This is the kind of superficial and superstitious meaning that has unbelievers in stitches rolling on the floor.  I don’t blame them for dying of laughter either because I usually join them.  This verse has nothing to do with prayer meeting.  If we read the context, we’ll surely find the purpose for such a meeting.  The “two or three” are the witnesses of wrongdoing and are praying and meeting about what to do with the situation (Matthew 18.16).  Jesus’ is not promising anything. He is warning about the dire consequences of making a decision without looking closely at the fact that Jesus is watching over the process.  A promise is different than a warning.

Yet, this interpretation still does not hit at the heart of the matter because most of the text deals with the importance of the little ones in the kingdom (Matthew 18.1-14). Jesus did not switch topic just because he had an ADD attack.  Think about how the present meaning fits with the teaching about little ones. I dare say that most of the passage is really not focused on church discipline but on the little ones because Jesus was answering the initial inquiry of who the greatest in the kingdom is.  If our interpretation has nothing to do with the little ones, we have still gone adrift.

As I always say, the texts are not at fault.  The interpreter is!

The usual interpretation goes something like this.  God loves the one lost sheep.  The lost sheep is the same sheep as every other lost sheep in the Bible (e.g. Luke 15.4-7).  Therefore, let’s evangelize all those who don’t know Jesus.  This however is not Jesus’ meaning.

Let’s first imagine what Jesus’ point is when we read the parable of the lost sheep here.  Let’s just take Jesus’ words for what they actually say.  In Matthew 18.10, Jesus said clearly that the little ones are the most important member, repeating what he had already said in Matthew 18.5-6.  The little ones are members in the kingdom.  In the way Jesus framed the picture, this little member is IN the kingdom, NOT OUT of it.  It is a grave mistake to see the lost sheep as the lost unbelievers.  Rather, Jesus was trying to say that the priority for the weak member of the church should always dominate the agenda of his faith community to make the faith community a Christ-like community.

As I always say, the texts are not at fault.  The interpreter is!

There he was, drenched with an unlit candle and plastic bag raincoat, an introverted businessman, standing by himself…

My colleague remarked, “It’s raining dog crap (that’s the Cantonese expression of “raining cats and dogs”) …

The loudspeaker said, “Please share your umbrellas with those who need it.”  I’m an American.  I don’t do “share” well, especially when my umbrella is tiny and my bum is getting soaked. I need my personal space.  More out of guilt than conviction, I said to him weakly, “Want to get under my umbrella?”  He replied weakly, “Sure. Thanks.”

This man and I are a bit alike.  We’re both shy in our public expression.  I’m not much into shouting slogans, though I shouted a few.  I much prefer to be left alone with my thoughts on what happened on June 4th, 1989 where government figure told us only less than 300 people were killed when in reality, more than 4,000 were killed (according to some eyewitnesses) but surely we can’t ever account for fatalities because the government bulldozed the bodies like useless fecal matter and dumped them into a statistical abyss.  They call that “cleanup” around here.

So we stood together in Victoria Park after twenty four years.  I admit, this was my first public demonstration.  When Tieanmen Square massacre happened, I had lived in the US for a long time, close to fifteen years.  I grew up among mostly white kids.  I felt appalled but the events felt surreal and faraway as I watched numbly what the TV could reveal.  The world of mainland China felt foreign.  During my stint in Hong Kong, for one reason or another, I was not able to make the previous demonstrations.  This year, I deliberately flew in two days early and tried my best to get over my jet lag to be there.  Why was I there?

A dear friend of mine had been asked the same question, “Why do you participate?  You know whatever you do won’t change the policy of the oppressive government.”  The final count of protesters according to the police last night was around 50,000.  You know oppressive government everywhere always have trouble with math, right?  That’s why I was there.  I was there because there’s 150,000 of us who had our own stories, feelings and reasons against senseless killing of civilians.  We refused to be silenced, even after twenty four years.  I didn’t care if my waterlogged jeans were stuck to my bum.  A little wet firework by nature couldn’t compared to the rain of bullets and reign of terror on that fateful evening on June 4th, 1989.   We would not let the victors’ history take over the real narrative.  We would pass this to our children and grandchildren, not just as ethnic Chinese but as concerned humans.

