"by faith alone" or "alone by faith"?

 Cahill:

Far more serious, however, is Luther's purposive mistranslation..of Romans 3:28, which reads in the King James Version, 'Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.'  To the word 'faith,' Luther attached the word 'alone,' which does not appear in the text of the Bible, thus changing the meaning of Paul's statement (allein  durch den Glauben, 'alone by faith' in the German word order) for the sake of backing up his own professed faith.  But this misstatement cancels out the entire point of The Letter of James--"by works a man is justified, and not by faith only" (2:24)--which Luther derided anyway as an 'epistle of straw' -Heretics and Heroes, p. 224
link
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When Martin Luther translated that verse in his German Bible, he added the word alone (allein), which is not there in the original Greek, after the word faith. He explained:

It is the nature of the German language to add the word allein [alone, only] in order that the word nicht [not] or kein [no] may be clearer and more complete. To be sure, I can also say, “The farmer brings grain and kein money,” but the words “kein money” do not sound as full and clear as if I were to say, “The farmer brings allein grain and kein money.” Here the word allein helps the word kein so much that it becomes a complete, clear German expression. (Luther’s Works 35:189)  Link

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 Luther responded to critics:

If your papist prattles any more about this word alone, tell him that Doctor Martin Luther wishes it to be so; sic volo, sic jubeo, sit pro ratione Voluntas—I wish so, I order so, let my will be sufficient reason for it...."Papist' and 'ass' are the same thing    link
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 Ironic that the word order  of Luther's translation might actually work (against him); note it doesn't literally say "by faith alone," but "alone by faith"..Hmmm, how might you interpret this:

"So we now hold it, that man is justified, without doing the works of the law, alone by faith."

reading Scripture with its own hub symbols (not our own), prophetic (not royal) consciousness, and outwordliness of the third (not 1st or 2nd) kind

Note: if anyone reading this has all three of these books, let's get together yesterday(:

1) Kent Blevins:

Webb discusses 'hub symbols'--our deepest values, those things most sacred to us to us,  the self-evident facts that are assumed as part of the way things  are.. The hard truth is that we do not go to the Bible and derive our values from it.  Every one of us has a system of hub symbols formed before we ever consciously  engage  the Bible..If we have a truth-seeker's openness to correction, that hub symbols inherent to the text itself will gradually become more and more powerful....  p107, 117 of "How to Read the Bible Without Losing Your Mind"

2)How is this mode of reading/re-reading related to what Brueggemann has coined
prophetic consciousness (vs. royal consciousness)?.  See especially chapter two of "The Prophetic Imagination" (The Royal Consciousness: Countering the Counterculture):

The task of

prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish,

and evoke a consciousness and perception

alternative to the consciousness and

perception of the dominant culture around us  (3)

 ....The imagination must come before the implementation. Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing. The same royal consciousness that makes it possible to implement anything and everything is the one that shrinks imagination because imagination is a danger. Thus every totalitarian regime is frightened of the artist. It is the vocation of the prophet to keep alive the ministry of imagination, to keep on conjuring and proposing alternative futures to the single one the king wants to urge as the only thinkable one.” (pg. 45)

3)And how is all this a Pauline  "otherwordliness of the third kind" via a centered/fuzzy setness:

It is not an outworldliness not just in the sense that a Christ-believer objectively belongs with and in a future state (of being justified by God on the day of judgement and taking up some kind of life in the heavenly politeuma), nor in the sense that he subjectively understands himself, for his own individual part alone, as belonging with Christ. No. It is also an outworldliness of the third kind we identified. It is one that shows iteslf in 'the present evil world' to which Paul has  been crucified, namely in  a specific  set of genuinely other-regarding mental attitudes towards other human beings (believers and non-believers) and in the practice of that set — in that world. -Troels Engberg-Pederrson, Paul and the Stoics, p 177

"I have developed a sick religious consciousness"

You know it's going to be a good post when the opening line is:

"I have developed a sick religious consciousness."

Here it is, from Anthony Velez

"teach me what I already know”

Sermon excerpt from "Endlessly Falling":

"All of us tend to hold certainty dearer than truth. We want to learn only what we already know;
 to be who we always have been.” -William Sloane Coffin

Do you find Coffin’s words reflective of you?

I do. More than I’d like to think or admit.

I’ve been told in many ways by people over the years that the reason they went to church was largely for edification, not for information or education. It’s the same reason I stayed away from the faith for a few years.

...St. Paul said in 1 Corinthians that we see “through a mirror darkly” in this world. If that’s the case, we sure have a bunch of people running around pretending they have the mirror polish to clear it all up.

Including the church.

...The Magi provide a model that is the antidote for the “teach me what I already know” tendency of the world. They are open to learning and being more..The Magi coming from distant lands are following signs..

And look at today; today we have a glimpse of failure. A shadow. The Magi’s first stop is the palace in Jerusalem! They chose door number one…and it was the wrong one. It’s good to start out the New Year hearing of someone else’s mistake; it gives me a lot permission to screw up, too.

