David Mirsch's "Open Tomb," Part 6

To close out our series on David Mirsch’s The Open Tomb, we have a record of observations on his chapter arguing that Jesus faked his death through the use of drugs. I’ll explain about about the contexts, then relate some points provided by Dr. Ted Noel, an anesthesiologist of many years’ experience.

Mirsch argues at one point that drugs have been applied transdermally (to the skin). Dr. Noel comments on this and other matters related to the administration of drugs:

His argument about transdermal application is a sign that he doesn't understand the method. Transdermal application is sensitive to area of application and duration of application. The only known toxin that could work as fast as needed to be swoonderful is tetrodotoxin, and it would kill in seconds. The hours on the cross negate that possibility as well as the unavailability

of the toxin.

Capsicum is used to make some drugs move transcutaneously, but it's such an irritant (capsaicin - pepper spray!) that it's not useful in medicine. The other alkaloids don't move transcutaneously very well.

He also ignores the nature of anointing to try to make his point. Further, blood flow in the feet is significantly less than any other part of the body. He claims it's equal to the scalp which is patently false.

Just for fun, consider the Fentanyl Oralet. It's a lollipop with fentanyl, a narcotic 100 times more potent than Morphine. It is well absorbed across mucous membranes. Yet it takes a lollipop in the mouth for a number of minutes to get the drug absorbed.

Second, Gall was a common soporific given to most crucifixion victims. This means that the conversation between Jesus and the thieves would have been impossible.

Mirsch offered some arguments regarding the release of “blood and water” by the spear thrust. Dr. Noel comments:

Determining death is really easy. The spear in the side let fractionated blood flow out. The spear pierced the heart, and the blood in its chambers had been settling. A unit of blood left to sit will take some time to spontaneously fractionate, probably an hour or more. Jesus had been dead for a while when the spear went in. The bit about "pericardial fluid" is nonsense. He didn't have a pericardial effusion. BTW, he's right about effusions taking a while to develop. I'm surprised he survived a 900 ml effusion from pleural-pericardial syndrome. … Severely anemic people (and I've seen my share) bleed blood that is thinner and lighter red. It doesn't fractionate as he proposes.

Mirsch also wrongly calls the spear thrust a coup de grace. This is wrong: It was done to verify death, not cause it.

A "dissected lung" does NOT act as a sponge. [Mirsch] needs to watch thoracic surgery.

Mirsch also suggests Jesus had hemolytic anemia. Dr. Noel says:

"Hemolytic anemia" is special pleading. There's no evidence of anemia before the cross. Look at the geography of the Jericho road. An anemic man could not hike the 4000' foot rise from  Jericho to Jerusalem… There are multiple causes, and tyramine (a bodily compound Mirsch notes as effective in the situation) affects only one of them.

Another of zMirsch’s critical points is that Jesus suffered from favism – a reaction to fava beans. Mirsch suggests that fava beans may have been part of the Passover bread Jesus ate. Dr. Noel points out that there the species of grain regarded as chametz (leaven) which are described in the Mishnah include three types of wheat and two types of barley. Fava beans aren’t known anywhere in the list; the translation of “beans” in Ezekiel’s bread is speculative.

One of Mirsch’s arguments is that Mark himself suggests Jesus at leavened bread (as noted above) and not unleavened bread. He bases this on a distinction between the words artos and azumos.  I addressed this in a reply to anti-missionary Uri Yosef:

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Yosef's formerly third (now fourth) category is, "Celebrating Pesakh/Passover." Noting that the seder requires unleavened bread, Yosef objects:

Yet, as we read the Gospel accounts of the last supper, we find Jesus and his disciples eating ordinary bread...One may want to argue that the NT authors meant unleavened bread. However, upon checking these accounts in the Greek language, it is evident that the word for 'unleavened bread' is "azumos" (e.g., Mt 26:17; Mk 14:1,12; Lk 22:1,7). The Greek scriptures use the word for ordinary leavened bread, "artos", for what was consumed at the last supper (Mt 26:26; Mk 14:22; Lk 24:30).