Why was I there?  I was not there to theologize about heaven crying on this dark day, though some may wish to do that.  I’ve long given up  trying to figure out where God was and where He is in this and that day.  Who knows?  I was there for more practical causes.  I was there  because of the terrorist government using one of the strongest and largest standing armies against its own unarmed people (estimated 300,000 troops that night, and no, the students didn’t try to burn them or murder them the way the authorities would have you believe).  I was there because so many terrorist Christian preachers who had bought into Satanic lies about absolute obedience to a terrorist state.  I was there because of the government’s lies (per Li Peng) that stability was the best building block for reform.  I was there because some Hong Kong Christian leaders now talk like Li Peng and are committing verbal terrorism.  After twenty four years, China remains one of the most oppressive regimes of history.  Not a damn thing has changed, other than more money resulting in more corruption and oppression.  I was there because there’re people who actually bought into the lie about stability.  Someone even said, “If China didn’t crack down on the students, it would never be as strong as it is today.” I wasn’t there because I was born in Hong Kong. I was there because I’m human… It’s natural for humans to stand up for other innocent human beings.

Someone finally noticed my new-found friend’s candle was still unlit.  He came over and lit his candle.  We now had one lit candle between the both of us. My job was to keep the candle from going out.  We were a team.

Besides being soaked to the bones, the man who shared my umbrella and I were very much alike.   As a team, we stood against something, and we stood for something.  We never had a conversation, but we had an understanding.  We’re here not just as MANY but also as ONE.  As the crowd dispersed, he turned to me shyly and said, “Thanks for sharing.”  I said firmly, “Any time! No problem.  All the best to you, man.”  This night, we’re the same.  He’s my brother.

NB: I borrowed the banner from a good friend and translated it while adding English subtitle.  Never forget!

On the week of commemorating Tienanmen Square massacre on June 4th, 1989, we must think about liberation.  I don’t have much to say about June 4th that people who are much better qualified haven’t already spoken.  The bodies flattened by tanks (literally flat) are still fresh in my memory.  As a biblical studies specialist, I may have something of broad relevance.  The relevance came by the way of an advertisement I saw recently.

Recently, I’ve seen a new series by a reputable publisher that started a new series on contextual reading of the Bible.  The advertisement causes me to pause long enough to disrupt my Right Texts, Wrong Meanings series.  One description of a book caught my eyes. More importantly, this description made me think.  It describes the book as “These essays de-center the often homogeneous first-world orientation of much biblical scholarship and open up new possibilities for discovery.”  Of course, the “first-world” technically means that the location was under US (and western) control while the “second-world” was under the USSR.  The “third-world” is contested territories.  Now that the second-world has collapsed with the breaking up of the USSR, we have only two worlds left: the first and the third.

Upon further review of the authors, I notice one of the editors to be Asian-descent but is now teaching in the US.  The Asian country from which he immigrated is far from third-world (in the pejorative popular usage of the term “third-world” by “humanitarians”). In fact, it is a much more thriving country than the US at the moment.  Even as a developed world, US may even be less developed than some of the formerly third-world countries.  These countries now become the “more developed” world.  So, how is his position non-first-world? I should call his world the “hyper-first-world” (at least “developed world”) based on what I know about that country, but then his teaching in the US causes him to be a hybrid of sorts with perhaps the label Asian American.   Thus, his perspective should not be considered non-first-world at all.  It wold be hard for him to demonstrate 1) he was under poverty and oppression 2) he is now highly influenced by that experience.  To call his perspective third-world is to categorize everything “occidental” to be first world (and “modern,” “advanced,” … “better”).  Even with intentionality of trying to yield to a broader perspective, this series creates a description that smacks of the pitfall it is trying to avoid.

A friend of mine (aka the blog name Chinglican) and I have been conversing about how it is possible to be an evangelical with liberationist tendency in many parts of the world but not so much the US.  In the US, the “liberationist” is the “other”, a liberal, a nut case and most likely a commie.  Not so other parts of the world. Why is this?  I think we should relabel everything.  How about calling the western US reading of the text, a capitalist reading?  The fact is, an interpreter can be an evangelical reader of the text without sacrificing cultural context.  Sure, grammar and syntax as well as historical backgrounds are important.  I believe that.  But after that, so what?

What we have is the occidental blind spot.  What do I mean by that?  It is terribly easy to label the “other” this or that category without being quite aware of one’s social location when reading the Bible.  This is a fact! If we look at the “first world” and “third world” labels, we would find that such geographical terminologies to be divided by the Global North and Global South, with the underprivileged being the Global South (aka the “third world”).  My friend who’s almost done with his PhD, Mr. Chinglican, gladly informed me that such terminologies reflect a time when global wealth was distributed based on colonial power.  This outdated historical fact no longer holds true.  The world has moved on, especially in economical and intellectual terms.  The sooner we wrestle with this fact, the better reader we will become of the Bible, not in terms of its original message but in terms of the relevance of the original message for today’s world. We should also wrestle with how others read the Bible who according to historical past were the “other” but are no longer so.  Without first properly and accurately applying a label (even a negative label) to our own social location in light of the “other” (well, what we consider the “other” though the “other” may consider us the “other”), we continue to favor our own version of truth to be the whole truth.

