one Spirit.

There is one hope.

There is one faith.

There is one Lord.

There is one baptism.

There is one God.

In Ephesians, Paul lists these seven Ones so quickly that he spends no time exploring them. Perhaps he had preached on these topics many times before in the hearing of the recipients of this letter. But those expositions are not preserved for us. And yet these seven Ones that are supposed to ground the church’s unity deserve our thoughtful attention.

We try to supply some thoughtful attention to these topics in the 2026 edition of the Berean Study Series. Let me explain the structure of the book, which is similar to previous installments of the Berean Series but with a little tweak. We asked each author to write a pair of chapters on the assigned topic, the first chapter addressing the topic in general (whether body or Spirit or hope, etc.) and the second chapter addressing how “oneness” relates to the subject. Why does Paul say that there is “one” body? Or “one” Spirit? What is he denying? What is he affirming? How does—or ought—the “oneness” of the body or the Spirit or the faith (etc.) contribute to Christian unity? We hope this approach to the seven Ones of Ephesians 4 proves stimulating and helpful to you in your personal Bible study and for the people to whom you minister.

And we hope that this series of studies contributes to the building up of the body of Christ so that it may keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Thanks for reading Gallagher! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmongallagher.substack.com

Alexei Navalny died on February 16, 2024, and a few days later (Feb 21) I spoke briefly about him in a chapel service at Heritage Christian University. If you listen to that speech (see the video here), you’ll find that I really didn’t know much about Navalny at the time, just what had been widely reported. His memoir, Patriot, was published a few months later, and I eagerly read it. By the way, while in prison, Navalny mentioned that one of the reasons he was writing the memoir was for the royalties that would come to his family in case of his own death. “Let’s face it, if a murky assassination attempt using a chemical weapon, followed by a tragic demise in prison, can’t move a book, it is hard to imagine what would. The book’s author has been murdered by a villainous president; what more could the marketing department ask for?” (p. 406).

He nailed that. That’s why I read his book.

The essay below is a heavily edited version of that chapel speech from two years ago, with material added from my reading of his memoir.

On January 17, 2021, Alexei Navalny boarded a plane in Germany and returned to his home country of Russia. This seemingly simple action required great bravery and—according to some people, even people who knew and loved Navalny—great folly. For the last time Navalny had been in Russia, he had been poisoned and thought he was going to die. This poisoning—about which there is an entire Wikipedia article—happened on a Russian plane on August 20, 2020. A passenger on the flight used his phone to capture video of Navalny’s moaning. Here is a 60 Minutes story about Navalny that covers the poisoning and plays a brief clip of that passenger’s video.

He was in safety in Germany. He chose to go to Russia. He was immediately detained in the Russian airport and never left Russian state custody. He died in a Russian prison on February 16, 2024. He was 47 years old.

While in prison, in 2021, Navalny recalled that his publisher, who had already contracted his memoir, was concerned that he wouldn’t be able to finish the book if he returned to Russia. He remembers the publisher saying, “Of course, we admire your courage, but anything can happen in that country of yours, and then what would become of the book?” To this remembered statement Navalny replied, “I understand that you are saying ‘courage’ because you are polite, but you are thinking ‘stupidity’” (p. 405).

Navalny’s decision to return to Russia despite the risks is reminiscent of similar decisions. My daily Bible reading has Acts 21 fresh in my mind, where friends of the apostle Paul were urging him to avoid Jerusalem, assured by unimpeachable authority that his entrance into the city would bring him great suffering.

While we were staying there [= Caesarea] for several days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. He came to us and took Paul’s belt, bound his own feet and hands with it, and said, “Thus says the Holy Spirit, ‘This is the way the Jews in Jerusalem will bind the man who owns this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.’” When we heard this, we and the people there urged him not to go up to Jerusalem. Then Paul answered, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready not only to be bound but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus. (Acts 21:10–13)

Paul’s response to his friends sounds remarkably like Navalny’s response to those urging him to stay in safety. And if we recall the courageous entrance into Jerusalem of the apostle of Jesus, we surely must also think of Jesus himself, who knew what awaited him in the city and that it must take place (see, e.g., Mark 8:31).

Closer to our time, Navalny’s decision echoes that of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

In June 1939, Bonhoeffer was in New York City, having come there specifically to avoid the sufferings that the Nazi regime was visiting upon German society. After a weeklong layover in Britain, he boarded the Bremen for a five-day voyage to NY. He had been there before, a decade earlier, to study at Union Theological Seminary, and it was the friendships he had forged at that time that paved the way for this return visit. His friends, particularly his former teacher Reinhold Niebuhr, urged Bonhoeffer to flee to safety, and Bonhoeffer acquiesced.

Bonhoeffer arrived on June 2. His hosts were out of pocket, on summer holiday. In his journal he mentions that he went to the movies, saw Juarez, enjoyable and diverting. But the movie was no match for the anguish Bonhoeffer felt inside. “I would have liked to take the next ship. This inactivity, or rather activity spent on trivialities, is simply no longer bearable for us, thinking of the brothers and the precious time. The full force of self-reproaches about a wrong decision comes back up and is almost suffocating. I was filled with despair.” (This journal entry is dated June 15, 1939 and is printed in DBWE 15, #137, p. 222.) Bonhoeffer’s recent(-ish) biographer, Charles Marsh (who quotes this journal entry), comments: “The situation at home, it was now clear, had depleted his lifelong love of idle pleasures to a remarkable degree. Dietrich had become consumingly serious” (p. 280). He left New York on July 8, returning to Germany.

In Germany, Bonhoeffer became an agent for the Abwehr, but he was working against the Nazis. He had some involvement in the July 20 Plot, which led to his arrest in 1943 and eventually his execution on April 9, 1945, a few weeks before the end of the war.

Why did he return to Germany? As Bonhoeffer scholar Victoria Barnett writes in the introduction to DBWE 15 (p. 9), “Bonhoeffer came to New York because of his uncertainty about what would happen to him in Germany and his fears of military conscription. From the moment he arrived, however, he was haunted by the sense that he had abandoned his students and fled to safety while they confronted a precarious future.” In late June, he tried to explain himself by letter to Niebuhr, and the relevant passage is quoted at Wikipedia, but I quote below the entirety of the excerpt as printed in DBWE 15 (2005), #129, p. 210.

… Sitting here in Dr. Coffin’s garden I have had the time to think and to pray about my situation and that of my nation and to have God’s will for me clarified. I have come to the conclusion that I made a mistake in coming to America. I must live through this difficult period in our national history with the Christian people of Germany. I will have no right to participate in the reconstruction of Christian life in Germany after the war if I do not share the trials of this time with my people. My brothers in the Confessional Synod wanted me to go. They may have been right in urging me to do so; but I was wrong in going. Such a decision each man must make for himself. Christians in Germany will face the terrible alternative of either willing the defeat of their nation in order that Christian civilization may survive or willing the victory of their nation and thereby destroying our civilization. I know which of these alternatives I must choose but I cannot make that choice from security. …

(The original of this letter does not survive. This quotation was provided by Niebuhr himself in an article he wrote about Bonhoeffer’s death.) Bonhoeffer returned, though he knew that this decision would cost him dearly. And yet, what would be the point of his life if he avoided suffering? Some people might be fine with a life of easy pleasure; as Charles Marsh argues, Bonhoeffer himself was content with such a life earlier, but things had changed—German society and Bonhoeffer himself. He chose suffering.

Likewise Navalny.

Back to Navalny

Navalny died after three years in a Russian prison. Was it an assassination? Well, whatever you call it, it was certainly ordered by Russian president Vladimir Putin. How do I know? Uhhh. You can’t be seriously asking that question, can you? How about you watch that 60 Minutes piece above, and then reflect on Navalny’s last three years of life in a Russian prison, and Putin’s control of the situation in Russia, and if you’re still wondering whether Putin ordered Navalny’s death, I don’t know what to tell you. But I guess you could consider also this European report that came out a few weeks ago.

When the news of Navalny’s death broke a couple years ago, Tucker Carlson was also in the news because he had recently returned from Russia. Let’s talk about Tucker Carlson for a moment. As I recall he used to be a sane, level-headed, Republican pundit. It’s been a while since that description could be applied to Carlson. He became most famous and influential as a nightly Fox News commentator, having replaced Bill O’Reilly. Carlson himself was fired from Fox in 2023, at least in part for his role in promoting falsehoods regarding the 2020 Presidential election. For a while now, it seems that Carlson has endeavored to say the most outlandish, provocative nonsense; he seems uninterested in informing people—quite the opposite, he apparently revels in his ability to get people to believe the most patently ridiculous opinions.

That is how one should understand Carlson’s recent trip to Russia, which included an interview with the Russian president (which also has its own Wikipedia page) and a trip to the grocery store and the Moscow subway. Carlson effused about the beautiful Moscow subway. There’s a video that he posted online of his time in the grocery store, praising the low prices of Russian food, as if Russians are so much better off than Americans. Carlson seemed unaware that salaries in Russia are so low that the average Russian can barely those so-called cheap groceries. There are other silly things Carlson says in the video, especially about the grocery carts that use a coin-release mechanism that he had never seen before, though they are all over America (like at our local Aldi). In his interview with Putin, the name Navalny never came up. In Dubai on the Monday following, Carlson was asked why he hadn’t questioned Putin about Navalny, and Carlson said, “leadership requires killing people.” By Carlson’s standard, Putin is a great leader. A few days later, Putin killed Navalny.

To be fair to Carlson, he did follow up that last comment by saying, “that’s why I wouldn’t want to be a leader.” He seems to be saying that in the world in which we live, practically speaking (not ideally), leadership requires killing people. Carlson is, perhaps, regretful that this is the case. Still, he is too flippant in addressing the issue. Just because leaders often do terrible things does not mean that they don’t deserve condemnation for those terrible things—and the leaders who do more terrible things (more in quantity and quality) deserve more condemnation. It is disheartening—though, unfortunately, not surprising—to hear Carlson so callously toss aside Putin’s murders as irrelevant to an evaluation of the man.

What I want to point out in this context is the bravery of Navalny and the cowardice of Putin. Vladimir Putin is no leader—certainly not according to the standards of Jesus (remember Mark 10:41–45), and not even according to the much less noble standards of American history and society. Putin’s cowardice so defines him that he could not stand for Alexei Navalny to run against him in a presidential election. Putin was not concerned, I imagine, that he would actually lose the election, just that Navalny might get enough of the vote that Putin would somewhat lose face. He could not allow that to happen. But Putin’s cowardice, as cowardice tends to do, has only grown in recent years.

Let me point this out about cowardice, and all sin. It increases. Last night I was reading, once again, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to my kids. And we were in chapter 4, titled “Turkish Delight.” Do you remember about this Turkish Delight? The White Witch created it for Edmund, pounds of it, and Edmund ate it all up, and then he was not satisfied, but only wanted more. Because it was enchanted Turkish Delight.

Edmund’s lust for that Turkish Delight determined his actions over the coming days, his own betrayals, his own sin, all for more of the false enjoyment that could never offer lasting pleasure.

Such is sin. Such is cowardice. And Putin’s cowardice has now grown to the extent that he could not even allow Navalny to live in the same country.

Notice the contrast between the two men. Putin has been indicted by the international court in the Hague, which means that if he travels to a nation that is a partner in the International Criminal Court, they are obligated to arrest him—so, he has not traveled to such a country. He’s reduced to traveling to places like China. On the other hand, Navalny knew full well that if he entered Russia again, he would likely be arrested and killed. And he went, in order to provide an example of bravery, and to give people hope.

At the time of Navalny’s death I did not know whether he was a Christian, but his memoir makes plain that he was. What I did recognize at the time, what was, indeed, blindingly obvious, was that Navalny’s actions—at least, the actions that I have been praising here—are entirely consistent with Christian principles.

It was at this point, in that chapel speech from two years ago, that I transitioned to talking about the book of Daniel, specifically chapter 6, the lion’s den story, which was ostensibly the topic for the day. I omit that brief portion of the speech here, and, if you want to learn my thoughts on this, I point you instead to my book on Daniel—except to say that Daniel’s response to the foolish decree of King Darius is another example of courage in the face of death, so well illustrated by Navalny in our own time.

Why Did Navalny Return to Russia in 2021?

This section is entirely dependent on my reading of Navalny’s memoir, which deals quite a bit with his motivations for returning to Russia after he recovered in Germany from his 2020 poisoning. (My comments here basically regurgitate a blog post from late 2024.) Many people advised him to stay away from Russia. Navalny recalls a visit to his hospital from Angela Merkel, who—when she heard about his plans to return to Russia—responded, “There’s no need to hurry” (p. 23).

The chapter in the memoir that to my mind is the best in the book, the most engrossing, is the out-of-chronological-order ch. 8, written from prison shortly after he was arrested in the Russian airport in January 2021. This chapter reveals that he and his team did not necessarily think he would get arrested straightaway; they gamed out several scenarios for how Putin might greet Navalny’s return to Russia (pp. 137–41). Before he left Germany, the bevy of questions from reporters about whether he intended to return to his home country annoyed him.

How do you like that, I thought irascibly…. You work for twenty years in the full glare of publicity, you write hundreds of articles, every day you back up your words with actions, and they still imagine I might be too scared to go back. (p. 131)

This response suggests that part of the reason for his return was—to put it cynically—to make a show of his bravery. I think a better and truer way of putting it: to provide an example for others, to provide hope. This interpretation is supported by an incident narrated later in the same chapter. Outside of a police station waiting to be transported to prison, he encountered some supporters.

They took me outside and people started yelling. Unexpectedly for me, I yelled back to them, “Don’t be afraid of anything!” That was an important moment, the kind when you feel at one with your supporters. They are thinking about you and want to show they are with you. You are thinking about them, and that the regime needs this arrest to frighten them, and you do your utmost to help them not to be afraid. You keep your back straight and shout, “Don’t be afraid of anything.” (p. 162)

In a sense, bravery is the point. When the regime lives on fear, courage is resistance.

A later chapter (ch. 15) prints Navalny’s speech at the Yves Rocher trial. Now, this Yves Rocher case—in which Navalny and his brother, Oleg, were accused of, I think, embezzling funds—dragged on for years. I think this particular speech was delivered in court probably in 2015 or thereabouts. He repeatedly mentions how the judges and the prosecutors stare down at the table, which he interprets as an attempt to ignore all the evidence of corruption in the system, to render the verdict that the Kremlin expects. Toward the end of the speech (p. 240), he divides Russian society into a few categories. The whole system is a junta, controlled by about twenty billionaires. There are about a thousand people, but no more, “who are feeding at this junta’s trough,” and these people are “state deputies and crooks.” “There’s a small percentage of people who don’t agree with this system. And then there are the millions who are simply staring at the table. I’ll never stop my fight with this junta. I’m going to continue fighting this junta, by campaigning and doing whatever it takes to shake up these people who are staring at the table. You included. I’m never going to stop.”

About halfway through the speech, he says:

Why do you put up with these lies? Why do you just stare at the table? I’m sorry if I’m dragging you into a philosophical discussion, but life’s too short to simply stare down at the table. I blinked and I’m almost forty years old. I’ll blink again and I’ll already have grandchildren. And then we all will blink again and we’ll be on our deathbeds, with our relatives all around us, and all they’ll be thinking about is, It’s about time they died and freed up this apartment. And at some point we’ll realize that nothing we did had any meaning at all, so why did we just stare at the table and say nothing? The only moments in our lives that count for anything are those when we do the right thing, when we don’t have to look down at the table but can raise our heads and look each other in the eye. Nothing else matters. (p. 239)

This reminds me so of Bonhoeffer, whose flight to New York in 1939 was a flight away from doing something meaningful, a flight toward staring at the table. He quickly realized that just staring was not for him.

In the last chapter before the memoir becomes a prison diary (ch. 18), Navalny reflects on why he doesn’t protect himself more.

I have always tried to ignore the idea that I could be attacked, arrested, or even killed. I have no control over what might happen, and it would be self-destructive to dwell on it. Should I think, What are the chances that I’ll survive this morning? I don’t know; six out of ten? Eight out of ten? Maybe even ten out of ten? It’s not that I’m trying not think about it, closing my eyes and pretending the danger doesn’t exist. But one day I simply made the decision not to be afraid. I weighed everything up, understood where I stand—and let it go. I’m an opposition politician and understand perfectly who my enemies are, but if I were to worry constantly about them killing me, then it’s not worth my while living in Russia. I should emigrate or change what I do. (p. 271)

So, why doesn’t he emigrate or change what he does? Navalny doesn’t say so explicitly, but I believe the one action implies the other: emigrating entails changing what he does. What he did could only be done in Russia, because part of what got attention was the audacity of the bravery.

