Book Review: God Unseen, A Theological Introduction to Esther

“The primary conundrum of Esther, then, is what to do with a biblical book that seems so unbiblical” (p. 45). It is this puzzle which Nathan Ward’s introduction to the Book of Esther, GodUnseen, seeks to solve.

After a preliminary section which sets out the textual and interpretive history of the book, Ward tackles the enigma of Esther, the complete absence of the name of God. His thesis is that “God is the hero of the book” (p. 93), and he makes a compelling case for this thesis by focusing on the interbiblical dialogue in Esther. Ward compiles a fascinating survey of the many allusions to the rest of the Hebrew Scripture found in Esther. The story of Esther, then, is right at home in the broader story of Israel in the Old Testament.

Once he establishes this canonical context for the book, Ward then narrows his focus to the sixth chapter of Esther, the turning point of the book. At the crux of the plot, the human heroes, Mordecai and Esther, are nowhere to be found, thus implying that the stunning reversals that unfold cannot be the work of man, and must ultimately be the work of God (p. 94-95).   

The final section of the book draws out the practical implications for Christians living as spiritual exiles just as Esther and Mordecai lived as national exiles. And as our culture drifts further from God, He seems as silent as He did in the time of Esther. That makes the Book of Esther, and this excellent introduction, extremely pertinent and practical for our own time. Like Esther and Mordecai, we cannot say for certain how God will act in His providence. But like them, we can be certain that He does act, and trust in His power by offering faithful obedience.

I highly recommend this book. On a personal note, Nathan is a former student of mine. I am immensely proud of him and his work, and I am happy to recommend this to others. Many thanks to Nathan for providing me with an advance copy to review.

Tuesdays with Thomas 13: The Trinity (Part 3)

Here is the latest installment of Tuesdays with Thomas, a continuation of Aquinas's view of the Trinity.

The Ministry of Truth, 2016 Style

In George Orwell's chilling novel, 1984, Winston Smith (the novel's tragic main

character) works for the "Ministry of Truth." His job is to make sure that reality conforms to the wishes of "Big Brother." In part he does this by editing the news so that all of Big Brother's predictions are accurate. This task might require altering what Big Brother actually predicted, or it may mean twisting the facts so that the news is filtered through a prism that always makes Big Brother look good. In short, the Ministry of Truth controls all information - the news media, the arts community, the schools - in order to serve the interests of Big Brother. 

Tuesdays with Thomas 12: The Trinity (Part 2)

Here is a link to the second part of my discussion of Aquinas on the Trinity.

Tuesdays with Thomas 11: The Trinity (Part 1)

Here is the link to the latest edition of Tuesdays with Thomas, the first of several videos that will explore Aquinas's discussion of the Trinity. 

Tuesdays with Thomas Roundup

I am taking a pause from making new videos this week in order to list all of the Tuesdays with Thomas videos I have made so far. Coming up next - Aquinas on the Trinity! In the meantime, here's what we've covered so far:
Episode 1: Why Study Thomas Aquinas?
Episode 2: Aquinas and Aristotle
Episode 3: The Summa
Episode 4: Faith, Reason, and Scripture
Episode 5: The First Way
Episode 6: The Second Way
Episode 7: The Third Way
Episode 8: The Fourth Way
Episode 9: The Fifth Way
Episode 10: The Attributes of God

Tuesdays with Thomas 10: The Attributes of God

This week's Tuesdays with Thomas draws out the attributes of God based on the arguments summarized in the Five Ways. 

Tuesdays with Thomas 9: The Fifth Way

In this video we will take a look at Aquinas's Fifth Way to demonstrate the existence of God, the argument from design. However, as you will see, Aquinas's version of this argument is much different from contemporary "intelligent design" arguments.

The Billion Dollar Man

For some time I have been trying to find the right frame of reference to understand the appeal of Donald Trump as a presidential candidate. It isn’t hard to grasp why so many voters find an “outsider” appealing – lots of working class Democrats and Republicans feel like their party establishments have taken them for granted. With regard to some of the issues that Trump features in his campaign - illegal immigration, harmful trade deals, reckless intervention in the Middle East – there is no real difference between the Democratic and Republican establishments, despite the feelings of many (most?) rank and file voters.