I do not think we have deconstruct all the old labels thoroughly enough.  At least a lot of labels, based on colonial (and antiquated) social-economic geographical terms, are no longer adequate if not outright misleading.  Purely from social-economic and intellectual development, the colonial dichotomy between first world and third world isn’t always going to work.  Having taught in Hong Kong for almost three years and being active in many contexts over there, I can no longer read the text the same way.  Am I third-world?  Well, Hong Kong is not third-world. Although it was still a British colony, its social-economic condition was already first-world even when I first immigrated some forty years ago.  Its present subway system is more efficient and cleaner than any of the ones I’ve seen in the US.  No, I did not work in a third-world mission field.  Hong Kong is a developed world.  By all accounts, I worked in a first-world academic post dealing with a different set of political and social challenges than the US.

Due to my contextual concerns, I do not think I can ever apply the Bible the same again the way I did in the US.  Some might see some liberationist tendency, but that is just my own contextual application of the gospel with no deliberate leaning towards liberationist hermeneutics.  Most people who know me still consider me evangelical, though I even have trouble with that label “evangelical.”  How do I mix the liberationist and evangelical together? I never try. It just happens when the biblical world and my world collide  Beautiful fireworks happen when the two worlds collide.

In my own experience and reflection of the false labels (I can name so many examples), I think we need to start thinking about our own reading context in light of other people’s reading context.  Sure, there’ll always be haters saying stuff like, “Oh, he really isn’t Reformed enough.  He is a liberationist.  He must be liberal then because we know that all liberationists are liberals.”  I used to worry about how people would label me but I realize in the last decade or so that such haters will always exist because the majority of the people in our world do not know how to walk in the shoes of the others (and I don’t use the word “others” pejoratively here).

Contrary to the impression of this post, I’m not trying to advocate for more politically correct vocabulary here.  My plea is grander.  The fact is, many in the US are too comfortable where their biggest problem may be whether Obamacare would take a bit of their earnings away while people are getting killed, imprisoned and oppressed not just in “third-world” societies but even in developed places.  Then, I just brought up the political dimension.  My context here then isn’t about economics then but has a political aspect because certain environments call for a political reading.  Politically speaking, economically developed countries that appear stable are not necessarily stable at all.  In other words, the old labels tell me nothing about the interpreter’s perspective or context or experience.  Being aware of our interpretive location also demands that we understand the locations of others.  This is why we must surge ahead and do better for the sake of the gospel.

I think we’re facing challenging times in the globalized culture. Paradigms shift faster and faster.  We’re being challenged to revamp or even discard all our labels.  Navigating in this murky water will be risky but navigate we must or our blind spots will become our entire vision.  It is no longer (it never was) adequate to label anything that does not fit our comfort zone of old labels.  Everyone reads the biblical texts with his or her lenses.  Everyone interpreting other readings also interpret those lenses through our own personal lenses.  Our reading of other readings and other lenses determine whether we reach true understanding of what “others” are saying.

Liberationist or not, never forget June 4th, 1989.

When bad things happen for no apparent reason, people love to quote Matthew 11.28-30 as some kind of comfort.  I’ve seen it so many times on Facebook I’ve lost count.  The quote itself is supposed to magically bring comfort.

The presupposition is basically this.  If you come to Jesus, even in the midst of chaos (whether it is having too much overtime or a tornado taking your house), you’ll find rest because his “yoke is easy and … burden light.”  It is little wonder that many feel that Christianity is an escape rather than help because of this kind of opium.

To make matters worse, this illusion has been propped up (albeit very weakly) by extraordinary testimony of cheap triumphalism following the plot that goes something lie this.  “XXX happened to me.  I ought to feel angry, but because I know Jesus, he gave me rest and I feel instantly better after prayer.”  No doubt, for some, this might have been the experience, but this verse has nothing to do with a campfire handholding kumbaya-singing revival meeting.  In order to be relevant (at least not crazy and normal) to the world, our job as Christians is not to try to look hip like Mark Driscoll or speak in the common man’s language like Joel Osteen. No!  The key is to understand OUR OWN SCRIPTURE and the heavy violence our popular Christian culture has done to its meaning.  IF we do so, we’ll go a long way helping people understand true Christianity.

As I always say, the texts are not at fault.  The interpreter is!