Another way of saying it is that exile is a good way to make yourself irrelevant. (Again, echoes of Bonhoeffer in NYC.)

While I don’t remember Navalny in this memoir framing his return in that way, various things he says touch on the same idea, as we’ve seen.

Living in safety while others (specifically, one’s fellow countrymen) suffered was not something that Navalny (or Bonhoeffer) was willing to do. (This theme of being implicated in the lives of others is one we have noticed before, with a nod to MLK.)

In an Instagram post from prison on Navalny’s 47th (and last) birthday (June 4, 2023), he wrote:

But life works in such a way that social progress and a better future can only be achieved if a certain number of people are willing to pay the price for their right to have their own beliefs. The more of them there are, the less everyone has to pay. …

But until that day comes, I see my situation not as a heavy burden or a yoke but as a job that needs to be done. Every job has its unpleasant aspects, right? So I’m going through the unpleasant part of my favorite job right now.

My plan for the previous year was not to become brutalized and bitter and lose my laid-back demeanor that would mean the beginning of my defeat. (p. 459)

He saw it as a personal defeat if the regime cowered him or embittered him—and in that way controlled him. No doubt Navalny faltered at times, but he provides a compelling example.

The final item in the book, before the epilogue (written by Navalny in March 2022), is an Instagram post from Jan 17, 2024. One month later, he would be dead. This final Instagram post once again addresses the question: “Why did you come back?”

I have my country and my convictions. I don’t want to give up my country or betray it. If your convictions mean something, you must be prepared to stand up for them and make sacrifices if necessary.

And if you’re not prepared to do that, you have no convictions. You just think you do. But those are not convictions and principles; they’re only thoughts in your head.

Of course, this doesn’t mean that everyone who’s not currently in prison lacks convictions. Everyone pays their price. For many people, the price is high even without being imprisoned.

I took part in elections and vied for leadership positions. The call for me is different. I traveled the length and breadth of the country, declaring everywhere from the stage, “I promise that I won’t let you down, I won’t deceive you, and I won’t abandon you.” By coming back to Russia, I fulfilled my promise to the voters. There need to be some people in Russia who don’t lie to them. (p. 470)

That is merely an excerpt from the Instagram post as printed in the memoir. The last line of that post, written a month before Navalny’s death:

But for now, we must not give up, and we must stand by our beliefs.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit edmongallagher.substack.com

At the Resurrection, when our bodies come out of the ground and are reconstituted and transformed into whatever a spiritual body is so that they are fit to inhabit whatever that new reality is that we sometimes call heaven or the new heavens and new earth—when that happens, will we still maintain the sex distinctions common to our bodies now? In other words, in the Resurrection, will I be male?

This is a question that people have asked. And answered. We will review some of the answers in just a moment. But let’s think together about what sort of evidence we could have for such a question. Well, there’s Jesus. He died, and rose from the dead, a model for our own resurrections, and after he did so, he was still male. That’s one data point.

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Maybe also the Bible says something specific about our resurrection bodies and the potential for sex distinctions?

Does the Bible say something? Hmm, maybe Jesus did in his conversation with the Sadducees. Now, you remember that the Sadducees were sad, you see, because they denied the resurrection. As part of his response to their question about the one bride for seven brothers, Jesus says that those accounted worthy of the resurrection “neither marry nor are given in marriage, for neither are they able to die anymore, for they are angel-like and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection” (Luke 20:35–36). Well, if they can’t marry, does that mean that the sons of the Resurrection are not distinguished by sex—no male and female? After all, Paul said that in Christ there is no male and female (Gal 3:28), which does not exactly describe life as we experience it now, but maybe that vision will be fulfilled in the Resurrection. But, in reference to what Jesus says to the Sadducees, let me point out that even now, in this life, some people don’t get married and yet they are—usually—specifically one sex or the other.

So, I am not clear on whether the Bible addresses the question. Does the great tradition of Christianity have an answer? No, I don’t think so. There does not seem to be a unified answer when you look back at the great thinkers in the history of the church. Well, I will say, I have not put in much work on this question. I don’t know whether Thomas Aquinas provided an answer; that would be interesting. But I have relied on a few scholarly discussions written in the last few decades, and these discussions have served as my guide to the history of interpretation.

One sorta recent answer from an authoritative source comes from Pope John Paul II. Now, when I say the pope is authoritative, I mean that he’s authoritative for a lot of Christians, and that he’s almost always (these days, at least) brilliant, and that, by virtue of his office, he’s sorta obligated to say things that are in harmony with traditional Christian teaching, as he understands it. So I think of popes, at least modern popes, as authoritative voices in regard to what the Christian tradition is. And in his book Theology of the Body, JPII affirmed that

human bodies, which are recovered and also renewed in the resurrection, will preserve their specific masculine or feminine character and the meaning of being male or female in the body will be constituted and understood differently in the ‘other world’ than it had been ‘from the beginning’ and then in its whole earthly dimension. (§66.4, p. 388)

The pope is reflecting on Christ’s reply to the Sadducees, and in particular his assertion that in the resurrection people will “take neither wife nor husband.” According to this papal statement, humans will continue to be distinguished by sex in the Resurrection, though those sex distinctions will function differently in that realm of existence.

Does the pope’s statement accurately represent the tradition? Yes, sorta; depends on whom you ask. If you ask scholar Taylor Petrey (pp. 666–69), he would say yes, citing Tertullian (Resurrection 60) and Ps-Justin (Resurrection 2–3), but he would also tell us that this is a question that did not receive much attention in the history of the church. If you asked Nonna Harrison, she would say, no, the pope does not accurately represent the Christian tradition, or at least the early Christian tradition, and she can cite more patristic authors, and more famous ones: Clement of Alexandria, Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, John Chrysostom, Maximus the Confessor, not to mention Gregory of Nyssa (discussed by Marc Cortez, ch. 1). I myself haven’t checked all of these sources, but according to Harrison and other scholars, these early Christian writers said that in the Resurrection, our bodies will be glorified and will reflect the true essence of humanity—not the trueness of a man or a woman, but of a human. (See also Soskice, pp. 44–45, reporting that Augustine “rejected … the more orthodox view, that the resurrected body will be ‘sexless’.”) There is an argument hidden in here also about what it means to be created in the image of God and its relation to sex distinctions, but we will not explore that line of thinking here. I simply note that the Christian tradition is divided regarding whether the resurrection body will maintain sex distinctions.

The best argument, it seems to me, for the idea that sex distinctions are maintained in our resurrected state is the experience of Jesus. As Marc Cortez (pp. 198–202) has recently written, echoing Nonna Harrison: “we also need to account for the fact that Jesus retains his identity as Jesus in the resurrection, an identity that is unavoidably linked to the fact that he is male. Although the resurrection narratives present Jesus’s body as transformed in some way, nothing about those narratives suggests a transformation of identity such that he is no longer the same male individual the disciples knew him to be” (p. 199). There are other arguments that could be put forward, and have been, but tied up in the whole question is a lot of speculation. And that’s where we will leave the matter of sex distinctions.

The Flesh Resurrected

The Christian tradition is divided on whether the resurrection body will reflect our maleness or femaleness. The Christian tradition is not divided on whether there is a resurrection body, and whether it is the same as our current body. On that point, there is unanimous affirmation.

Yes, our current bodies will be raised and transformed.

The only way it makes sense to wonder about whether sex distinctions continue in the hereafter is if we have our current bodies in the hereafter. And that is certainly the dominant Christian tradition: our souls will be reunited with our bodies.

Listen to the Westminster Confession of Faith.

At the last day, such as are found alive shall not die, but be changed: and all the dead shall be raised up, with the selfsame bodies, and none other (although with different qualities), which shall be united again to their souls for ever. (32.2)

Again, this is the Westminster Confession of Faith, written in 1646, which was—I’m sure you remember—the confession of faith that at one time expressed the theology of Barton Stone and Thomas Campbell and his son Alexander. Of course, they left behind this confession of faith in the first decade of the nineteenth century, and they repudiated it and other Protestant creeds, but I am unaware that they ever expressed any disagreement with this particular point, that—to quote it again—“the dead shall be raised up, with the selfsame bodies, and none other.”

Is it just Presbyterians who think this? No, it’s not. Here is the Catechism of the Catholic Church.

In death, the separation of the soul from the body, the human body decays and the soul goes to meet God, while awaiting its reunion with its glorified body. God, in his almighty power, will definitively grant incorruptible life to our bodies by reuniting them with our souls, through the power of Jesus’ Resurrection. (§997)

Early Christianity

The revised Nicene Creed of the year 381 has a line near the end about our anticipation of the resurrection of the dead—that’s the language it uses, “resurrection of the dead” (ἀνάστασιν νεκρῶν)—whereas the Apostle’s Creed, recited each Sunday in many churches, contains a distinct version of that line expressing hope in the resurrection of the flesh (carnis resurrectionem).

Among early Christian writers, pretty much everyone agreed with a bodily resurrection, except for maybe Origen. We’re talking about Origen, so of course his views are complex, but it may be that he thought in terms of something like a spiritual resurrection that will not involve our mortal bodies. (For discussion, see Crouzel, here and here; and Heine, 118–22.) See the following passages.

* Selections on the Psalms 1:5

* Commentary on Matthew 17.29–30

* On First Principles 2.10–11

* Against Celsus 5.18–23

Despite Origen’s enormous influence in many areas of theology, not many people followed Origen in his ideas of a spiritual resurrection. Indeed, this is one of the points of contention leading to the condemnation of Origen at the Second Council of Constantinople in 553. For example, that council’s Anathema #11 says, “If anyone says that the coming judgment means the total destruction of bodies and that the end of the story will be an immaterial nature, and that thereafter nothing that is material will exist but only pure mind, let him be anathema” (trans. Price, 2.286).

Most patristic authors, even fans of Origen’s—such as Gregory of Nyssa and Rufinus of Aquileia—departed from the great theologian on this score (see Bynum), including:

* Irenaeus, Against Heresies 5.7–14

* Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh 48–57

* Methodius, From the Discourse on the Resurrection 1.13–14; 3.5–6

* Gregory of Nyssa, On the Soul and Resurrection; On the Holy and Saving Pascha

* Rufinus of Aquileia, Commentary on the Apostle’s Creed 41–47

* Jerome, Epistle 108.23–24

* Augustine, City of God 20.20; 22.21–24.

These authors insisted on a resurrection of the flesh.

Early Judaism

Such a belief reflects the Jewish background of Christianity. I have already mentioned our Lord’s interaction with the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection. This denial of the resurrection was becoming in first-century Judaism one of those beliefs that was out-of-bounds. A little after the time of the New Testament, the rabbinic document called the Mishnah explains that all Israelites have a share in the world to come (tractate Sanhedrin 10.1), and then it specifies some groups of people who have no share in the world to come, and the first group so specified is those who deny the resurrection of the dead (האומר אין תחית המתים)—or, perhaps specifically, who deny that the doctrine of resurrection can be proved from the Torah (מן התורה).

Much earlier, 2 Maccabees, from perhaps the late second century BC, contains the wonderful story of the mother and her seven sons who suffer martyrdom rather than betray their God. Part of the reason they so joyfully and defiantly suffer death for their faith is because of their hope of resurrection. Listen to the testimony of the third of these brothers, who is willing that his tongue be cut off and his hands severed.

When it was demanded, he quickly put out his tongue and courageously stretched forth his hands, and said bravely, “I received these from heaven, and because of His laws I disregard them, and from Him I hope to get them back again.” (2 Macc 7:10–11)

These Maccabean martyrs help to show us what the hope of resurrection meant in ancient Judaism, and it was something similar to what was expressed many centuries later in the Westminster Confession of Faith, that “the dead shall be raised up, with the selfsame bodies, and none other.”

Jesus’ Body

From a Christian perspective, it is much more important what we observe regarding Jesus. Did the resurrected Jesus appear in the same physical body that had been nailed to the cross? Was it the same body?

Yes, obviously, the Gospels show us this. How? Well, why else would they stress the empty tomb? The point was that the body wasn’t there in the tomb because Jesus had been raised. And you remember that the nail holes were still there, right? Life was returned to the body. He demonstrated that it was a real body, that he was no ghost, when he showed them his hands and feet and ate a piece of fish (Luke 24:36–43). As Peter told Cornelius, “We ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead” (Acts 10:41). On the other hand, this was no resuscitation, as in the case of Lazarus or Jairus’ daughter, who would both die again. In the case of Jesus, as Peter said, God “loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it” (2:24). Paul specifies that Jesus is “no more to return to corruption” (13:34). Death was defeated.

Yes, the body of Jesus was transformed, as we seem to see especially in the accounts of the Resurrection in the Third and Fourth Gospels. And in that speech to Cornelius, when Peter says (in the ESV) that “God made him to appear, not to all the people but to us” (Acts 10:40–41), does he mean that Jesus’ body was invisible to most people but not to the preselected witnesses, or does he mean that after the Resurrection Jesus didn’t mingle with the people as he did earlier in his life?

Paul on the Resurrected Body

At any rate, his body was in some ways transformed, and so shall ours be. Note that transformed does not mean replaced. It will be this body that is raised up and glorified. I know someone’s going to ask, How are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? Look, there are no stupid questions, except that one. That’s a stupid question. The best answer to such a question is, you fool! (See 1 Corinthians 15:35–36.) I’ve already mentioned that I don’t even know whether I will be male in the Resurrection, whether sex distinctions are maintained in that state of existence. I will have this body, but my body will be transformed, and I don’t know how much, or in what ways. It’s like if you plant a seed, which is a kind of body, and then a plant comes up from the ground, from that seed—the plant is the seed, but transformed. Think about a tomato seed and a tomato plant. By looking at the seed, you could not guess at all how the plant would appear. It’s the same with the resurrection, or so says the apostle Paul.

Now, of course, Paul also says that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 15:50). Again, we anticipate a transformation of our bodies. By the way, the term “flesh and blood” does not appear very often in ancient Greek literature. James P. Ware searched for all the occurrences, and the phrase appears only six times, all in Jewish literature, if you count the New Testament as Jewish literature. Here is the list of all the appearances.

* Sirach 14:18

* Sirach 17:31

* 1 Enoch 15:4

* Testament of Abraham 13.7

* Matthew 16:17

* Galatians 1:16.

It turns out that the phrase always is negative, always referring to weakness and perishability, which fairly describes our current bodies. That is entirely Paul’s point, that this corruptible—not some other corruptible, but this corruptible—must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality (1 Corinthians 15:53).

Look, it is very popular these days, and it has been for a century and a half, to propose that Paul actually wasn’t talking about the resurrection of our current bodies, but he meant some sort of spiritual resurrection. Certainly there were people in antiquity who held to such views. In this context, Paul is often compared to Stoics or to Platonists, and the claim is often made that the apostle is reflecting ancient Greek philosophical categories in terms of a spiritual, not physical resurrection. And taking 1 Corinthians 15 by itself, it would be hard to argue definitively against that position. Still, if you find that position appealing, take a look at the recent monograph by James P. Ware called The Final Triumph of God. Ware argues from 1 Corinthians 15 for a physical resurrection. As Ware puts it in an earlier study: “in 1 Cor 15:36–54, resurrection is understood as the miraculous reconstitution of the mortal body of flesh and bones and its transformation so as to be imperishable.”

You might disagree, and you might say that Paul did not think that our mortal bodies would be raised, and you might say that Jesus was a unique example and one of the ways he was unique is that his body was raised, and so the tomb was found empty, but our bodies won’t be raised. You might think this, but you should recognize that you are disagreeing with nearly two millennia of Christian interpretation of this issue.

In the early centuries of the church, the belief in the destruction of the body and the immortality of the soul was a distinctively gnostic belief, as Irenaeus shows (Against Heresies 2.29). The late second-century bishop of Lyon said in regard to the Marcosians: “Even though they do not wish to, they will surely rise again in the flesh in order to acknowledge the power of Him who raises them from the dead; they will, however, not be numbered with the righteous, because of their unbelief” (Against Heresies 1.22.1).

Where Will Those Bodies Exist?

