This Week at Tov Unleashed

Clips from each post this week.

This Week at Tov Unleashed, my newsletter
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Monday

What Would You Say?

A letter from a pastor, which I have slightly edited so it fits in and fills out what I’ve learned from other similar communications. First the letter, and then my responses, and I sure do covet your responses. This new adventure at Substack longs for more conversation. Here is the letter:

I was serving in a church and on the leadership team. I confronted the senior pastor about some issues in his style of leadership that touched upon character issues. He told the other leaders and they are now all on his side. Since then I've been told that I can't teach, preach or serve. As I read A Church called Tov I was overwhelmed with all the similarities that I see in the church I'm in. Very toxic. Thank you so much for being willing to write this book with your daughter. It was very validating.

We aren't sure how much to try to bring truth to the situation or to just walk away. Do you give advice on church problems like this?

My response approaches this type of situation from a variety of angles, each of which could become its own blog post! There are so many considerations and we need to think about this together, so please do speak up friends.

Tuesday:

Did Paul Silence Women? Why?

No matter how you shake it down our Bibles have a verse that vexes many of us because evidently the apostle Paul tells women to be silent. Though the text has been used to silence all women teaching and preaching in all churches for all time more accurate readings of these verses are available today and this post will explain them….

Hard to avoid. An oddity arises with both hands waving high above the head: Why then did her permit women to prophesy three chapters earlier (1 Cor 11)? Time for us to turn once again to the significant new book by William Witt (fresh out now in paperback) called Icons of Christ.

Fact is that many complementarians, perhaps all, believe this passage requires the silence of women in our churches today. Why?

Wednesday

Evangelicals and the Culture of Incarceration

The rise of crime rates and incarceration correlates with the rise of American evangelicalism from the 1970s until today. Evangelicals have supported a socio-political theme called “law order,” which increases incarceration, they have also supported prison ministries and evangelism in prisons, while they have only rarely supported prison reform and wondered or pushed back against the incredible difference between the astounding percentage of African Americans in prison when compared to White Americans.

We turn today to Aaron Griffith’s new book: God’s Law and Order: The Politics of Punishment in Evangelical America. The book is an extraordinary piece of research. An immense knowledge of the history and subject along with thorough documentation of sources marks this book that has in it telling anecdotes of the more influential leaders.

Thursday

Valerie Hobbs: Religious language is some of the most powerful language in our linguistic repertoire. We use it to articulate and affirm our deepest held commitments, to draw close to the unknown, to God and to His Creation. Through it we build community and cope existentially at times of loss, joy, wonder and fear. But religious language is a two-edged sword. It is the language of blessing and also the language of violence. We may summon its power in protection of others, to build and guard community boundaries from religious criminals who threaten a community’s core beliefs and its people. Likewise, religious language is the language of abuse and of manipulation. It is one means by which we accumulate and retain power, by which we curse and destroy others.

Friday Lecture

On Fridays I will sketch a portion of a lecture I have developed, and I may be asking some of my professor friends to drop a lecture of theirs in this spot too.

Today’s lecture is the “Story of the Kingdom of God for Jesus”

Putting Jesus and the Gospels in their place begins with knowing Israel’s Story (as it will be defined by Jesus and the apostles).

Big point for me: There was more than one “story” alive and well in the Jewish world at the time of Jesus. Jesus retold Israel’s Story through his own hermeneutic.

To discern the story at work in someone like Jesus or Peter or Paul or Hebrews, or that one finds in the Dead Sea Scrolls or in a Jewish text not in our Bibles requires us to find: (1) the characters appearing, (2) the events recorded, and (3) the use of some kind of interpretive technique of the characters and events. Paul, as you know, likes to put Abraham and Moses on the stage; the writer of Hebrews likes some fella named Melchizedek! John in the Revelation likes the Dragon. So, to discern the story one must look for and work with these three elements.

I believe Jesus’ kingdom story works around three theme: theocracy, or God as ruler; monarchy, or a king as ruler; and Christocracy, or Jesus as king. These three “kingships” make sense of Jesus kingdom story best.

Here’s my outline and you can fill in the verses, though I develop this in my book Kingdom Conspiracy.