Theology in the Raw - My thoughts on the Rapture, Violence, "He Gets Us," Singleness, Women Preaching, Greg Boyd, Rosaria B, and many other things: Bonus Q & A

Episode Date: March 27, 2024

In this bonus Q & A episode, I respond to loads of questions sent in from my Patrons, including: What are my thoughts on the rapture? Is it better for people to be an affirming church than in no church at all? Does my stance on non-violence prevent me from using force to rescue those in human trafficking? What are my thoughts on the "he gets us" ad from the Super Bowl? How can faith communities better support and honor single people? What is the orthodox way of thinking about women made in God's image when God is not female? If women preached the first Easter sermon, why can't they teach in church? What do I think about Greg Boyd's cruciform reading of the OT? And many other questions... If you want full access to this episode, please visit Patreon.com/theologyintheraw and join the Theology in the Raw community!

Hello friends, welcome back to another episode of Theology in the Raw. This is a monthly Q&A podcast where I receive questions sent in from my Patreon supporters and I go through many of them. What I do is I usually take about 10 or 15 and try to respond to them fairly thoroughly. And then I do just a bunch of rapid fire responses to various questions that didn't make it in the top 15. So basically my patron supporters, they send in the questions and then they, they vote on which questions they want me to address. So the ones that I'm responding to first are in order of the ones that were

the most voted on ones. You're going to get a sneak peek into my responses. If you want the full length episode, you have to become a patron supporter at patreon.com forward slash theology in the raw support to show for as little as five bucks a month. Get access to ask questions, access to the Theology in Raw community, and many other perks that comes with being a Patreon supporter. So without further ado, let's jump into some of these really awesome and challenging questions. Okay, first question comes from Zach, who wants to know, what are my thoughts on the rapture? I found out it's a recent theology, relatively speaking, and that a number of denominations don't hold to it.

Oh, it's a big question. I mean, let me just start backwards here. Oh, it's a big question. I mean, let me just start backwards here. Yes, it's true that, yeah, the many denominations don't hold to any kind of like rapture theology or specifically like, when you say rapture, I mean, it has to do with kind of the timing of the rapture too, like a pre-tribulational rapture, post-tribulational rapture. There's even a mid-tribulational rapture view. For those who don't know, basically the rapture says, a sort of rapture theology says that prior to the second coming of Christ, Christians will be taken out of this world, caught up in the air, and they will go to heaven

while the rest of the world experiences a period of tribulation. Or again, well, that would be a pre-tribulational rapture view that exactly seven years before Jesus comes back, believers will be taken up into heaven. And then there will be a seven-year period of loads of chaos and violence and all kinds of stuff. And people will be saved during that time. In fact, the very rapture itself might cause people to say, oh, Christians were right. So now I need to get on board.

But now I have to endure the seven-year tribulation. And some people say that, you know, in the middle of the seven-year tribulation, people were raptured up. And some people will say post-tribulational rapture, that at the end of the seven-year tribulation, there will be a rapture and then Jesus will come back kind of like pretty shortly after the rapture. So the rapture is distinguished from the second coming of Christ. Okay. That's by definition, pre-tribulational rapture means seven years before Christ returns, Christians will be raptured up. It's based on really one verse in the Bible.

The broader context is 1 Thessalonians 4, verses 13 to 18. And the specific word rapture comes from verse 17, where Paul says, Then we who are still alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will always be with the Lord. So that word caught up, I believe in the Latin. I forget what the Latin word is, where we get the word rapture, reptua. I don't know. Latin people can tell me what that word is.

So that's what it's based on, this idea that believers will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. Now in the book of Thessalonians, you don't get any kind of, like if all we had was first Thessalonians, we would just read this passage as the second coming of Christ. I don't think that's really disputed. Although, well, back in seminary, I went to a seminary that held to a pre-tribulational rapture view. And during one of my exegesis classes, we worked through 1st and 2nd Thessalonians. And one of the assignments for the exegesis class was to write an eschatology of 1st Thessalonians. Or was it 1 and 2? I think it was just 1 Thessalonians. An eschatology like, what does the book of 1 Thessalonians say about the future things?

And it's a famous rapture passage here. And so I think maybe the assumption was that students, if they are interpreting the Bible correctly as they're learning in exegesis class, they will come to a pre-tribulational rapture view based on 1 Thessalonians. And while at the time I held to that general theological position, if you're asking me what did the Thessalonians, who all they had was the Old Testament and this letter from Paul, what would their eschatology be? And I basically concluded, well, it would just be the second coming. You can't get pre-trib, post-trib, mid-trib, any kind of rapture distinction from the second coming from this letter alone.