If you don’t have my book, I’ll give you a hint.  Take at look at the pair of “at that time” in 11.25 and 12.1.  Isn’t that author trying to get his readers to relate the stories by using the repeated echo?  Think about the relationships between the stories.

I always say that Christian culture is stranger than fiction.  You simply can’t make this stuff up.  The above caption sums it all up.  I saw a few other minister’s quotations of Scripture that, at best, have no place in a disaster like Oklahoma’s and, at worst, downright abusive.  Of course, all this is done with good intention so that  “the raw realism of Job’s losses will point us all to his God “compassionate and merciful. James 5:11″.  Yes, this is a direct quote off Piper’s Facebook page.  HOW do you pastorally link the gigantic loss that had hit these folks with God’s compassion and mercy?  How?  James 5.11 has nothing, I repeat, NOTHING, to do with natural disasters.  One of my blogger friends call this the true abuse of the Lord’s name because when you use the Lord’s name, you do something to the recipient.

Many of my friends are saying that I’m too picky on exegesis.  Well, here’s where bad exegesis can lead pastorally.  It leads to re-victimization of people who have lost everything, including family members.  It leads to a holy huddle that looks more like a joke than a witness to the world.  How do you ask a parent who has lost a son or daughter in this disaster to link the disaster to God’s compassion?  Wait! Don’t answer that.  It was a rhetorical question.  IF you do, please say it to the faces of the people who lost loved ones and not debate it theologically here.  I’ve done both academic and pastoral works.  I wouldn’t dare to make some of the announcements these people are making.

My gut reaction is not merely anger. I also feel puzzled.  Whenever something bad happens, someone always hopes that Westboro Baptist would not  protest.  Yes, those extremists are annoying pests in the guise of Christian clothing.  However, to a lesser degree, I feel puzzled about evangelical Christian logic.  Yes, evangelical Christian logic can be a kind of special logic.  I listen with disbelief at times when people start moralizing about disasters and terrorist attacks (not only on Americans but worldwide).  It goes something like this.  These people must have done something to draw divine wrath.  Evangelical Christians are especially prone to make such broad announcements “for God” against the more liberal areas (e.g. Boston) where people hold to a different moral standard.  At this moment, I haven’t heard any evangelical Christian pronounced any curse against Oklahoma simply because Oklahoma is in the conservative Bible Belt.  I’m glad to see that.  What I’m saying is that we’re very selective in how and to whom we  curse in the name of God.  I did see one curse being uttered by an evangelical Christian overseas who was unfamiliar with the Bible Belt though.  This is the problem.  It is easy to moralize and curse when you are ignorant.  It is easy to select when your blinders are on.

This is the truth.  Life is complex. Suffering is difficult.  No amount of theologizing or moralizing can explain suffering.  Therefore, we may as well stop trying.  The best way to evangelize sometimes is to keep our mouths shut and keep our hands and feet moving.  I urge everyone to just pray for people in Oklahoma and many other places where chaos reigns.  No moralizing is welcome at the moment.

This blog is my conviction about the usage of the Golden Rule. This again, like Matthew 7.1, is one of the most quoted verses of the entire NT, without any exception.  If you take it literally as an ethical command, the world would be a better place, but life just doesn’t work like the rule.  Let me give some examples that may tickle you.

Let’s say I’m in a situation where my kid is getting bullied.  I teach him, “Do to others as you would have them to do to you.”  He acts kind towards the bully, creating even a bigger problem.  The bully bullies him even worse. What do I do?  Do I quote the verse to him?  Well, I actually teach him how to box, kick, grapple and deal with weapons (I’m only half kidding).

What about when I try to be nice to those people who wrong me at work, the same people who are after my promotion?  Guess what?  No matter how I treat them, they continue to be mean.  Yes, I’m speaking about the real world rather than the spiritual world where some of my spiritual giants friends dwell.

Many will say, “Well, God’s word said to do this.”  What if God’s word isn’t really saying that?  Would that rule apply to the Israelites?  I’m sure they would want the Canaanites not to fight back?  How about being nice to the Canaanites (at one point in Judges 1-2, they were nice to the Canaanites and paid dearly for their niceness)?  Obviously, the Israelites were not doing to others as they would have them reciprocate.  Has the Golden Rule lost its shine to you yet?  It’s lost its shine a long time ago in my Christian life.

This is where we need to ask a wider question, what does this Golden Rule to do with the surrounding ideas about prayer? OR are the surrounding ideas not really about prayer?  What about the relationship between the Golden Rule and the main issue? What is the main issue?  The fact is, there are many ways we can go with answering these questions, but the real solution does not lie in the literal application of the Golden Rule.  The obvious is never that obvious. That’s my “golden rule” of biblical interpretation.  If you want the real answer, (other than buying my book) you had better think about what the big idea is starting in Matthew 7.1 or you will never get the golden rule.

