Is Richard Carrier a member of the Washington Generals?

Note: A little fun at Richard Carrier's expense, in a piece I wrote many years ago, before Jesus is No Myth: The Fingerprints of God on the Gospels came out, but that I never got around to posting.  I found it in my "drafts" file a few days ago, and thought some readers might enjoy it.  

Because we here at Christ the Tao do not believe in creating straw men arguments, we are perhaps carnally delighted to find actual skeptics regularly offering arguments against the Christian faith that are staggeringly ridiculous.  What is life without a little humor?  Which is why I am grateful for the existence of such critics as PZ Myers, Richard Dawkins, and most of all Richard Carrier.  (If he does indeed exist, about which there is some debate.  Also here.)  May they come to repentance and every joy and blessing that God has for them!  In the meanwhile, thanks, gents, for the laughs.  

I am presently completing a book which serves, in small part, to refute Dr. Carrier's long two-volume attempt to establish mythicism (the notion that Jesus never lived) as a respectable academic position.  And indeed, my Amazon review of Carrier's crucial second volume, On the Historicity of Jesus, has received 105 "helpful" votes so far, more than any other critical review.  The review is, obviously, full of specific, substantive critiques of Carrier's book.  (I say "small part" because I do not see refuting mythicism as a worthy goal for an entire book, or even a serious article.  I have bigger fish to fry in that volume: demonstrating the strong historical credibility of the gospels.)

Carrier has almost certainly read my review.  He attacked me personally on Amazon as a "liar" for more neutral comments before I posted it.  We've debated in public, and he's lost his temper in my direction on other occasions as well.  

Oddly, however, after two years, he does not seem to have responded to my criticism.  

That is, unless you call the following a response: 

Jeremiah L: Predictably enough David Marshall has now put a review (of sorts) on his blog at http://christthetao.blogspot.co.uk. Or rather, he has selected one or two pieces such as your use of Rank-Raglan hero-types, and attempted to critique these. As expected, this is heavily laden with fallacies, contradictions (e.g. you based the analysis on Matthew not Mark – but the figure for Mark is still higher than for any historical figure) and personal attacks, with a special penchant for the No True Scotsman fallacy (e.g. Jesus was not a king, Joseph was not his foster father).

I suspect that engaging this guy in serious discussion would risk burning up a lot of time for questionable benefit. But maybe this could be a good segue into explaining on the blog some of the thinking on Rank-Raglan that you have already explained in OHJ?

Richard C: Yeah. Marshall is awful. Rambling, confused, inaccurate, specious, pompously indignant. His arguments are so poor that the thing he is arguing against already stands as adequate refutation. Requiring no response from me.  Anyone who isn’t delusional who reads my book (and then his rambles) will get a good laugh at his attempt at a rebuttal.

Well that certainly saves time.  Richard and I agree: read his book, then mine.  (Which rips his to even smaller pieces than that little review, along with those of Bart Ehrman and Reza Aslan, before offering 30 arguments for the gospels, none of which Carrier laid a hand on, and few of which he seemed to understand.)  If that doesn't make up your mind, you may not be "delusional" (I'll leave the over-the-top pejoratives to the New Atheists), but you certainly are stubborn.  

In the meanwhile, let me point out six flagrant new "delusions" in these two short paragraphs: 

* One or two points?  Actually I pointed out twenty or thirty mistakes in Carrier's book in that review.  And of course, Rank-Raglan is one of the centerpieces of Carrier's argument, so it's not like his arguments would survive, if that criticism alone were accurate.  (Which it is.)  

* Jeremiah's sole attempt to mark an alleged "contradiction" in my review completely fails.  I point out that while Carrier argues that Mark was the first gospel, his argument that Jesus is a Rank Raglan myth is based not on Mark, but on Matthew.  The inconsistency lies in Carrier's book, not in my review of it.  Why would one anachronistically argue against Jesus' historicity from a later, rather than an earlier, account of his life?  (Not that I really think that matters -- Matthew is plenty early, and full of powerful internal evidence for the historicity not just of Jesus, but of the essential Gospel story.)  If Jesus were a Rank-Raglan myth, the characteristics that prove that should be more pronounced in the earlier sources.  You need to attack the source material itself, not later, allegedly derivative works.  

For example, suppose we know that Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter, was a historical horror-comedy mash-up written in 2010.  And we know that Charles Sumner, a close associate of the president, gave a eulogy to him in 1865.   Would anything about the character of the former detract from the latter as historical evidence?  I think not.  However mythological or fictional later adaption of a great man's story may be, that does nothing to detract from the evident character of early and close accounts.  

So if Carrier wants to make a case based on genre against Jesus' existence, and he thinks Mark came first, he needs to work with Mark, not Matthew.  That's just common sense.   

* The claim that "the figure for Mark is still higher than for any historical figure" cannot be substantiated.  Carrier certainly does not substantiate it.  I doubt that Richard, or Jeremiah, have even read accounts of every historical figure, let alone applied RR analysis to their lives.  And if they haven't, they cannot know what they claim to know, even in theory.  By my analysis, in Mark, Jesus passes only two or three of the 23 criteria that Carrier gives, including the astounding claim that he died on a "hill or high place."  (Whereas Romans usually crucified their victims underground, as everyone knows, to terrify indigenous moles)  

* "Heavily laden with personal attacks?"

This is simply a lie.  In the first half of my review of Carrier's book, not a single "personal attack" on Carrier appears.  At the end of the second half, I do have some fun with Carrier, but it is both relevant to my point and gentle.  Following Carrier's methods, I argue, one could prove that Carrier himself cannot exist, or cannot be the scholar he claims:  "Now let's try Richard Carrier's method out on his person.  (Again, this is meant in fun, not in heart-felt hostility.)" 