So there is no lack of reasons for voters to be angry and to look for someone who is not perceived as in insider. Many voters on the left and right feel unrepresented and exploited by the moneyed interests that control both parties. This explains the incredible popularity of Bernie Sanders, Ben Carson, Donald Trump, and to a lesser extent, Ted Cruz. 2016 is a great year for an insurgency candidacy.

But out of all of these options, why has Donald Trump been able to galvanize so much support? The recurring refrain I hear is that he “tells it like it is” – “he means what he says.” And yet this is the one thing that is demonstrably FALSE about Donald Trump. He does not tell it like it is, and he does not mean what he says. And this has been pointed out over, and over, and over again. Just the other night I almost fell off of the couch when Trump said that the IRS might be auditing him because he was such a strong Christian. This despite the fact that he has claimed never to ask for forgiveness, even though he has done many things that by ANY definition of Christianity would merit the need for forgiveness (like serial adultery, for starters).

How then to explain the Donald Trump phenomenon? How can someone whose personal character is so deplorable, whose political positions are so malleable, and whose public persona is so juvenile, be winning state after state in the GOP primaries?

And then it hit me – the answer is professional wrestling.

I am a long-time fan of pro wrestling. I still have the championship belt I made as a child as part of the wrestling fun we would have in my neighborhood growing up. Every month I would go to Rupp Arena to see Jerry “the King” Lawler take on the newest bad guy (“heel” in wrestling lingo) brought in by dastardly manager Jimmy Hart. I still love to watch videos of the old school stuff.

Some of you are sneering at the very mention of “rasslin” and feel it necessary to point out that it’s “fake”. Well, duh! It is entertainment, like a play or a movie. And no one walks out of a movie saying, “It’s fake.” Pro wrestling, at its finest, gave just enough reality to allow its fans to suspend disbelief and enjoy the matches as if they were legitimate athletic contests. And the enjoyment came in the visceral “good guy vs bad guy” drama presented in the ring. Of course, back in the day there were always a few people who didn’t see through the illusion, and actually thought the show was completely legit (these fans were called “marks” by the wrestlers). But most of us knew what we were watching, permitted the suspension of disbelief, and enjoyed the show for what it was.

For many years Donald Trump has excelled at a performance art that claims to be “real” but is in fact highly choreographed -  “reality television.” And before that, The Donald was heavily involved in professional wrestling. Trump Plaza in Atlantic City hosted two Wrestlemanias, and in 2007 he appeared in WrestleMania 23 in a match against Vince McMahon dubbed the “Battle of the Billionaires.” Trump’s connections with the WWE are so strong that in 2013 he was inducted into the celebrity wing of the WWE Hall of Fame. 

And just like any good wrestler, Donald Trump has managed to perform in such a way as to get over with the fans (the electorate). Despite his painfully obvious lack of substance, some voters have even become marks for him (and I would guess it is roughly the same group of people that think rasslin is real and Obama isn’t an American).

But I don’t think most people supporting Trump are marks. They are just so fed up with the status quo in Washington that they are willing to suspend disbelief about Trump’s character failings, about his deeply un-American authoritarianism, about his demagoguery on the issues, and support him out of the visceral satisfaction that this somehow sticks it to the real bad guys.

I get that. I feel frustrated with the establishment as well. I have little respect for the parties and their unwillingness to tackle the entitlement crisis, their cowardly failure to stand up to the Israelis and Saudis in our Middle Eastern policy, and their failure to work together against the extremists on the right and the left. But Donald Trump is not the right person to carry the banner for reform and renewal. His track record offers absolutely no reason to believe that what he says today is what he will do tomorrow. He is not the voice of the anti-establishment. For decades he has been the establishment.

One of the great heels in wrestling was a character called “The Million Dollar Man” (Ted DiBiase). His gimmick was that he was incredibly wealthy, and could buy whatever he wanted – even the championship. Each week he would come out on TV and select a fan to do some sort of demeaning task for a sum of money, always with the slogan, “Everyone has a price for the Million Dollar Man.” 

Donald Trump is proud of his billions, and apparently, there are lots of people who do have a price. They have decided to sacrifice civility, thoughtfulness, and prudence to vote for the Billion Dollar Man. As angry as I am, and as frustrated as I am, this is a price I cannot pay. 