As I always say, the texts are not at fault.  The interpreter is!

Here’s the deal, God wants you to have everything that makes you happy.  God wants to make you happy and rich.  Now, if you send money to me, I, the all-powerful intercessory prayer warrior, will intercede on your behalf so that God will open up the heaven’s treasure trove and pour down his blessings because we have a good God. Amen?  Well, if you said amen to that, please do send money. I’m half kidding.

The fact is, my above sermonic plot line is repeated in a less extreme form in seeing the verse as yet one more of God’s precious promise.  What if God does NOT keep his promise? I’m sure, if you’re honest with yourself, really really honest, you’ll say that God has failed his promise endlessly if these verses are the promise.  Some of you who are smarter would say, “But the verse which follows shows how God keeps his promise.”  Sure, it does!  The bigger question we need to ask is, why is the discussion about prayer and God’s “promise” lands in the major topic of not judging.

Well, some of you still smarter interpreters will say that Matthew 5-7 is just nothing but a collection of Jesus’ sayings clumped into one with no apparent logic.  What if there is logical connection, even if Matthew and not Jesus edited and put together the text? What if this is not a set of random sayings?  Hmmmm … I bet many will have no answer for that one.

The fact is, I think it’s a desperate grasp for straws when we say that large sections of the Bible have no logical order.  As one of my self-defense instructor used to say, “Don’t read your own limitations into the situation of others.”  Exactly!  What if we assume that the Bible is logically put together? What a thought, huh?  “You mean we can’t just quote random verses and call them promises?” you say.  Well, yeah!  Unless you’re ready to settle with a God who repeatedly breaks his “precious promise,” you’d better take the view of the Bible having its own contextual logic.  Otherwise, you have to take the alternate solution, “Maybe I just don’t have enough faith for this promise to happen.”  Hmmm … you have to make that call.

As I always say, the texts are not at fault.  The interpreter is!

To get to the meaning, remember always that this is part of a discussion about judging.  This is not God’s promise.

Introduction to the Problems and Meaning of Romans 13

I’ve been spending some time doing two things lately.  First, I’ve been blogging on Right Texts, Wrong Meanings.  Second, I’ve been reviewing some books written by known theologians on political topics within the Bible.  Are the two related? Oh, yes.  Having seen the “absolute obedience to government” interpretation of Rom. 13 surfacing again in the Hong Kong mega-churches (aka pro-China churches), I will disrupt my usual flow in blogging about each chapter and focus on chapter 15 of my book.  Apparently, these argument and interpretive methods are not limited to Hong Kong pro-government leaders, but also is typical of right-wing evangelical (okay, these really are fundamentalists who claim to be evangelicals) theologians in the US.  Right wing!  Left wing!  What’s the difference?  Both sides have hijacked the Bible for their own aggrandizement.

Since some of these books claim to be “biblical,” I shall look at some of the usages to see whether that is indeed true or not.  I will blog about the book I reviewed much later because my book review has yet to be published.  My blog about this one book will illustrate one lesson I’ve been teaching congregations and students for years: proof texts prove nothing.  One other lesson I hope my readers will learn is that no matter what the “experts” say about the Bible, read the Bible in context for yourself.  Today, I will look at one usage by one very famous US systematic theologian. In fact, I’ve seen similar usage by several Christian authors on this topic.

Based on the systematic theologians book, his usual argument follows this logic, “If the Bible says to do this, you must do this. Period!”  This guy got a lot of mileage out of Rom. 13, so much so that it is the most cited chapter of the Bible along with 1 Peter 2.  If the biblical merit of any theological book rises and falls on the most cited passages, then the most cited passage ought to be examined.  Let’s look at the meaning briefly before looking at the dire consequences of misinterpretation in the above form.