I am reducing Carrier's argument to the absurd, not attacking him personally at all.  Still less are my pieces "heavily laden" with personal attacks.  That is a patent falsehood.  

Carrier, on the other hand, typically attacks not only me, but anyone who finds my arguments at all persuasive ("delusional").  Just another case of the pot calling the kettle black, or the man with the beam in his eye removing the sliver from someone else's.  

* I have no idea what the No True Scotsman "Fallacy" has to do with my observation that in the gospels, Jesus is not presented as a literal, as opposed to figurative, king.  Carrier demands that in evaluating Rank Raglan, we critique claims rigorously and cautiously.  Well, rigorously speaking, Jesus did not reign in Jerusalem or Rome or anywhere else as king.  Metaphorically, he is spoken of as "King of the Jews," but no one claims he had been anointed, possessed political power in Israel, or was given any crown but one made of thorns.  What I do is quote the Oxford definition of "king," but I'm not sure what that has to do with Scotland, either.  (The capital of which is Edinburgh.)  

* I didn't say Joseph was "not Jesus' foster father."  

To all that confusion, without a single word of accurate criticism, Carrier simply says, "Yeah.  Marshall is awful."  

* "Rambling, confused, inaccurate, specious, pompously indignant."

I'll let readers judge for themselves on the first four adjectives.  (Aside from pointing out that no inaccuracies had been pointed out beneath the acerbic review of Carrier's book that I posted on Amazon, even with some 468 comments posted -- all lost to posterity now, for better or for worse, thanks to Amazon's changes in commenting policy.)   

But while I admit enjoying a refreshing round of pomposity from time to time, I categorically deny feeling any "indignation" at Richard Carrier's attempt to show that Jesus never lived.  As I have said many times, if Richard Carrier did not exist, we would have to invent him.  I find his arguments a delight.  Carrier is like a volleyball player on the other side of the net who secretly wants your team to win, so he sets the ball up at the perfect spot, hanging five inches above your side of the net, so you can spike it and win point after point.  Or he is like the basketball player who lets you steal the ball and stuff it over his futilely outstretched hands, walking on his knees to gain elevation. For apologists, Richard Carrier is our Washington Generals. And he offers his arguments up with a comical self-confidence, even self-worship, that gives one all the fun and exercise of a comedy routine, of Steve Martin with his nose in the air, along with the workout that his random shots give to one's legs and abs.

So I call psychobabble on that.  Pompous, maybe.  But indignant?  You wish, Richard.  You'd have to make a good argument to begin disturbing Christians who are grounded in history.  

But I'll stop rambling, now, until Carrier finds another way to tickle my funny bone.   

Light and Logic in St. John

The Gospel of John is, among other things, a manual on how to think rationally. This is one reason for the persistent motif of "light" and "darkness." Plato had already spoken of a cave where slaves were held until one returned to announce a bright world outside: partly a metaphor for how we know things, and our limits on knowing. Now John would introduce the person who entered the cave and brought those willing to leave up into the light.

Chapters 9 and 10 are particularly pointed. Jesus heals a man "born blind." Everyone knows him. Or was it merely someone who looked like him? There is some debate. After all, there are scammers about, tricksters who plant the audience with fakes to part desperate people from their cash.

So religious leaders call the man in to testify. Were you born blind? Yes, I was. How did that happen? This man spit on a lump of clay, smeared my eyes, then told me to go wash. But it's the Sabbath! We know this man, he is a sinner. Our conclusion follows logically: God instituted the Sabbath, this man fails to follow it, so he opposes God. I don't know about that. I concede the limits to my knowledge. I only know (and this is first-hand testimony, backed up by all those people who knew me) I was blind, and now I see.

So they call in his parents. Is this your son? Last we checked, yes. Was he born blind? He certainly was. And now he sees? Evidently. How did that happen? Objection, your honor, hearsay. Sustained. Ask the witness who "saw" what happened, not these second-hand lions.

Formerly blind man, we know this fellow is a sinner. Really? Since when does God listen to sinners? I have some Logos on my side, too, your honors: God's kindly act, in agreement with his creation of light itself soon after the Big Bang -- He is the light-giver -- shows his will more directly than your interpretation of His general and culturally-conditioned rather than universal commands.

Formerly blind man kicked out. Finds Jesus. Believes because of the evidence of his counter-entropic experience.

Next chapter, Jesus compares himself to a good shepherd, and to the door of the sheep, and warns against wolves. Categories differentiate: one should not be so naive as to believe every sharp-toothed guru who comes down the pike. I came into the world so that the blind would see, and that those who reject the evidence before them will make themselves blind. My sheep not only see, but hear my voice, and recognize it. So the great actions and the authoritative teachings complement one another, like metals bonding in a strong epistemic alloy.

How can you tell between shepherd and wolf or hired hand? When danger threatens, the hired hand runs away. The wolf fattens itself on the flock -- his doctrines confirm his economic biases, justify his harem and palace, at great cost to his disciples. But a religious leader who acts contrary to his interests, tends to demonstrate sincerity. Giving one's life for one's followers -- not hoarding girls and treasure, grasping political power, or slipping away when things go south -- demonstrates sincerity, at least.

And if you don't believe me because of my words, because something says "Yes, yes!" when you hear my voice, or even because I'm about to give my life up, believe because of the miracles I have done. Doubt your own heart. Suppose I am sincere but deluded. Then what do you do with the miracles? They confirm my claims, and my calling, begging for an explanation beyond mere social dynamics. The fact that no one has spoken as I have, or with the authority I show, ought to give you some clue. But for those who do not make themselves blind with bad and self-serving logic -- Nicodemus came at night, because being "born again" really would make a leader politically helpless as a newborn babe -- the miracles which you have just confirmed from eyewitness testimony ought to clinch the deal.