Now, the idea of a physical resurrection raises the question of what kind of existence our future will be. Will we be in heaven, or will it be something like the new heavens and new earth described in Scripture? Fortunately, these issues are not controversial at all, which makes sense because none of us can possibly know what the future is like, outside of special revelation, and it turns out that the Bible presents divergent images of that future state. But the trend to talk about a transformed earth rather than a destroyed-forever earth is no recent phenomenon. A thousand years ago, Anselm of Canterbury wrote in his most famous work, “We believe that the present physical mass of the universe is to be changed anew into something better” (Cur Deus Homo 1.18).

A few centuries later, John Milton, in his great epic, wrote about the time when “earth be changed to heaven, and heaven to earth” (Paradise Lost 7.160), and elsewhere in Paradise Lost he includes this description.

Meanwhile

The world shall burn, and from her ashes spring

New heaven and earth, wherein the just shall dwell,

And after all their tribulations long

See golden days, fruitful of golden deeds,

With joy and love triumphing, and fair truth.

(Paradise Lost 3.333–38)

At the end of the epic, Michael the archangel reveals the future to Adam, even describing the time when…

[Jesus will] receive them into bliss,

Whether in heaven or earth, for then the earth

Shall all be paradise, far happier place

Than this of Eden, and far happier days.

(Paradise Lost 12.462–65)

In the mid-twentieth century, Dietrich Bonhoeffer reflected on the third Beatitude, “blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.” Bonhoeffer wrote: “what it means is that when the kingdom of heaven descends, the face of the earth will be renewed, and it will belong to the flock of Jesus” (Bonhoeffer, Discipleship, ch. 6).

But if we live in glorified bodies on a glorified earth, what will we actually do? What kinds of activities will occupy our time?

How am I supposed to know that?

I can cite a nice Talmudic passage on the question: “In the world to come, there is neither eating nor drinking nor sexual relations nor business transactions nor jealousy nor hatred nor rivalry. Rather, the righteous sit with their crowns on their heads and enjoy the radiance of the Divine Presence” (b. Ber. 17a §12; see Levenson, p. 189).

But my favorite description of that phase of existence comes, perhaps inevitably, in a children’s story, and if you don’t know what I’m quoting, I’m certainly not going to tell you.

Then Aslan turned to them and said:

“You do not yet look so happy as I mean you to be.”

Lucy said, “We’re so afraid of being sent away, Aslan. And you have sent us back into our own world so often.”

“No fear of that,” said Aslan. “Have you not guessed?”

Their hearts leaped and a wild hope rose within them.

“There was a real railway accident,” said Aslan softly [referring to something narrated in ch. 13]. “Your father and mother and all of you are—as you used to call it in the Shadowlands—dead. The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth had read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

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The Eastern Orthodox Churches regularly baptize infants by immersion—three immersions, to be precise. Why do they do this? Why not sprinkle? And why do it to babies? What do they hope to accomplish by immersing babies? And do the babies like it?

That last question is easy enough to answer just be watching a few videos of the rite; I’ve included examples below. But the babies aren’t harmed, just momentarily shocked, it seems. And, I know, there’s a lot that shocks babies; they haven’t experienced much in the world. At least they don’t fully submerge the babies in water and make them chase a dollar bill—but nevermind.

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Some of the interesting features of Orthodox baptism are discussed in the recent book by Radu Bordeianu, Icon of the Kingdom of God: An Orthodox Ecclesiology (Washington: Catholic University of America Press, 2023). Bordeianu is a professor of theology at Duquesne, a Catholic university in Pittsburgh, and he is Romanian Orthodox (I believe).

The second, long chapter (pp. 26–89) of his book treats baptism. Here are some notes.

Infant baptism

Bordeianu asks whether baptism, which is a cleansing of sin, also cleanses from original sin. After all, the Orthodox baptize babies, and babies do not have personal sin, so it must be original sin that is cleansed. Indeed, Bordeianu doesn’t mention this, but this line of reasoning is what convinced Augustine (or, so he rhetorically explained) that babies must harbor original sin—otherwise, why would we baptize them!

Now, inasmuch as infants are not held bound by any sins of their own actual life, it is the guilt of original sin which is healed in them by the grace of Him who saves them by the laver of regeneration. (here, ch. 24; for discussion see Fairweather, pp. 897–903 here)

But Augustine was a Western theologian, and Bordeianu represents the Eastern Church.

First, Bordeianu defends the practice of infant baptism.

The practice of infant baptism has existed since the beginning of the Church’s history. While it cannot be proven beyond any doubt on biblical grounds, the New Testament offers some important indications that the early Church practiced infant baptism. (p. 30)

What is that evidence? Why, the household baptisms in Acts, of course. See Acts 16 for two instances, and see also 1 Corinthians 1:16.

Noteworthy in all these instances is that baptisms were not limited to adults (which was clearly the norm in those times), but comprised the entire household, which included the family as well as its servants. A household most likely included children and infants…. (p. 31)

(I hope I need not explain that I myself, dear reader, do not accept such an argument for infant baptism in the New Testament. But I’m trying to understand the Orthodox view.)

But Bordeianu rejects the notion of original sin, which he says is a western idea only recently adopted in the east by some theologians. Rather, for Bordeianu, baptizing infants aims to add them to the Church, not to cleanse their sins.

But the rite of baptism has all kinds of references to cleansing sin, in dependence on the New Testament (see Acts 22:16, etc.), which—Bordeianu says—doesn’t really work in the case of infant baptism. So Bordeianu suggests that the Orthodox rite of baptism should be revised to reduce the references to exorcism and sin—appropriate for an adult baptism, but not for an infant—and increase the number of “references to Baptism as entry into the Church.” He continues: “Such a multitude of references to sin that were initially intended in reference to adults, when applied to infants, risks further propagating the rather recent Orthodox insistence on Baptism as forgiveness of original sin, based on an unhealthy Western influence” (p. 31). In other words, Bordeianu is criticizing Eastern theologians for following Augustine’s path.

What is original sin? Well, Bordeianu says that the Orthodox disagree on how to think about it, and he himself is uncomfortable with the speculative Western definition (original sin = actual sin) that has influenced the East. He says that Orthodox theologians nowadays (he cites specifically Kallistos Ware) consider original sin as merely a propensity to sin. “And since this is a predisposition and not an actual sin, therefore, we are not born guilty, and later in life we can learn to resist this sinful inclination” (p. 33).

So (and he italicizes the following), “infant baptism should not be regarded as forgiveness of original sin, but as entry into the Church—a return to the lost communion with God” (p. 33).

The Orthodox Rite of Baptism

Bordeianu goes through each element of the Orthodox rite and explains (what he thinks ought to be) its meaning.

* catechumenate (period of teaching)

* procession (moving toward the baptismal font)

* prayers over the water exorcizing from it evil spirits, and blessing the water

* the anointing with the oil of gladness

* immersion in the baptismal font

* chrismation

About the actual baptism, the Orthodox practice what they call immersion. You can judge whether you think the term immersion should apply. Here’s an example (start at the 21 min mark).

Here’s another.

Okay, this next one is definitely an immersion (at 4 min mark).

Anyway, Bordeianu does describe Orthodox baptism as involving immersion “entirely under water” (p. 42).

Baptism without Water?

I won’t spend much time on this, just as Bordeianu does not (pp. 46–52), but traditionally those who have died unbaptized have been regarded as members of the Church in two cases: if they are martyrs or if they have previously expressed the desire to receive baptism. In the first case, their martyrdom is regarded as “baptism of blood,” and in the second case, usually meaning that they are catechumens who have not yet completed their period of training, they are considered to have received “baptism of desire.” Bordeianu argues for expanding the concept of “baptism of desire” to the case of miscarriages, in which the desire is that of the parents, who would have had their infant baptized.

Adult Converts

Do they need to get baptized? Depends.

In cases where a person who desires to join the Orthodox Church but has not been previously baptized with water and in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, entrance into Orthodoxy happens through Baptism. The typical convert to Orthodoxy, however, has already been baptized with water in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit in another church. Most of the Orthodox world recognizes the baptisms of other churches and receives their faithful into Orthodoxy most commonly through Confirmation and, in some cases, through Confession. (pp. 52–53)

There are complications. Those who baptize but reject the Trinity, such as some Pentecostal groups, or those who otherwise do not use the Matthean baptismal formula (Matt 28:19) by, for instance, substituting gender-inclusive language, perhaps referring to a divine parent rather than to the Father (p. 56).

Clearly, the Orthodox Church does not indiscriminately accept all baptisms. But at the same time, there are some Orthodox who reject absolutely all baptisms outside the Orthodox Church, ignoring longstanding practices to recognize the baptisms of those who are in schism. (p. 56)

Bordeianu eventually turns to consider those who leave Orthodoxy to join a Baptist church.

The person who has previously been baptized Orthodox as an infant is re-baptized when they convert into a Baptist church. While from an Orthodox perspective this practice is offensive, for Baptists it takes a different meaning. Some Baptist churches permit the repetition of the rite of Baptism if it is deemed that it was not preceded by a sincere acceptance of Christ, even when the rituals take place in the same parish. Such is the case when a person accepts Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior and is baptized, but then falls into a grievous sin thus revealing that their initial acceptance of Jesus was not heartfelt, rendering their prior Baptism invalid. Consequently, such a person would again accept Jesus and be baptized, in practice showing Baptism as a repeatable ritual. The tension stems not only from differing views regarding infant Baptism, but also from differences regarding Baptism itself; if for the Orthodox Baptism represents entry into the Church and is thus unrepeatable, for Baptists it represents the rite that seals one’s salvation understood as the acceptance of Jesus Christ as personal Lord and Savior. (p. 58)

Assuming that Bordeianu correctly characterizes Baptist thought, it seems to me that Churches of Christ are more Orthodox than Baptist in our theology of baptism, while of course being more Baptist than Orthodox on our administration of baptism.

Consecration

Baptism is linked to consecration in two senses: death to sin (Romans 6) and priesthood. On the first point, death to sin, Romans 6:3–11 is read at the Orthodox baptismal ceremony (p. 84). That’s a good practice, I think. On the other hand, Bordeianu says that “Baptism does not bring a measurable ethical change” (p. 82), and I agree, it does not, not immediately, but it should over the long term. While it is true that “sometimes people who are baptized are less moral than those who are not,” that is because we all start in different places and are worked on by different influences. A random Muslim or atheist might be morally more upright than a random Christian, especially a new Christian. But our baptisms ought to mark the beginning of sanctification in our lives. Whether or not we become very much like Jesus before we die, we ought to be more like him at the point of our death than we were at the point of our baptism.

On the second point, priesthood, Bordeianu wants to correct a misapprehension that the laity are not consecrated to a type of priesthood. He affirms the priesthood of all believers, all baptized Christians.

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What is your favorite scene from the classic 1986-film The Three Amigos? It’s an impossible question, because there is a plethora of great scenes. There’s the scene where the Amigos in their underwear receive a telegram about the infamous El Guapo—excuse me, the in-famous El Guapo—there’s the scene just a moment later when Lucky Day is on top of what turns out to be a not-very-high wall and he’s trying to get the attention of his fellow amigos, with imitation bird calls that get increasingly loud and verbal until he finally resorts to shouting.

There’s the scene in that Mexican cantina, where someone had been with the ugly stick. There’s the initial confrontation with the Mexican gangsters, and later with El Guapo himself.

There’s the search for El Guapo’s lair, including the attempted conversation with a bush that just won’t stop singing, and the unfortunate demise of the Invisible Swordsman. I’ve listed here just a sampling.

I assume I’m reminding you of scenes you’ve watched many times, as I have. But just in case you’ve not seen it or can’t remember the plot, think A Bug’s Life. Three silent movie stars who play heroes on the big screen are confused for actual heroes by Carmen, the woman sent to find help for the village of Santo Poco. In turn, the Three Amigos imagine that they are being invited to Santo Poco not to drive out a villain but to perform alongside the biggest star in Mexico. They realize their mistake only when one of them falls off a horse in mid-performance and discovers blood on his arm. It turns out that the Mexican bandits are using real bullets! The Amigos start weeping because of the predicament they’re in, but lucky for them El Guapo only kills men, not crying women. They slink out of town, and El Guapo burns the village and kidnaps Carmen. Eventually the Amigos do return and they do save the day, with the help of the villagers.

I don’t know for sure that I saw the movie in the theater when it came out, but I bet I did—the family I grew up in was a family that went to the movies. I do recall that in eighth grade—this would have been 1993—for an assignment in English class I spliced together some clips of Chevy Chase movies, including the scene where the Amigos are looking for El Guapo’s out in the desert, desperate for water and Dusty Bottoms is the only one with a full canteen, but he’s too dim-witted to realize that his companions need the water that is spilling on the cracked earth and not the lip balm.

If forced to pick a single favorite scene, I’d probably go back to that Mexican cantina. No, I’m not thinking about My Little Buttercup—although, yes, of course, My Little Buttercup. But I’m thinking about something before that song and dance, when the Amigos first approach the bar, and there begins to be a case of mistaken identity. The bartender gives the three Amigos a knowing look and says, “You are the… wink, wink?” And they reply with laughter and false modesty, “yes,” unsurprised to encounter fans of theirs even in this sleepy Mexican town. Then the bartender says with his voice low: “I have a message for you. The German says to wait here.” The audience knows exactly what the bartender means, but none of the Amigos has a clue, though they don’t want to let on. I love how Lucky Day, with squinted eyes, draws out the word “yeeaah.” That’s it; that’s my favorite part of the move, that confused and elongated “yeeaah.”

The Three Amigos turns forty this year. Is it worth remembering so fondly? The critics in 1986 would surely be surprised that anyone would remember it on its 40th anniversary. It holds a 45% rating on the tomatometer, and Roger Ebert—my go-to critic—awarded the film one star out of four. It is certainly dumb comedy, and it doesn’t deliver the insight into the human condition that is achieved by the likes of Groundhog Day, but what can I say? It makes me laugh, and I have seen it so many times by now that there is a nostalgia element. And I think there are even points worthy of reflection for Christians in the year 2026.

The movie itself gestures toward some life lessons in an inspiring speech by Lucky Day in the village of Santo Poco while standing on the wing of a Tubman 601.

First, he warns that El Guapo is on his way, an announcement that elicits gasps from the crowd. But Carmen wisely declares that “Someday the people of this village will have to face El Guapo. We might as well do it now.” What the villagers need is a motivational speech, and it’s a lucky day that witnesses Steve Martin provide it.

In a way, all of us have an El Guapo to face someday. For some, shyness might be their El Guapo. For others, a lack of education might be their El Guapo. For us, El Guapo is a big dangerous guy who wants to kill us. But as sure as my name is Lucky Day, the people of Santa Poco can conquer their own personal El Guapo, who also happens to be the actual El Guapo.

Man, this speech sounds like every youth devotional ever. But it also mocks the absurd comparisons we sometimes make among completely different situations: you have cancer and I have acne, which just shows that we all have trials to bear. But, then again, the idea that we all must face our personal El Guapos is, um, sorta true. If you imagine Three Amigos has nothing to teach about life, the movie encourages you to think a little more seriously.

So let’s get serious. I find poignance in the depiction of Santo Poco’s desperation. It is their desperation in the face of evil that initially led them to send Carmen to a bigger city for help, but unfortunately she’s never seen a movie before and doesn’t realize that the cinematic heroics of the Three Amigos are all scripted. When the Amigos flee before El Guapo, themselves desperate to stay alive, the villagers are all the more hopeless and wretched. It’s a familiar tale in this world of woe. How many psalms include the question, “how long, O Lord?” The answer is ten, in the KJV.

O YHWH God, to whom vengeance belongeth; O God, to whom vengeance belongeth, shew thyself.

Lift up thyself, thou judge of the earth: render a reward to the proud.

YHWH, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?

How long shall they utter and speak hard things? and all the workers of iniquity boast themselves?

They break in pieces thy people, O YHWH, and afflict thine heritage.

They slay the widow and the stranger, and murder the fatherless.

Yet they say, YHWH shall not see, neither shall the God of Jacob regard it. (Psalm 94:1–7)

Or there’s this from Psalm 6:

My soul is also sore vexed:but thou, O YHWH, how long? (Psa 6:3)

And this from Psalm 13

How long wilt thou forget me, O YHWH? for ever?How long wilt thou hide thy face from me?

