Black Hebrew Israelites in Washington D.C.

Last week, while evangelizing at California State University – Northridge, I met a pair of young men who seemed interested in discussing the Bible, Jesus — the whole shebang. The men were Black, but they wore stars of David around their necks, and as the conversation progressed it become increasingly clear that they were operating with a profoundly bizarre theology: They believed that only Israelites could be saved, that non-Israelites were damned and couldn’t hope to find salvation even if they repented and put their faith in Christ. They believed that Black Americans were the real Jews (not metaphorically, mind you; literally). And so on in that vein.

I responded by focusing on the strictly theological claims, choosing to pass over the odd ethnography in silence for fear of bogging the discussion down in tangents and distractions. I invoked Galatians 3:28 with its clear affirmation that in Christ “there is neither Jew nor Greek”, but that we are one instead. They dismissed that as a twin reference to the Jews of Palestine and then the Hellenistic Jews living among the Greeks. I mentioned the Samaritan woman of John 4 and how she, despite not being an Israelite, found salvation in Christ. No dice: according to my conversation partners the Samaritan woman was never saved; Jesus was just “toying” with her.

At this point I could see that I wouldn’t get anywhere citing Bible passages in some casual way since everything I said would be countered with some strained Bible twisting on their part. So I told them that I’d think the matter over and come back next week with a more detailed defense of the historic Christian belief that Jesus saves even non-Israelites. They heckled me as a coward and said I was running away. I assured them that I had to take my kids to ballet (which was true) but that I would work something up for next Monday and I mentioned that the Bereans were commended for taking their time while evaluating new religious claims in Acts. They seemed to accept that (partly) and I left.

Well, after some research I’m a bit better informed: The men I spoke with are apparently part of a group called the “Black Hebrew Israelites“, a Black supremacist hate group that, according to a report prepared for the Justice Department, thrives in prisons as the Black counterpoint to such White supremacist faiths as the Aryan Brotherhood’s Odinism and Asatru. Black Hebrew Israelites (from here on referred to as BHIs) think that they, along with Latin Americans and American Indians, are the true descendants of the twelve tribes of Israel. They further think that mainstream Jews are just imposters. White people are the descendants of Esau. And Jesus (who is, of course, Black) will one day return to enslave all the White people and force them to labor for the true Israelites. BHIs also deny that American Blacks are descended from Black Africans and further assert such strange things as that King James of England was Black, that Europe is named after a Black woman, and that the word “Scot” (as in “Scotland”) means “Black”. They often resort to vulgar street preaching and, while they’re concentrated on the East Coast, they’ve put in appearances here in Hollywood (see the video here; careful, the languge is pretty rough at times).

Despite my misgivings, I intend to be true to my word and continue my conversation with the two BHIs this Monday at CSUN. I’ve prepared a written response and I fell that it might be helpful to post it here for the benefit of people involved with the BHIs seeking to learn about their views and whether they can really be sustained in the light of actual scholarship. So, without further ado, here’s the paper, organized around specific issues. (All Bible verse are drawn from the King James Version — the BHIs favored that translation.)

Thinking Critically Pleases God and Is Our Duty

Rather than be intellectually lazy about our faith, the Bible tells us that we are to love the Lord with all that we are, including our minds.

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind;”

Luke 10:27a

Further, the Bible tells us to investigate all the religious claims that we are presented with, weeding the bad out from the good. This process necessarily involves an element of critical thinking and reasonable skepticism.

“Prove all things; hold fast that which is good”

1 Thessalonians 5:21

Indeed, the Bible praises those who investigate to see whether the theology they’ve been given really squares with what the Bible says.

“And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so.”

Acts 17:10-11

Let’s then, all of us, be faithful to the calling of our heavenly Father and seek to discern whether what we’ve been told about God is true to the teachings of the Bible. Let’s also do so in conversation with one another, seeking to persuade each other of the truth as we understand it. But let’s do so with the calm and respectful spirit that the Bible demands of us.

“I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.”

Ephesians 4:1-3

“And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, In meekness instructing those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth;”

2 Timothy 2:24-25

In the Bible, the Word “Jew” is Used to Refer to All Israelites, Not Just Judahites

It is certainly true that, etymologically speaking, the word “Jew” derives from the name of the Israelite tribe Judah. At the start of King Rehoboam’s reign, Israel split in two, with the ten northern tribes breaking away from the established power in Jerusalem. The confederation of the northern tribes was thereafter called “Israel”, and the southern remainder was called the “Kingdom of Judah”, after the most populous tribe in the area. When Assyria invaded, it annihilated the Kingdom of Israel and scattered its inhabitants within its empire. That left only the southern kingdom, Judah. In the course of time, the Kingdom of Judah would itself be taken into captivity, only to return under the Persians. When the descendants of the former inhabitants of the Kingdom of Judah returned to Jerusalem, however, the name of the Kingdom had been transferred to the people: they were now called “Jews”. However, this name, “Jews” was used to refer to Israelites from all the different tribes, not just Judahites. Indeed, it even was used to refer to Israelites who were refuges from the northern Kingdom of Israel who had made their way back to Palestine individually.

“In the strictest sense, this appellation … Jews, belongs only to the posterity and tribe of Judah. … But as the ten tribes were afterwards, in a manner, lost in the Assyrian captivity, and the kingdom of Judah only continued through succeeding ages a body politic, the name Jews came to be applied indifferently to all Hebrews and Israelites, whether they belonged to the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, or to the ten revolting tribes, whether they returned to Judea (as no doubt some of the ten, as well as of the two, tribes did, Ezra vi.17) or not.”

John Oswald, A Dictionary of Etymology of the English Language, 9th ed. (Adam & Charles Black: 1859) pg. 258

“JEW (Heb. Yehudi), originally meaning a member of the tribe of Judah. … The word became synonymous with the ‘descendants of Abraham’ and is found in Esther 2.5 referring to ‘Mordecai … a Benjamite.’ Hence, Jew developed into a common appellation.”