But you're claiming too much! You, being a man, make yourself out to be divine! We have an epistemic right to stone you for blasphemy! And that might save our power base, too!

Begin your syllogism, then, with clear definitions. Think about your own tradition, and how the word "divine" is interpreted. The Old Testament already hints at a measure of divinity available to mortals. And doesn't your Bible also suggest that God will send a man who is divine in a fuller sense? Have you been reading these texts for hundreds of years, only to ignore them when they are fulfilled before your eyes? You have seen the signs, or at least taken testimony about cases such as that presently before the docket. Now look at the sky and reason about the time of day it is, and the stormy weather that is heading our way. Even if you fail to believe, you will not preserve your kingdom. For only he who gives his life up, will save it. That is what I meant when I told Nicodemus that he must be born again.

Stones? Sorry you have left the path of divine reason. My time has not yet come, so I'll be on my way.

Christian Feminism: Should Derek Penwell Apologize to Women Preachers?

In my new book, How Jesus has Liberated Women (Volume One, Before Christ, is now out), I argue that Jesus was the first and best feminist.  Which implies that those who came after him have not always made par (many turned out to be wolves, as he warned).  In the next volume, I will show that like pagan religion, post-Christian philosophy has an abject record of insanity on the subject of sex.  And yes, that includes misogynistic philosophers like Arthur Schopenhauer, lesbo-normative thinkers like Judith Butler, and people who despise women and blame men, yet write brilliantly -- here's looking at you, Simone De Beauvoir.  

Here is one ingredient in the secret Christian sauce, which Paul stole from Jesus and the prophets: ALL have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.  Red and yellow, black and white, rich and poor, Jews, Gentiles, and pagans to the uttermost part of the Earth, and Adam AND Eve, we're all in the same pickle, called "Sin and Death."  (And great novelists and psychologists have stolen from St Paul, or recognized from scratch.)

And so, as C. S. Lewis warned, Satan sends errors into the world in pairs, that we flee one only to be ensnared by its opposite and equally deadly number.  This is what one finds, reading the history of "enlightened" thought about sex.  

I won't replicate the story, which you can begin reading in Volume I, and by God's grace, next year in Volume II, from ancient times to this day, and how Jesus has brought liberation to billions of women and men.  

But the Church, oft-entwined in the World, trips over the same opposing errors.  

Christ and his followers have liberated billions of women in profound ways.  But Christians, including myself, are subject to the same temptations as other sons of Adam and daughters of Eve: sex, power, pride, greed, self-delusion, self-righteousness.  

So "take heed, lest we fall."  We swerve to avoid the ditch on one side of the road and plunge into the crevasse on the other side.  

Here is an example of the dangerously simplistic thinking that results. 

The author is a preacher and teacher named Derek Penwell.  He seems sincere and well-meaning, and at times can be eloquent.  And the ditch he swerves to avoid is really there: I spend most of Volume One describing it.  But Christian theology demands balance.  

As often with short pieces on important topics, I reproduce most of the essay, respond point by point, then draw conclusions. 

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Yesterday, I shared this as a Substack essay and got a strong response from women who've been hurt by the church. I'm posting the full piece here for folks who don't spend time on Substack. By reposting it on Facebook, I'm hoping this pastoral letter of apology and solidarity (1) reaches more of the women the church has too often managed instead of trusted (2), diminished instead of believed, warned about instead of listened to, especially those who'd never see it on Substack."

(1) Speaking as a pastor, Penwell should make sure his message is biblically sound and agrees with the facts. First, to whom are you apologizing? "Women who have been hurt by the Church?" How vague both terms are. Does "the Church" mean the Body of Christ? Particular congregations? Denominations? Church leaders? In the full sense, "church" refers to all followers of Christ, male and female.

Most Christians around the world are female. And each and every one of us is a sinner. Every one of us also possesses a quanta of power, as Burke put it. And we have used that power at times to hurt -- and hopefully at times to help -- both men and women.

So you're off to a bad start, Pastor Penwell. You seem to be assuming that Adam sinned while Eve demurely hid in the bushes. Anyone who has lived on Planet Church or on Planet Earth knows that's nonsense, just as it was nonsense when a few church fathers blamed Eve more than Adam. (Not St. Paul: "In ADAM all have sinned!")

I am also leery of this term "solidarity." It is often used as a "popular front" term in Marxist class warfare, nor that everyone who uses it recognizes that link.

This may seem overly subtle or paranoid, but the use of such terms is often telling.

A pastor should not be an "ally" or in "solidarity" with any race, sex, class, or nation. He is a servant of God. Like the prophets of old, he is called to speak God's truth to sinners and saints belonging to every human category. (And if we meet aliens, or angels, maybe to them as well.)

The word "solidarity" assumes a sort of social warfare in which some who do not themselves belong to the revolutionary and long-oppressed class nevertheless join with them to battle the knuckle-dragging ancient regime. (And therefore, by the way, gain power in the revolutionary system, as the intellectuals who led traditional Marxist revolutions tended to do.)

"During Advent this year, I've been writing pastoral letters to people the church has too often wounded instead of welcomed. They aren't arguments or position papers. They're attempts at honest apology, lament, and solidarity. (3)

Today's letter is for women.

My dear ones,

The church taught you that you were dangerous.

We told everyone that your body could make a man stumble, your voice could usurp authority, and your leadership could unravel the natural order. (4) Mostly, I think, because somewhere deep down, the men in charge suspected that was true."

(3) This sounds humble. But it also seems to echo a comment on this pastor's Facebook page, in which he jokes that he charges $1000 an hour for arguing with people on Facebook. This rhetorical approach seems to preclude the possibility of being disputed. "I'm not arguing, I'm just honestly apologizing and expressing solidarity."

If you say something that is out of line with truth, others should call you on it, whether you frame it as a philosophical argument or an apologetic epistle.