How long shall I take counsel in my soul, having sorrow in my heart daily?how long shall my enemy be exalted over me? (Psa 13:1–2)

The Bible is full of desperation, just like the village of Santo Poco, and often for roughly the same causes. Lucky Day is right: El Guapo is not unique. We all have our own El Guapo, and many times it is actually a big dangerous guy who wants to kill us. We also remember this prayer in a garden: “Abba, Father, all things are possible unto thee: take away this cup from me.” And we remember the answer to this prayer, that the one who prayed it was not liberated from the cup of suffering but he drank it all. Certainly a desperate situation, and yet this Man of Sorrows seemed somehow not desperate, but in control, even as he faced unarmed a detachment of soldiers led by a traitor. His self-command and ultimately his hope is the blueprint for his followers in their own desperate situations. Do you remember what Paul and Silas were doing in that Philippian jail in Acts 16:25? They experienced mistreatment, injustice, a desperate situation, and they neither fought back in conventional terms, nor did they despair, but rejoiced that they could suffer shame for the name.

That’s not to say that fighting back is necessarily wrong. While Jesus does forbid resisting him who is evil and he commands turning the other cheek—and not only that but he modeled that behavior—Christians have traditionally allowed that self-defense and especially defense of the poor and oppressed is warranted and even necessary according to Christian ethics. While there has always been disagreement on the question of whether Christians are ever justified in using violence, the predominant ethical view throughout church history would not condemn Santo Poco for seeking deliverance from El Guapo even through force. (CCC 2263–65.)

Like in Santo Poco, the problems presented in this life seem insurmountable, and I guess they are—unless God chooses to act. And as we all know, God often chooses not to act in the way we desire. As Lucky says, we all face an El Guapo, and often El Guapo prevails, at least temporarily. But the Christian hope guaranteed by the one who could not be held in death’s power allows us even in those desperate situations to sing praises.

But the lesson I appreciate most from the Three Amigos is that the Amigos recognize themselves as implicated in the fate of Santo Poco. As they tell El Guapo on their first meeting, “We’re not gunfighters, we’re movie stars.” Their pathetic abandonment of Santo Poco allows the Mexican outlaws to wreak havoc on the village, terrorize the villagers, and kidnap Carmen. But the Amigos return, at first, apparently, only to see how much damage the village endured at the hands of El Guapo’s men. But then Ned starts to load his gun—with real bullets!—and he issues a challenge to Dusty and Lucky: “I’m drawing a line. Men or Mice? What’ll it be?” After some hesitation, they all three decide to be, in Ned’s words, “the Three Amigos for real,” and retrieve Carmen from El Guapo’s fortress.

Why do the Amigos do this? Why do they try to help Santo Poco? Because they recognize themselves as implicated in the plight of this little village. They had been brought to Santo Poco by a silly mistake. They had no intention of misrepresenting themselves as vigilantes; they just wanted to come perform, and to get paid. But they could not ignore—or, at least, Ned could not ignore—that they had been brought to Santo Poco. False pretenses or not, they had met these people, they knew their plight, and they had witnessed the terror caused by El Guapo. They were now involved with the lives of the people of Santo Poco, and they were implicated in the fate of this tiny Mexican village. They did not want to be, but they were. It was their cowardice that led to the village’s destruction, and—whether they like it or not—it was ethically incumbent upon them to do what they could to help its residents.

The point is that we are implicated in the lives of other people, by virtue of the fact that we live near them, that we go to school with them, that we go to church together. We may not want to be bound up in their lives, but that choice is not afforded to us. Two hours southeast of where I live, Martin Luther King, Jr., sat in jail in 1963 and wrote a letter featuring these words near its opening.

Moreover, I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial “outside agitator” idea. Anyone who lives inside the United States can never be considered an outsider anywhere within its bounds.

Those are lofty sentiments, difficult to fulfill. But sometimes their truth hits close to home. In the case of the Amigos, when a town in desperate need has called on you for help, and you have accepted their offer, under mistaken identity or not, you find yourself implicated in their lives, and it’s time to decide whether you’re a mouse or a man.

And when you find yourself implicated, the Amigos also teach us that you can do more than you think. The Amigos are not heroes, they just play them for the movies. If we were talking about spiritual gifts, the Amigos would tell you that their gift is entertainment, not bravery, not rescuing captives, but they step into the role because … well, ya know, somebody needed to. If we don’t perceive ourselves as gifted in a particular area, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t put ourselves out there and do something. The Amigos are scarred they might get killed, but they go for it, so that the mottos they have been reciting for years could finally become sorta true.

Wherever there is injustice, you will find us.

Wherever there is suffering, we’ll be there.

Wherever liberty is threatened, you will find... The Three Amigos.

I think we could say that the Amigos discovered that they were, indeed, not talented at being gunfighters, but they accomplished more than they anticipated.

So too the town. It turns out that the villagers of Santo Poco are talented at almost nothing—certainly nothing that could be helpful in a gunfight. The only thing they can do is sew. But with a little creativity, even that random skill becomes a weapon leading to the downfall of evil and the establishment of justice.

Seeing the Amigos rally the town to stand up to El Guapo and defeat his gang will provide a model for you as you face your own personal El Guapo, be it shyness, lack of education, or something much more serious. And we Christians know that with Jesus on our side, El Guapo doesn’t stand a chance.

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According to the Gospel of Luke, while hanging on the cross, Jesus prayed for the people participating in his execution.

Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. (Luke 23:34)

Or did he?

This prayer—which appears only in the Third Gospel—is absent from some important Greek manuscripts of Luke. Anyone who has studied the New Testament at a serious level understands that our English versions are translated from Greek, and that the Greek text used by translators is itself edited from the thousands of Greek manuscripts that preserve portions of the New Testament. But all of these manuscripts differ from each other in some ways, often very small but sometimes significant. These differences are called textual variants, passages in which the texts vary. So, again, with regard to Luke 23:34, some Greek manuscripts contain the prayer and others don’t; here there is a textual variant.

This is not one of the small differences among the manuscripts but one of major importance. The New Testament scholar Dirk Jongkind has said that this “may be the single most important textual variant in the Greek New Testament” (Introduction, p. 85). In a way, that statement shows how insignificant most textual variants are. Even if a variant is longer than this one, contains more words, it does not really affect Christian theology. Does this variant affect Christian theology? Maybe somewhat. Our understanding of Jesus is affected somewhat by whether he prayed for the people who were executing him while they were executing him. We might expect that Jesus would do that kind of thing, especially in light of his own teaching, such as Luke 6:28, where he told his followers to “pray for them which despitefully use you.” Praying for his enemies from the cross seems like something Jesus might do, but it would be nice to have the explicit statement confirming it.

So did he say it? Unfortunately, the evidence is rather difficult to parse, but most scholars say no. Most scholars consider this prayer a later addition to the Third Gospel, not something that the Gospel writer included but something a scribe inserted later, in the second century. It couldn’t have been added later than the second century, for Irenaeus of Lyon, at the end of the second century, already knows about it (though he doesn’t say explicitly that it’s found in Luke’s Gospel).

Now, by the fact that the Lord said on the cross, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do, Christ’s long-suffering, patience, compassion, and goodness are shown forth, inasmuch as He Himself who suffered also excused those who had treated Him wickedly. For the Word of God who told us, love your enemies and pray for those who hate you, did just that on the cross, loving the human race so much that He prayed even for those who put Him to death. (Against Heresies 3.18.5; trans. Unger, p. 90)

Many scholars hold the view that the prayer was added in the second century, but not all. There are good reasons for considering the prayer a genuine part of Luke’s original composition. This post surveys the evidence.

The easiest place to examine the evidence is in a recent edition of the Greek New Testament. The edition I am going to use here is the United Bible Socities’ edition (UBS), and the reason I am using this edition is because of an interesting feature unique to it. The UBS edition has a ranking system for the level of confidence of the modern editors. That is, it tells us how confident the editors are that they got the right answer, that they figured out which reading among the manuscripts is the better reading, which variant is right. The ranking system is quadripartite, A being the highest (very confident), and D the lowest (not at all confident), and B and C in the middle.

Here is the relevant page from the UBS fourth edition. There is a fifth edition (2014), which presents the exact same evidence.

The first half of the page presents a portion of the New Testament text, and the bottom part of the page displays the critical apparatus. It’s the apparatus that is the real star of the show here, detailing which manuscripts say what. But before we get to the apparatus, notice that in the top half of the page this edition puts double brackets around the prayer of Jesus at Luke 23:34.

Now to the apparatus. Here’s an image of what the apparatus says about this variant.

Note that the very first thing said, after the verse number (34), is an A in curly brackets. That is the confidence ranking. As the introduction to this edition tells us: “The letter A indicates that the text is certain.” We have an A here, so the editors are confident that they got the right answer here. But what is the answer that they decided upon?

The next portion of the apparatus says: “omit verse 34a.” That’s the answer. The editors are completely confident that Luke did not include this prayer from Jesus in his Gospel; it must have been added later by a scribe—according to these editors.

Next, there are a few Greek words, just giving the beginning and ending of the variant unit. And then there is the citation of Greek manuscripts. Here are the Greek manuscripts that omit the prayer: P75 א B D* W Θ 070 579 597* 1241. All of these numbers and letters refer to particular Greek manuscripts. They are listed more-or-less in order of age, so P75 is the earliest (papyrus 75, early third century), and 1241 is something like the latest (12th cent.). After the number 1241 in the apparatus, there are a few more items listed that omit Jesus’ prayer: ita, d syrs copsa, bo pt. These aren’t numbers, so they aren’t Greek manuscripts. Instead, they are ancient translations: it = itala (i.e., an early Latin translation), syr = Syriac, cop = Coptic.

The next thing in the apparatus is a double slash mark introducing the next group of manuscripts, those which “include verse 34a.” Here are the manuscripts that do contain the prayer of Jesus, and the first one listed (after the parentheses) is א. This symbol is the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet, aleph, and it refers to a famous Greek manuscript called Codex Sinaiticus (fourth century). You’ll notice that there is an asterisk by א, and then also a 2. The asterisk refers to the original reading of this manuscript, so it is telling us that this manuscript originally contained the prayer of Jesus. The 2 refers to a corrector, a later scribe who changed the manuscript.

Let me explain: these ancient manuscripts were often used for centuries, and the users would sometimes write in the manuscript. I do the same thing with my Bible, sometimes writing in the margin, sometimes even crossing out something in the text and marking down what I think is a better translation. These scribes using the manuscripts sometimes did that kind of thing. The apparatus also presents the evidence of these later users of the manuscript.

The 2 by א refers to the “second corrector” of Sinaiticus; this second corrector also thought the prayer should be included. But why would we know that, since the original text of Sinaiticus already had the prayer? Because someone had tried to remove the prayer from Sinaiticus. If you look in the apparatus back on the manuscripts that “omit verse 34a,” you’ll see that the second manuscript listed is א with a 1 beside it, the first corrector. The apparatus is telling us that א originally contained the prayer, and then the first corrector tried to delete it, and then a second corrector reinserted it.

Or something like that. Actually, there was no erasing and insertion. Here is Codex Sinaiticus with the prayer of Jesus from the cross.

The beginning of the variant is near top left, where you see the Greek letters ΟΔ. You can see that Sinaiticus includes the prayer. But the manuscript also preserves the attempt to delete it. Right beside that ΟΔ, to the top left of the Ο, there is a faint mark that looks like a C or maybe like a parenthesis. This is a deletion sign or a cancellation mark. The original scribe included the prayer, and then a later scribe (the first corrector) added these deletion signs to signal to users of the manuscript that there was a textual problem with this passage. The corrector added these deletion signs at the beginning and end of each line of text that he wanted to warn readers about. The image below highlights these deletion signs.

The deletion signs are very faint, apparently because (and here I am guessing, based on the apparatus) a later scribe (the second corrector) either tried to erase the marks or, maybe, when he was re-inking the manuscript he did not re-ink the deletion signs.

If you look closely at the apparatus, you’ll see that the number of manuscripts that include Jesus’ prayer in Luke 23:34 is way more than the number of manuscripts that omit it. So why are scholars so convinced that it is not original? It’s because of which manuscripts omit it. The papyrus manuscript #75 (early third century) is very early, and so is B, which is another very famous manuscript called Codex Vaticanus (fourth century). Other early manuscripts that omit the prayer:

* D = Codex Bezae = 05 (fifth century)

* W = Codex Washingtonianus = 032 (fifth century)

* Θ = Codex Koridethi = 038 (ninth century)

* 070 (sixth century)

The other manuscripts listed in the apparatus (579 597 1241) are all in the second millennium.

Let’s take a look at some of these manuscripts that omit the prayer. The following image is P75, and the arrow shows you where the prayer would go if it were there, but it’s not.

Next, we have Codex Vaticanus, and again the arrow shows where the missing prayer would go.

This next image is more interesting. Codex Bezae does contain the prayer, but only in the lower margin, added by a later scribe. The red arrow in the image below shows where the prayer would go if it were included in the text of the Gospel, and the blue arrow shows the addition of the prayer in the lower margin of the manuscript. The addition of the prayer can be dated to the sixth century (see Gurry, p. 202 n. 40, relying on Parker, pp. 41–43).

By the way, this manuscript, Codex Bezae, is a bilingual manuscript, Greek and Latin on facing pages. Only the Greek has the prayer added. The Latin is also missing the prayer in the text of the Gospel, and there is no scribal correction on the Latin side.

The last image we’ll look at is from manuscript 597, a 13th-century Gospels manuscript now in Venice. If you look in the apparatus, you’ll see that 597 has an asterisk by it, meaning that the original text omits the prayer, but the asterisk also tells you that there must be a later scribal change, and this image below shows what happened.

A later scribe added the prayer in the margin, and then signaled with a symbol where the prayer should be inserted into the text of the Gospel.

When scholars (textual critics) judge among competing variants, they pay a lot of attention to the Greek manuscripts, as we have done above, but they also pay attention to other things. One thing to point out is that the prayer of Jesus is very similar to the prayer of Stephen, the martyr stoned in Acts 7.

And he kneeled down, and cried with a loud voice, Lord, lay not this sin to their charge. And when he had said this, he fell asleep. (Acts 7:60)

Acts is part two of the 2-vol. work by Luke. One might wonder whether Luke would want to represent Jesus and Stephen both praying for their persecutors, or whether a later scribe is the one who made the connection by inserting the prayer into the mouth of Jesus on the cross. (By the way, there is no textual problem for Stephen’s prayer.)

Let’s also note that this textual variant cannot be explained as an accident. Very many textual variants are accidents: a scribe messed up because he wasn’t paying attention. But this textual variant cannot be explained that way. Either a scribe intentionally inserted this prayer into the text of Luke (if the prayer is not original), or a scribe intentionally omitted it (if the prayer is original). In any case, it wasn’t an accident.

So, a basic question is: would a scribe be more likely to take the prayer out or to put the prayer in?

This is the question that Bruce Metzger asked three decades ago when discussing this variant in his important work A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament (2d ed., 1994).

The absence of these words from such early and diverse witnesses [he lists the manuscripts] is most impressive and can scarcely be explained as a deliberate excision by copyists who, considering the fall of Jerusalem to be proof that God had not forgiven the Jews, could not allow it to appear that the prayer of Jesus had remained unanswered. At the same time, the logion, though probably not a part of the original Gospel of Luke, bears self-evident tokens of its dominical origin, and was retained, within double square brackets, in its traditional place where it had been incorporated by unknown copyists relatively early in the transmission of the Third Gospel. (p. 154)

Notice that Metzger suggests that the prayer is not original to Luke but it is original to Jesus, that is, it “bears self-evident tokens of its dominical origin.” Metzger thinks Jesus said the prayer, and Christians transmitted the prayer orally, and then it was finally inserted into Luke’s Gospel (but not by Luke).

The more recent textual commentary by Hugh Houghton (2025) updates the discussion.

The first half of this verse is present in most Greek manuscripts but missing from many of the earliest witnesses [he lists them] and is indicated with asterisks in Codex Basiliensis (07 …). A full list of the forms it takes in Greek continuous-text manuscripts is given in TuT Luke (TS49). Although a similar sentiment is expressed by Stephen in Acts 7:60, the wording is entirely different so assimilation is unlikely. The SBLGNT and THGNT consider the longer text to be original, but in the absence of any obvious reason for omission or deletion, the UBS4 committee decided it was an early tradition which was incorporated at an early point into the Lukan crucifixion narrative. (pp. 182–83)

Ah, that’s interesting, about Codex Basiliensis. Let’s take a look at those asterisks in this eighth-century manuscript of the Gospels now in Basel. Actually, I see only one asterisk, in the left margin in the image below.