The Oxford Dictionary of the Jewish Religion, 2nd ed., Adele Berlin ed., (Oxford University Press: 2011) pg. 396

“Now in Shushan the palace there was a certain Jew, whose name was Mordecai, the son of Jair, the son of Shimei, the son of Kish, a Benjamite;”

Ester 2:5

Paul’s writings indicate that he uses the word “Jew” with this latter, broader meaning to refer to all Israelites and not just Judahites. Consider Paul’s own self-professed tribal identity:

“I also am an Israelite, of the seed of Abraham, of the tribe of Benjamin.”

Romans 11:1b

Then notice how Paul, a Benjamite and not a Judahite, calls himself a Jew:

“I said unto Peter before them all, If thou, being a Jew, livest after the manner of Gentiles, and not as do the Jews, why compellest thou the Gentiles to live as do the Jews? We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.”

Galatians 2:14-16

In the New Testament, “Gentile” Does Refer to a Non-Israelite Person and Thus All Can Be Saved

In our conversation, a major point of contention was the meaning of the word “Gentile” in the New Testament. In the New Testament of the Bible (both the King James Version and others) the word “Gentile” is generally a translation of the Koine Greek word ethnos. The BHIs asserted that, in the New Testament at least, “Gentile” does not actually refer to non-Israelites but to Israelites who had been scattered among the nations and which had adopted some of their pagan customs. In response I contended that “Gentile” is used in the New Testament in much the same way that it is in the Old Testament: as a reference to non-Israelites, period. Below is an excerpt drawn from arguably the single most authoritative Koine Greek lexicon in the modern English-speaking world, which indicates that “Gentile”, ethnos can indeed mean a non-Israelite. As it says, ethnos means:

“1. A body of persons united by kinship, culture, and common traditions, nation, people
2. people groups foreign to a specific people group
a. those who do not belong to groups professing faith in the God of Israel, the nations, gentiles, unbelievers
b. non-Israelite Christians, gentiles of Christian congregations composed of more than one nationality and not limited to people of Israel”

The Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 3rd ed., Frederick William Danker ed. (University of Chicago Press: 2000) pg. 276-277

Given, then, that “Gentiles” in the New Testament refers to non-Israelites, and given further that “Jews” is used as a general reference to all Israelites, when a New Testament author mentions both groups—Jews and Gentiles—the author therefore means “all Israelites and all non-Israelites”, or, more directly, all people of any ethnic and racial background whatsoever. Paul’s writings (and Acts) therefore demonstrate that anyone, regardless of racial pedigree, can be saved by God’s grace as revealed in Jesus Christ:

“Is he the God of the Jews only? is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also: Seeing it is one God, which shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith.”

Romans 3:29

“What if God, willing to shew his wrath, and to make his power known, endured with much longsuffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction: And that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy, which he had afore prepared unto glory, Even us, whom he hath called, not of the Jews only, but also of the Gentiles? As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people, which were not my people; and her beloved, which was not beloved.”

Romans 9:22-25

“When they [i.e. the Jewish Christians] heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.”

Acts 11:18

“And when they were come, and had gathered the church together, they rehearsed all that God had done with them, and how he had opened the door of faith unto the Gentiles.”

Acts 14:27

The Samaritan Woman Was Saved by God’s Grace through Christ

In our discussion, the BHIs asserted that the Samaritan woman of John 4 was never actually saved. Rather, they made the somewhat strange claim that Jesus was just “toying” with her. Given the wider themes and teaching of the Gospel of John, that claim simply cannot stand. Consider that the Gospel of John opens with these words concerning Christ:

“He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name…”

John 1:11-12

Then, somewhat later in the Gospel, Jesus himself states:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.”

John 3:16-17

And, again, just a bit later, Jesus also states:

“All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.”

John 6:37

And finally, the Gospel of John nearly concludes with these words:

“And many other signs truly did Jesus in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book: But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through his name.”

John 20:30-31

Now consider the Samaritan woman against the backdrop of these verses: The woman approaches Jesus, after a meandering conversation she comes to believe that Jesus is the Messiah (vs. 29), and then she even leads others to meet Jesus and share in her own faith in the man (vss. 39 & 42). On top of this, Jesus himself even tells the woman that, were she inclined to receive it, he would grant her salvation (vs. 10, cp. vs. 14). Given all this, John’s implication is clear and unavoidable: the Samaritan woman and many of her countrymen came to believe in Jesus and thus found salvation.

King James Wasn’t Black

The ethnicity of King James, the commissioner of the King James Version of the Bible, has no bearing on how we are to interpret the Bible. Similarly, James’s ethnicity cannot either prove or disprove any particular piece of theology. Nevertheless, as the BHIs have claimed that King James was Black, it seems helpful to correct them.

King James I

The portrait on the right was painted by the artist John De Critz the Elder, one of King James’s two official court painters, around 1606, and it depicts King James. James sat for the portrait; it is as close to a photograph of King James as one can get. The portrait was formerly housed in the British Museum and currently resides at the United Kingdom’s National Portrait Gallery. As it clearly shows, James was White, not Black. Now I don’t imagine that the men I spoke with just dreamed up the idea that King James was Black; rather, I suspect that someone else told them this and they believed it because they trusted the person (or persons) who told them. If the people who lied to them about the racial character of James are also the same people that have taught them the deeply racist and inaccurate view of the gospel they espouse, I hope that the revelation of James’s “Whiteness” will cause them to reevaluate the level of trust they have placed in their theological teachers and therefore the level of trust they have placed in their racist and anti-biblical ideology.

Matthew Stuart

Mary Stewart

To further establish the point, here are two additional portraits. The portrait on of the left depicts Matthew Stuart, sometimes called Lord Darnley, King James’s father. The portrait on the right depicts Mary Stewart, sometimes called Mary Queen of Scots, King James’s mother. Again, both are obviously White. In fact, they seem to have been “Whiter” than most White people

Also, King James Was a Homosexual

As with his ethnicity, James’s homosexuality doesn’t discredit the Bible translation he commissioned, nor does it prove any particular piece of theology either right or wrong. Still, given the BHIs’ strange eagerness to claim him as a Black man, they probably should know that he was gay. Will they still want him on their ‘team’?

“James’s personal character did little to increase his prestige. He was a homosexual, and his favorites enjoyed unmerited privileges and power in his court and government.”