Rom. 13 is not that hard at all. It is part of Rom. 12.  If we read carefully, Rom. 12.14 talks about blessing those who persecute, signifying a new topic of dealing with the society.  While Rom. 12.14-21 deals with persecutors, Rom. 13 deals with the government, not in general but in specific situation dealing with morally neutral issues such as taxation (Rom. 13.6).  I have dealt with this more extensively in my new book.  At this point, all we need to know is that the backgrounds for Paul’s writing are two. First, Paul was on a mission to Rome and then Spain (Rom. 15.28).  Second, Paul did not live in a democratic society.  There had been no known success in revolting against the empire. In addition to the background of the text, there’s important lexical evidence for strong subordination of human government to God’s laws IN THE TEXT.  My colleague and friend Sze-kar Wan, in an excellent article points out that we should distinguish between plural “authorities” from the singular.[1]  In a private correspondence, he summarizes his argument in this way, “The plural refers to local magistrates; the singular refers to Absolute Authority that properly belongs to God alone.The plural of Rom. 13.1c is a play on the plural of Rom. 13.1a and the singular of 13.1b & 13.2a.”  What Paul wrote as a very strong monotheistic subordination of human government under God’s law.  This is something that those who stress absolute obedience to government have failed to notice altogether.  Now on to the consequential logic coming out of misreading Rom. 13.   We shall see that any misreading of Rom. 13 makes a meal of an appetizer and dealt with no direct relationship with either mission or totalitarian government at all. We shall see what terrible consequences come out of misquoting and misinterpreting the Bible.

Consequences of Misreading

When reading this theologian, he uses Rom. 13 to talk about four basic issues close to his heart: obedience to US government (especially the constitution), capital punishment, pacifism, Native American settlement.  I only use the Native American example he uses to illustrate a greater problem. If you substitute “Native Americans” with any oppressed group in any part of the world, you can reuse this example. For my Chinese readers, you can substitute this for the dockworkers or the colonized people of Hong Kong.  The danger needs to raise a huge red flag, and I don’t mean the red Five Star Flag of China.

First, the basic assumption about Rom. 13 by this one author I’m reading is that it endorses the US Constitution as something representing the government’s role and should be obeyed absolutely by citizens.  The book’s author fails to grasp that the “obedience” to the constitution (or perhaps one interpretation of it) had relegated black people to the back of the bus and separate toilets just some fifty years ago because simply the interpreters, especially conservative ones, tend to also advocate racist policies.  The author fails to note that his understanding of obedience is also a kind of interpretation.  What if (and I’m saying this hypothetically) the US Constitution has anti-biblical elements?  Would the full endorsement by this author prevent him from being able to critically engage the issue rather than a blind adherence to it?  What if ANY country has a constitution that has anti-biblical elements?  The highly flawed presupposition of this author is that the US constitution was based on Christian principles.  This “Christian nation” notion (ironically only argued by the American Religious Right) is highly debatable.

In his view of the international relations, his orientation is completely based on US imperial doctrine of manifest destiny (a highly colonial US policy from the 19th century in its dealing with the entire American continent) even though he would never admit it.  Astonishingly the same author actually says that the Korean War and Vietnam War were efforts to protect the nations and preservation of freedom.  This essentially implying that both Korea and Vietnam were “our nations,” never mind that lives on both sides were lost.  All at once, such loss of lives surely should go against the consistently pro-life position he advocates, but he fails to grasp the logical contradiction. Does he mean protection of all lives or just American unborn children’s life and all lives form different nations are worth killing to protect American nation and preserve American freedom?  This two-tier American exceptionalism plagues this book at almost every issue.   The examples are too numerous to name.  The problem of his hermeneutics is a failure to understand the world in front of the text, but soon enough, he will demonstrate his failure also regarding what is in the text and behind the text. By his assumption, our government can claim any nation to belong to the US, and we must say amen to that in obedience to Rom. 13.  If we switch this to a totalitarian regime like China, its Christian citizens would also have to endorse (not just tolerate helplessly) its aggression in Asia and Africa.

Second, in justifying capital punishment, he simply talks about the sword the government bears as some kind of literal figure that puts people to death. He states that the sword literally means the sword that executed criminals.  This is simply untrue.  The Roman magistrates who wore the sword did not use the sword to kill off anyone they deemed criminal.  His suggestion is based on word studies alone without taking into consideration of how the Roman society functioned.  Just suppose that the sword was literally used by the governmental authority, he appears to have a case, but that appearance is only superficial even based on his own application.  By rejecting the sword as a symbol of governmental power, he makes the serious mistake of not seeing his own symbolic interpretation of Paul’s passage.  After all, what does he mean by the sword? Is it not as a symbolic power of the government?  Does the US government now use swords to execute people?

According a consistent application of his wooden method, the most biblical case should be made by the US government going back to executing people by beheading criminals.  This incomplete understanding seems to point to a lack of understanding of how symbols work and how language can function as a sign at almost every level.  If so, those who see the sword as a symbol have a stronger case than a literal application of the text.  While many wish to make a clear separation between exegesis and application, this interpreter demonstrates no such understanding.  At the hermeneutic level, interpretation inevitably leads to some sort of contextualization even if we contextualize the text to the NT time.