The knock on the door of the palace at Jerusalem was the Magi saying, “Teach me what I already know: Power, riches, fame, from this comes salvation.”

But they had to unlearn. They had to open themselves up even more to the mystery that is God’s salvation, a salvation coming from the unlikely place.

And when bowing at the manger, putting down their gold and frankincense and myrrh, they unlearn even more. Some scholars think this act was an indication that they were giving up their old ways of doing things, their old ways of being. Gold for monetary influence, frankincense as mind-numbing substance control, myrrh, the funeral spice, for violence and death.

And if there are things we could and should give up today as a people, maybe even to a person, perhaps it’s the idea that everything can be solved by money, escapism, or violence…

Truly, giving up those things would be a rejection of the “Teach me what I already know” mentality. Because if there’s one thing I already know it’s that we’re under the impression that money, violence, and escapism is the answer to the questions of life. God: let us unlearn it.

And after the Magi throw down their tools, their way of knowing (we kindly call them gifts, but what if it was more of a gift for them to unload it? After all, what does a 2 year old need with gold, perfume, and funeral oil?!), they go home by a different path. They don’t even entertain Herod and the thought of power, anymore. Funny, of course, to imagine them doing this. By law they should have gone back to Herod. But not everything lawful is ethical… LINK

Shift Happens in the 1860s and 2010s: ecclesiological impressionism and Judas burnings

I am convinced that studying earlier eras of cultural shift/liminal transition helps us get a better handle on "this weird moment in

history" (David Dark's phrase)..

For example:

1)

I wanted to show how many of the issues we think are unique to our time have actually confronted the church for a long time. Nineteenth-century Paris was wrestling with new ideas in politics, art, terrorism, technology, sexuality, and secularism. It was in many ways the first modern city, reinvented around creativity, consumerism, and a highly visual media landscape. It was filled with competing ideologies: conservative, liberal, Christian, atheist, socialist, capitalist. It is a great period to examine in order to allow the reader to examine our own culture with fresh eyes.

It’s humbling to realize that what we see as the issues of our day are much older. When you realize this you discover that previous generations of Christians have wrestled with these questions. For example, in the mid–20th century, a whole generation of leading intellectuals and writers—T. S. Eliot, Dorothy Sayers, Evelyn Waugh, and numerous others—were concerned by what they saw as the destructive trajectory of modern culture, and returned to faith. Such stories give hope that some­thing like that could happen again. -Mark Sayers

Which, in turn, got me interested in this book:

The Judgment of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade  (1860s) That Gave the World Impressionism

Hmm, maybe we're entering an age of ecclesiological impressionism.
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Then there's this, from the same decade:

2)Click the read the "Judas at the Jockey Club" chapter, pp 89-14 here.

As an American in the late 1800's, owning a farm was not too uncommon, especially if that farm was located in Mexico. At this time, though, Mexico was in the Porfirian Era (1876-1911). In this certain era, Mexico was being encountered by two very different cultures at the same time: the industrial, and the traditional. These distinctively separate cultures impacting Mexico made it as what can be described as "backwards" in a sense, as Mexico was practically regressing as the world around it was moving on to bigger and better things. Mexico was so behind that "many had concluded that Mexico had yet to advance beyond chipped rocks as utensils." (p.67). Mexico at this time had locked itself in a stagnancy of its own traditions. The people were simply too anxious towards newer technology to move ahead and replace what they had known for so long.  Judas at the Jockey Club/ Austin Pabian



This brilliant and eminently readable cultural history looks at Mexican life during the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, from 1876 to 1911. At that time Mexico underwent modernization, which produced a fierce struggle between the traditional and the new and exacerbating class antagonisms. In these pages, the noted historian William H. Beezley illuminates many facets of everyday Mexican life lying at the heart of this conflict and change, including sports, storytelling, healthcare, technology, and the traditional Easter-time Judas burnings that became a primary focus of the strife during those years   (emphasis mine)

Judas at the Jockey Club and Other Episodes of Porfirian Mexico (Second Edition) by