Justo L. Gonzalez (PhD, Yale University; Professor at Chandler School of Theology & United Theological Seminary), The Story of Christianity, Vol. 2 (HarperColins: 1985) pg. 152

“James’s homosexual orientation seems indisputable, although some historians try to underplay it.”

Jonathan Goldberg (PhD, Columbia University; Arts and Sciences Distinguished Professor of English at Emory University), James I and the Politics of Literature (Stanford University Press: 1989) pg. 269

“King James had rather different ideas about selection. In the early years of his reign, he built a palace near the village of Newmarket in East Anglia, seventy miles away from London, which he hated. It was the King’s favourite bolt-hole. ‘Away to Newmarket, away to Newmarket!’ was the signal for extravaganzas of drunken feasting, masques, jousting and horse racing. At Newmarket, James paraded his homosexuality for all to see, as he indulged and openly fondled Robert Carr, George Villiers and other male lovers.”

Don Jordan and Michael Walsh, White Cargo (New York University Press: 2007) pg. 72

And consider this personal letter from King James to George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham

“My only sweet and dear child, notwithstanding of your desiring me not to write yesterday, yet had I written in the evening if, at my coming out of the park, such drowsiness had not come upon me as I was forced to sit and sleep in my chair half an hour. And yet I cannot content myself without sending you this present, praying God that I may have a joyful and comfortable meeting with you and that we may make at this Christmas a new marriage ever to be kept hereafter; for God so love me, as I desire only to live in this world for your sake, and that I had rather live banished in any part of the earth with you than live a sorrowful widow’s life without you. And so God bless you, my sweet child and wife, and grant that ye may ever be a comfort to your dear dad and husband.

James R.”

Cited in David M. Bergeron (PhD, Vanderbilt University; Professor of English at the University of Kansas) King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire (University of Iowa Press: 1999) pgs. 173-175. Photo of the original letter on the right; original housed at the Bodleian Library, Oxford University.

“Scot” Doesn’t Mean “Black”, Neither was Europa a Black Woman

The word “Scot” (as in “Scotland”) lacks a well-known origin. A variety of possibilities have been put forward by scholars, but none of them assert that “Scot” means “Black”.

“There does not seem to be the least agreement as to the origin of the name Scot. Each etymology receives no acceptance further than the individual to whom its advance is due…”

John Brownlee, The Origin and Distribution of Racial Types in Scotland (Oliver and Boyd: 1924) pg. 21

“Many etymologies have been given of the word Scot. All the more ancient writers concur in representing it as the same with Scyth or Scythian, and opinion which prevailed to the present century. Of late, Dr. McPherson supposes Scuit, or Scot, to signify a small body of men; Mr. Whitaker, wanders or refugees. Others more plausibly derive it from Coit, a wood, or from Schut, a boat or small vessel, as Ireland abounded with woods and the Scots attacked Britain in such vessels. Others from Scutten, to shoot.”

John Pinkerton, An Inquiry into the History of Scotland Preceding the Reign of Malcolm III, Vol. 2 (John Nicholas: 1794) pg. 44

“The Pict is but the Caledonian under a new name; the Scot deserves a word of further notice. The Romans applied the name to all the inhabitants of Ireland, but the Scot proper was the Scuit, the ‘man cut off’ or ‘broken man’…”

Charles Oman (Professor at Oxford University), England Before the Norman Conquest (Putnam: 1910) pg. 157

“The etymology of ‘Scot’ has been derived from ‘Scuite’, or ‘Sguit’, a Gaelic word signifying ‘scattered’ or ‘wanderers’…”

James Paterson, Origin of the Scots and the Scottish Language (William Nimmo: 1863) pg. 42

As for mythological figure Europa, while it’s true that the continent of Europe is named after her, there’s no reason to believe that she was Black. According to her mythology, Europa was a Phoenician from the city of Tyre. Phoenicia no longer exists as a political entity, but the territory it once controlled (including the city of Tyre) is now the modern nation state of Lebanon, and the Lebanese often refer to themselves as “Phoenicians” with pride. Both the ancient depictions of Europa and the modern population of what was Phoenicia reveal that Europa, were she more than a merely mythological figure, was not Black. As evidence, see the photo of a modern Lebanese woman on the left, and the ancient painting of Europa recovered from Pompeii on the right—she’s the one on the bull.

There Are Plenty of Real Black Role Models

Kofi Annan, Secretary General of the UN

I can’t help but wonder if the reason the Black Hebrew Israelites have sought to co-opt the heroes and leaders of other races, as if they were part of ther own, is because they think that by doing so they ennoble themselves. But if that is the case then there is no need to pretend that White and Phoenician people were Black; there are plenty of bona fide Black heroes and great historical Black leaders.

On the world political scene, there was Mansa Musa—the great “King of Kings” of the Malian Empire in Africa during the 14th century. More recently, Kofi Annan, another genuinely Black man, has served as the Secretary General of the U.N. Even in our own nation, the current President, Barack Obama, is half Black and tends to identify with that group. While all these men (like all men in general) may have their flaws, they are genuinely Black men who have achieved great power and prestige—so much so that there is no need to try to “steal” King James of England.

Peter Akinola, Abp. of Nigeria

When it comes to religion, a great many Black men are notable: Consider the founders of the Telwahedo Church in Ethiopia and beyond, men who were among the first in the world to embrace the message of Jesus Christ. Also, look at the recent Black Anglican archbishops of Africa, men like Peter Akinola, John Rucyahana, Emmanuel Kolini and so on. While their White counterparts in places like the U.S. and the U.K. are busily watering down the gospel and embracing all sorts of perversity, these Black men are holding the line against sin and depravity with almost unbelievable courage and determination. Two of my very own mentors in ministry, Percy Manuel of Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Portland, OR and Joseph Bryant Jr. of. Calvary Hill Community Church in San Francisco, CA, are Black and I am deeply indebted to them both for their guidance and encouragement.

Leonard Pitts Jr., Pulitzer Prize winner

And in matters of culture, Black people once again have real leaders. Everything from film, to television, to music, to literature has been taken up to great success by Black men and women. Indeed, in this area particularly, the notable Black individuals are so numerous it would be impossible to mention them all.