(4) Why does Penwell discuss sexual temptation and authority together? And what truth does he suppose men recognize "somewhere deep down?" Is Penwell admitting that female leadership "could unravel the natural order?"

It is certainly true that immodest and / or lascivious behavior tempts many men, and some women. So the Bible does enjoin women to dress modestly. Or should we come to church with lots of flesh showing? Does he wish to quarrel with such New Testament injunctions? Without, perhaps, naming them, or showing why they are wrong?

There is an equivocation at work here, which with the general lack of clarity in these lines, can set us up for error. It is not clear what he think was "true" about what "the men in charge" thought, because the referent includes multiple unrelated elements, and the pronoun "that" could refer to any of them.

But also, he blames men in the church for comments that are actually found in the New Testament. I guess they're an easier target. It doesn't sound good for a pastor to say, "St Paul was a knuckle-dragging misogynist." But that hardly seems fair to Christian leaders who are sincerely trying to follow Scripture, however flawed you may feel their interpretations to be.

St. Paul also does seem to say leadership in the Church should be male. At the same time, he often greeted and praised female leaders. How one is to sort that out, is an exegetical and psychological problem which is much debated, but not my focus in these books -- I have bigger fish to fry. (I'll explain that later.) But it would be more charitable to concede that some who hold the traditional view may do so out of honest desire to obey Scripture, not out of innate misogyny or fear or female power. Some who hold such views are, after all, themselves women.

"So, we made elaborate theological rules to contain you, dressing up our fear in Scriptural finery, and calling it 'God's will.' We built hierarchies that somehow magically ensured we'd land on top, and you always wind up in the 'helpmeet' role.

"We preached (5) about a woman's submission as if it were some kind of key to understanding God's design for creation. Unfortunately, what that really meant was nothing more theologically compelling than: 'Stay in your lane so we don't have to feel threatened.'"

Again, who is "we?"

Women have helped lead many Christian organizations that I have been associated with. Most preachers in China now seem to be female, as was the co-pastor of the church I served in the suburbs of Taipei in the 1980s. In YWAM, where I got my first extended taste of mission experience, women were often leaders and teachers. One gave a teaching in my Discipleship Training School in Hong Kong in 1984 on why that was biblical. I asked about those verses in Paul, and like Penwell, she seemed to take the question as evidence of a sinister motive on my part. In fact, I was seriously wondering how to interpret those verses.

So who related "a woman's submission" to the order of Creation? Aside from St. Paul himself, when he wasn't warmly greeting and commending, or upbraiding, female colleagues? (Not for taking on leadership roles, but for quarreling?)

Are we to assume that males and females should never take different "lanes"? And that any opposing suggestion is merely a patriarchal power trip? Again, this doesn't seem very charitable or a credible act of psychology. Consider, for example, C. S. Lewis. As I show in The Case for Aslan, and one can see in his Collected Letters, Lewis had numerous deep and respectful relationships with talented female poets, writers, and teachers. But he also argued for complementarian views, based on his understanding (or misunderstanding, if you prefer) of innate gender differences.

Say he was wrong all you like. I do not find his arguments on such topics particularly compelling myself. But he was not angling for patriarchal power, or power of any sort, except that of the sheer persuasive force of words used well -- a power he readily granted to females who matched him in debate, or whose academic or acting careers he promoted, or whose poetry he rhapsodized over while also offering helpful editorial suggestions.

Pace Foucault, it is not always about political power.

"And when you refused to shrink down to a manageable size, we called you divisive. We said you had a spirit of rebellion when what you actually had was a calling that frightened us.

"I'm so sorry.

"I'm sorry for every time you felt the call to preach and were handed a pot holder and a nursery schedule instead.

"I'm sorry for every meeting where you offered an idea that got ignored, only to hear it praised ten minutes later when a man said the same thing.

"I'm sorry for every sermon that made submission sound like a sacrament while maintaining a conspiracy of silence about the men who weaponized it behind closed doors." (6) There's certainly a lot of that going on. Human beings weaponize everything, including love. (As Lewis brilliantly depicts in The Four Loves and The Great Divorce.) Yes, men have sinned greatly. Yes, women have often been their victims. And vice-versa. And there's just as much intra-sex manipulation going on.

Biblical submission is mutual. It is also a necessary part of any civilized society. The police, too, tell us to "stay in your lane." Of course, you can switch lanes. But signal first, watch for other cars, and remember where your exit is. Because in a sense, civilization is all about this dance between vehicles in different lanes. Submission alone -- to marks on the road, to signs, to police, to other drivers -- lends us freedom of the road.

Paul understood that.

As I argue, the Bible has freed women around the world to change lanes -- live longer, leave the home, not get "swapped out" for the younger model, be supported when support is most needed, study, teach, invest, transform nations.

There is nothing in the Bible that tells all women to submit to all men.

The sin Penwell describes is, by many accounts, common. But a careful preacher should recognize that we are all tempted to it, because everyone in society holds power, and most of us gain some measure of authority. Most of us can relate to the centurion's talk about both exercising authority and being under it in different capacities. Yes, Paul's talk about "submission" has been used by power-hungry people to enslave others. Nevertheless, mutual submission is a cornerstone of civilization. Even the president walks around the sign on the floor that says "Wet floor" or on the wall that says "Just painted, do not touch."

"I'm sorry for the way we talked about Mary. We made her a passive vessel, a sweet girl who said yes and then receded into the background. We stripped her of her prophecy, her protest, her full-throated declaration that God was pulling tyrants off thrones and lifting the lowly. We turned a revolutionary into a Hallmark greeting card." (7)

(7) I kind of like this part. Though "we" do it to Jesus, too. And if you read early Christian writings, you find women saying and doing astoundingly gutsy things -- the martyrs were not Hallmark cards, and many of them were women.