Notice also that Houghton alerts us to the fact that the last time the evidence for this variant was evaluated was for the fourth edition of the UBS text.

Houghton says there’s no good reason for the prayer, if original, to have been removed by later scribes. But some suggestions have been made. Could early Christians have taken the prayer out of Luke’s Gospel because they were being antisemitic and they didn’t like having their Scripture offer forgiveness to the Jews from Jesus himself—and even while the Jews were murdering him no less? (I am speaking here as one of these second century Christians; I myself do not think it is correct to say that “the Jews were murdering” Jesus without caveat.) This is Ehrman’s argument (pp. 190–93), who regards the prayer as original to Luke and omitted by antisemitic Christian scribes. Ehrman is following here a distinguished stream of scholars, such as Adolf von Harnack, B. H. Streeter, J. Rendel Harris, and Eldon Epp. (For specific citations, see the article by Eubank.) An extensive argument along these lines is presented by Nathan Eubank in his 2010 JBL article, who adds to the discussion by exploring the interpretation of the prayer in early Christianity.

We may, therefore, conclude that Harnack and others who suggested that the prayer was omitted for anti-Jewish reasons were on the right track. Note, however, that Early Christian consternation with Luke 23:34a stemmed not from anti-Judaism alone but also from the fact that Jesus’ prayer seemed to have gone unanswered [because of the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70], and from a sense that the Jews had been punished unjustly [because they acted in ignorance]. The discomfort with the prayer explains why the external evidence for both readings is early and widespread; in all likelihood, Luke 23:34a was omitted fairly early, possibly by multiple scribes, while other scribes corrupted the text by changing ἄφες [“forgive”] to συγχώρησον [“yield to”]. (Eubank, p. 536)

On the other hand, Gurry (pp. 202–5) is right that usually Christians dealt with problematic texts of the Bible through interpretation (commentary) rather than changing the text. But in this case, somebody—or multiple somebodies—intentionally changed the text one way or the other, and Eubank’s argument (along with his predecessors) makes it more likely that some scribes removed the prayer rather than added it.

Moreover, the prayer does fit the Lukan theme that the Jewish leaders acted from ignorance, they knew not what they did.

And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers. (Acts 3:17)

For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him. (Acts 13:27)

I myself accept the prayer as original to Luke’s Gospel—based on its early attestation in Irenaeus and in manuscripts, and the plausible case that can be made for its intentional omission based on anti-Judaism. At least, I find this explanation more probable than any explanation for the addition of the prayer to a Gospel that lacked it.

One final note here. The next edition of the UBS Greek New Testament, the sixth edition, has just been published. I have not yet seen it, but I understand that there has been a significant change made in this updated edition in relation to Jesus’ prayer in Luke 23:34. The confidence rank for omitting prayer has been downgraded from A to B. Houghton’s textual commentary, published months ago, already alerted us to this change.

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I am no expert on slavery. I am not an ethicist. I consider myself a reasonably intelligent person with an interest in how Christians should think through particular issues. Here I am not trying to talk Christians out of enslaving others; I don’t reckon there’s much danger there—not now, thank God. But from a biblical perspective, slavery is a potentially tricky issue, and there have been many arguments made favoring slavery—or, at least, anti-anti-slavery—based on the Bible. Giving consideration to slavery might provide some guidance to other issues, but, here, I am not talking about those other issues, just slavery.

Can we make an argument against slavery from biblical grounds?

Notice the assignment as I have described it? I have not asked the question, “what does the Bible say about slavery?” Nor have I asked, “Is the Bible opposed to slavery?” These distinct questions are not our concern at the moment, though they are both interesting and overlap with the present task. I want to assume that slavery is wrong, and I want to know how a case against slavery could be based on the Bible?

Assuming that Slavery Is Wrong

Let’s pause. Are we justified in making the assumption that slavery is wrong? The problem with this assumption, as I see it, is twofold: first, our Scripture does not explicitly talk about slavery as being wrong or sinful; and second, most human societies throughout history have countenanced some form of slavery. It is only relatively recently, since the end of the seventeenth century, that the idea gained traction that slavery might be morally problematic. And yet, in general, we do not and ought not to take our cues from society when it comes to morality. Usually we should be wary, dubious, about what society has to teach us about morality. So, if our Scripture does not explicitly condemn slavery, and most human societies have been fine with slavery, why should we consider slavery wrong?

Listen, the answer is yes, we are justified in assuming that slavery is wrong. And we base that belief not so much on Scripture or on society but because we feel it in our bones that slavery is wrong. Okay, right, most people have not felt its wrongness in their bones, I presume; they have been fine with the peculiar institution; and we feel its wrongness because we were raised to feel this way. We have been conditioned against slavery—and people a few hundred years ago were not so conditioned. I recognize this fact of historical situatedness, but that does not mean I think that slavery’s wickedness is conditional on society. (It does seem that Gregory of Nyssa overcame his own historical situatedness and promoted a proto-abolitionism; see, e.g., Tom Holland, ch. 5, pp. 142–43.)

I am trying to put all my philosophical presuppositions—at least the ones I recognize as important here—out on the table so you can recognize them and examine them.

I happen to think that our society has led us in the right direction here, but of course our society has been indelibly marked by Christianity, and while Christians played a part in defending the institution of slavery, there were also plenty of abolitionists motivated by their devotion to Christ.

The apostle Paul says that the works of the flesh are evident, and it is evident to me that enslaving another human being is a work of the flesh.

So, yes, we are justified, at least for the moment, in assuming that slavery is wrong. But there are two reasons that it doesn’t really matter whether this is a correct assumption, and briefly stated, those reasons are the following: (1) we have a habit of constantly examining Scripture, which informs and refines all of our presuppositions, just as our interpretations of Scripture are refined by our life experiences, including the societies in which we live; this is the hermeneutical spiral. (2) For the purposes of this presentation, we can just assume the wickedness of slavery for the sake of argument.

But let me make one more point about this assumption: we should assume the wickedness of slavery until persuaded otherwise. Our default position as human beings, and certainly as Christians, ought to be that owning someone is morally wrong. The burden of proof should be on the one who says that it is not morally wrong.

The Old Testament on Slavery

Neither does this essay concern what the Bible has to say about slavery or whether the Bible is opposed to slavery. Again, let’s pause and consider these points before getting to the main point. The Bible’s depiction of slavery is complicated. As I have said, the Bible never explicitly condemns slavery, though it does mention slavery a number of times. Note, however, that the Bible does not promote slavery. I think you would be hard-pressed to find in the Bible instructions on how to enslave people, or when people deserve slavery, or how best to exploit your slave labor. While the Bible contains a verse instructing Christian disciples to go into the world making disciples of all nations, there is no verse about making slaves of all nations. On the pro-slavery side, the Bible is at best neutral, not promoting it but not explicitly condemning it.

The Bible does mention slavery several times, in the Old Testament and the New—and the essential teaching here in these passages that reference slavery is the regulation of a social reality. The Bible does not say what I wish it said about this issue. (I have mentioned that before.) In the Old Testament, there are instructions for masters, some not altogether pleasant.

​​When you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, but in the seventh he shall go out a free person, without debt. If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s and he shall go out alone. But if the slave declares, “I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out a free person,” then his master shall bring him before God. He shall be brought to the door or the doorpost; and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl; and he shall serve him for life. (Exod 21:2–6; cf. Lev 25:39–55; Deut 15:12–18)

This passage raises for me several questions for which I have no answers. Mostly here the master is addressed. The thoughts of the slave are considered, if he is a male slave, and it is considered possible that he might want to continue his slavery rather than be emancipated. This regulation seems to envision a type of slavery that might not be altogether unwelcome to the slave—or, preferable to some other likely life situations. But that’s as far down that path as I am inclined to go.

On Slavery

Maybe this is a good time to problematize the very notion of slavery. When I say the word “slavery,” what comes to mind? For me, it’s the nineteenth century American South, and the slavery practiced there was chattel slavery, in which people were enslaved for life with no legal recourse, and their children also automatically became life slaves. Slave owners did sometimes emancipate their slaves, but that was at the whim of the slaveowner, and some states had laws in place to discourage or prohibit emancipation. There are stories of slaveowners wanting to emancipate their slaves but being legally prohibited, so they would move to a different state where emancipation was permitted.

As I understand it, the slaves that populated the antebellum southern United States came from Africa, having been kidnapped there and sold to Europeans for transportation across the Atlantic Ocean. The 1789 memoir of Olaudah Equiano describes his own experience of having lived in Africa—probably modern Nigeria—and as a young adolescent being attacked by a neighboring tribe and bopped on the head and shoved in a bag. He grew up free until he was eleven or twelve, and then he was kidnapped.

I wonder how often pro-slavery apologists in the nineteenth century American South allowed themselves to be curious about the origins of these slaves. Yes, they knew they came from Africa, which contributed to an ideology about their fitness for slavery, the idea that they had been savages and that slavery was good for them, domesticated them, or the idea that they were under the curse of God as spelled out in the Bible, the illusory Curse of Ham, supposedly from the end of Genesis 9 but which actually does not exist; there is, however, in Genesis 9, a curse on Canaan, a curse which engenders its own ethical problems, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with Black Africans. But when I ask about whether pro-slavery apologists were curious about the origins of their slaves, I mean not their African descent but how they became slaves, the kidnapping that had to happen for this person to be sold on an auction block in Savannah or New Orleans. My guess is, they refused to think about it. Probably the prohibition of the Atlantic Slave Trade in America in 1808 helped nineteenth century slaveowners ignore how slaves became slaves; from then on, in America, slaves were born slaves—though slaves continued to be imported illegally even until 1873.

I recently read the 1855 defense of slavery by James Shannon, at the time the president of the University of Missouri and a preacher in the Stone-Campbell Movement and sometime associate of Alexander Campbell. In the tract, Shannon never wonders about how the slaves became slaves. I will say that I have had a conversation with a preacher in the Churches of Christ about slavery and racism, and he told me, very confidently, that African slaves in America were the rejects from Africa, the people that the Africans didn’t want anymore, so they expelled them, and sent them to America. This justification for slavery is … um … not accurate. At any rate, whether you come up with an idiotic theory about the curse of Ham or about African rejects, or you just don’t allow yourselves to question the origins of the slaves, it’s certainly easier, on Christian principles, to accept slavery as an existing institution if you don’t connect it to kidnapping. It’s interesting that in one of Paul’s lists of sins, in 1 Timothy 1:10, “menstealing” appears. Of course, the slaveholders in the American South were not doing the actual stealing, just aiding and abetting the stealing, and so they found it easy to justify themselves, like the lawyer who asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbour?”

I’m trying to get to the different types of slavery. I am talking about chattel slavery, which I have described. Other kinds of slavery include debt slavery or slavery created during warfare, perhaps other forms. I have thought much less about these other forms of slavery, and I want to exempt them from my comments today. My comments might apply to them, but I’m not sure. I don’t know about the rules often practiced with those forms of slavery: how to become a slave, how to get out of it, the legal recourse a slave might have. But I will say that all the types of slavery currently practiced, though illegal, such as human trafficking and child slave armies and other types of forced labor, all these types of slavery seem to me clearly immoral and contrary to Christianity as articulated in Christian Scripture.

The New Testament on Slavery

But, like I said, I’m addressing chattel enslavement particularly, the dominant type of slavery in the nineteenth century American South as also in the ancient Greco-Roman world. I’ve briefly mentioned the Old Testament laws on slavery. In the New Testament, the instructions address the slave more than the master. Does this mean that the slave was more likely to be a Christian than was the master? The slave is told to serve his master well. He is not told to seek his freedom. “Were you a slave when called,” Paul asks in 1 Corinthians 7:21. “Do not be concerned about it.” The best way to translate the next phrase in the verse is difficult and debated. The ESV says: “If you can gain your freedom, avail yourself of the opportunity.” In other words, in this interpretation, Paul is acknowledging that freedom is better than slavery, and while the slave should not be overly concerned about his enslavement, he should become free if the opportunity presents itself. But the NRSV doesn’t say “avail yourself of the opportunity,” but rather “make use of your present condition now more than ever.” This seems to mean that you shouldn’t seek your freedom even if you can, but you should serve your master all the more, presumably using the opportunity of living with someone else to testify to the grace of God through Jesus. The KJV represents the Greek most literally: “use it rather,” but what are you supposed to use? The Greek expression is confusing and I’m not sure what it means or how best to translate it. I don’t know what counsel Paul was giving slaves in situations where they might become free.

We do, however, have an entire letter—rather brief by New Testament standards—from Paul to a slavemaster, and the major topic of the letter is an enslaved person. That person’s name is Onesimus, and Philemon is his owner. Again, the correct interpretation of Paul’s intentions in this letter are debated; was Paul subtly telling Philemon to emancipate Onesimus? That seems to me the most likely interpretation, but at any rate what Paul says out in the open in the letter is that Philemon should not treat Onesimus like a runaway slave—though he is that—but like a brother in Christ. And there are the household codes (e.g. Col 3:18–4:1; Eph 5:21–6:9; 1 Pet 2:17–3:7), which routinely encourage slaves to obey their masters. And yet, the slave is accorded a rare dignity, as the biblical scholar Larry Hurtado pointed out in reference to 1 Peter 2:18–25…

…where the author likens any unjust sufferings that they may bear, likely as Christian slaves of pagan masters, to the sufferings of Christ (vv. 21–25). This linkage of the suffering of slaves with Christ effectively ennobles the situation of slaves, at least at the level of the discourse, a striking step in a world in which slaves typically counted for little as to dignity. Of course, this did not amount to the abolition of slavery or even securing the freedom of slaves, at least at that point. But this sort of compassionate rhetoric addressed to slaves was unusual, if not unique, in the Roman world. (p. 177)

The biblical passages on slavery are not utterly unhelpful from a modern perspective, but clearly they do not go as far as we wish they had.

So, when we turn our attention to biblical passages that mention slavery, we easily see the difficulty with the moral question: the passages mentioning slavery regulate the institution rather than prohibiting it—or, I hasten to add, promoting it. We can see how a pro-slavery apologist could use the Bible, and many of them did. Moreover, the triumph of Christianity within the Roman Empire, the cultural and political triumph, did not lead to the abolition of slavery, and for many centuries it was a fairly common practice for Christians to own slaves. These are the rudiments of the pro-slavery position from the Bible.

A Biblical Argument against Slavery

But let us recall that our question is whether an anti-slavery argument can be made from the Bible. And it’s time that I give this a shot. Enough throat-clearing. To make such an argument my mind gravitates toward an obscure verse in the middle of Leviticus 19 that goes like this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

And that’s it, that’s the argument, the biblical argument against slavery. That didn’t take long.

Well, perhaps there is more to say.

First, it’s hard for me to see how Leviticus 19:18, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” can stand in harmony with the practice of holding someone in bondage against their will and not as punishment for some crime. I don’t even mention the other practices that often accompany enslavement, the beatings, the rapings, the selling of children, the breaking up of families, the things that Frederick Douglass so forcefully disparaged in the appendix to his first memoir.

And then there’s the racism that formed a necessary component of American slavery. These things are so obviously contradictory to Christianity that we need not mention them, and no defender of slavery would defend such practices, not on Christian principles, anyway. Well, they might try to defend racism on Christian principles, even though racism is explicitly condemned in Scripture (see, e.g., Ephesians 2). As for the other things I mentioned, the beatings and rapings and such like, the nineteenth-century Christian defenders of slavery that I have read did not even mention such practices, except to deny their existence, or at least their prominence. Again, I am focused solely on the economic, political, and social reality of owning a human being, holding them against their will. Whatever the practice of slavery, it is the mere fact of enslavement that I cannot harmonize with loving one’s neighbor.

But we have all these biblical regulations about slavery to balance out Leviticus 19:18. On the one hand, we have laws about slavery. On the other hand, we have a law about loving one’s neighbor. Which should take precedence? If we find that they are in tension, these two sets of laws, should one outweigh the other? Is one of these laws more important? If only the Bible answered that question!

Fortunately for us, the Bible does answer that question. You might recall that Jesus responded to an inquiry about the most important commandment by highlighting first the Shema, from Deuteronomy, about loving God, and then pointing to Leviticus 19:18, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” identifying this as the second most important commandment. The slave laws did not come up. But Jesus did say that the entire law and prophets depend on these two commandments. Which commandment should take precedence? Jesus has told us. If we find a practice difficult to harmonize with love of neighbor, we better dump the practice and love our neighbor.