Neil Tyson DeGrasse, astrophysicist

Those currently aligned with the Black Hebrew Israelites can also be a part of the meaningful and uplifting Black leadership at work both in this country and around the world, benefiting their own families and their wider communities. But that will be extremely difficult so long as they cling to racist ideologies, a distorted interpretation of the Bible, and the pseudo-history that they’re shared with me.

Further, as men and women who at least claim to respect the Bible, considering the disrepute that Black Hebrew Israelites bring upon the gospel through their hateful antics, they would do well to consider the Bible’s teachings regarding such groups as theirs:

But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways; by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of. And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not.

2 Peter 2:1-3

The inquirer was struck by the fact that Colossians 3:1 tells Christians, ”Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.” Did you catch that? “Since, then, you HAVE BEEN raised?” It seems like Paul is talking about our resurrection as something past, not something future; as our life of discipleship and not some actual miracle in which the literally dead come to life again.

My questioner wanted to know how to understand this passage in light of Paul’s statements elsewhere (e.g. 1 Corinthians) in which the resurrection is forcefully described as a future miracle. Had Paul perhaps changed his mind? Was this evidence of a contradiction in Scripture? Is it the case, perhaps, that we are currently living fully resurrected lives and that this is exactly what the resurrection looks like?

To help set the question in a more informed context I mentioned the work of N. T. Wright. Wright is currently a professor of New Testament and early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland and Newsweek once referred to him as “the world’s leading New Testament Scholar.” In his excellent book on the resurrection of Jesus, The Resurrection of the Son of God, Wright examines all the literature from the early Christian era (and before) that speaks of “resurrection” and delves into the specific meaning behind that word. When he considers the passage in Colossians 3, he writes that Paul is speaking metaphorically when he uses the term “resurrection” and that, in so doing, he was adapting a long-standing Jewish practice:

Of couse, some might argue that Lewis is mistaken (along with others who employ the so-called Moral Argument for God): there are no objective moral facts about right and wrong. If that were the case then the argument would fall apart. Well, to such skeptical folks and as an aid to the Wednesday night class, the following is an argument for the reality of objective moral facts grounded in broader considerations of epistemology, that is, theories of knowledge or ideas regarding how we know what we know.

~          ~          ~

We believe most of what we believe on the basis of evidence of one sort or another: informal observation, formal experimentation, reportage, etc. (I’ll call these evidential beliefs “Level 3 Beliefs”; the reason why is coming later.) But in all these cases, our “ways of knowing” are predicated on more fundamental epistemic principles, principles which are ultimately rooted in unprovable, indeed untestable axioms of belief. Here are two just as examples.

The Reality of the External World: I have an experience of light, color, temperature, texture, smell, taste, etc. Taken together this aggregate is sometimes called my “phaneron,” the totality of that of which I am aware. But, does this aggregate refer to something external to myself, an objective reality beyond my own mind? There’s no way to prove that, no way to test it even; it’s entirely possible that I am experiencing something comparable to an extended dream and every test I could think of might just be another part of the dream. And yet, despite this, it’s entirely reasonable to believe that the external world is really “out there,” that it’s not all just “in my head.” In fact, the alternative (i.e. solipsism) seems quite insane.

The Reality of the Past: Just as I have a strong (and totally intuitive) belief in the reality of the external world, I likewise have a very strong sense that there is something we call “the past.” I have thoughts which seem to be about that past: we call them memories. I see what seem to be signs of time’s passage all around me. But just as with the external world, the reality of the past isn’t really open to test. How do I know that my memories refer to anything? How do I know that they aren’t just fanciful creations of my mind, a function of my imagination perhaps? How do I know that the apparent signs of age around me are really signs of age and not just the way things are? Every test I could conceive of and carry out would seem futile. After all, once I plan the test, execute it, and then find myself in a position to consider the results, the entire test will be “in the past”… so how do I know I’m not just imagining the past reality of the test itself? And thus solipsism can become “moment solipsism”—a philosophy advocated by some schools of Buddhism. But again, despite the impossibility of proving that the past really happened, it’s an entirely reasonable dogma, one that would seem—if not impossible—then at least insane to deny.

Now these probably aren’t the only fundamental, untestable, and axiomatic rational human beliefs (I’ll call them Level 1 Beliefs), but they’re enough to demonstrate that there are indeed some pieces of legitimate knowledge about objective realities that do not come to us by way of evidence or experimentation of any sort.

Once we’ve established this very important concept with reference to the Level 1 Beliefs, I think that we can move on to legitimately class belief in some other objective phenomena alongside them as (at least largely) axiomatic. These beliefs, while not being utterly immune to test like the Level 1 are, can nevertheless be seen as epistemic “defaults” which can reasonably be believed in the absence of evidence (Level 2 Beliefs, let’s say).

I’d class notions like freewill in this category. I think I’m justified in just assuming that it’s real—my intuitive experience of it is that immediate and strong. The same thing goes for the reality of conscious minds “in” people beside myself. After all, I know that I exist—in the sense of an integrated psychological ego. I’m quite confident of that. And I see other bodies out there in the world that look a lot like mine. Those bodies move and dress and talk a lot like me, too. I’m even told that those bodies contain a specific part—brains—that are a lot like my body’s brain. Indeed, given all this I have a strong intuitive sense that those bodies aren’t just bodies but that they have self-conscious minds (however that works) “in” them also, minds just like me. But I can’t really prove that. I can know that I have an internal consciousness, but I can only assume that the same is true of them, that they aren’t just highly sophisticated biological automata mindlessly executing neurological programming. But even though I can’t prove it, again, it’s entirely reasonable to believe that other people have minds and are therefore full “persons.” And, again, the alternative belief just seems so absurdly egotistical as to be literally crazy.

Now, unlike the reality of the external world or the reality of the past, however, it seems at least possible that someday someone could develop a way to test the reality of free will and other minds. And it’s possible that these tests would end up either proving or disproving their objective existence. But until that day comes—indeed, even if it never comes—I feel entirely justified in assuming—on the basis of my intuitive experience—that my free will and your mind are objectively real. In other words, for Level 2 Beliefs, the default position is one of belief, and the burden of proof rests on the denier.