You have to go to the book of Revelation. You have to go to the book of Daniel. You have to kind of cross-reference stuff all over the place. Maybe Matthew 24, some people will bring in, maybe the latter parts of Ezekiel. But this letter alone doesn't give us a pre-tribulational rapture view. I'm not sure what grade I got on the assignment, but I did hear that the next semester they changed the assignment to not write a pre-tribulational,

no, not write an eschatology of 1 Thessalonians. That wasn't the assignment anymore. It was write a pre-tribulational rapture eschatology of 1 Thessalonians. Um, I, I, again, I wasn't part of that class. I, you know, that's just something I heard. So, uh, I'm not a hundred percent sure if that that's an accurate assessment of, of how the class was structured after I, I, um, wasn't in that class any longer anyway. Yeah. While this is a tradition I grew up in and, and have still friends and people I respect in that tradition, I don't think that 1 Thessalonians 4, 13 to 18 or verse 17 in particular is talking about a separate event from the second coming of Christ.

of being caught up together to meet them in the clouds, to meet the Lord, the meet together, caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. This is after it says that in verse 16, that the dead in Christ will rise first. Okay. So those who are already dead will be resurrected and they'll be with Christ. And then if somebody is still alive,

then they haven't died. They're still alive when Christ comes, then they will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. Now, one of the problems with reading this as some sort of rapture where we get caught up in the clouds and then we go off to heaven is that the language of the meeting the Lord in the air, that word is drawn from a Greco-Roman, the Greco-Roman environment where it was often applied to when a dignitary goes to a city, they would send out, the city would send out delegates to meet this important person, you know, outside the city, and they would escort the dignitary back to the city.

So the dignitary is coming to the city. A greeting crowd goes and meets them and ushers that dignitary to the city. The crowd that goes and meets the dignitary doesn't go with where the dignitary came from. Okay. So the image here, and I do think there's a lot of imagery here, even with the word air, clouds, often symbolize judgment. Like the line between literal and symbolic here, I think is a little fuzzy, but I'll let you do some further research on that. So the image here is that we who are alive will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air and basically escort him to earth. That's what the word meeting here implies, that we're escorting the dignitary, our Lord Jesus Christ, to earth where he will reign in his earthly kingdom. The image is not that the Lord comes down from heaven, we meet him halfway, and then

he ushers us back to heaven. That's not the image that is being implied here. So this passage alone, even the language of rapture, I think, isn't talking about what I think some people think it's talking about when they talk about the rapture. Also, I just have the whole pre-trip, post-trip, mid-trip stuff. That's based on a certain interpretation of the chronology of the book of Revelation. And it relies on a very literal interpretation of the numbers, the years in the book of Revelation. And I would say, basically, the numbers, the book of Revelation is filled with numbers, and they're always symbolic. Like, that's just how numbers operate in Jewish apocalyptic literature. Numbers symbolize things. So when, you know, Christ is said to have what, oh, I forget

what it was, you know, Christ has like seven heads or seven horns, I forget. There's, you know, there's just, there's lots of symbolism in the numbers in the book of Revelation. So I think reading these numbers literally is kind of problematic. So again, I disagree with pre, post, mid-tribulational. I mean, post-rapture, post-tribulational rapture, I guess there could be something there

that I could resonate with because that just basically sees the so-called rapture and the second coming of Christ as kind of sees it as one event. So if it sees it the way that I kind of described it in this passage of going up and meeting the Lord and escorting him back to earth, then I guess that I would have less of a... Yeah, I think that would resonate with what Paul's talking about here, but kind of building this theology where you have, you know, seven year tribulation, uh, preface by a rapture, um, ending in the second coming to Christ. I think I, I just don't find that argument from scripture compelling any longer. And yeah, there's a lot of denominations that don't hold to this. Any

denomination that have a more covenantal theology. So like the Reformed Church of America, Christian Reformed Church. Shoot, there's a big denomination I was thinking. Oh, all Presbyterians. So any kind of Presbyterian denomination would not hold to a rapture kind of theology. I don't think like United Methodist or Free Methodist would either. And even some, I mean, there's so many different kinds of Baptists. Some Baptists would be more, have a rapture built into their eschatology and some wouldn't. Oh, the churches of Christ. So like the Disciples of Christ, Christian Church, like those of the Restoration Movement, I believe they are all millennial in their theology, so they would not hold to a rapture. Yeah. I could keep

going down the line here. The evangelical covenant church would not hold to a rapture. They might allow for it, but it's not, wouldn't be in their doctrinal statement. You can fact check on that. Yeah. So I would say a good number, it is popular in like some, a lot of non-denominational churches in America. But yeah, again, if you, if you take a wide angle lens to kind of all the various denominations in, well, in America and especially the world, then I would say a good number do not hold to any kind of rapture view. That doesn't mean it's wrong. That just means it's, it's, yeah, there's, there's many churches that don't hold to it. Is it recent theology? My best understanding is that it does come out of the late 19th century in, is it Darby? I forget Darby's first name.