"I'm sorry for every woman who reported abuse and was told to pray harder, forgive faster, or think about what she might have done to provoke it.

I'm sorry for the ones who were handed back to their abusers with a blessing and a Bible verse.

I'm sorry the church became the most dangerous place instead of the safest one." (8)

(8) There are no "safe places." Jesus was not safe in the manger. Paul was not safe in the synagogue. Church is not safe, and never will be, for anyone. Jesus warned against wolves, for instance. Power corrupts, in the church as well as everywhere else.

But is the church generally more dangerous than, say, Mohammed's harem? Or the home of a Brahmin on his death bed, when you are expected to burn with him soon? Or brothels in Snake Alley where girls were lined up, a pimp on a chair by their side, to call out to crowds of men as they passed? Or the womb of an expectant mother in ancient Rome, where infanticide was normal, and girls who had been tossed out to die were often picked up and raised for work in brothels?

Churches certainly can be dangerous. A young pastor predated one of the churches we attended growing up, going after girls. Recently I learned that a favorite counsellor at the Bible Camp where I lived when my Mom was cook, went after boys. (Not in camp, fortunately.)

Childhood is often dangerous, which is why Little Red Riding Hood's Mom echoed Jesus in telling her daughter to watch out for wolves. Predatory behavior was accepted in many pre-Christian cultures, as one can see, for instance, by a close reading of Plato's Symposium, as I show in that first volume.

But Church has generally been a happy place to my Grandma, Mom, sister, and wife, whose lives were immeasurably enriched by their time in God's house -- probably one reason most who attend church worldwide are in fact female. Are we to suppose the women who make up the bulk of Christian congregations around the world are fools? Or masochists?

Yes, watch out for the wolves. Everywhere. People in every institution tend to cover up for those with power and money. Followers of a rabbi who was murdered by religious officials in the name of God should not find this too shocking -- especially since he warned it would happen again. But let us not simplify matters, by pretending that oppression is so neatly defined by gender, or by lapsing into melodrama.

"And I'm sorry for the silence. For all the pastors (myself included, God help me) who knew something was wrong and weighed the cost of saying so against the comfort of staying quiet. For all the times we chose peace over truth, and called our cowardice prudence." (8)

(8) A first-person apology is welcome after all the vague 'we's." If this piece had been written in the first-person singular, with concrete details, some of my concerns would evaporate.

"Here's what I need you to know: the dirty secret we’ve tried to keep hidden:

"The God who actually shows up in Scripture isn't the God we described to you.

"The God of the Bible isn't embarrassed by women with power. God spoke through Miriam, Deborah, Huldah. God trusted Rahab with an entire military operation.

"On Easter morning, God had the most important news in human history to deliver. The men were barricaded behind locked doors, terrified. So God entrusted the first sermon of the Christian faith to Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, Salome, and the other women who showed up when the men wouldn’t/couldn’t/didn’t, and sent them to preach the resurrection to disciples who were too afraid to leave the house." (9) (9) This is true, but a bit reactionary and, again, unfair. Jesus' male disciples probably were more vulnerable to arrest, as the Pharaoh in Egypt attempted to kill male babies to control the new Hebrew nation. God did not really say, "Men are such cowards! I guess I'll have to send the good news to women, instead!"

Yes, women participated in the work of the gospel, as did men. God didn't cater to the misogynistic biases of the Greco-Roman world. That doesn't mean it merely echoes the slogans of modern feminism. The Bible flatters no identity group, and has no use for social dualism of any stripe. Penwell is making the same mistake Chairman Mao and the Red Guards made during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. He reverses the biases of the past. He admits, as a pastor, to having been unfair to women in an earlier era. Now he thinks he can fix things by pushing down on the opposite side of the scale.

The Gospel calls us to go deeper, to what Alexander Solzhenitsyn called "the line between good and evil" that passes through every human heart.

And again, those other verses are in the Bible, too, which do seem at times to assume some degree of complementarianism. Biology does, too. It is simplistic and uncharitable to ascribe anything short of viewing gender roles in the Church as absolutely and always identical, as arising from mere cowardice or lust for power.

"If you've walked away from church because church was where you learned to hate your body, distrust your voice, and doubt your calling, your leaving isn't a failure of faith. It might be the most faithful thing you've ever done.

"If you can't sing the hymns anymore because the words taste like all the lies they dressed up in sacred language, God isn't angry at you.

"If you flinch when men quote Scripture because you've heard those same verses used as clubs to beat you down and silence you, we ought to be holding you up as an example of wisdom and bravery." (10) 10. This is stirring rhetoric. And it is possible to make the mistakes Penwell warns against. It is also possible that we are neither so wise nor so brave, but are giving in to a new Spirit of the Age promulgated in Hollywood.

Flattery is not the proper office of a preacher.

"You aren't broken. (11) The Jesus who shows up in the Gospels isn't standing with the dudes holding stones, but with you, with every woman who’s been convinced she’s the problem, rather than the knuckle-draggers trying to erase her. (12) That Jesus sees you and calls you by name, saying what he said to that bent-over woman in Luke 13: "You are set free."

(11) Yes, you are broken. So am I. That is the first intuition of the Christian faith. Penwell seems to have forgotten it, and is engaged in patronizing flattery.

(12) Again Penwell simply reverses former stereotypes, and praises the group that had (supposedly) been universally damned, while damning the group that had (supposedly) been universally praised.

In a sense, there is biblical precedent for this: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." But Jesus did not ascribe that virtue en masse to any group of people, because he knew what was in man (and woman). Penwell is eloquent, but his simplicity is as heretical as the error he confesses to having fallen into in the past.

Women are never broken? Never "the problem?" After Jesus saved another woman from being stoned, he then told her, "Go and sin no more." Was he out of line?

We need wholistic biblical truth, not careless blame and praise of undifferentiated masses of human beings.