Now we come to morality.

Just as I have an immediate and powerful subjective mental experience of such qualities as color and temperature and texture, I also have an immediate and powerful subjective experience of such qualities as wickedness and, to a lesser extent, goodness. I see footage of the emaciated bodies of Auschwitz prisoners staring blankly through barbed wire fences, I read stories of the outrages of Josef Fritzl, I hear of children abducted from their families only to be raped and tortured before being dumped (dead) into a shallow grave along the interstate. In each case my mind immediately forms the strong and unshakable impression that these things aren’t merely indecorous, or socially gauche, or rude; they’re something qualitatively different, they partake of a phenomenon we call “evil.” Similarly, when I read of men like Jaime Jaramillo rescuing Colombian street children from sewer hideouts and giving them a decent life, or Bishnu Shrestha fighting off forty armed men to protect an Indian woman (no joke, forty men!), I likewise have a strong immediate impression that these actions aren’t simply kindly or seemly; they also partake of a qualitatively different phenomenon: what we call “righteousness.” The former are things which simply should not be done; the latter are things which, in some sense, should be done.

Now my experience of evil and righteousness is not only immediate and strong, it’s also fairly consistent: the same stimuli provoke the same evaluations over and over again. Also, the great bulk of humanity—across time and cultures even—agree with me in my evaluations; we generally concur, at least with reference to the extreme cases, as to which realities and states partake of evil and which of righteousness. Given all this—the immediacy, the strength, the consistency, and the transpersonal ubiquity of these moral judgments—I’m inclined to think that my subjective experience of good and evil is not merely subjective but is instead a perception of legitimate objective realities beyond myself, of objective existential duties. And this in much the same way that I believe my subjective experiences of light and darkness refer to legitimate objective realities beyond myself. Or, again, just as my mind naturally forms the conclusion that other people besides myself have minds of their own and that I possess free will, so my mind rather naturally forms the conclusion that some things are indeed objectively evil and others objectively good.

Now I don’t think that the objective reality of good and evil are necessarily beyond the reach of testing. I suppose that some clever person could one day imagine a way to test whether my experience of good and evil were veridical or totally illusory. And thus I wouldn’t class my belief in the reality of objective good and evil as a Level 1 Belief. Still, I think the belief is very much an epistemic default and so I would class it as a Level 2 Belief. As such, I think that belief in the objective reality of good and evil is justified until such notions are disproven and, thus, the burden of proof rests on the denier.

Now I’m familiar with several arguments employed by skeptics of objective morality in an attempt to meet that burden of proof. There are those who argue on dogmatic grounds that nothing other than matter and energy exists and that moral duties, as neither matter nor energy, simply cannot therefore exist. There are those who argue that the lack of complete agreement among people as to what is right and what is wrong undermines the idea of objective moral duties. There are those who point to the grisliness of the animal world as cause for skepticism. And there are those who argue that our perceived sense of moral duty is just an atavistic delusion, that “right” and “wrong” ultimately reduce to actions which promote Darwinian reproductive advantage and disadvantage respectively and that our consciences are just our genes bossing us around under the guise of something grander.

When I survey these arguments I find them all to be more or less weak. Indeed, I find some of them so weak as to seem sort of sad.

As for the physicalists, their attempted disproof merely begs the question: how do they know that only matter and energy exist? When was that proven? As for people like me, we already believe that something that transcends the universe of matter and energy exists (the universe’s metaphysically necessary cause); maybe objective moral duties are just one more of those things in heaven and earth, Horatio Dr. Dennet, than are dreamt of in your philosophies.

The relativist argument is a bit better in that it at least tries to prove its case, but it still falls far, far short of success. So there are some few people out there in the world who don’t think raping children is wrong. So what? There are also some few people out there in the world who are blind, and many more who are color blind. Do those people prove that there’re no objective stars in the sky to be seen, or that light doesn’t actually come in different wavelengths? Of course not. Those people just have bad eyes. Similarly, unabashed child molesters are just bad people. The presence of defective senses (physical or moral) doesn’t at all demonstrate the unreality of the thing intended to be perceived.

There is the argument the while it is seemingly “wrong” for people to kill other people, it is not thus wrong for lions to kill other people and that this undermines the idea of truly objective moral truths. This argument is better. But it’s still not good. Lions aren’t genuine moral agents and so their actions don’t rise to the level of morality or immorality.

Imagine that you brought a lion into a room with large numbers painted on the floor at different places. Then, from some safe vantage point you tell the lion, through a loud speaker, “Lie down on the number that is equal to square root of nine!” After a few moments the lion grows bored of standing around and plops down on the ground. As it so happens, the lion lies down on the number twelve. Now, would it be correct to say that the lion did the math incorrectly? No, of course not; the lion isn’t doing math at all. Its mind (assuming it has a mind) isn’t sophisticated enough to even understand the concept of square roots; it’s just lying down when it’s tired. But the objective truth that the square root of nine is equal to three is unaffected by this obvious limitation of the lion’s. In the same way, the objective truth of morality would be totally unaffected by the inability of lesser minds’ to understand it—whether those lesser minds belong to lions “murdering” people for food or to babies “stealing” other people’s keys for stimulation.

Now for the biggie.

The Darwinian reductionistic argument is probably the best thing going in the skeptical community on this matter. It’s simple, it gets to dress itself up in the trappings of scientific jargon (always a plus), yet, just like all instances of evolutionary psychology, it’s immune to scientific testing since all the supposedly relevant neurological changes are supposed to have taken place at the microscopic level millions of years ago—good luck finding those fossilized neurons! It even has some plausibility to it: after all, I grant that I may indeed find my wife’s figure attractive because of Darwinian reasons, why not apply the same calculus to my antipathy for child-murder?

But even with all these advantages, there are fatal problems with a socio-biological reductionistic interpretation of our sense of moral duties.