I believe it came out of the late 19th century in, I believe in Northern Scotland and Ireland, I think. And it was sort of exported to America. But again, I'm reaching back years and years and years when I started this stuff. So if I'm off on that, feel free to, again, cross-check what I'm saying. I do know it was made really popular through the Schofield Reference Bible, which was very, it talked about the rapture. And that was like one of the first, I think think study Bibles that became super popular in America. So yeah, again,

really, I know a lot of good people that still hold to this theology. So I'm not saying it and not trying to be like demeaning or looking down upon people that do hold to it. I just don't find it to be a compelling way to interpret the eschatology in scripture. Next question, Nancy,

what do you think about the faith of Christians who affirm same-sex marriage? Isn't it better to worship Jesus in an affirming church than not at all? Yeah, I get this question a lot. So let me quickly kind of state how I view people who affirm same-sex marriage is that I do think this is a significant theological, I would have a significant theological disagreement with this position. I don't think this is just a secondary issue, agree to disagree. I do think this would be a significant departure from historic Orthodox Christian teaching about marriage. However, I would say people hold to the, people believe same-sex marriage for all sorts of different reasons. Some have done a ton of Bible study and have come to this conclusion, have genuinely searched the Scriptures because they believe the Scriptures are authoritative and come to the view that same-sex marriage is justified or at least isn't prohibited in Scripture.

I disagree with that position. I've written in scripture. I disagree with that position. I've written several books why I disagree with that. But so arriving at affirming same-sex marriage, again, I think is always going to be a significant departure of Orthodox Christian teaching. But that would be different, like pouring over the scriptures for years and deep study. That would be a different kind of manner in which people arrive at affirming same-sex marriage versus somebody who says, I don't care what the Bible says. I just think this is the right, you know, thing to do is embrace same-sex marriage. Well, that's, that's two very different kind of

postures at least. Um, and some people that affirm same-sex marriage have very unorthodox views on all kinds of other issues. Like they would affirm all kinds of stuff that I think goes against historic Christian teaching. Whereas other people would be in every other theological commitment, they would be basically evangelical except they affirm same-sex marriage. So all that to say, I just want to recognize the diversity of people that would affirm same-sex marriage. And guess what? I want to recognize the diversity of people that affirm traditional marriage. In a sense, you can almost ask the same question. What do you think about the faith of Christians who affirm traditional marriage? I'm like, well, are they racist? Are they a white Christian nationalist? Do they care

about the poor? Are they misogynist? Or are they holistically Christian and affirm traditional marriage, but also are very kind and loving and they love their enemies and they love their neighbors and they help those in need? Just because somebody affirms or doesn't affirm traditional marriage doesn't by itself tell me a whole lot about one's faith commitment. So I want to recognize the diversity of people who affirm same-sex marriage and the diversity of people that don't affirm same-sex marriage. So really the question is just, it's just too broad for me to even really answer. What do I think about the faith of Christians who affirm same-sex marriage? There's many other questions I would need to explore before I even say, yes, I think this person's faith is genuine or whatever. But even then, I used to judge everybody's salvation fresh out of seminary. And I was pretty decent at it for a while, but it got really exhausting determining who's in, who's out.

So after a while, I sort of gave up that part of my Christian walk and said, you know what, I'm going to just let God judge people's salvation. Is it better to worship in an affirming church than no church at all? Again, I think it, I don't know. It depends on what, yeah, again, what church you're talking about. If it's an affirming church that basically has little semblance of the gospel and the Jesus that is being preached, if preached at all, is a Jesus that's simply a mirror of modern Western white progressive values and doesn't really resonate with the first century Jesus of Palestine, then I don't know. I don't know if I would say that that's better. Like, is a profoundly distorted version of Jesus better than no Jesus at all? I don't know. I could see arguments on both sides of that. But again, I know some churches that would affirm same-sex marriage that are preaching,

you know, repentance and sin, and they believe in biblical authority, or at least they say they do. in sin and they believe in biblical authority, or at least they say they do. And it might be a more theologically robust environment, even though they embrace same-sex marriage. And again, I'll say one more time, I think that is a significant breach of Orthodox Christianity, but somebody could theoretically affirm same-sex marriage, but then also, um, embrace, you know, many other theologically sound aspects of the Christian faith. I would say, you know, that environment would be, I think, yeah, in that, in that case, probably better to worship in that environment than no church at all. But if it's a church that just has, you know, has very little semblance of New Testament Christianity, then I don't know. I don't know. I could say it's better to be in that environment than no church at all.