"I don't know how to end this except with the truth.

You deserved a church that celebrated your voice instead of shushing it.

You deserved a theology that honored your body rather than treating it as a threat.

You deserved leaders who protected you, not the men who harmed you.

You deserved better. So. much. better.

You still do . . . And may you know, in whatever part of you still has room to hear it, that your voice matters, your body is holy, and your calling is real.

Be gentle and brave." (13)

(13) I hope most Christian women find this as patronizing and simple-minded, if perhaps well-meaning, as it appears to me.

Of course our bodies should be honored, both as creations of God, and also as the potential Temple of the Holy Spirit. But dust they are, and to dust they shall return. Not all uses of them are equally noble or holy. Does it really honor women to speak to them as if they were holy by definition, unlike those "knuckle-dragging" male louts?

Of course God can speak through women, men, donkeys, or rocks that cry out. But there is a time to be silent, too, and yes, to stay in lanes and submit to one another. Jordan Peterson argues that women more often need to learn to become more assertive. But great novelists, male and female, recognized that many women have always had "voice" down pat, being richly skilled at keeping spouses, children, and everyone else under their thumbs. (Including some of the female characters in the Chinese classic I am presently reading, Dream of Red Mansions, despite the misogynistic customs I describe in Qing-era Chinese culture.)

And what do we "deserve?" All we have, comes by Grace, a doctrine that Penwell seems to have forgotten. Life itself is a "gift of God, lest any man (or woman) should boast." Pastors should not teach us to boast, or to assume collective innocence or permanent victimhood, though we act as both victims and perpetrators at times.

Speaking of victimhood, where in this confession does Penwell refer to the millions of young women who are taught to despise their femininity? To cut off body organs? To mate without commitment? To casually end pregnancies? To help develop weapons and technologies that threaten the future of the human race? To blame the patriarchy for oppressing them, even as girls graduate from college in far greater numbers than boys, live longer, commit suicide less often, and are less addicted to drugs?

So What About Female Preachers? And Speaking Truth to Power?

Samuel Johnson famously said, in response to reports of the Quakers, "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."

While I love good rhetoric, of which insults are a sub-genre now sadly in crisis, my experience has been quite different.  I have heard many female preachers do it very well, indeed. The lady pastor at our church is becoming my favorite. The best sermon I heard in China over the past two years, came from a woman in the ancient Shang-era capital of Anyang, where Jonathan Goforth used to preach to the men, while his wife preached to the women.   

But no, I don't think churches with an old-fashioned preference for male sermonizers are the focus of evil in the modern world.

Indeed, having observed some of the horrors which women have experienced in pagan societies, and shown how the Gospel rescued them from those dungeons, where many were sentenced to death, I do tend to regard the question of gender roles behind the pulpit as a "first world problem."

Why are there no women linebackers in the NFL? The league has been 100% male from the beginning. Why has no woman been elected president of the United States yet? I can think of many I would vote for in a heartbeat, and with the 52% of voters who are female, our united ballots should be enough to put them in office.

And why are there so few male graduates in, say, psychology?

Women usually do have, and should have, leadership roles in the Church. It is not my office to determine how particular denominations or churches should sift through the relevant passages of Scripture, and the very real psychological as well as physiological differences between the sexes, which seem to be in part reflected in such statistics, to decide what should be normative. It may sometimes be my job to point out abuse, which does occur in the Church, and bad will, which we are all sometimes guilty of.

But notice that lines of power have now shifted. The evils of the past are not precisely the evils of the present. A revolution has brought new people to power, and they abuse that power as well. Merely attacking the evils of the past, without noticing how power is abused in the present (out of cowardice!), is the sin of the Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.

Call Christian men, and women, out when they oppress. Cover-ups are evil: we see tens of thousands raped, and lives destroyed, boys and girls doomed to go through life lonely, children raised without "Mom" or "Dad," students taught to hate, yet hesitate to speak up. Speak out when you witness evil, including racism, including misogyny, including abuse of power. We do so often lack guts! But let's avoid heavy-handed and over-generalized condemnations and overly sentimental praise. The two often go together, for that is the way of the heresy which I call "social dualism," of which Marxism and some forms of "anti-racism" and feminism are examples.

More Philosophical Concerns about the Resurrection

I have been thinking for a couple years about writing a book arguing that the Resurrection of Jesus actually occurred. You say there are too many books on that subject already? Including from acclaimed specialists in the New Testament like N. T. Wright? Don't worry, if I write such a book, it will break new (maybe alien) ground -- you'll understand when you see the title.

Such is the danger of anti-Christian arguments: they make me write more books. Because whenever I follow the arc of such arguments, they tend to boomerang around and hit the critics on the butt. Along their flight path, they open up new fields of evidence for the Gospel that Christians had generally overlooked.

Of course, our critics also help us weed out bad arguments for the faith -- God bless them! So many of my books begin as rebuttals of people like Richard Dawkins, John Crossan, Elaine Pagels, Bart Ehrman, Richard Carrier, and Reza Aslan. But following the flight of the boomerang, they ultimately wind up in distant lands -- Upper Egypt, Polynesia, 19th Century India, Narnia, exoplanets -- where they turn up new evidence for the Christian faith. That is especially true of How Jesus Passes the Outsider Test: The Inside Story, and my new book, How Jesus has Liberated Women, both of which were superficially inspired by attacks on the Gospel by John Loftus, but end up offering sweeping historical arguments for the truth and value of the Good News that, in effect, tell the story of the human race in two new ways.

Last month, I responded to arguments against the Resurrection of Christ from a young philosopher named Eric Van Evans. Yesterday morning he offered more reasons for rejecting this central Christian doctrine as an historical fact.