First, there’s the problem of scope. My sense of moral obligation extends to all human beings and, potentially, even to non-humans. As a white American I think it’s wrong to torture a white American child. But I also think that it is equally wrong to torture a black Congolese child. And, I suppose, if ever we contact intelligent life on other planets, I’d effortlessly confess my belief that it would be wrong to torture a purple Alpha Centarian child. So why this universal scope to my sense of duty? Some would say it’s due to the effects of “group selection;” not only do individual generational lines evolve, but entire communities evolve as a group and thus come to develop altruistic behavior that benefits all and sundry. The problem with this oft-repeated trope (it’s especially popular among laymen) is that the great bulk of biologists totally reject the idea of group selection. It’s precisely the ability to outperform one’s fellows—to compete against them reproductively and win—that amounts to success on a Darwinian understanding. So my willingness to sacrifice and possibly even die for total strangers that don’t carry my genes would be a terrible Darwinian strategy and thus can’t be reasonably attributed to Darwinian pressures.

Well, what about the more modest idea of “kin selection?” Like group selection, kin selection asserts that altruistic behavior develops within communities so that the reproductive fitness of the community as a whole is greater than the sum of its parts. But unlike traditional group selection, kin selection posits that organisms will develop altruism within the family, that is, towards those who share the same genes (a corresponding xenophobia is supposed to develop toward “outsiders”). In this way, even if I ultimately sacrifice my life for the good of the tribe, that tribe shares my genes and thus in their Darwinian success I find my own, so to speak. But this just brings us right back to the problem we faced at the beginning: why do I feel a sense of moral obligation, not just to my own blood relatives, but to all sentient life, including the “outsiders?” Why do I think that I should sacrifice for strangers in need or risk harm to defend a powerless woman of a totally different race? The dilemma remains: the informed skeptic is trying to get premium group selection mileage out of economy kin selection gas.

Well, how do informed skeptics respond to this problem? They cheat. They claim that our capacity for altruism developed as a result of Darwinian kin selection and then, wouldn’t you know it, it’s currently “misfiring” in our modern contexts so as to make us act in ways that are often vengefully anti-Darwinian. As Richard Dawkins has written, “Both [our sexual desire for the infertile and our altruism toward non-relatives] are misfirings, Darwinian mistakes…” (The God Delusion). So our willingness to be flagrantly selfless is really just the product of an instinct to be subtly selfish, an instinct that has gone haywire.

Person One: “Why did Joe buy a blue car?”

Person Two: “Because Joe really loves red.”

Person One: “How is that an explanation at all?”

Person Two: “Well, clearly his love of red has gone haywire.”

You’ll pardon me if I don’t find this particularly compelling.

But there is another very serious problem with the Darwinian reductionist account (DRA): it seems to be talking about the wrong thing. Our moral sense is, as I’ve said, largely about what we should and shouldn’t do—and that in something of an absolute existentialist way; not merely what we should and shouldn’t do if we want to pass along our genes as effectively as possible. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that rape “works” in a Darwinian sense; it enables a man to flood the gene pool with his own progeny. Okay, would that make rape morally right? It seems that, on the DRA, it would do exactly that. On the DRA “right” is just an instinctual and lexical place-holder for “reproductively advantageous.” So, if something like rape proves reproductively advantageous it is, by definition, “right”. Similarly let’s assume for the sake of argument that caring for abandoned children doesn’t “work” in the Darwinian sense; it so burdens a couple’s time and resources that they have fewer of their own biological children than they otherwise would and thus they don’t pass on their genes to the extent that they could have. Would this mean that caring for abandoned children is morally wrong? Again, given the DRA, that would certainly seem to be the case. For, again, on the DRA “wrong” is just an instinctual and lexical place-holder for “reproductively disadvantageous.” So if something like caring for abandoned children—feeding them, binding up their wounds, loving them—proves reproductively disadvantageous, then the practice is, by definition, immoral. But surely this isn’t at all what we mean by “right” and “wrong”; in fact, the above “moral” calculations seem disturbingly evil in themselves—like the sort of things a Nazi would tell himself to sooth his conscience after a long day of murdering Jews.

Thus, whatever insights evolutionary psychology may have to offer us in terms of why we do what we do, it seems to be totally irrelevant to the question of what we ought to do—and the skeptics know it. To return to Dawkins for a moment: even though he cheerily chalks up our moral sense to a misfiring herd-instinct, he just can’t leave the matter there, and that’s very much to his credit. As I said above, Dawkins calls our universal sense of altruism one of a pair of “misfirings, Darwinian mistakes,” but he immediately adds that they are “blessed, precious mistakes.”

What?!

One wonders, according to what standard is Dawkins evaluating the “blessedness” of these mistakes? Is he just giving himself over to consciously vicious circular reasoning in which our instincts are “good” because “good” is just another word for our instincts? That doesn’t seem to be what he’s getting at. It seems instead that Dawkins is implicitly endorsing the universality of our altruistic scope as, in some sense, objectively correct—the way it should be. In other words, Dawkins, for all of his pontificating about viciously selfish gene-centered instincts masquerading as transcendent moral truths, just can’t help but concede to an objective moral standard in the end—one against which our instincts can be measured. Our moral impulses may be genetic mistakes, but they’re the right mistakes nevertheless.

For all these reasons I think that the arguments of the skeptics fail; they thus haven’t met the burden of proof necessary to overthrow our intuitive perception of the objective evil and goodness that supervenes on certain phenomena. As a result, our Level 2 Belief in the reality of good and evil stands.

Question: Southern Baptists generally believe that a person who is truly saved simply cannot lose their salvation. But how do they reconcile that view with all the verses that seem to imply the exact opposite?

Answer: This question is a great one, but like a lot of great questions answering it takes a while. Our Wednesday evening study sessions focusing on this issue took a full three weeks to complete. I won’t go into all those details here but I’ll nevertheless try to give a good overview of my response.

First, it’s important to understand what the doctrine generally called the “perseverance of the saints” actually entails. Traditionally speaking, the doctrine runs something like this: All those who have genuinely come to know and love the Lord, accepting both his authority and forgiveness and receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit as a result will never be lost; they might drift away for a time into sin, but ultimately they’ll come back around to repentance. It’s important to lay this out because too often people assume that the doctrine of the perseverance of the saints simply asserts that everyone who at some time claims to be a Christian will be saved. But, as Jesus said, there are such things as false confessors; it’s only true believers that we are concerned with here.