But that’s not all. You might also remember that Paul, on more than one occasion, identified Leviticus 19:18 as the fulfillment of the law (Rom 13:9; Gal 5:14), and James called it the royal law (James 2:8). And I’ll add one more related biblical injunction here; the Golden Rule of Matthew 7:12, which Jesus says is equivalent to the entire law and prophets. It is very helpful for the Bible to so explicitly and repeatedly tell us what to concentrate on if we would be disciples of the Rabbi from Nazareth.

The Implications of the Gospel

Is this an argument that Christians in the nineteenth century American South should have recognized? Yes, yes, they should have recognized it. I mean, for goodness sake, there were people making that exact argument, loudly. The way some Christian ministers swatted away what I would consider such a powerful argument from the Bible is disconcerting to me, and makes me wonder about my own blindness, but I can say that they were blind, willfully so.

Is this an argument that earlier Christians should have recognized? In the centuries before the abolitionist movement, when slavery was taken for granted by apparently everyone, those Christians bear, I think, less blame. But should they have recognized Leviticus 19:18 as the second most important commandment? Yes, of course. Should that have led them to emancipation? Certainly it should have led them to love their neighbor as themselves, to do unto others as they would have those others do unto them.

It seems to me that this is a situation in which we today recognize the implications of the gospel more clearly than earlier generations, specifically the implication that the second greatest commandment will not permit the enslavement of others. That seems to me a clear implication; we might want to call it a necessary inference. But apparently it wasn’t so clear five centuries ago, or a millennium ago. Apparently it wasn’t even clear in the first century. I don’t say we understand the implications of the gospel better than the New Testament, just better than first century Christians, but not better than Jesus and Paul. As Jesus has taught us, there are some biblical commands that are less important than others, and there are some biblical commands that are in place specifically because of the hardness of human hearts.

My larger question is whether Christianity is good for us, morally good for us? Does it make us better people? Christianity was seen to be consistent with enslaving others for a distressingly long time, and up until distressingly recently. But, as I have argued here, I don’t see how this practice coheres with what Jesus identifies as the most important parts of Scripture. To defend slavery from the Bible, you have to concentrate on the passages that mention slavery and ignore the most important parts of the Bible. A lot of Christians have been willing to do that, also distressing.

Is Christianity good for us? Does it make us more morally upright? Yes, it ought to, if we will attend to the parts of our Scripture that Jesus told us to stress, and let everything else hang from there.

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I return now to Eugene Boring’s book Disciples and the Bible (1997), which I recently read and wrote about here. There was so much of interest in this book that I need a second post on it. But go back to the first post for an introduction to the book and my basic—rather lengthy—take on it.

Alexander Campbell

There were several things I learned about Alexander Campbell.

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Campbell’s Canon within the Canon

One new thing for me was Campbell’s canon within the canon. Of course, I knew that this would be the New Testament, and more specifically Acts and the Epistles. I knew this not only through having read about the history of the Stone-Campbell Movement, but from personal experience of Campbell’s intellectual descendants—that is, growing up in Churches of Christ. But what was new was that Campbell’s own canon within the canon was less Acts and more Epistles. Indeed, I would have assumed the opposite. Before reading Boring, if you had asked me to identify the one book of the Bible that has been most important to Churches of Christ, without hesitation I would have said the book of Acts. Indeed, I have said such a thing, and I remain convinced that it is true. I have experienced it. More than any other book, it is the book of Acts that has been cited to justify different practices in the churches and schools I have known—how to become a Christian, how to worship, how often to take the Lord’s Supper. There are other Christian groups that are known more for their emphasis on, let’s say, Paul’s epistle to the Romans. I would not locate Churches of Christ among them. So it is interesting to me that for Campbell, the Epistles were more influential than Acts. From Boring’s description, it seems that Acts was not in the first rank, but probably ahead of the Gospels in terms of importance. It was the evangelist Walter Scott—and later J. W. McGarvey (see below)—who bequeathed to us our emphasis on Acts.

I certainly would not have picked Hebrews as the most influential biblical book (p. 75), though I would have ranked Hebrews ahead of Romans. According to Boring, Hebrews was the canon within the canon for Alexander Campbell, a surprise for me just as Boring says that it surprised him. When Boring said that there was one particular section of the Epistles that was especially important to Campbell, I had no idea what section he meant. It was Hebrews. Boring does say that Romans was very important to Campbell, close to Hebrews in Campbell’s thought (p. 75 n. 23). And again: “one could say that Romans and Hebrews were central to Campbell’s thought. But this would be misleading….”

Also new to me: the implications that Boring draws from this favoritism of the Epistles. Campbell’s christology was Pauline, meaning propositional with little reflection on the actual life of Jesus as narrated in the Gospels (p. 74). “This Pauline christological perspective carried with it as its corollary that Christian life would be conceived not as ‘following Jesus’ but as response in faith to the exalted Christ within the church” (p. 75).

Of course it wasn’t new to me that Revelation has played a limited role in the Restoration Movement (pp. 77–79), but it was new that one corollary is that Disciples do not anticipate the imminent return of Jesus (bottom of p. 79), just as Campbell did not.

Campbell and Restoration

What about the claim that “Alexander Campbell was not as ‘restorationist’ oriented as either his father or his contemporary Walter Scott, but he did use the language of restorationism, which was inherent in the Protestant tradition from which he sprang” (82)?

I wonder if this is right. Compare what Richard Hughes says in the first edition of Reviving the Ancient Faith, 22–23, where he shows that the early Campbell was much more ready to talk about a restoration of Christianity than the later Campbell. Campbell explicitly magnified his restoration movement over Luther’s reformation. Campbell wrote the following in 1825.

Celebrated as the era of Reformation is, we doubt not but that the era of Restoration will as far transcend it in importance and fame, through the long and blissful Millenium [sic], as the New Testament transcends in simplicity, beauty, excellency and majesty, the dogmas and notions of the creed of Westminster and the canons of the Assembly’s Digest. Just in so far as the ancient order of things, or the religion of the New Testament, is restored, just so far has the Millenium commenced.

This is the early Campbell; the above quotation is from the end of his first article titled “A Restoration of the Ancient Order of Things,” which appeared in his first journal, The Christian Baptist (see here, and the quotation appears in the second volume [1824] on p. 156 of the version available online).

The later Campbell, according to Hughes, was less interested in restoration, a change recognized (Hughes says, p. 390 n. 47) already by Jeremiah Jeter, in Campbellism Examined (1855), 338–53, 357–58.

So Boring’s assessment, quoted earlier, reflects the mature Campbell more than the young firebrand. That quotation from Boring comes in a section (pp. 80–84) in which he argues that Campbell wasn’t as committed to pattern restorationism as his followers. Here’s another quotation from that section: “Once the ‘movement’ had become a denomination of considerable size, a denomination for which he rightly felt some responsibility, he settled matters of the life and practice of churches not by an appeal to a New Testament pattern, but by appealing to common sense and practicality.” I think Hughes and, more recently, Douglas Foster (Campbell’s recent biographer) would basically agree.

Campbell Leads a Denomination

Speaking of Campbell’s leadership of a denomination, I was intrigued that Boring was able to cite (p. 84 n. 32) a statement from Campbell himself using this term, denomination, for his movement. In the lead-up to the Campbell-Rice debate of 1843, Campbell wrote to a fellow: “You represent a denomination; so do I.” Here I quote a little more:

Other Stuff I Learned about Campbell

I appreciated Boring’s comments on how Campbell treated Acts 8:37 (p. 88). Campbell published his own translation of the New Testament called The Living Oracles. In this translation, he had to decide what to do with verses that were in the KJV but—as the further study of Greek manuscripts was showing—were not well attested in the Greek manuscripts of the New Testament. One of these problematic verses is Acts 8:37, which records the confession of faith of the Ethiopian eunuch immediately before his baptism. Because this verse records a pre-baptismal confession, it has become influential in Churches of Christ, even though it is not well-attested in Greek manuscripts. Whatever influence this verse has exerted on Churches of Christ, apparently it is not owing to Campbell’s influence. In the first edition of his translation, Campbell printed the verse in italics, and in subsequent editions he omitted the verse entirely. On the other hand (p. 88 n. 35), Campbell retained the long ending of Mark and provided no note indicating any textual problem.

Campbell accepted the silly interpretation about the camel through the eye of a needle (cf. Mark 10:25), and even put it as a note in his Bible translation (Boring, 104).

I appreciated the discussion as to whether Alexander Campbell was a scholar (57–60). Boring does conclude that “Campbell was a scholar” (p. 59), even though he acknowledges that “Campbell was not only not a member of, he was utterly unknown to, the scholarly community of his own generation” (pp. 58–59). Boring justifies his evaluation of Campbell by providing a three-part definition of a scholar: (1) one who studies; (2) who bases his conclusions on evidence rather than tradition and publishes these conclusions; and (3) uses the prevailing methods of scholarship. “Alexander Campbell qualifies on all points.”

It might be worth reflecting together on the three points of emphasis in the section on Alexander Campbell, “Holistic but Discriminating” (pp. 62–69), that is, dispensationalism, mighty acts of God, and soteriology, and to what extent in our experience Churches of Christ have maintained these emphases and whether we should.

Restorationism and Biblical Criticism

Boring sees restorationism and biblical criticism as incompatible.

It has not always been so clearly seen that the affirmation of biblical criticism, though compatible with unity, cannot be harmonized with restorationism. The First Generation did not see this, because their advocacy of biblical criticism had not yet led to the insight that neither the Bible nor the early church were what the restorationist ideology had conceived them to be. (Boring, p. 112; repeated at the bottom of p. 209; again pp. 363–64)

I disagree. Restoration coheres necessarily with biblical criticism. I have taught this for years to my ministry students. If the Bible and the early church are different from what restorationist ideology has conceived them to be (as Boring maintained), then the ideology must bow to the truth. That doesn’t make the restoration impulse wrong; it is an expression of the restoration impulse.

Boring again:

It is biblical criticism that lets us see both the early church and the Bible in a light that is no longer compatible with restorationism. Historical criticism of the Bible lets us see both that there is no single ‘pattern’ in ‘the’ New Testament church that can be restored, and that the Bible is not the kind of book that can be interpreted legalistically as the ‘constitution’ that authorizes some practices and not others. (364, where see also his comments on Churches of Christ)

What I think Boring is really arguing, though he doesn’t say it this way, is that we have done restoration poorly. I don’t see that he provides a compelling argument that we should abandon restorationism altogether.

But then Boring says that we need not repudiation of restorationism but reinterpretation, and he points to a book chapter by Mark Toulouse and an essay by Clark Williamson (in this book).

J. W. McGarvey

The middle chapter of Boring’s book (ch. 6) compares J. W. McGarvey with H. L. Willett. Before reading this book, I was not familiar with the name Herbert Lockwood Willett, who died in 1944 after a long career at the University of Chicago. He does not have a wikipedia page. I was familiar with J. W. McGarvey. He was much adored at Freed-Hardeman when I was a student there in the late 1990s and early 2000s. During those years, I acquired his Short Essays in Biblical Criticism and his original commentary on Acts and his commentary on Matthew and Mark and his little book on Deuteronomy—or was it on Jonah? Or both? I also purchased his Gospel harmony. The FHU professors adored McGarvey.

Actually, as I open my copy of the commentary on Acts, I am reminded of how I acquired it. On the first page, I wrote my name and then the note, “inherited from Dad.” And now I recall that my father had acquired a fairly impressive biblical studies library, especially in books by authors within Churches of Christ, and he gave all of these books to me upon my graduation from FHU.

I recall hearing at FHU two stories about McGarvey. First, McGarvey, who died in 1911, left a congregation in Lexington over the use of instrumental music, and when he first arrived at the his new church home, an acapella congregation, one of the elders greeted McGarvey with the comment, “We’ve been expecting you,” or something like that. And the second story, not much of a story, is that when McGarvey died, there appeared in the London Times an obituary that referred to McGarvey as “the ripest Bible scholar in America.” I now have serious doubts about the point of this story. I do believe that probably an obituary ran in a prominent newspaper, perhaps the London Times, and I’m sure the obituary referred to McGarvey as “the ripest Bible scholar in America.” That word, “ripest,” is too odd to have no connection to an actual obituary. But I am convinced that the obituary was not written by a Times editor but was printed after being submitted by a fan of McGarvey’s—just as local newspapers today print obituaries written by family members of the deceased. I have never run across McGarvey’s name cited in any work of biblical scholarship, and I would imagine that among the group of scholars meeting at the Society of Biblical Literature annual meeting in, let’s say, 1905, no one had ever heard of him. I wonder if any of his books found an audience outside his own church circles.

What does Boring not like about McGarvey? He attributes to McGarvey this viewpoint: “Those of false or perverted faith are seen as morally reprobate, not merely doctrinally mistaken; they are deceivers and hypocrites whose motives are impure” (p. 212).

In response, I can say first of all that this viewpoint is very familiar today in American politics: people who do not share your viewpoint are wicked.

Second, I am not sure to what extent this is an accurate description of McGarvey, but I wouldn’t argue against it.

Third, a question: to what extent is the sentence quoted from Boring a true depiction of reality? Or this sentence on the same page: “Heresy is not merely an intellectual misstep, but an expression of sin; false faith is inevitably bound up with a false heart” (p. 212). Is there not some truth in this? Or, at least, people have long thought so. Indeed, these comments from Boring describe McGarvey, but Boring himself also says they reflect views found in the early church.

On the other hand, as to whether people who hold false beliefs really are wicked—that is a question that is easier and more safely considered in the abstract, not tied to any particular “false” Christian. When we disagree with people, we should keep the discussion at the level of ideas and not descend to personal attacks. To the extent that McGarvey did that, he damaged the church.

McGarvey on Acts

McGarvey wrote two Acts commentaries, an Original Commentary published in 1863, and a New Commentary published in 1892. The new commentary is available on archive.org: vol. 1, vol. 2. The original commentary is also available online (here).

Boring makes it clear that the new commentary (1892) became significant in the history of the Disciples, and Boring assumes the same to be the case in Churches of Christ. In fact, Boring claims “The co-editor of the Churches of Christ journal Gospel Advocate once pronounced [the New Commentary on Acts] ‘the greatest uninspired book ever written’” (p. 248). Boring provides no citation and does not identify the “co-editor” in question.

Before reading this comment from Boring, I had already been thinking about what Guy N. Woods—no doubt Boring’s “co-editor of the … Gospel Advocate”—had said about McGarvey’s commentary, but I was positive that Woods had made the comment about the original commentary and not the new commentary.

So I did some digging. I thought I must have read Woods’ comment (probably 25 years ago) in one of his volumes of Questions and Answers that he compiled from questions he received as the Answer Man at the Freed-Hardeman Lectureship back in the 1960s and 1970s. I went down to our library and pulled the two volumes off the shelf.

I started with the second volume, on a hunch, which proved to be wrong. I flipped through both volumes for almost 2 hours—I cannot say the time was wasted, there is much of interest in these volumes—and near the end of volume 1, I finally found the question:

What books have you found to be most helpful to you in your work as a preacher of the gospel?

The first book Woods lists is: “McGarvey’s Original Commentary on Acts.” Woods offers this comment:

Any work of man will exhibit imperfections, and there are views (not many) in this work which I do not follow; yet, I regard it as the greatest uninspired work ever written. Mastery of this matchless work will equip one better to preach the gospel than all the knowledge contained in a hundred works of theology often seen on the shelves of preachers today. The Gospel Advocate, in making this work available again (it was long out of print), made a contribution of inestimable value to the cause of Christ. (1.313)

A few more points on McGarvey

My search through these volumes by Woods also led to another interesting discovery: Woods says that “the London Times once said, [that McGarvey] had the most thorough and profound knowledge of the English Bible of any man on earth” (vol. 1, p. 255). Interesting that Woods specifies, “the English Bible,” a statement that agrees with Boring’s depiction of McGarvey as professor of English Bible.

Boring starts his discussion of McGarvey by warning his readers that we should not make fun of McGarvey or think him completely unworthy of our attention. These comments show that Boring assumes an audience that has heard negative things about McGarvey, which I never have. But his discussion of McGarvey does show the weakness of the man, and an approach to the Bible different from my own. According to Boring in reference to McGarvey, “what he had was a rationalist system that feared critical biblical study because it messed up his system” (230).