Of course one may ask, if this is so, who else violated some laws, since Jews were supposed to not even have such bread around for Jesus to buy. But this argument, which seems to appear often on anti-missionary sites, misses something important. Azumos is not a word for "unleavened bread" but just a word for "unleavened," period, as in 1 Cor. 5:7:

Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened. For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us:

Paul says to his readers, "You are unleavened"! Is he saying they are made of bread? Of course not. Artos is a word for all bread, with or without leaven, and does not tell us any such thing as Yosef suggests.

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Mirsch also suggests that Jesus "had taken an herbal anti-hemorrhagic." Dr. Noel replies:

That's again pure speculation. The only possible one I can think of is ephedrine, but that's derived from a Chinese plant that isn't found in Palestine. Another possibility would be ergot, but that's from a mold, and Passover bread would not be old enough to mold. None of these would have a material effect on a Roman flogging. They just aren't capable of reducing the bleeding from major open wounds.

Shepherd's purse (alos listed by Mirsch) is listed by WebMD. It says that is "might reduce bleeding." That means that the effect is small, if it is even present.

Mirsch also suggests a role for the belladonna plant. Dr. Noel responds:

He demonstrates a complete ignorance of the pharmacology of the belladonna alkaloids. Atropine and it close relatives don't cause a comatose appearance. They cause severe tachycardia and hallucinations, not the appearance of death. If they cause death, it's the real thing, not fake. As for the opium alkaloids, while they were known, they are slow in onset. Jesus died right after the second wine. A massive dose of opium is required to get an onset within ten minutes via the oral route. That large dose would case apnea and death shortly after.

Finally, Mirsch suggests a rapid revival by Jesus. Dr. Noel says:

We can't even do that now! During the early days of medicine there were lots of claims that didn't prove out. Peer review in medical journals was in its infancy. His source is simply wrong. We can get people to sleep quickly, but the ONLY way we can wake them up is to let the drugs wear off naturally. Period.

Thus closes our look at Mirsch’s Open Tomb. I think it should remain buried.

Calling "Men of Faith" to Account

Recently I had a scheduled engagement on a podcast show that I had to shift because of planning problems. In the week prior to that, though, I had some emails from a Christian who expressed concern because the host had certain Catholic leanings.

I told the emailer that if he wanted to make a case to me, vague accusation was not enough; he had to prove his point, and also prove that there was a real problem with the doctrines the host accepted. Cordially, the writer replied asking if I would be willing to check out some material written by some “men of faith” on the subject.

Oh boy.

After this long I know well enough that “men of faith” tends to mean, “some loudmouth with inadequate credentials and a holier than thou attitude.” And I was right: The writer recommended works by Dave Hunt, John MacArthur, and James White.

My doings with White, and why I don’t consider him particularly reliable (compared to serious scholars, that is), are well known to most readers, and I will not reiterate them here. One thing I will add is that there is more I have learned lately about White’s inability to re-examine his prior conclusions which make me even less inclined to trust him.

It isn’t good to speak ill of the dead, so I’ll just say about Hunt for now that while Seduction of Christianity was okay, things went downhill from there, especially with reference to his end times material.

As for MacArthur…readers will have seen in a prior entry here that I am far from enamored with his scholarship. I now have even less reason to be. More on that after some background.

I’ll announce something for the first time publicly here. Of late I have been “hired on” to put together a rebuttal to a rather execrable YouTube series called The FUEL Project: Know Your Enemy. It is ostensibly Christian, but promotes a lot of that paranoid New World Order/Catholic Church is the Antichrist nonsense, the latter of which is informed by the even more execrable book The Two Babylons, by Alexander Hislop. This book from the 19^th century is the Christian version of Acharya S’ Christ Conspiracy, and contains just as much bad scholarship per page. FUEL's series consists, frankly, of one error after another, as the creator apparently did little more than copy and paste from conspiracy websites without checking their claims, in many cases I have found simply doing so word for word (without always crediting the source, either -- which is plagiarism). More on that project another time.