So let’s list the verses that Southern Baptists (and others) believe indicate that a person simply cannot lose his salvation.  There are a bunch: John 6:39, 10:27-29; Romans 8:30, 8:38-39, 11:28-29; 1 Peter 1:3-5, etc. In these verses we’re told that nothing can separate us from God’s love, that God himself protects our salvation, that Christ will not lose any that are his, and so on. Taken together they are pretty impressive.

But hold on a moment, says a well-informed and thorough-going Arminian (let’s say an evangelical Methodist), what about the verses that point in the opposite direction? These seemingly counter-indicating passages are of two kinds: verses that seem to speak of people who have fallen away (or will fall away) from the faith (I Timothy 4:1; 2 Timothy 2:16-18), and verses that warn us against falling away ourselves (1 Corinthians 10:12; Hebrews 2:1, 6:4-6, 10:26-27).

Of course, these countering verses are nothing new, and as such there are conventional responses to both groups. Baptists and others sometimes try to explain the phenomenon of apostasy—either in scripture itself or in our own experience—with reference to 1 John 2:19: “They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us. For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us; but their going showed that none of them belonged to us.” In other words, the very fact that a person “abandons” the faith merely reveals that they never belong to it in the first place—not really.

Similarly, the passages that warn us of the dangers of apostasy are explained as the very instruments by which the Lord helps ensure that we don’t fall away. Remember, the perseverance of the saints doesn’t say that believers logically can’t lose their salvation, just that they actually won’t. True apostasy is logically possible (in a strict sense); it’s just a logical possibility that will never be actualized because of God’s providential care for the believer.

Maybe a non-religious example would be helpful here: imagine that you are driving to some relative’s house you’ve never visited before. The relative lives out in some unfamiliar part of the country and you’re having a very difficult time finding your way. So, after some frustration, you pull into a gas station and ask for directions. The attendant (who knows the area like the back of his hand) says, “You’re a friend of Edna’s? Well, shoot, I know exactly where she lives. Here, let me show you how to get there. Now I know the roads are a bit confusing, but trust me: you are absolutely going to arrive!” With that the attendant takes your map, marks it in a few places with the appropriate turns and warnings against false trails, gives it back to you, and sends you on your way. The attendant has promised you’ll arrive, but the promise is made in connection with the map—the map is the very instrument by which the promise will be fulfilled. Similarly, those who would affirm the perseverance of the saints say that the warnings against apostasy are the very instruments by which God ensures that his children won’t apostatize.

Now this particular problem requires us to face the broader issue of confidence in matters of belief. The fact is, not everything in our theology is equally well and unequivocally supported by Scripture. When we look to the Bible, some things are undeniable (e.g. that Jesus will return someday in some capacity), but other things are less than entirely clear (e.g. the specific way we ought to correlate Christ’s return with the millennium described in Revelation), and some things are just flatly unknowable with the information we actually have in hand (e.g. what size shoes Jesus will be wearing when this all happens). Given, then, that the confidence with which we hold our beliefs ought to possess some relationship to the level of evidential support those beliefs enjoy, the more or less evidence we have for something the more or less confidence we can legitimately have in it. We can even draw up a graph that illustrates the matter.

The question now is, in light of all the pertinent verses listed above, what level of confidence can we have that a person truly saved will simply never lose his salvation? Can we be very confident, ought we perhaps be a bit more modest, or should we just drop the affirmative belief altogether? Well, if all we had were the first set of verses, those that initially ground the doctrine, I think that we could be quite confident. But there are those counter-indicating passages. Now I know that we have rebuttals to our Methodist friend’s interpretation of those passages, and I think that those rebuttals are good, but I don’t think that they’re great; the rebuttals leave something of a bad taste in my mouth—it seems sort of like I’m squirming to avoid the plain-sense interpretation. So while I’m not inclined to grant Mr. Methodist the full force of his objections, I’ll concede that he’s got something, something that makes me less than entirely confident in my belief in the perseverance of the saints. To refer to my chart above, Mr. Methodists objections aren’t enough to knock me from a high level of confidence down to no confidence at all, but they do force me to retreat down the arrow a bit nevertheless.

Ultimately I think that the balance of evidence favors a belief in the perseverance of the saints. I believe it. But, at the same time, I don’t hold my view with a sort of casual triumphalism; I hold the view humbly, recognizing that I might be wrong, and I’m willing to discuss the matter with an open mind.

Wednesday night’s study was the second installment of our renew series of “Questions from the Congregation.” In our first session we discussed the relationship between freewill and omnipotence. This time the topic was a bit more… theatrical, let’s say.

Question: In John 14:12, Jesus said, “anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” So, why can’t we preform amazing miracles?

Here’s Pastor Eugene’s response…

Why indeed! Who wouldn’t like to be able to walk through solid walls, stride across sea water, give sight to the blind, and raise the dead? And here we have a passage that, at least on its face, seems to promise us that as Christian’s we should be able to do these very things—better things even! But for some reason miracles aren’t commonplace (to say the least) in our contemporary experience. Why is that?

Well, first let’s look at an answer to this question that probably won’t work: cessationism. Cessationism is the belief that while God gave the early Christian community the ability to do miraculous things (speak languages they never studied, heal the sick, etc.) this was a temporary thing. Indeed, cessationism often posits some specific restriction on who would be able to do these wonders: sometimes it’s just the Apostles, other times it’s the Apostles and those upon whom they laid hands, still other times it’s every Christian who lived prior to the canonization and dissemination of the New Testament. Regardless of the variant under consideration, cessationism says that eventually these abilities dried up and that ever since then the Church has had to get along through plain ol’ natural ministry (as opposed to supernatural ministry).

This sort of a theory makes sense of the disconnect between what seems to be the almost routine appearances of miracles in , say, the Book of Acts, and their scarcity in modern Christian experience. Also, to buttress their case, proponents of cessationism can cite at least one passage of Scripture which at least sounds like it supports their theory: 1 Corinthians 13:8-10. “Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.”