Third, especially demonstrative of his reading of Rom. 13 is his discussion on pacifism.  We can put aside whether pacifism is the “biblical” way or not for the time being, since such a topic is beyond the scope of this review.  I do not care either way, for the purpose of this blog.  In typical wooden fashion, the book quotes Rom. 13 as the proof text of divine governmental authority. He suggests that disobeying the war policies of the government, the pacifist is disobeying God.  In other words, there’s no role for the conscience.  So long as US wages war on any country, the citizen must subscribe to the policy without question.  How about if this applies to China? What if China takes over Taiwan or Japan or the Philippines?  Would the typical Hong Kong Christian still cry “obey the authorities”?

The argument against pacifism in the book is particular vulnerable to criticism not only because of the imprecise attempt at absolutist exegesis, but also his overstatement against pacifism.  My criticism at this point is against his misunderstanding of pacifism in American politics.  Pacifism is allowed in American politics!  It has been allowed since William Penn the Quaker founded Pennsylvania.  In American Christianity, pacifism has been a legitimate, though not always popular, tradition.  Conscientious objectors to war have come in and out of American history and tolerance for such objection has been pretty strong lately.  Due to exceptions given to pacifists in American law, it is absolutely “legal” to disobey the government’s order to go to war.  If the governmental law has the provision for pacifists not to participate in the military, is the pacifist obeying or disobeying the government?  The logic should follow that the pacifist is obeying the law, if the book’s logic seems to say that obedience of the law is equal to obeying God’s law.  To take this a step further, if the government’s war is deemed unjust, should the Christian resist the order to go to war personally?  These are questions that a simple “yes” or “no” or a straight proof text cannot answer.

Fourth and finally, as if the problem of historical manifest destiny is not severe enough, his treatment of the Native American land ownership issue takes his misplaced interpretation down to a new low.  His suggestion that somehow there needs to be reform is not the diabolical part, but his insistence that his way of taking away tribal ownership and turning it into private ownership is somehow justified by the Bible AND by practicality does not square with the limitation imposed by texts he quotes.  He simply states that the sovereignty of the tribes will go away.

As if that injury is not enough to insult any level-headed Native American, he goes on to say that the US government should rule because it is God’s servant “for your good” according to Rom. 13.4.  At this stage I can barely contain myself without giving some parallels from other cases of Native American history.  It is already commonly accepted fact that the original immigrants from Europe had not only taken over Native land but also slaughtered many of them, leading to serious genocide.  These tribes had the land. They could do what they wanted with it. Their “government” was their tribe. It is like me walking into a farm one day with my gun and set up my household while running the people off.  After they came back to beg to work for me, I tell them that they can be my slave.  Now that I establish my household, I would tell the oppressed that I have set up my own rules about how I would use that land, based on Eph. 6.5-9.  This clearly is not logically right or biblically supported in the modern civil society.  However we deal with the tribal issue is a different story, but his justification via Rom. 13 is clearly criminal.  He’s dealing with an issue that a simple “yes” or “no” from the biblical text cannot answer.  To answer it is not only naively stupid; it is criminal.

Summary

It is time to summarize the above mistakes in light of Paul’s background.  In order to appreciate the convenience of Paul’s argument, Paul was not talking about all governments in all times.  He was talking about the (imperfect) government of the time he was trying to do his mission to Rome and Spain as he wrote Romans.  Paul wrote in light of the imperfect government and admitted that within the imperfection, there was divine authority.   Yet, the real reason was that the policy of the government was supposed to do good.  Paul did not say what would happen if the policy was no good.  Paul additionally did not want the church to run into trouble by not paying taxes (Rom. 13.6).  The Jews had had historic trouble with paying taxes by the time Paul wrote this letter. There was a whole lot that did not get addressed with Rom. 13 simply because Paul’s concern was practical for his mission to Spain.  Neither the governmental structure nor the letter situation fit the American church.  The straight import of the content of Rom. 13 is completely misplaced.

What have we learned from the above mistakes?  First, our understanding or misunderstanding of the world behind the text will impact our interpretation.  Second, proof texts only prove that you do not know how to interpret the text.  Third, our understanding of the world in front of the text with our convictions should consistently reflect the message derived from behind and within the text.  The greatest mistake is not necessarily that those convictions are wrong, though the author also got some of the issues fatally wrong, but that his loose method is wrong.  Everyone should be grateful to know that not every big church pro-government pastor interprets these texts inconsistently.  Inconsistency is not an exclusively Chinese trait.  It plagues us all.  Under his hermeneutical grid, our government can 1) declare war on anyone, 2) we must support the war effort without exceptions, and 3) we should still treat the Native Americans the way we treated the Lakotas at Wounded Knee.  Let’s apply it to the Chinese government (just as an example).  Under that idea, China can run over Taiwan or any other little countries, can imprison anyone it wants, can persecute any minority group it wants, and can still treat dissidents the way it did at 1989, June 4^th.  May history never repeat itself!  Amen.