Thanks to my work on that project, at any rate, the email writer’s note got me thinking. I knew MacArthur had written some screeds against Catholicism before, and now I wondered if he had ever recommended The Two Babylons.  Well, he has. Below is the text of an interview (link below) with MacArthur for his Grace to You program, where a caller (also named John) dialed in.

JOHN: Hi, my name is John. I have this book on Babylon Mystery Religion by Ralph Woodrow and I just wanted to ask you what you thought of it and is Christmas derived from paganism and is the cross derived from paganism?

JOHN MACARTHUR: Well, I'm not sure, who published, what's the publisher of that book, John?

JOHN: He published it himself.

JOHN MACARTHUR: Okay. Basic principle: Be careful of books that are published by the guy who wrote them (laughter).

JOHN: Uh-huh.

JOHN MACARTHUR: You just have to be discerning. Usually, when a man publishes his own material, it is either because no one else will publish it or because it is...it is too volatile or argumentative or there's no audience for it or it's not right or something. Now, basically speaking, I believe that he's right on many of those issues. Much of modern Christendom is a result of paganism. There's no question about that.

After giving a list of supposed examples, MacArthur closes:

But, yes, there's no question about the fact that the systems of Babylon have been superimposed upon Christianity. There's no question about that so, insofar as he brings that issue. There's another book that's very helpful called The Two Babylons Hyslop, H-Y-S-L-O-P. Also, a very, very helpful book.

This interview result is hilarious for a few reasons, not the least of which is that MacArthur doesn’t even spell Hislop’s name right. A second amusement is the irony in the caller’s original question about Woodrow. Woodrow did indeed write such a book, which was essentially a précis using Hislop as a major source. But he later wrote a contrary book in which he disavowed his findings in Babylon Mystery Religion, having found that Hislop’s book was historically unreliable. Woodrow also wrote an article for the Christian Research Journal on the same subject. 

The third hilarity is the irony of MacArthur saying we have to be “discerning” when he ends up recommending garbage like The Two Babylons.

I’d like to say that MacArthur isn’t doing this anymore; this interview did apparently take place back in the 70s or so. But indications are he hasn’t learned. As late as 2001, in his book The God Who Loves, there is a footnote recommending The Two Babylons, saying it offers “abundant historical evidence that the Babylonian religion founded by Nimrod is the basis for virtually all subsequent false religious systems.” One can readily see him asking, as he did of Calvin and Spurgeon, “Who can improve on Hislop?”

I can only hope MacArthur has learned in his lesson about Hislop in the past dozen years. He probably hasn’t. But whether he has or not, it’s high time so-called “men of faith” were held to account for this sort of incompetence. If I had my way, MacArthur would have been stripped of his pastoral credentials and his media outlets back when he first recommended Hislop’s Slop, and would not have been allowed to get them back until he had 1) apologized in the same venues for recommending it and 2) taken remedial courses in church history. He then would have been barred from writing books on any serious subject for the duration, unless they had been fully vetted by a board of credentialed scholars. His recommend of Hislop shows that he can’t be trusted to do it on his own…and we can say the same of far too many “men of faith” publishing their nonsense today. (I already referred to one other such example in an earlier entry here: Erwin Lutzer’s horrible book on Adolf Hitler. I’m now working on an e-book on that subject, which is needed to counter a lot of the nonsense – apologetics and otherwise – that has been issued on that subject in the past.)

It’s a fair complaint that we need to get our own house in order before we straighten the furniture in others’ houses. Tekton’s always had an inclination to do that. It’ll just be a little more obvious in the next few years.

Link

Book Snap: J. Warner Wallace's "Cold Case Christianity"

To create a successful “gateway” apologetics book, you need, I think, three things, and all three of these are present in the case of Cold Case Christianity (CCC). 

The first is a command of your material. Author J. Warner Wallace, a former atheist and cold case detective who now works for the Stand to Reason ministry, has that. Like most gateway books (like Lee Strobel’s), CCC offers a satisfying introduction to numerous critical issues in apologetics, such as the existence of Jesus, the reliability of the Gospels, and the Resurrection. Obviously, this means it does not cover the material in the same depth as something like my Shattering the Christ Myth or Licona’s The Resurrection of Jesus. It isn’t supposed to. This is something you hand to a new believer or an honestly inquiring non-believer, and it is a pleasure to see that Wallace has sifted the issues well, to the point that his bibliography includes some serious scholarly works. 