Next question from Christian says, does a non-violence stance also prevent the use of force to protect and or rescue someone, specifically task forces that rescue those in human trafficking? Ooh, this is a great question. And I do want to clarify that violence, by definition, is not the same as any use of force. I don't have my book in front of me, but my book called Nonviolence does have a couple pages up front looking at the different definitions of violence. And I do make a distinction between violence and the use of physical force. If somebody's standing on a train track and they're about to be hit and I run and tackle them and get them out of the way and save their life, that is a use of force. But I would say by definition, that is not a use of

violence. One person could take a sharp object and pierce my skin with it. And if it's a mugger trying to take my wallet, that is violence. If it's a surgeon trying to perform a life-saving operation on me, that is not violence. Um, you know, intent. So intentionality does factor into the definite definition of violence. Anyway, I don't want to get lost in the weeds. But no, I don't think uses of force, all uses of force should be defined as violence. Now, if somebody is using violence to rescue those in human trafficking,

the going in and shooting the traffickers, slitting throats of the bad guys, I would say that doesn't, I don't think that would resonate with the Christian manner in which we are called to address evil. I do think nonviolence is the Christian manner in which we should address evil. But look, the hardest one for my position, like when I think about my position in nonviolence, it is cases like the protection of innocent people where I still think nonviolence is the way. But that would be one where I'm like, gosh, that to me is tough for me, especially something as raw and atrocious as human trafficking. But again, yeah, theologically, I would say that nonviolence is the most powerful and most Christian and most cross-centered means by which Christians should pursue justice in the world and fight against evil. Next question from Anonymous. What are my thoughts on the He Gets Us ad from the Super Bowl? I didn't watch the Super Bowl,

so I didn't see the ad. I just kind of heard about it, saw the buzz online. And honestly, I guess I just have kind of a contrarian spirit about me, for good or for ill. So when there's some cultural thing that flares up and people on the left and people on the right sort of line up behind their talking points. Like, what does our side believe? Okay, we're against the ad. What does our side believe? No, we're for the ad. And they just kind of line up like sheep behind their respective viewpoints that their tribe is telling them to have. I typically am going to resist that. I'm typically going to say, all right, I'm probably going to take another approach. I also don't like knee-jerk stuff.

I like to really think through things before I just make sure I echo the talking points of whatever tribe I belong to and whatever my tribe says I need to think about a certain thing. So, you know, I don't know. When it first came out, I mean, the He Gets Us, it's been out for a few years, right? I don't know why it just recently flared up.

But here's my first, I remember seeing my first He Gets Us years right i don't know why i just recently flared up but um here's my here my first i remember seeing my first he gets us ad i don't know i didn't know what it was but i was like huh that that's a different kind of christian commercial like i thought it was good like imaginative and the tone and kind of the message was like oh that that's that's not your typical like highway evangelism kind of thing or your typical tract of here's 10 reasons why you're going to hell, repent now or whatever. It was seemed to kind of resonate a bit more with like connecting aspects of the Christian of Jesus that would actually resonate with a broader audience. I was like, oh, that's interesting. So I was kind of like, oh, I kind of like this. But then my immediate thought was, how many millions of dollars did it take to put this ad there? And could that money have been given to the poor? Not just given to the

poor, but gone to meet other many, many needs in the world. I I've just, you know, I spent a lot of time in, or I have spent a lot of time in Nepal and I think of how much money, how many pastors you could have funded to help fund in a hard to reach area where the gospel is really spreading like crazy. Or how, what if we gave it to the Chinese church, underground Chinese church? Anyway, whenever I look at a lot of money being spent within the realm of Christianity, that's just where my mind naturally goes. Is this the best use of the money? Maybe it is. It's a question that I just often raise. I also want to know what's the motivation behind it. Is it even effective? What has been the result, not just in conversions necessarily, but on long-term discipleship?

How many seeds have been planted in good soil that lasts a lifetime as a result of this campaign? And is it worth the money that was spent into it? And is that even the right question to ask? Should we even ask the effectiveness? Is that even too transactional? So anyway, I don't know what I think about it. Those are the questions that I ask. Yeah. I'll just leave it at that. I do like the messages of he gets as much better than highway sign theology that I see here in Idaho and other similar ways in which Christians have gone about evangelizing through kind of brief ads.