Everyone who would know firsthand something of the history of Disciples theology/biblical interpretation must read McGarvey’s New Commentary on Acts of Apostles, at least the Introduction and his commentary on chapters one and two. McGarvey’s commentary on Acts is one of the classic documents of Disciples history…. (p. 248)

And about McGarvey’s instruction of students at the College of the Bible in Lexington.

In actual practice, during the student’s first three years at Lexington, McGarvey restricted biblical study to the content of the biblical text filtered through his own unconscious hermeneutic and tradition, while, in his judgment, the students’ ears were too tender for criticism. He then introduced critical issues, filtered through his own perspective, only in the fourth year. (p. 239)

This is exactly what I experienced at FHU in the late twentieth century.

The Five-Finger Exercise

The phrase “five-finger exercise” refers to a formula for becoming a Christian, originally developed by the early nineteenth century evangelist Walter Scott and universally known in Churches of Christ (and Disciples, I think) in an altered form, as follows: hear, believe, repent, confess, be baptized. These points, counted off on the fingers, explain a person’s responsibility for accepting God’s offer of salvation. It is often called the plan of salvation. It has been extraordinarily influential.

The “plan of salvation” became the one overarching framework for the interpretation of the Bible. This represents the triumph of Scott over Campbell and Stone in this aspect of the Second Generation’s developing hermeneutic. In the First Generation, Thomas and Alexander Campbell’s themes were “unity and restoration,” and focused on the problem of a divided church and human creeds that caused division. Walter Scott comes into the mix late, with a different agenda: evangelism, conversion, Acts. In the Second Generation, when there was a separate movement concerned with its own growth, Scott’s “plan of salvation” became a hermeneutical focus for Disciples theology in a way it had not been previously. (p. 202)

Boring doesn’t like this influence of the five-finger exercise, and I don’t either. I mean, it’s a fine formula when it stays in its lane, but it shouldn’t be considered the hermeneutical key to any part of the Bible, much less the entire Bible. But Boring wants to replace it. This comes up in the final chapter, when Boring proposes a new five-finger exercise.

I don’t really like Boring’s proposal. Don’t get me wrong: his new five-finger exercise, summarizing the story of Scripture, is fine; I just don’t see why it would need to be called a five-finger exercise, or why it should replace the traditional one based on Scott’s model. The traditional five-finger exercise addresses a different issue—not the meaning of the Bible but the response of the individual to God’s offer of grace. That seems to me still necessary, and I don’t get Boring’s idea that it is no longer relevant (p. 441; but he later says that it might be, p. 444). Boring even implies at one point (p. 400) that his new five-finger exercise is designed to address the question, “What must I do?” but it clearly does not address that question. It summarizes the entire story of the Bible, and the Bible—as Boring says at various points in this book (e.g., p. 131)—is not all about what an individual should do to respond to God’s offer of grace.

Insular Reading Strategy

There is a common view today especially in very conservative Churches of Christ that one should read material, especially Bible class material, only from people in Churches of Christ. Boring spends some time emphasizing that early Disciples writers typically do not follow this strategy. They do not cite Disciples writings, not even the writings of Alexander Campbell. Boring discusses this point in respect to Isaac Errett (p. 126); Robert Milligan’s Scheme of Redemption (1868; pp. 142–43, with note 28; see also the bottom of p. 125); and B. W. Johnson (pp. 173–74): “He mentions no Disciples scholars. Even his brief discussion of Acts 2:38, linchpin text in the Disciples schema since Scott’s Gospel Restored and Campbell’s Christian System, does not refer to Scott or Campbell but cites the German scholar Meyer. Thus, his volume is not Disciples propaganda” (173).

So, the insular reading strategy with which I am familiar—“read only our authors!”—does not characterize our nineteenth-century forerunners. If I were to make an argument for the more recent insular reading strategy, I guess I would say the following: Church Bible class teachers, who are almost always theologically uneducated, might not recognize the problematic doctrines put forward by a Presbyterian or Catholic or atheist, but they are perhaps familiar with the issues that they would consider problematic that might be broached by a member of the Churches of Christ. I myself, in my role as Bible class coordinator at church, do not follow this line of thinking, but I suppose that it might be the way others reason it out. Of course, as everybody knows, a reader will encounter all sorts of dangerous nonsense in books published by authors in Churches of Christ, so the insular reading strategy won’t protect you there. But maybe a member of the Churches of Christ would be more likely to recognize the dangerous nonsense from our own folks?

More Notes

I conclude with some random notes that I want to preserve.

Most of the early restorers kept a diary in Latin, including Barton Stone (p. 11), Walter Scott, and Alexander Campbell (pp. 56, 57). I was surprised that Stone also picked up Greek and French (p. 11) and later some Hebrew. He used the KJV but sometimes criticized it. Stone exhibited no awareness of modern critical scholarship in relation to the authorship of biblical books or other matters.

According to Boring, historical criticism is necessary for the unity of the church, and thus for theology (414, 427). I wonder what Brad East would say to this.

We should lean into our own tradition, our historical situatedness (418).

At the same time, we should recognize the whole history of the church for 2000 years as our history, our tradition (412).

Boring discusses the meaning of belonging to the church (424). We trust our ancestors in this matter; we are humble, not insisting that we could do a better job.

The second paragraph of chapter 3 is important. Especially: “The First Generation Disciples had been aware of philosophy and the categories of philosophical thought. It was the second and following generations that had grown up only in the American Disciples tradition that was oblivious to philosophy, and they supposed they were devoid of it. The Second Generation thus had a naiveté the First Generation did not have” (p. 115).

Robert Milligan in Scheme of Redemption…

proceeds a step further and declares the Jews never understood their revelation, that it was exclusively for Christians. In this he follows the early Christian Epistle of Barnabas, which he considers an authentic letter written about 72 C.E. by the companion of Paul. (SR 421)

Wow, that’s crazy. Milligan doesn’t spend much time on it, but he does indeed attribute the Epistle of Barnabas to the companion of Paul. I wonder how common that opinion was in the late nineteenth century. Here’s the image from p. 421 of Milligan’s book.

Milligan is quoting there Barnabas 15.8–9.

Conclusion

Very much worth reading and taking copious notes, Eugene Boring’s Disciples and the Bible offers a great education on one angle of the reception of the Bible in the Stone-Campbell Movement.

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Here is part 1.

Several Christian groups in America before the Civil War separated the races into different congregations, white congregations and black congregations. But the Stone-Campbell Movement aimed at Christian unity, and this emphasis for the most part ensured that they refused to separate based on race, but rather they encouraged masters and slaves to be members of the same congregation. The Cane Ridge congregation, in 1838, seems amazingly integrated: 222 total members, 72 of whom were Black. But these Black members sat in the balcony. Sometimes congregations would serve the Lord’s Supper to the black members only after the white members had been served. Perhaps ironically, the Civil War and the abolition of slavery contributed to institutionalized segregation based on race in churches of Christ.

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[A]fter the Civil War, white and black Churches of Christ went their separate ways, forming two distinct fellowships. Racism evidently overpowered and overshadowed the bonds of full Christian unity even as doctrinal unity remained firm. Although some black Christians in Mississippi chose to stay with white believers after the demise of chattel enslavement, African Americans in Texas and Alabama voluntarily and cordially severed ties with their former owners and charted their own paths—even though often relying on white monetary support for a variety of projects. (Robinson)

David Lipscomb stood opposed to this trend, condemning in no uncertain terms the idea that whites and Blacks should not worship together. Already in 1878, he wrote in the Gospel Advocate, “We believe it sinful to have two congregations in the same community for persons of separate and distinct races now.” In 1907, in response to the situation in which the church in Bellwood, Tennessee wanted a Black girl to attend a Black congregation (mentioned at the beginning of the previous post), Lipscomb basically asserted that such a congregation cannot be a true church of Christ: “I would expect the Master to refuse to meet with or accept the service of such a church.”

Nevertheless, Black churches of Christ did form when Black Christians were not welcome in white churches. One of the earliest Black churches of Christ was established by George Ricks, who had been an enslaved African and learned to read due to his master’s wife, Charlotte Ricks, “who violated the slaveowner’s code,” according to Edward Robinson. George Ricks became the first Black property owner in Alabama, and he became a preacher at the Christian Home Church of Christ, near Muscle Shoals.

Members of white churches of Christ were sometimes members of the KKK (though H. Leo Boles basically said that a KKK member couldn’t be a Christian; Gospel Advocate [March 10, 1927]: 232). Both white and Black church members) often favored segregation. The Black leader S. R. Cassius (1853–1931) tried to illuminate the racism in churches of Christ to which white leaders seemed blind.

Cassius understood something that most white Stone-Campbell leaders failed to comprehend: namely, that centuries of chattel enslavement had tainted their view of black people, causing them to underestimate “our intelligence” and overestimate ‘their ability to give us what we needed then and still—a pure gospel.” White decision makers, explained Cassius, “forgot that four hundred years of slavery had bred a prejudice that even zeal for the cause of Christ could not overcome, and that in the mind of every white man lurked the thought the Negro was, in some way, inferior and that the Negro himself had been taught to suspect and fear the white man.” (Robinson)

But the ideology of churches of Christ—specifically that this movement represented the one true church and was distinct from every other religious body in the world—contributed to a distinctive approach to issues of race, fostering relationships among whites and Blacks while also compelling preachers to focus more on eternal matters than on civil rights.

These sources illustrate the divergent experiences and perspectives among white Churches of Christ in the years preceding the 1960s. Admonitions against racial prejudice could serve as the basis for a Sunday school lesson, but jokes that depended on crude racial stereotypes might appear in church bulletins or sermon outlines. Black preachers could preach to predominantly white audiences, and white preachers could speak in black churches. But most communities, in the South and elsewhere, maintained separate facilities for blacks and whites. Even in these paradoxical contexts, personal and interracial relationships were sometimes established. And all along, most white members of Churches of Christ would affirm without equivocation that all people were equal in Christ and that God was “no respecter of persons.” The primary objective, however, for both black and white Churches of Christ was practicing their conception of New Testament Christianity. Maintaining their identity as restorers of the primitive church took precedence above all temporal concerns, including race relations. (Key)

There were certainly moments of head-shaking racial prejudice, which prompted varying reactions among Black Christian leaders. Marshall Keeble is well-known for his practice of putting up with much racist nonsense in order to not distract from spreading the gospel, while other Black leaders were often more vocal in pushing back. (For these two approaches among Black preachers outside churches of Christ, see David G. Holmes in Allen.)

In 1920, A. M. Burton and white Christians in Nashville organized the Southern Practical Institute for African American students. C. E. W. Dorris, a white minister and superintendent of the new school, demanded that students, all of them black, enter the building through the back door. [G. P.] Bowser, principal of the fledgling institution, vehemently denounced the practice since the school was only for African Americans. [Marshall] Keeble exhorted Bowser to accept the back-door policy, as long as students obtained the “Christian education they so much desired.” Unrepentant, Bowser abruptly resigned his post as principal, left the school, and urged other black parents to withdraw their children, resulting in the school’s hasty demise. Keeble passively accepted racism as long as he achieved his evangelistic or educational goals; Bowser adamantly repudiated racism even when it eliminated opportunities for himself or other African Americans. (Robinson)

As it was for everyone, the Civil Rights movement was difficult for churches of Christ. Black leaders continued to call out racism as they saw it. Norman Anderson’s 1965 essay in the journal Christian Echo described racism as a “stench in the nostrils of God, and therefore subjects them [= racists, specifically “white Christians”] to eternal damnation.” In 1963, R. N. Hogan railed against segregated Christian colleges “headed by so-called gospel preachers and they are living in rebellion against God.” Andrew J. Hairston, preacher for the Simpson Street Church of Christ in Atlanta, suggested that white churches of Christ stop calling themselves Church of Christ and instead use the name “Church of the White Man.”

Most of the colleges affiliated with churches of Christ continued to prohibit Black students through the early 1960s, and the students at these all-white colleges sometimes engaged in what is today considered clearly racist activities. “Students at all of the aforementioned colleges enjoyed minstrel shows that caricatured blacks, but they seemed to be most popular at Freed-Hardeman, where they received prominent coverage in the Skyrocket [the student newspaper] and remained annual events through the spring of 1964, just before the first black students arrived on camps” (Key). For example, this advertisement appeared in the February 1963 issue of the Skyrocket (available online here).

Here is one from Harding, 1958, as reported in the student newspaper, The Bison (here).

It was this kind of activity, and the barring of Black students, that led some Black church members to insist that the church of Christ had not yet been restored. In 1959, the Black preacher and editor R. N. Hogan wrote about segregated Christian schools: “The fact that Negroes are not allowed in these churches and schools is proof that God is not there; for where God is, no man is barred because of the color of his skin.” In 1963, Hogan urged black readers “to love all white people, for you will go to hell if you hate them, like some of them are going to hell for hating you.”

For the most part, the magazines Gospel Advocate and Firm Foundation ignored the Civil Rights movement. In 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. died as well as Marshall Keeble. The Gospel Advocate devoted an issue to Keeble (July 18, 1968), and Reuel Lemmons wrote in the Firm Foundation an editorial that Richard Hughes described as “infamous,” in which he attributed to Keeble’s work the fact that “there has been an infinitesimally small amount of racial prejudice in the Church of Christ.”

Not everyone in churches of Christ in the 1960s seemed so out-of-touch with the events going on around them. Lemmons’ editorial generated critical responses. Lemmons printed an article written to challenge his own position, but he also printed responses to the article. Mission journal was founded in part to address issues of contemporary concern such as race, and the position of the journal toward race was one sympathetic to the Civil Rights movement. At the Abilene Christian College Lectures in 1960, Carl Spain challenged the college on the issue of the enrollment of Black students. (Listen to the speech here. There is now a Carl Spain Center at ACU.)

And earlier, in Spring 1953, Everett Ferguson, an undergraduate student, gave a chapel speech at the all-white Abilene Christian University in which he condemned racism and looked forward to the admission of Black students. (Listen to this speech here, read by a 72-year-old Ferguson.)

John Allen Chalk, the speaker for the Herald of Truth television program (who later became an attorney; he blurbs Allen’s new book on Marshall Keeble), encouraged Lemmons in private communication to be more favorable toward the Civil Rights movement, to condemn more openly the sin of racism within churches of Christ, but Chalk found little success with Lemmons.

In 1968, Chalk wrote to Lemmons on the issue of race, and Lemmons replied that racial prejudice is a sin no different from others, and so deserving of no more attention. (Here is Chalk’s letter, and here is the reply from Lemmons.) It seems, however, that Lemmons (at least, in the 1960s) was himself much more concerned about sins such as gambling and drinking than about racial prejudice, which he mostly mentioned to deny that it was a problem. According to Hughes, “By the 1960s, most mainstream Churches of Christ were far more concerned to win acceptance into the dominant ‘Christian’ culture of white America than to battle for social justice, racial or otherwise.”

But the times, they were a’changin. A new generation of scholars and leaders were willing to challenge the status quo in churches of Christ in accordance with what they felt were first principles of the gospel. They were more willing to be socially engaged. Whereas the conservatives in the 1960s accused the activists of changing the gospel into the social gospel, the activists accused the conservatives of simply not being Christian. This new generation founded Mission journal (already mentioned), that provided a platform to discuss the Civil Rights movement and other social issues from a more sympathetic vantage point than was typically allowed in the Gospel Advocate and Firm Foundation. In 1968, “race relations workshops” started to take place in churches of Christ. While the independence of each congregation in churches of Christ meant that different congregations would respond to issues of race in their own way, many leaders and congregations were recognizing not only that racism was sinful but that the churches of Christ were not immune to the sin.

Conclusion

Several things are important for us to understand about racism and the churches of Christ.

(1) Racism is contrary to the gospel. The New Testament is explicit about this.

(2) Churches of Christ have not been immune from the sin of racism. Certainly our churches have not been unique: America has struggled with racial problems for centuries, and all Christian groups have struggled in this area. Here I am thinking exclusively of American churches of Christ. I wonder whether similar struggles concerning racial issues have characterized churches of Christ in other areas of the world.

(3) Inasmuch as our movement began as a call for Christian unity, we should work against those forces that divide us. As Thomas Campbell said in the Declaration and Address:

Ministers of Jesus, we can neither be ignorant of, nor unaffected with, the divisions and corruptions of his church. His dying commands, his last and ardent prayers, for the visible unity of his professing people, will not suffer you to be indifferent in this matter. You will not, you cannot, therefore, be silent, upon a subject of such vast importance to his personal glory and the happiness of his people—consistently you cannot; for silence gives consent. You will rather lift up your voice like a trumpet to expose the heinous nature, and dreadful consequences of those unnatural and anti-christian divisions, which have so rent and ruined the church of God.