Again, such challenges are a chance to brainstorm, and look at life, along with life from the dead, from fresh perspectives. So let's cautiously dip our toes in, and see how the swimming might be. I'll quote Van Evans' comments, then offer ten preliminary considerations:

"The primary reason (for rejecting Christianity) is that I don’t find the resurrection particularly plausible. How could I possibly ground my entire identity in a historical claim made thousands of years ago? Does God truly expect humanity to believe that he entered history as a human being, was executed, rose bodily from the dead, ascended into heaven, and will one day return? God must understand how extraordinary, opaque, and even absurd such a claim appears to us. (1) If God exists, surely he knows how difficult this is to believe. Why doesn’t he perform a resurrection now? Maybe God should enter history, say, every 2,000 years or so to let us know that he’s here. In fact, some Christian apologists argue that God has some sort of special obligation to become incarcerate. Well, why not do it again? (2)

(1) Doesn't God see how hard ("extraordinary, opaque, absurd") it is to believe in the Resurrection? 

The problem with this objection is that billions of people HAVE believed in the Resurrection, and not found it absurd.  Evans uses the phrase "to us," as if he were speaking for people in general, or modern people in general, who find Easter ridiculous.  But he is not.  He is speaking for himself, in a peculiar way, because he grants that God exists, and that miracles may happen, yet rejects one that is particularly well-established.  (So well established, that it is marked on the calendar as a Holy Day.)  

So the answer to this argument is simple.  If billions of people have believed that God raised Jesus from the dead, and Eric says he believes in God and is open to miracles, why does he find it so hard?  If something IS done, then it must be possible to do it.  If it is done billions of times, then it can't be that hard.  But perhaps he explains his own difficulties below.    

(2) Why doesn't God do resurrections more than once, to press home his point? 

I find this objection question-begging and (to be frank) aesthetically vulgar.  

Question-begging, because there are in fact records of other people coming back from the dead -- even in the New Testament, and yes, in modern times as well.  Read Craig Keener on the latter.    

Vulgar, because as Jesus himself said, "They have Moses and the prophets.  If they will not listen to Moses and the prophets, why would they listen even if someone came back from the dead?"

Now we have Jesus come back from the dead.  If some still refuse to listen, or recognize the extraordinary evidence for that event, the demand for more, yet more miracles -- greater than Easter itself -- does seem vulgar, like a child throwing his quiche on the floor and demanding scrambled eggs with ketchup instead.     

For Evans is ruining the story arc.  It is vulgar to ask for a story to simply repeat.  The universe began in a moment of Creation, a counter-entropic explosion of space itself, then participles that congealed into atoms, and into stars and planets over billions of years. The Resurrection was a similar and parallel counter-entropic event on our planet.  By it, all Nature is brought up.  It is the hinge of history, even in the crude sense that we date history around the pivot of Jesus' life.  

Others may be healed, and it seems sometimes are.  Others may even be raised again to life.  But asking for a second Resurrection is like asking the stars to be made anew.  What we have in the gospels already is vastly more than those for whom "Moses and prophets" were the sum total of the Scriptures: we can see how the Old Testament, and in How Jesus Passes the Outsider Test I argue even Chinese, Indian, Greek and Norse cultures, were fulfilled.

The Resurrection is to human history what Creation is to cosmic history.  Asking for it twice, shows poor taste.  It is like insisting that because the scene where Gollum falls into the Cracks of Doom was so cool, he crawl back up, snatch the ring again, and plunge into the magma a few times extra, as a kind of curtain call  

Eric insists:   

"If salvation, truth, or a relationship with God hinges on believing an extraordinary historical claim from 2,000 years ago, then God seems to be asking humanity to carry an unreasonable burden. One standard Christian answer is that the incarnation is a “once-for-all event,” that is, decisive, complete, and final. But that answer assumes what it’s meant to prove. It presupposes that God’s self-disclosure must take the form of a single rupture, rather than an ongoing, recurring presence. (3) From the outside, that looks totally arbitrary. (4) If God has an obligation to reveal himself, then repeating the act would seem to strengthen the case, not weaken it. (5) (3) In part such a criticism seems a false dichotomy or straw man. Christianity describes both a "once for all" event, and an "ongoing, recurrence presence." What else can one say? Read the Book of Acts, and see the "ongoing, recurring" work of God happening before your eyes. Or read a modern missionary account like Peace Child or Lords of the Earth, or my new How Jesus has Liberated Women.

Analogously, what is marriage? A one-time event? Or a recurring commitment? Yes, and yes. The romance would seep out without both: without an initial public disclosure of love, and then an ongoing working out of that love in practical, real-world, often difficult, conditions.

What Eric is really getting at here is his objection to exclusive religion. He doesn't want one religion to be wholly true, and other religions to be mere errors. I object to exclusivism too, because I think both it and Eric's own pluralism are alike unbiblical and simplistic.

The Resurrection is the fulfillment of many hints and promises throughout the Old Testament. But it is also the fulfillment of hints and promises in Chinese culture, as I show in True Son of Heaven: How Jesus Fulfills the Chinese Culture, and Nordic tradition, as I show in How Jesus Passes the Outsider Test. (C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien were keenly aware of this latter.)

The Resurrection, I would further argue, is the fulfillment of Nature itself, as it manifests itself in Spring. And it points forward to some greater Spring.

That is artistic. That is a beautiful outline of history. But truth must also recognize and account for areas of darkness -- the crucifixion before Easter. To simply say all is light, is to falsify reality and again, to ruin the plot, which needs the darkness and then the dawn.

"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." So Christianity has a standard. It is well that this is so, or the gurus of the world - many of whom are the wolves and false prophets that Jesus warned against -- would break down boundaries and consume our souls.