Whether brief ads are ever ineffective or helpful or good use of money, that's, I guess, another question. Another anonymous questioner here says, what are ways faith communities can better honor and actively support those who feel called to remain single for life? This is a great question. I love this question. I think the very question itself is the first step. And that in our culture today, there can be some unique challenges to those who are living a life of singleness and celibacy.

And that, as many of my friends say, we can live without sex, but we can't live without love and intimacy. And we all belong in family, spiritual family that runs thicker. The blood of our spiritual family runs thicker than the blood of our biological family. Or just as thick as the blood of our biological family, you might want to put it. And so I think just recognizing the need is a great first step. I would say just our churches, so faith communities can cultivate a better theology of singleness and marriage, to establish it in the air of the church. And you might need to repeat it over and over and over and over. You know, when pastors and preachers get on a hobby horse and you just know that like, you know, a few times a month, you're going to hear him kind of repeat, you know, whatever

hobby horse thing that that pastor is on. And sometimes it can be annoying, but if it's true and biblical and needed, then I think repeating it several times can be really helpful and good. So like even the idea that we shouldn't use the phrase, you know, especially a parent of our kids, you know, when you get married, dot, dot, dot, or, you know, rather we should say, if God is calling you to marriage, because marriage is not a guarantee. There's not a verse in the New Testament that says you will get married. So if God isn't promising people marriage, then who am I to make promises that God didn't make?

I also want to establish in the cultural air of the church, the idea that you can live, the very biblical New Testament idea, that you can live a God-honoring, flourishing, happy life as a single person. I think the opposite view, that you need a spouse to thrive, to flourish, to not be lonely or whatever, I think is theologically very problematic. But again, it is so ingrained in our minds and hearts as Christians in 21st century America that marriage is the solution to loneliness, that you can't be happy or complete until you're married. I think women especially feel this,

that you're not really a complete woman until you get married. I think that is just a really bad and dangerous theology. So I would want to reverse that air first. You would need to address, I think, that theology that just sort of hangs in the air of the church, that singleness is sort of a stage of life just to get through until God blesses you with a spouse. And then you will have wonderful sex over and over for the rest of your life. All your needs will be met. You won't be lonely anymore. And that is nothing but a disastrous recipe for even teaching marriage, let alone single people. I think we'll understand the beautiful vocation of singleness if they are taught explicitly or implicitly that it's a miserable stage to get through. That's just not, that doesn't reflect the New Testament teaching on singleness. Um, and then

finally, I would say, um, I think encouraging families to open up their homes and lives and just being aware of people who are, who are single, uh, around holidays, around, you know, birthdays and Thanksgiving and Christmas and Christmas Eve, and just trying to integrate single people into, if you are married with kids and a family and everything, trying to integrate people who are single into your lives, I think would be another good step. All right, next question. What is the orthodox way to think of women being made in the image of God? the orthodox way to think of women being made in the image of God? God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit are not typically she, her. How are women then made in their image? Ooh, this is good. This is really good. Good question. I'm going to recommend, well, I haven't read her book, but I interviewed her on

the podcast. Amy Peeler of Wheaton College has done some good work. Well, sorry, has done work in this area. I don't like to say it's good unless I read it, but I've heard great things about it. And I've been talking to her on the podcast really, really sharp. And I think she probably has a lot of reflections on this question in her book. I'm blinking on the name of her book, but Amy Peeler, P-E-E-L-E-R. While God, well, God the Father and God the Son are both referred to them as male identities. The Father, that is a male identity. The Son, that is a male identity. And Jesus, when he became a man, Son of God became man.

He took on a male. He was male. And Jesus now in his resurrected state is, is male. The Holy Spirit's a little trickier. And even the, and even when thinking of God, the father, God, the father, okay, a male identity, but Jesus says God is spirit and we worship him in spirit and truth. So God, the father does not have a male body.

So already that that's like, huh, that's interesting. So sort of referred to through a male identity of father, but doesn't have a male body. Holy Spirit's tricky because the Greek word pneuma is feminine, right? In Hebrew, is that feminine? I forget. Shoot. Is that feminine? I forget. Shoot. The language of the Holy Spirit does have feminine terminology, but that doesn't necessarily mean the Holy Spirit's a woman. But Holy Spirit doesn't have really a specific male identity. I believe some are masculine pronouns used to refer to the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. This gets tricky. And I would invite you to go do some research on this because some people cite masculine pronouns, refer the Holy Spirit because they're masculine in English. But if you look at the Greek, they're actually called neuters. portion of the Patreon-only Q&A podcast. If you would like to listen to the full-length episode and receive other bonus content like monthly podcasts, opportunities to ask questions,

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