As positive as the Black church has been, its existence in some ways stands as a constant rebuke of the sin of racism that has characterized American Christianity for centuries. We now live with that legacy. One of Martin Luther King’s famous lines remains true today: the most segregated hour in America is Sunday at 11am. We look forward to the fulfillment of the prophetic vision for God’s church: not segregation but all nations uniting in praise (Rev 7:9).

For Discussion

Read Ephesians 2:11–18. Why do you think it was so hard for Jews and Gentiles to see themselves as the same people of God?

If someone objected to a person’s attendance at a church worship service based on that person’s appearance, such as their skin color, how should the church respond to such an objection? Is there any responsibility for the person “causing a disturbance” to make peace by going where they are more accepted?

What experiences of racism have shocked you in your lifetime? In what ways have your own views on race evolved over the years? Do you think this is an area in which the church has led the culture toward a better path, or the culture has led the church, or neither?

What do you think Christians should have done—or should do—on the race issue in America in the 1850s? The 1960s? The 2020s? Has the issue become more complicated or simpler?

Do you think racism is an issue on which God would want people to “disturb the peace” in order to bring about change in society? Do you admire Marshall Keeble’s tendency to focus on evangelism rather than social issues? Is racism a “gospel issue”?

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A few years ago, while writing a series of lessons for Bible classes at the Sherrod Ave. Church of Christ, I drafted an essay on race relations within the Restoration Movement. This is not my area of expertise, and I have relied heavily on some of the recent scholarship on this issue, which continues to expand. I found especially helpful the published dissertation of Barclay Key and the survey history by Edward Robinson. There’s also a chapter on the topic in the wonderful history of churches of Christ by Richard Hughes, and in its updated form by James Gorman.

The essay I wrote has a lot of footnotes, which I don’t want to reproduce here. Maybe someday I’ll publish it in full in some other form. But for now, this is the most public that I have made it. But the typical length of a Substack post requires that I break up the essay into two parts.

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By the way, about a year before I wrote this essay, I preached a sermon on race relations. (Here’s the video of that day’s worship service; the sermon starts at about the 21 min. mark). It was early June 2020, and you may remember what was happening at that time. If you click the link to the video, you’ll notice that I’m not preaching to a live audience but in a studio; such were the times. I had not planned on preaching on race relations, but events overtook me, and I thought I needed to say something on the topic. I’m sure that sermon could be improved in all kinds of ways, but the one comment I made that sticks in my mind as completely stupid is when I said—more-or-less off the cuff (and that was the problem)—that the Bible doesn’t really address this issue head on. That statement is wrong, comically wrong, absurdly wrong. Like Whoopi Goldberg, I was thinking about racism based on skin color, and I think it is fair to say that the Bible doesn’t address that particular topic head on. (There might be a hint in that direction; see below.) But the Bible has a great deal to say about racial prejudice (or something close to racial prejudice), and much of the New Testament is taken up with this issue in terms of Jews and Gentiles. This essay is part of my penance.

From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth. (Acts 17:26)

In 1907, a young Black girl attended the (mostly white) church of Christ in Bellwood, Tennessee, near Lebanon. Not all of the members were happy about her presence, particularly since there was a Black congregation that met not far away. Why doesn’t she just meet with her own kind, they wondered? One of the members (S. E. Harris), ostensibly concerned about the division resulting from this situation, wrote to E. A. Elam (biographical sketch), a teacher at the Nashville Bible School and the girl’s guardian, encouraging Elam to send the girl to the Black congregation rather than the white one.

Elam was not having it. Against Harris’ suggestion that the girl’s presence was causing division, Elam retorted: “Those members who have taken up this matter and keep it agitated are doing a very great wrong in that they are dividing the church and sinning against the innocent and helpless. Instead of keeping this matter continually stirred up, all should endeavor to quiet it and to preserve the peace of the church” (Gospel Advocate, July 4, 1907). Harris did not help his case, certainly not from a twenty-first century perspective, when he replied that those objecting to the girl’s presence want her to worship God, but just to do so somewhere else, because “they just do not want their children associating with her in the capacity of worshiping God.”

Churches of Christ have had their share of racial prejudice, their share of people like S.E. Harris wanting to preserve “unity” by instituting division, their share of the “white moderate” that Martin Luther King complained about so bitterly in his iconic Letter from a Birmingham Jail (1963; wikipedia; text of the letter; pdf). Churches of Christ have also had their share of leaders like E. A. Elam, willing to stand against the dominant culture of their time in insisting on the principles of the gospel, in regard to the basic equality of all human beings, regardless of race. If the Restoration Movement has encouraged this insight into the unity in Christ brought about by the gospel (Gal 3:28), it probably is related both to the origins of the movement as a unity movement and to the call for Christians to abandon their human opinions and stand on the Bible alone.

On the other hand, the history of churches of Christ seems to reveal that the twentieth century saw a hardening of racial divisions in the movement, so that by the time that the Civil Rights movement made constant headlines in the 1960s, the dominant strain of churches of Christ typically ignored the issue altogether. The twentieth century also saw Black members of the churches of Christ finding various ways to do the work of God in a society and in a religious context that often provided them limited opportunities. While some of them focused more on eternal matters than civil rights (e.g., Marshall Keeble), others saw the two as indistinguishable and pushed back on what they considered the racism around them (e.g., S. R. Cassius, R. N. Hogan).

When it comes to race issues, our history is not all bad, but it’s not all good, either. Looking back at what we’ve done right and wrong might help us move forward with open minds and hearts on this issue that continues to cause so much turmoil.

The Bible against Racism

The Bible is not a fan of racism. That statement will come as some surprise to overt racists, who often use the Bible to undergird their ideology. Particularly popular in American history as a defense for institutionalized racism and even the enslavement of Africans has been the so-called “Curse of Ham” passage (Gen 9:20–27), a passage that supposedly shows that God curses black Africans (the descendants of Ham) to eternal slavery. According to historian Barclay Key, George Benson (wikipedia), president of Harding College, “taught that blacks were ‘under the curse of Ham’” in classes on the Pentateuch in the 1950s. But, of course, the passage in Genesis says no such thing; in fact, there is no “curse of Ham” passage known to the Bible. The cited passage is, in fact, a “curse of Canaan” passage, and Canaan has nothing to do with black Africans. The passage was intentionally misrepresented by pro-slavery apologists as a justification for their own cruelty.

The Bible’s presentation of the issue of slavery is actually quite complicated. It is true that there is no outright biblical condemnation of slavery, just as there was no abolitionist movement at all until the early eighteenth century in America and Europe. (For a brief introduction to the difficulties of the study of slavery in the Bible, see my chapter here; pdf here.) At any rate, whatever the Bible says about slavery, it certainly does not justify racism—far from it. (Slavery in the ancient world was not based on race, as it became in America.)

While the Bible says very little about anti-Black racism, one of the major themes of the New Testament is the overcoming of racism (or, at least, prejudice) between Jews and others. That must be at least part of the point of the Good Samaritan parable (Luke 10:25–37). It’s a big part of the Cornelius story (Acts 10). And it’s the main thing Paul wants to stress in Ephesians 2.

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both groups into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us. (Eph 2:13–14)

In fact, a big part of Paul’s ministry is trying to convince people from different races that they are one in Christ, that they are brothers and sisters, a part of God’s family, and any distinctions that used to separate them are at best irrelevant, and at worst contrary to Christianity. Isn’t that why he’s so adamant in his letter to the Galatians that Gentile Christians should feel no need to receive circumcision, as if being in Christ is not good enough? It’s not only that they doubt the efficacy of Christ, but that they doubt Christ’s efficacy specifically toward people who are not Jews—so becoming a Jew by circumcision is the way to approach God. Nonsense! declares Paul.

There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. (Gal 3:28)

For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. (1 Cor 12:13).

In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all! (Col 3:11)

A large part of Paul’s argument in Romans is that Jews and Gentiles are all in the same boat—the sin boat—and all, when saved by Jesus, become a part of the same tree, whether they are grafted in or are natural branches (Rom 11:17–24).

The Bible does not say much about anti-Black racism, but maybe it doesn’t say nothing, either. One verse of the New Testament mentions Ethiopia (Acts 8:27), the Greek term used in the ancient world most commonly to designate the area where Black Africans lived. Acts mentions the eunuch from Ethiopia not to highlight his race but to highlight his faithful response to the gospel. Apparently his race was not a concern of Philip the evangelist or of the story Luke wanted to tell.

From the beginning of the Bible to its end, the Bible stands opposed to racism. In the very first chapter, humanity is presented as made in the image of God (Gen 1:26–27), all of humanity, “red and yellow, black and white.” From one ancestor, all nations descend (cf. Acts 17:26)—a verse often quoted in these discussions, including in one of the earliest anti-slavery tracts published in America, The Selling of Joseph: A Memorial, by Samuel Sewall (1700, here). And John’s vision in Revelation includes the scene in heaven when all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues worship together (Rev 7:9).

The Stone-Campbell Movement and Slavery

For a short time (less than a year), Barton Stone owned two slaves, Ned and Lucy. He inherited them from his mother, but in January 1801, he filed the paperwork for their manumission. In his biography, Stone wrote: “I had emancipated my slaves from a sense of right, choosing poverty with a good conscience, in preference to all the treasures of the world. This revival [the Second Great Awakening] cut the bonds of many poor slaves; and this argument speaks volumes in favor of the work. For of what avail is a religion of decency and order, without righteousness?”

Stone was not the only member of his movement that considered emancipation of slaves to be an element of basic righteousness. Around 1810, Joseph Thomas visited the Stone churches of Kentucky and was impressed by their stance on slavery.

The christian companies in this settlement and about Cane Ridge have been large; but within a few years, many of them, who held black people as slaves, emancipated them, and have moved to the state of Ohio.

I will observe that the christians of these parts abhor the idea of slavery, and some of them have almost tho’t that they who hold to slavery cannot be a christian.

Stone was a committed abolitionist, though he did not—at least in 1808—want to bar slaveholders from church membership, and he supported the effort for slave colonization in Liberia. He thought slavery clearly sinful—whether specifically American slavery or, perhaps, every form of slavery. It was the failure of the American government to abolish slavery that played a major role in Stone’s renouncing political involvement in the last decade of his life.

Alexander Campbell also owned slaves as a result of an inheritance from his wife’s family, and he also emancipated them. Campbell’s views on slavery were, perhaps, somewhat more complicated than those of Stone. To interpret Campbell’s position sympathetically, we could say that he was more involved in politics than Stone, and he had a concern not simply to criticize slaveholders but to convince them, to persuade them to favor manumission, and that in order to achieve this goal Campbell presented himself as what he thought would appear to them as reasonable (not what slaveholders would consider a radical abolitionist) and he emphasized how holding people in slavery was bad for the slaveholder and his family and was economically disadvantageous. He was not the only one to make such arguments, that slavery was bad for the slaveholder. The escaped slave Harriet Jacobs wrote: “I can testify, from my own experience and observation, that slavery is a curse to the whites as well as to the blacks.”

In 1829, Alexander Campbell was selected as a delegate from Brooke County, Virginia to the state’s constitutional convention (wikipedia), where he proposed an article calling for the gradual elimination of slavery. The article was defeated. “The one concession Campbell and his fellow backcountry citizens achieved was that slavery would not be mentioned in the Virginia Constitution at all, making it possible for future state legislatures to deal with it by law rather than by constitutional amendment” (Foster).

The next year, Campbell started publishing the Millennial Harbinger. On the front page of the first issue, he announced the main goals of the new paper, among which was: “5. Disquisitions upon the treatment of African slaves, as preparatory to their emancipation, and exaltation from their present degraded condition.”

And Campbell routinely denounced state laws prohibiting the teaching of slaves to read. “What! dare not enlighten their minds! How fearful of the influence of knowledge! This point is conceded without debate, that to the safety and advantage of the whites the ignorance of the blacks is essential. And yet we blame them for being stupid!” This attitude Alexander learned from his father. In early years, Thomas Campbell made himself the object of a reprimand when he broke Kentucky’s laws against teaching slaves. At that time, the elder Campbell responded to the uproar: “Can the Word of God be thus bound and the proclamation of the gospel be thus fettered in a Christian land? Is it possible for me to remain in a place, where, under any circumstances, I am forbidden to preach a crucified Savior to my perishing fellow beings?”

In 1849, Kentucky was planning their own constitutional convention (wikipedia), and Alexander Campbell decided to try once again to persuade a state to prohibit slavery. He issued “A Tract for the People of Kentucky” aimed at convincing slaveholders of “the importance of seizing the present opportunity of ridding Kentucky of this great political misfortune,” i.e., slavery. To that end, Campbell argued that slavery was bad for the slaveholder.

The law that binds the slave binds the master, as the law that binds the husband binds the wife. The Christian master has duties to perform to his slave for which he is held bound to the State; but higher duties than these, for the performance of which, he is held more firmly bound to him who sits upon the throne of eternal judgment; before, whom the master and the slave stand upon a perfect level.

Now, the great question is, what are those duties which Christianity enjoins? Good and comfortable food and raiment, and necessary medicine! This is due to your ox and your ass,—and if you defraud them God will hear their cry and punish you. But is this all? Does the law of Christ demand no more from a Christian master, for his slave, than food, raiment and medicine, comfortable lodgings, reasonable labor,—no more?—! Yes. He is “to render to him whatever is just and equal” [Col. 4:1]. He is to teach, instruct and evangelize him by all the means in his power. He is just to do for him as his slave what he would have his slave do for him, were he himself to become the slave and his servant the master.

Such a change would open his eyes more than a volume. He would now no longer “see visions and dream dreams.” He would commune with realities. He would think ten times about the soul and once about the body. He would now no longer look upon the slave and his mule as consubstantial, co-equal and co-eternal. He would ask more than green corn and dry—in their season. He would ask more than a blanket and a bed, a cabin and a fire. He would ask for more than calomel, a lancet and a skillful doctor, when sick. He would ask for the bread and water of life, and for the physician of souls, and not to give him these he would regard as an unpardonable sin. But this is not all. His mind must be cultivated and elevated to the conception of things spiritual, divine and eternal. This calls for much teaching, either on the part of the masters or some one else. And the law, wherever it exists, that inhibits the slave from going to a common school, only obliges his Chrisitan master to open for him a private school in his own house or on his own premises. He must then become school master himself or find a substitute on the peril of renounced allegiance to Jesus Christ. It was such reasoning as this, and not the absolute scriptural unlawfulness of Slavery, that constrained me to emancipate and set free from Slavery, not my slaves only, but myself. I hesitate not to add that emancipation was much more enjoyed by me than by them; and hence, from that day till now the emancipation of masters is full as much an object near to my heart as the emancipation of slaves. But, alas! masters sometimes, as well as slaves, hug the chains that enslave them. (pp. 248–49)

There are elements of this discourse that would be faulted from a twenty-first century perspective, but I find it remarkable that in 1849, writing from Virginia, Campbell was willing to say that a master should treat the slave as he would be treated by the slave (the Golden Rule, Matt 7:12), that the master should imagine the situation that the slave and master switch places, and that if the master did not provide education for his slave, even in states where such education was illegal, that the master had thereby “renounced allegiance to Jesus Christ.” This was a matter of salvation, according to Campbell.

Contrast this attitude articulated by Campbell with the one attributed by Harriet Jacobs to her former master’s wife: “My mistress had taught me the precepts of God’s Word: ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ ‘Whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even so unto them.’ But I was her slave, and I suppose she did not recognize me as her neighbor.”

That is not to say that the views of Stone and Campbell were representative of those of the movement as a whole. According to scholar Edward Robinson, “Members of the Stone-Campbell Movement owned 101,000 black people.” One early Stone-Campbell scholar, James Shannon, one-time professor of ancient languages and university president, was an ardent defender of slavery (see his 1849 speech and his 1855 speech). He even worked against Campbell to enshrine protections for slaveholders in the Kentucky constitution. Moreover, Alexander Campbell urged slaves to obey their masters and encouraged his readers to comply with the Fugitive Slave Law, probably feeling bound by the New Testament in these areas.

Soon bloodshed would erupt, making all such arguments moot and forging a society presenting new opportunities to display the character of Christ toward people made in God’s image. How did churches of Christ respond to this new environment and these new opportunities?

Next time.

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