Now, regardless of the merits of cessationism more generally, it doesn’t seem particularly relevant to the question at hand. After all, in John 14:12 Jesus doesn’t say, “any of the Apostles who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.” Nor does he say, “anyone who lives in the first century who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.” Rather, Jesus’ promise is unconditional: “anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing.” “Anyone;” that’s pretty broad—and it would seem to include even those of us who happen to be Christians in the 21^st century.

So if cessationism doesn’t seem directly relevant, what are our other options?

There is, of course, the hard-nosed option. One can say that Jesus’ words are exactly what they appear to be—a promise of miraculous power to those with faith—and then go on to say that any lack of this miraculous ability in ourselves is a sign of our lack of faith. As even C. S. Lewis said,

“we ought all of us to be ashamed of not performing miracles and that we do not feel this shame enough. We regard our own state as normal and theurgy [i.e. miracle working] as exceptional, whereas we ought perhaps to regard the worker of miracles, however rare, as the true Christian norm and ourselves as spiritual cripples.” (“Petitionary Prayer: A Problem Without an Answer, ” Christian Reflections)

This approach has the strength of directness, but, still, it seems a little… off. After all, even if we look at the “canonical” (in the literal sense) spiritual giants of the New Testament itself, while we do find them working miracles, we don’t necessarily find them doing greater miracles than Jesus—as this approach would seem to require. Sure, Peter heals a lame man in Acts 2, that’s nice. But where in Acts does Peter not only raise a widow’s dead son but, then, to top Jesus, raise her entire extended family as well? Where are the stories of Paul feeding the 5,000 and then proceeding to feed the 50,000? Where is the biblical record of John not only giving sight to the blind but giving sight to a stone? These stories just don’t exist—at least not in the early documents that would eventually come to be a part of the Bible. So despite the initial appeal of this unflinching “tell-it-like-it-is” approach, it seems to have a serious problem: not even the men who saw the risen Jesus themselves and therefore presumably had unshakable faith were really fulfilling the words of Jesus in John 14:12—at least not if miracles were specifically what Jesus was talking about.

That then leaves us with the third option: that Jesus wasn’t actually talking about miracles per se.

In John’s gospel, the miracles that Jesus does are routinely referred to as “signs”, that is, as things which pointed beyond themselves to establish something about Jesus. The miracles that Jesus did were “signs” that he was on God’s team, that God was endorsing his ministry. And given that Jesus makes some very big claims about himself in John’s gospel (e.g. John 8:58), the miracles are thus signs that he wasn’t a blasphemer but that he was, in fact, telling the truth about himself. Jesus seems to discuss this very sort of thing in John 14, the immediate context of our “problem passage.” In John 14:9-11, Jesus says, “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves.” In other words, there is some very intimate connection between the Father and Jesus, one that is demonstrated to the world by the amazing things Jesus has done.

It’s also interesting to note that our “problem passage” occurs in immediate connection with Jesus’ comments concerning his departure from his followers and the coming of the Spirit. In John 14:13 Jesus speaks of his departure but then goes on in verses 16-17 to say, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.” Now think about that, our passage occurs immediately after a section in which Jesus once more affirms that the intimate connection between himself and the Father is demonstrated to the all by the amazing things God has empowered him to do. Then, on just the other side of our verse, there is another passage in which Jesus speaks of his followers coming to have an intimate connection with the Father (through the Spirit). There seems to be a parallel here: Jesus is God’s supremely special agent in the world, and this relationship is attested to by Jesus’ amazing deeds; the Church will very soon become (in a derivative sense) God’s supremely special agent in the world, and this relationship will likewise be attested to by our amazing deeds.

Once we understand the significance and function of the “signs;” it’s no longer clear that the signs absolutely MUST be supernatural in nature. Any truly amazing thing that indicates a genuine connection to God would seem to be sufficient, though miracles would certainly qualify. And with this idea in place, suddenly Jesus’ comment about “greater things” begins to make more sense vis-à-vis what we see in Acts and, indeed, throughout all Christian history.

Jesus’ three years of earthly ministry resulted in somewhere around 500 followers. That’s not too shabby, I guess; I’d love to be able to add that many people to the membership of FBC Granada Hills in the same period.  But Acts tells us that Peter, in a single afternoon, added another 3,000 to the Christian community through his preaching. Clearly that is a “greater thing,” to use Jesus’ words.

The Christian church has continued this work over the centuries, often in ways that dramatically “better” Jesus’ own results—just as he said we would. When Jesus stood before the Roman governor, Pilate, Jesus died; when Paul stood before another Roman Governor, Festus, Paul was merely mocked in a half-complimentary way; when certain later Christians stood before the Roman emperor, Constantine, Constantine converted. When Jesus preached in Israel, many listened and, in time, a few were convinced; when Patrick preached in Ireland, many listened and, in time, the nation was convinced. Century after century the Church in its multiform expressions has brought Jesus’ message of salvation to literally billions of people. What’s more, we’ve built hospitals, established orphanages, outlawed slavery, and founded universities. Indeed, that a tiny breakaway sect of 1^st century Judaism would prove so prolific and fundamentally good for humanity, ultimately coming to be the single most populous and geographically diverse faith in the history of the world, is powerful testimony to the fact that, indeed, God is with us—initially in Jesus, our Emmanuel, but even still today, through his Spirit. And it is this Spirit that has enabled us to do these “greater things.”

As J. C. Ryle wrote,

“The full meaning of this promise [i.e. John 14:12] is not to be sought in the miracles which the Apostles wrought after Christ left the world. Such a notion seems hardly borne out by facts. We read of no Apostle walking on the water, or raising a person four days dead, like Lazarus. What our Lord has in view seems to be the far greater number of conversions, the far wider spread of the Gospel, which would take place under the ministry of the Apostles, than under his own teaching. This was the case, we know from the Acts of the Apostles. We read of no sermon preached by Christ, under which three thousand were converted in one day, as they were on the day of Pentecost. In short, ‘greater works’ mean more conversions. There is no greater work possible than the conversion of a soul.” (Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, St. John, Vol. III)