Tuesdays with Thomas 8: The Fourth Way

This week's video is about the Fourth Way, Aquinas's argument for God as the Supreme Being. I am indebted especially to Edward Feser's discussion in his introductory book on Aquinas for help on this video. 

Tuesdays with Thomas 7: The Third Way

Here is my latest video on the thought of Thomas Aquinas. In this video I discuss the Third Way, probably the most misunderstood of the Five Ways.

Tuesdays with Thomas 6: The Second Way

Here is this week's edition of Tuesdays with Thomas. In this video we will look at the Second Way, the argument for God's existence as the First Cause (or Uncaused Cause).

The Dehumanizing Evil That Is NARAL

During Sunday's Super Bowl, the snack company Doritos ran an ad showing an expectant mother receiving a sonogram while the father looks on, eating Doritos. With each bite, the baby responds, reaching for the chips. At one point the mother grabs a chip and throws it, leading the baby to suddenly emerge to get the chip.

NARAL (which is what the National Abortion Rights Action League is now called) immediately responded with this tweet:

According to NARAL, showing a baby craving salty snack chips is a "tactic," and in particular, a tactic with the audacity of "humanizing fetuses."

This tweet may be the most stupid and evil tweet in the history of pro-choice advocacy.

First, as to its stupidity, how is it possible to "humanize" something that is already self-evidently a human? No one questions that the fetus of a man and woman is a human fetus. From conception, human beings have unique genetic coding that make them human, as opposed to a plant or an animal. This is a simple scientific fact. As this wonderful video explains, "Fertilization is the epic story of a single sperm facing incredible odds to unite with an egg and form a new human life." 

So at conception something exists - that makes it a "being," and it is human - that makes it a "human being."

The debate between pro-lifers (like me) and pro-choicers is not whether the fetus is a human being, but whether the fetus is a person with Constitutionally protected rights. But no ethicist who argues for abortion rights, including writers like Peter Singer and David Boonin, denies that the fetus is a human. So this is the epic stupidity of NARAL's tweet.

But what classifies this tweet as not merely idiotic but truly evil is the implicit position NARAL is taking on the question of personhood. The Supreme Court's opinion in Roe v Wade declared that the fetus was not a person until the moment of viability, the time in fetal development when the baby could potentially live outside the mother's womb. In 1973, the Court determined that this was at the start of the third trimester. Of course, since then we have seen advances in medical technology that make viability a possibility much earlier than seven months.

But in the case of the Doritos commercial, this baby was not a newly conceived embryo, or even a two or three month old fetus. If you saw the commercial, it was obvious that the baby is nearly full term. This is made explicit by what the attending nurse says in the ad: "And there's your beautiful baby. Any day now."

Yet according to NARAL's tweet, a baby that is in the latest stages of the third trimester - that is days away from being born - is not only without the rights of personhood; that baby is NOT EVEN HUMAN.

When an ideology has so gripped the mindset of an organization that it cannot recognize the humanity of a baby days before it is born, then it is only a matter of time before such an ideology blinds it to the humanity of a baby days after it is born. And that is why this is the perhaps the most evil tweet ever by pro-choice advocates. 

Tuesdays with Thomas 5: The First Way

Here is the latest video installment of Tuesdays with Thomas, a look at the First Way to demonstrate the existence of God.

Songs of the Brokenhearted

This morning I was delighted to speak in the chapel assembly at my alma mater, Florida College. Here are my remarks.

Songs of the Brokenhearted

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?    Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
    and by night, but I find no rest.

 (Psalm 22:1-2)

Christ in Gethsemane, by Michael O'Brien

Those are the opening words of the 22nd psalm, probably more familiar to us as one of the few utterances of Jesus on the cross. It comes from a category of psalms you learn about in Old Testament Poetry called laments, songs of the brokenhearted. The grief expressed in these psalms may be caused by a catastrophic defeat in battle, or a grave illness, or a grievous personal failing. Or, as in the case of Psalm 22, by the hounding of enemies who threaten to take the psalmist’s life.

In the time since I was in school here I have noticed a wonderful trend in the songs we sing together. The book we used when I was a student contained very few songs straight out of the Book of Psalms. But the book you use now incorporates a lot of them. And yet, even with this wider use of the biblical psalms in our hymnals, I can’t think of any psalms like this one in our songbooks. 

