Bible and Mission

  The origin of identifying ‘saints’ apart from other believers and of praying to them originates from Greek culture (we might says 'Graeco-Roman' culture).    This is an example of how a culture might, and often does, influence Christian practices and faith.   The Reformation rightly rejected such accretions to Biblical Christianity.   The pressure to honour, even fear, dead ancestors is something Christians face in Africa and Asia today, and so the topic remains relevant culturally if not in Protestant rejection of the Roman Catholic practice.  This brief essay will examine the cultural practice in Greece as found in Plato's Laws.  Prayer to heroes was well-established in the culture before the early Church arose in the 1st century AD. Plato, in laying down good practices for worship, says, Next after these gods the wise man will offer worship to the daemons, and after the daemons to the heroes.   After these will come private shrines l...

In a work titled Laws, Plato discusses the officials ( archontōn ) needed for a colony or city-state.  The officials selected should be ‘keepers’ in three areas: city stewards, market stewards, and the priesthood ( Laws 6.759; cf. Aristotle, Politics 6.1322b).  As to the priesthood, Plato describes three groups: the priests and priestesses, a group of interpreters of religious laws, and treasurers.  In the imaginary colony Plato is describing, he has in mind four classes of citizens defined by economic status.  People in religious service are to be drawn from the highest class. We should note that Plato’s famous student, Aristotle, wrote a work that identifies the various supervisors of institutions in a city-state in greater detail.  One such group is the priesthood.  Like Aristotle, he insists that they should be drawn from citizens and not ‘tillers of the soil’ (slaves) or artisans.  Aristotle also says, like Plato, that priests should be older....

  Today’s (30 June, 2026) ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States deserves a note.   One might want to say that it deserves applause, but should one applaud something that is, while important and appreciated, also a simple statement of fact?   We do not reward students for commenting that water is wet, the sun warm, and birds fly.   Be that as it may, after a season of exercises in antinatural illogic, we applaud the Supreme Court’s logic like a breeze in our sails to carry us out from the doldrums.   It is this: the Court ruled that men are not women and may not weasel their way into women’s sports, whatever gender pretenses they purport.   Justice Thomas simply stated: Men and boys with gender dysphoria are not women or girls, even if they believe that they are.   Sex is an immutable “biological” characteristic…; it is binary; and “man” and “woman”, “boy” and “girl”, are the terms that correspond to adults and children of each sex ( West V...

  In Romans 13.1, Paul says, Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God (ESV). The notion that everyone should be subject to governing authorities is sometimes misinterpreted as a subjection to authorities simply because they are in authority.   This is a mistaken view.   Paul is saying that people are under authorities because their authority is derived from God and because their authority rests on their exercising the law.   In saying so, he is not offering some new insight or political theory.   His point was uncontroversial. Plato’s Laws begins with the accepted view that state laws ultimately derived from the gods.   So, for example, the Cretans believed that Zeus gave their laws to them and the Lacerdaemonians (Spartans) believed that they received their laws from Apollo (1.624).   This belief is not a mere nod to religious devotion. ...

  From time to time, I have written articles about socialism, communism, and the Church.  This post provides links to these articles and to related articles. Socialism, Communism, and the Church: Biblical Teaching versus Communism, Socialism, and Capitalism The Wild Misuse of 'Fascism' by American Socialists and Its Threat for Christianity Social Cohesion, Populism, and the Church's Prophetic Role in the State The Particular Danger of Socialist Countries with National Health Care Practicing Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia The Aims and Means of Communist Revolutions and Possible Developments for Mayor Mamdani's New York Church and State Relations in Light of Three Proposals for the Purpose of Government Why Open Borders? And What Should Christians Do? What is Fascism--and Do We Need to Worry about This in the American Presidential Election? The Pursuit of Greater Meaning in Community: Communism, National Socialism, Radical Islam, and the Church Script...

  Romans 1.26-27 makes the point that God gave humans ‘up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves’ (1.24, ESV) such that they engaged in lesbian and gay acts.    It reads: For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; 27 and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error. What has been rather obvious to interpreters of this verse for nineteen centuries has recently been challenged by revisionist interpreters who wish to make a place for homosexuality in the Church.   Don Fortson and I have explored the issue in Scripture and the Church’s history in detail. [1]   We have shown that the right interpretation of Romans, consistent with the rest of Scrip...