This is, frankly, one reason I also disagree with Eric's repeated affirmations of Karl Marx and socialism. I think he was a ravenous wolf. And any model of religion that fails to take the darkness fully into account, is both inartistic, and crude. The Gulag cannot be swept under the rug: the blood of millions cries out. Neither, of course, can "Christian" sins.

(4) Again, Eric takes his opinion as objective, ignoring the fact that billions have found "Jesus is Lord" anything but arbitrary.

(5) Why should we agree with those unquoted "apologists" who say God had an "obligation" to reveal himself? The traditional Christian doctrine is that revelation is an act of Grace.

God does reveal Himself, through Christ, and through those who follow Him, explicitly or implicitly. The act is repeated in that sense. Read Lords of the Earth, for instance, and see how Stan Dale dies in a flight of arrows by a stream in New Guinea, as Jesus died on the cross. Many have followed Christ to the cross. But there is nothing irrational about setting up an ultimate standard for human life, or in seeing Jesus as its fulfillment, rather than putting every hero or saint on the same level.

The greatest saints recognize their limits. Thus Confucius, whom Mencius described as a "phoenix among chickens," the greatest of the sages, himself said he did not even hope to meet a true sage. Socrates, too, recognized that his greatest wisdom lay in his ability to admit the limits of his knowledge. This is their glory, not their weakness.

Here, my essay on the Prior Probability of the Resurrection might be helpful. I have studied world religions for decades, feel great respect for thinkers like Lao Zi and Confucius, but find no one comparable to Jesus of Nazareth. As the great Chinese man of letters Lin Yutang put it, after a lifetime of searching, and reviewing Chinese philosophy, "Blow out the candles, the sun is risen!" But in a sense Lin's metaphor is misleading, because in his eyes, the life of Jesus deepened the value and meaning of these other great sages, as he does with Isaiah and David.

This is the fundamental error of both exclusivism and pluralism: they assume that the Messianic character of Christ is a Zero-Sum Game: that Jesus being Lord, that negates the prophets and sages. No, he comes to fulfill, not abolish. (But as the Good Shepherd, he does set wolves out of the pasture.)

"Another response is that repeated incarnations would undermine faith. In other words, belief must involve risk, trust, or distance to be genuine. But this raises an uncomfortable implication for me: Does God really value epistemic insecurity? (6) Why should ambiguity be preferable to clarity? If God is perfectly loving, why design a world where salvation depends on navigating ancient testimony, translation disputes, and historical uncertainty?" (7)

(6) I don't think "epistemic insecurity" is a proper definition of "Christian faith." Tim McGrew and I defined it, rather, as something like "Holding firmly to, and acting on, what you have good reason to believe is true, in the face of difficulty."

What does God value? Certainly, if he created this world, ambiguity and uncertainty must be a useful part of life -- and any relationship. What good is your love for your wife if it is never tested? Trials not only prove, but strengthen, bonds. Trees that grow by the ocean develop tough roots, because the wind blows stiffly on their boughs.

So yes, if Christianity is true, faith must be tested. But that fits with everything else we know about the world. And it is consistent with the view that our object of faith is objectively reasonable. One marries hopefully in part because one has found a partner worthy of one's trust. Faith means trusting a worthy partner even when under stress, not marrying a fool or a cheat.

(7) What salvation depends on is a separate question. I do not claim to see into the afterlife. Nor am I the judge of souls.

Translation disputes need not concern us. I read the New Testament in Greek, and have read it in Chinese, English, and some in Japanese, and a few verses in Russian and French. The translators of the main English versions of the NT seem quite competent. The main sense of the NT is not confused by translation, IMO.

You may believe the testimony of the apostles or deny it. I have argued, in several books, that you should believe it, because it is strongly evidenced on dozens of levels.

"Now, even if I did find the resurrection plausible, I still don’t think I would be a 'Christian' in the conventional sense. (8) Why does one have to *be* anything at all? Belief in God does not require allegiance to a particular religious identity, nor does it require anchoring one’s moral and spiritual life to a single tradition. (9) What ultimately matters is how you live. Strive for virtue. Pursue the good, the true, and the beautiful. In my view, you move infinitely closer to God through such pursuits than through merely affirming the correct doctrines or identifying with the correct tradition." (10)

(8) I'm not much for convention myself.

(9) Because Jesus is Lord.

I expected we'd come more explicitly to the question of World Religions before we got to the end of Eric's remarks. It's a question that he cares a lot about. It's also the central topic of four of my books, including my doctoral dissertation.

I love the Chinese tradition, and often take fire for that these days, when America and China are at odds.

But in a sense, I would argue that all modern traditions are in fact "anchored" to the life of Jesus. Neither modern society, nor our consciousness of what is right, can be explained apart from the teachings and example of Jesus. You can't escape his impact, even in rebellion. Marx was a Christian heretic, and so are the New Atheists.

And as Bob Dylan put: "It might be the devil, or it might be the Lord, but you gotta serve somebody."

Setting oneself as the judge of Right and Wrong is both historically naive, because we are all contingent beings, and psychologically damaging, because it makes us little gods, knowing good and evil for ourselves. Lordship does not suit us. It damages us, and makes us demons in practice. That is, in fact, what happened to Marx.

(10) This is a bit of a false dichotomy, and also ignores the fact that our conceptions of what is "good" or "true" cannot be anchored in ourselves. Because that deifies our souls, which ensnares them more profoundly.

C. S. Lewis and I would agree that the Stoics were the most noble of ancient Greeks and Romans.

If we could return to theistic Stoicism, that would indeed be a giant leap forward for mankind.

But can we? How did Stoicism actually play out in the ancient world? I would argue that it found its fulfillment when it met St. Paul in the market of Athens, and then heard his message about the Resurrection of one whom God had chosen to bring sense to the human story, on Mars Hill. Before that, even the greatest ancient moralists were a people walking in darkness. Now they had seen a great light, and that made all the difference -- historically and psychologically.