Why is that? Ancient Israel sang them - by one count 70 of the 150 psalms are songs of mourning. The early Christians sang them - Jesus prayed one of them on the cross. So why our hesitance in using these psalms in our worship?

I wonder if it’s because we are uncomfortable being so direct with God, so transparent about our disappointments and frustrations with Him. “Why are you so far from saving me!” I don’t know about you, but I am reluctant to speak like this with God.

And in our churches and on a campus like Florida College, we can feel a certain pressure to be up all the time, to be unfailingly cheerful, as if every day brings a new victory. But that is not what life in the real world is like. In the real world we sometimes fail miserably. In the real world we see loved ones suffer. In the real world we have days where it feels like our world is falling apart. These psalms are the for those who are completely disoriented by disappointment. 

From our point of view, we understand that these ancient songs were inspired by God. That means that when these songs cry out in doubt and despair, it is ultimately God’s word that is being spoken. God gave these songs to His people, to us. And that tells me that while I may be uncomfortable with some of this language, God is not. We might have social expectations that everyone is happy all the time, but God does not. He doesn’t expect us to be happy - just honest.

And He wants us to be honest with Him, with how we feel about His relationship with us. Israel used these psalms in their collective worship at the temple, the place where Lord’s presence was its most immediate. It was in the very house of God that the Israelites complained about God to God! “Why have you forsaken me?” 

The most dangerous thing we can ever do is try to keep our broken-heartedness from God. Because once we start partitioning a section of our heart from God, we are deluding ourselves into thinking He doesn’t really know us from the inside-out, and that is the pathway to hypocrisy.

Psalm 147:3 says, “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” The first step in that healing process is to tell God that our hearts are broken. 

And we can tell Him that - we can truly cast all our cares on Him, because He cares for us. And in those moments of transparency with God, when we tell Him it feels like He has utterly forsaken us, we can know that He cares, because when He entered our story in Jesus of Nazareth, He said the same thing. The joy of the Christian is not the absence of sorrow, but the presence of God in the midst of our sorrow. Through these psalms and in the cross we know that God is with us and for us.

Tuesdays with Thomas 4: Faith, Reason, and Scripture

This week's video touches on what Thomas said about the relationship of faith, reason, and Scripture. Pus, there's a little Karate Kid discussion, too!

Is The Force Awakens Just a Knockoff of A New Hope? A Thomistic Response

Summa bellum stellarum

Question VII

Of The Force Awakens

First Article

Whether The Force Awakens was a knockoff of A New Hope?

[Note: several plot potencies are actualized in this article.]

We proceed thus to the First Article:-

Objection 1.  It seems that The Force Awakens is merely a remake of A New Hope. For, as some have said, it features a protégé who betrays his mentor, as Kylo Ren betrayed Luke. This is just as when Anakin betrayed Obi Wan. Therefore it seems as if The Force Awakens is merely a remake of A New Hope.

Obj. 2. Further, A New Hope was about the conflict between the Rebel Alliance and The Galactic Empire and its ominous battle station. Similarly, in The Force Awakens, the conflict is between the Resistance and The First Order and its even more ominous Starkiller battle station. Therefore it seems as if The Force Awakens is merely a remake of A New Hope.

Obj. 3. Further, the main hero of A New Hope is a young person, apparently fatherless, who is from a desert planet. The main hero of The Force Awakens is also a young person, apparently fatherless, who is from a desert planet. Therefore it seems as if The Force Awakens is merely a remake of A New Hope.

On the contrary, It is written: The Force Awakens “dishes out familiarity without apology and arranges it in such a way that, even as we recognize the patterns and beats, it feels fresh and invigorating and, lest we forget what's really at stake here, fun” (James Kendrick, Q Network Film Desk).

I answer that, since The Force Awakens is the continuation of the saga of the first six films, and since those films revolved around the rise, fall, and redemption of Anakin Skywalker, that in order to maintain that narrative arc, a similar cycle had to be repeated in Anakin’s family. Since Anakin is dead, and since he only had two children, the only logical option therefore was to focus on the elements of the rise, fall, and redemption of his grandchildren. If the sequels completely departed from this theme, they would totally undermine the integrity and diminish the beauty of the original six movies. Therefore, there had to be a fundamental similarity between the old movies and the new movies, and especially between episodes IV and VII, in which Anakin’s child/grandchildren are introduced as heroes.