Eventually, someone is bound to blame the press, and then it happened. On particular Hong Kong mega-church pastor denounced the press on his Facebook for selling paper and splitting the church with sensational news about the Occupy Central movement.  The criticism by this pastor is quite typical of Christians, whether they are conservative or liberal, but let us pick on conservatives for a moment just for fun.  The criticisms usually focus on the press being subjective, non-Christian and liberal.  Let me deal with each.

The first criticism is the subjectivity of the liberal press.  In our newspapers, there is often the (false) distinction between investigative report and an opinion piece.  The report is supposed to be “objective” eyewitness and the opinion piece is the writer’s own opinion.  So, what do our objective eyewitnesses say about my city today?  To the question, “How’s Seattle today?,” one might say, “Today, Seattle has a little bit of rain.” Another might say, “Today, the ground is wet. Be careful.”  Still another might say, “The birds are out.”  All these statements are eyewitness statements, but they also represent the experienced opinion of each speaker.  Which one is more objective?  We can say ALL of them are objective because all these things happen to be experienced by eyewitnesses but experienced the rainy day of Seattle differently in their report.  However, let’s suppose that parts of Seattle did not rain (which happens quite often).  Someone in that part would object and say, “Today, Seattle is cloudy.  Rain predicted.”  Where does trouble begin?  It begins when the last speaker says, “My experience is true and is truly mine. All of your are subjective.”  The whole “I’m more objective than you” argument presupposes that the human can see truth apart from his own experience.  Such is not practical or even realistic.  All of our observations are interpretive. All of our interpretations form opinions.  And all of our opinions come from our experience.  Thus, realistically and practically, reporting and opinion are intertwined.  News reporting is not math (e.g. 1 + 1 = 2)!  Therefore, when someone complains that the press is biased towards the left, right, religious and atheistic, the complaint is not tenable or measurable.  The complaint itself is subjective.

The next complaint Christian people (especially many church leaders) make is that the press is non-Christian.  The implication is that the press is untrustworthy, especially when it reports negatively about Christians.  Just because an information-gathering service is not “Christian,” it does not mean its information is inaccurate.  I wonder how many of us use encyclopedia or better yet, Wikipedia.  How do we know the writers are Christians?  We still use such information.  How many of us have been lied to by Christians?  Many of us have. In fact, I have also heard pastors disparage Christian media such as Christianity Today in the US or Christian Times of Hong Kong.  So, are we more selective in when and how we denounce?  Do we denounce when the news just does not fit our grid?   Thus, the whole “Christians are more trustworthy” myth should simply go the way of the dinosaurs.  To denounce someone for religious reason is just self-righteousness.

The final complaint is against the “liberal” bent of the media.  What’s the definition of “liberal” anyway?  One person’s liberal is another person’s conservative.  The sliding scale is as slippery as the labels “objective” and “subjective.”  If by “liberal” we mean the media is always pushing the boundary of freedom, then it is only doing its job.  Think about it.  The whole idea of media is dependent on free speech and free expression.  If we accuse the media of being liberal, we are merely saying that the media is fighting for its own existence and doing its job too well.  What’s wrong with that?  I bet North Korea’s media is pretty rubbish.  Why?  There is no freedom of speech in North Korea.  Those guys are completely “conservative.”  The very fact any Christian pastor can criticize the media is based on free speech on which free media is based.  There is your irony!  Some people want to exercise their own freedom by limiting freedom of others.  There is our problem.

Having deconstructed the warped logic of such naysayers against the media, we must all know that the media is a business.  Its main job is to find stories to report on so that it can sell papers.  Sadly, for some, church is also a business.  When the media business trespasses on the church business, the church business does not like it.  We have two choices, as we face the media challenge.  We could well stop reading the “liberal non-Christian, subjective” media or we can do some good stuff that’s worthy of the good news we preach for them to report. I don’t believe they won’t report it.  You know why? I just saw a report today in the tabloid paper Apple Daily  interviewing my friend who is also a minister.  I may also remind my readers that the same paper reported on my student’s work among the poor in Hong Kong a while back.  Yes, the liberal media!  Imagine that!  If we practice our “good news” in public, then the media can report on our “good news” instead of our “good news turned bad news.”

PS: Here is the response by Apple Daily.