William H. Beezley

Following his discussion on sports and Mexican hierarchal society, Beezley moves on to Mexico’s technology during modernization and what it meant for people. Previously, Mexico had never tried to modernize; however, during Porfirian rule, this was the main concern. Before modernization, the people had rudimentary technology. The author talks about their clothes and how men and women barely wore anything before Porfirio Díaz ruled. Also, he covers field technology. The interesting thing is that even after receiving more advanced technology, the people altered it to resemble their old tools. Another new technology was that of the bicycle, previously mentioned, which showed sophistication and class according to the elites. Overall, this was a time of changing technology enforced by the government, while the people still clung to tradition.
The author Beezley follows up the previous sections, sports and technology, with the final section on Mexican traditional celebrations, in particular, the Jockey Club Judas burning episode. First, to make things more clear, the author explains what a Judas burning is. Judas burnings is a secular event which occurs after Lent and Holy Week. Artisans craft piñata type effigies, often resembling someone or signifying something, which would be burned in celebration. Before delving into the actual Judas burning to which the title refers, it sets up the history of Judas burnings and how they are celebrated around the world. He highlights places like Spain, Germany, Venezuela, and Italy. One example is how the Germans believed that the ashes from the burned Judas, if planted on May Day, could help to prevent the blight. Beliefs like this stemmed all through Europe and Latin America. Judas burnings first appeared in Mexico at around the early 16th century; however, the exact date is still unknown. Some interesting facts which the author included about the burnings were that usually the Judas effigies contained fireworks and even sometimes had live cats insides, or, they would be laced with sausages and coins. Reading about the combination of cats and fireworks really shocked me.  However, this was something that normally occurred to thrill people and give them a sense of life and death. Now, although Judas burnings were a sense of celebration, they also signified a time for social disorder. Judas burnings were opportunities to put a face on the things which they felt were oppressing them. It was a time for the world to be turned upside down and for social equality to prevail. It was a time of social reversals. The author said that, “servants and laborers of every sort refuse to work; you can neither do anything nor get anything done. The only recourse is to spend your time in the streets like the rest” (Beezley).  So, join to the streets they did, and this is what led to the Jockey Club episode.
What occurred during this fateful and last Judas burning sponsored by the Jockey Club is only one example of social disorder caused by Judas burnings. For this event, there were four Judas figures who were riding in a hot air balloon. The figures included a mulatto covered with sausages and coins, a butter vendor also covered with the sausages and coins, a singer playing the guitar covered with pesos, and a beggar also covered with pesos. Every piece of the display symbolized something. Nothing was coincidental.
So, what happened to Judas burnings and this opportunity for the people to rebel? Well, the government finally succeeded in outlawing it for a while; however, Judas burnings could not be kept quiet for very long when in 1905 there was a world economic crisis, in 1908 there were Judas burnings in retaliation. Unfortunately, the government which valued order succeeded in quieting Judas burnings by turning them into child’s activities which the author compares to the Fourth of July.
To conclude, Porfirian rule was a difficult, controversial time for Mexico. Old and new intermingled and clashed. This was portrayed through sports and leisure activities, technology, and celebrations. It was felt and rebelled against. It was a true example of liberalism and conservatism in Latin America. In the end, Judas at the Jockey Club is a book which conveys the sentiments of a people embarking on a new age.  link

I have some pages marked in the Judas at the Jockey Club that trigger some parallels to our current ecclesiological/culture shift:

"Because the Judas burnings were not officially sanctioned by either  church or civic officials, this festival had a spontaneous and creative character. These celebrations, without official approval or support, remained outside the prestige system and manipulation of even the confraternities (Catholic lay brotherhoods called cofradias) .When a shopkeeper, a merchant, or the Jockey Club exploded a Judas it did so without a bureaucracy, without creating a Judas Day committee (except in 1893), and without giving prestige to the person who hosted the burning.  The informality of the celebration emphasized the extra-official character of the event that became the freedom of action of the people who rejoiced at the end of Lent. ...
All those who witnessed the destruction of Judas or who heard the explosions were involved.  None remained aloof.  Understanding the ritual requires that the people be seen as united participants rather than divided into actors and audience...
The Judas festivals dramatically demonstrate social reversal. Social inversions fulfill several functions; they serve as rebellious rituals, role reversals, and institutionalized clowning ...
Washing of feet took place..
..The changing location of the Judas  burnings graphically displays the struggle in Mexico between two segments in society ...medieval heritage of authoritarianism and Roman Catholicism embellished by exigency with indigenous practices. This tradition was shouldered aside by the emergent culture of capitalism and material development that promoters called Progress.  pp 95-107...

Well, there are plenty of dots to connect.  Just read that paragraph without the historical variables, lather, rinse repeat..and apply to today.

One intriguing app: the "institutional clowning" of Judas.
MacPhisto anybody?  Holy fool?

See

• \GEEZ:adbusters, culture jamming, holy fools
• Bono: "Don't lose your faith in this holy clown/idiot"
• holy heteroclite:: "Es una mentira como una catedral."

 Other connections to this decade and ours?
US Civil War?

"The single most effective way to study the Bible in our digital age"

James Michael-Smith of  the Disciple Dojo, is a great Bible teacher..be sure to  click below and try out what he calls:
 

"The single most effective way I know of to study the Bible in our digital age"

Kognitiv Lienguistix: some links on Sapir-Whorf and the Bible

•  this excerpt from From Orality to Orality: A New Paradigm for Contextual Translation of the Bible
•  Hebrew and Greek thought: Sapir-Whorf
• The Effect of Language upon Thinking by Michael Marlowe 
•  : Sapir-Whorf and Biblical Languages