Reply to Objection 1. While it is true that both movies involve the betrayal of a mentor, Kylo Ren’s murder of his father is unprecedented. Thus we do not have a simple “remake,” but an artistic mix of old themes with new variations.

Reply Obj. 2.  The repeated effort of a centralized power to control the universe (The Galactic Empire and The First Order) is hardly surprising, given the fact that actual history is replete with many examples of the same impulse toward empire  (Napoleon’s repeated efforts, Germany and Russia, etc). Further, acquisition of the ultimate weapon to secure power has always been a driving force in actual history, and it is no surprise that such a motif would reappear in the Star Wars saga. And of course, because freedom is also a powerful and natural impulse, there will always be resistance movements to such efforts. Therefore we do not have a mere “remake,” but a reflection of the way things are in history.

Reply Obj. 3.  There are two reasons something may be said to be just like something else. One is because it is a mindless copy. But the other is because it is an artistic motif. It is in this second sense that there are many similarities between Rey and Luke. The filmmakers want us to see her as a “second coming” of Luke, quite possibly as his daughter. Recall, one of the last things Yoda said before he became one with the Force: “Luke...the Force runs strong in your family. Pass on what you have learned.” Therefore, we do not have a “remake,” but an artistic extension of Luke’s story in a new character.

And so this criticism fails, and amounts to nothing more than a giant pile of bantha fodder.

Tuesdays with Thomas 3 - The Summa

Thomas Aquinas wrote over 100 volumes, but he is most famous for the Summa Theologiae (the Summary of Theology). Here is a new video explaining a little bit about how to read the Summa, and what we can learn about the method by which Aquinas tackled the topics in the Summa.

Tuesdays with Thomas: Aquinas and Aristotle

Here is a link to my newest installment of YouTube videos exploring the thinking of Thomas Aquinas. This week's thrilling episode is on the influence of Aristotle on Aquinas.

The Dark Knight of the Soul

Last week Indiana University celebrated the 40^th anniversary of its undefeated 1976 national

championship men’s basketball team. The players and their families returned to Bloomington to receive the love and appreciation of one of college basketball’s greatest fan bases. And that team certainly deserves adulation. Not only was it the last undefeated college team in NCAA Division One basketball, it could have easily been undefeated for two straight years. One of IU’s stars, Scott May, broke his arm late in the prior season, and that injury most likely cost IU its only loss of the 1975 campaign, a two-point defeat by Kentucky in the NCAA regional finals.

So it was a great night for one of college basketball’s great traditional powers. But someone was missing.

Coach Bob Knight.

If you follow college basketball, you know that IU fired Knight a few months before the start of the 2000-2001 basketball season. In the spring of 2000, a video from one of IU’s practices from several years earlier began circulating, showing Knight grabbing one of his players (Neil Reed) by the throat. As a result, IU president Myles Brand placed Knight on a “zero tolerance” order of no further physical contact with student-athletes. But in September of 2000, an IU student claimed that Knight grabbed him by the arm and scolded him for yelling, “Hey Knight.” That was enough for Brand, and Knight was gone.

Before I say more, I need to offer some “full disclosure” about my feelings toward Bobby Knight. I grew up in Kentucky, and part of that birthright is a love of basketball. In high school I was a manager for our basketball team, and the head coach my first two years was a disciple of Knight in many respects, so I came to learn a lot about the technical side of basketball from him. As a basketball nerd, I fell in love with Knight. I used to love to watch old VHS tapes of his clinics. And I read everything I could about him. A Season on the Brink by John Feinstein, Playing for Knight by Steve Alford (my personal favorite), and the lesser known BobKnight – His Own Man by Joan Mellen.

Not only was Knight a great coach, he was also serious about coaching genuine student-athletes. His kids went to class, they graduated, and they stayed out of trouble. And Knight didn’t cheat, in stark contrast to some of the people involved with my beloved Kentucky Wildcats. And by all accounts, once a player graduated, Knight would do anything he could for him.

So I was a huge fan of Knight. For a long time one of my prized possessions was a letter I received from him in response to a letter I wrote to him expressing my admiration (he answers all the mail he receives from fans). And one of my sports fantasies was to be invited to go fly-fishing with Knight! Needless to say, this love for Knight was much to the chagrin of my fellow Wildcat fans!

Imagine my surprise, then, when after reading Knight’s long awaited autobiography, Knight: My Story, my feelings for him completely changed. And I’m not exactly sure I can pinpoint one reason why. To some extent I suppose it had to do with the way he discussed the Neil Reed controversy. I don’t want to rehash this – you can YouTube for it and decide if you think Knight choked Reed (which is what Reed claimed), grabbed him briefly by the chest (which is what Knight claimed), or grabbed him briefly by the throat (which is what I think happened).

Knight intimates in his autobiography that tape was tampered with (“what was shown was fuzzy and greatly magnified, and unexplainedly blurred in the central area.” p. 312). I don’t buy that for a second. But he was happy to have the tape released, because – as he declares in his autobiography – “I knew it couldn’t do anything but absolve me, because I knew I had never choked anyone” (p. 311).

Except Knight had choked someone, and told the story himself, and thought the story was funny.

In Bob Knight – His Own Man, Knight recounts an episode with a player he coached at West Point named Schrage. Schrage missed a free throw, which Army rebounded.

I call time, and I have him by the throat. I can remember my fingers slipping off his Adam’s apple or I would have killed him. I had his shirt in my fist in the time-out and I said,

“I want to tell you something. Some day do you want to be a ____ general?

“Yes Sir.”

“You’ve got no chance being a ____ second lieutenant if you shoot that ______ one more time. Do you understand?” (p. 102)

If Knight was willing to tell a story about choking a player to the point he could feel his Adam’s apple – and think it is funny! – I have a hard time imagining that Knight did not put his hands on his players many times. The reality is that in previous generations, coaches were often verbally and physically abusive to players, and no one thought anything of it. I’m not saying this to defend or excuse any abuse, but just to provide a context for what coaches like Knight did. I  must say that I never saw a coach do what Knight did in the video with Reed, but I am sure some of you have.

The point is that rather than just simply say, “Yes, I grabbed Neil Reed in a moment of anger, and I realize that grabbing a kid even near the throat is not a great move,” Knight couldn’t do that. And if there is one trait that emerged in the course of reading his autobiography, it was the abiding belief that Knight always knows just a little bit more than anyone else. And if that is what you think, then admitting you are wrong is the most difficult thing in the world.

But none of this is the main point of this post (hey I’m a preacher and I love basketball, so I tend to go on once I get started!). The main point has to do with bitterness, with the poison of resentment, and the darkness it brings to the soul.

Because Knight was so famous, when he was terminated by IU, he undoubtedly felt a keen sense of painful and public humiliation. And considering how much he had done for the university, he must have felt betrayed as well. No one likes to be fired. It is a deeply wounding experience, especially when you feel like you have poured your heart into the job, only to be treated unfairly from your point of view.

But that was sixteen years ago. And despite the fact that many officials from IU repeatedly asked him to come to the celebration last week, despite the desire of his players for him to return and share with them in the amazing record they accomplished, and despite the loyal affection of the majority of IU fans, Knight refused to return to Bloomington.

Though from a Christian point of view it is unhealthy to nurse personal grudges, I can understand why Knight would still be angry with Myles Brand and Neil Reed (both of whom have tragically passed away). But neither those two individuals, nor even the handful of trustees that agreed to the decision to fire him, are the entirety of the Indiana University basketball tradition. That legacy represents the dozens of staff and administrators, the hundreds of players, and the thousands of fans, who have converged to make IU great, and by refusing to overcome his bitterness against a few, Knight has severed himself from so many who wish to embrace him.

Maya Angelou once wrote, “Bitterness is like cancer. It eats upon the host.” And just as cancer diminishes the body, bitterness shrivels the soul. It is a sad spectacle to observe the coach I once idolized disintegrate before my very eyes.

Proverbs 14:10 says, “The heart knows its own bitterness, and no stranger shares its joy.” Only Bob Knight truly knows what it is going on in his heart. It seems to me that someone who prides himself on being so tough has in fact succumbed to one of the greatest weaknesses of all. But he doesn’t have to answer to me. The main thing here is for me (and for you) to constantly be on guard against the insidious and suicidal temptation of bitterness.