Second, a gateway work needs a theme. In Lee Strobel’s case, that was the theme of an interviewing journalist. For Wallace, the theme is his past work as a cold case detective, which he uses as a framework to explain the issues and how to approach and think about them. I was naturally interested to see how this worked, given my background in corrections and that Mrs H and I enjoy the crime shows on the tube, including stuff like Cold Case Files.  The answer is that it works very well, and that should be no surprise since in a way, it’s much the same approach as the “legal apologetics” theme used by authors like Simon Greenleaf. Detectives like Wallace are just at an earlier link in the chain.

Finally, a gateway work needs someone who can write coherently. Wallace certainly has this down; his prose is accessible and flows smoothly, and CCC is laid out in the same way as the popular Dummies guides, with little sidebars and illustrations to keep things interesting for the average reader. (Caveat: I happen to find such arrangements annoying, personally. But that’s my own preference – many more readers will appreciate it.)

CCC has earned a place in my bibliography of “gateway” apologetics books.

Popular Pastors: Max Lucado

I had planned Part 6 on Mirsch this week, but the Word file got corrupted for no real reason this morning. So I'll have to do it later, and it may be  a while: The Ticker will be off a week while I attend a conference. Meanwhile here's this one from the March 2010 E-Block.
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Our next entrant in this series is yet another producer of many books: The list produced by Max Lucado is as extensive as that of Swindoll or Meyer, though also as apt to repeat some of the same material across volumes. Our sample for this project was:

[GFA] The Gift for All People
[TL] Travelling Light
[ES] In the Eye of the Storm
[IGG] In the Grip of Grace
[WGW] When God Whispers Your Name
[CT] Come Thirsty

A few words to begin about content and style. Although Lucado is non-controversial as a minister, I am disappointed to say that his works sampled offer some of the least amount of Scriptural exegesis of anyone we have thus far surveyed. In part this is because when he does use Scripture, he mostly uses texts that are self-explanatory. However, it is also because his material, by my estimate, has a higher percentage of jokes and anecdotes than any other author thus far. Lucado’s approach is evidently far more therapeutic than it is serious. In addition, like Rick Warren, Lucado frequently uses modern paraphrases of the Bible to support his points, sometimes flipping between versions to find one that uses the exact word or idea he needs. 

The news is not all bad. IGG, for example, offers an excellent explanation, on a popular level, of salvation, atonement, and the Christian life. However, the bulk of Lucado’s material comes across as little more, again, than therapeutic literature. In addition, if I may become a literary critic for a moment, I found Lucado’s writing style the most difficult to absorb of all the writers we have seen so far. He frequently writes in short, pithy phrases reminiscent of William Shatner as Captain Kirk. Still, he is gifted enough as a storyteller than I can readily understand why he has been so successful.

The Familiarity Factor

In our past examinations, we have checked certain thematic concerns in each writer. With Lucado, the problem of making God too familiar reaches almost epidemic heights, exceeding even that offered by the likes of Osteen or Stanley. Indeed, the problem is so severe in Lucado that we are able to divide the issue into sub-categories.

Personal identification. Lucado goes to great lengths to assure the reader that one of the chief aspects of the incarnation was that God became able to identify with humans in their lives and experiences. These quotes are exemplary:

GFA33 “You are precious to him. So precious that he became like you so that you would come to him…When you struggle, he listens. When you yearn, he responds. When you question, he hears. He has been there.”

ES32 “Jesus knows how you feel.”
ES 34-5 “God knows how you feel. From the funeral to the factory to the frustration of a demanding schedule. Jesus understands. When you tell God that you’ve reached your limit, he knows what you mean. When you shake your head at impossible deadlines, he shakes his head, too. When your plans are interrupted by people who have other plans, he nods in empathy. He has been there. He knows how you feel.”
ES 82-3 Regarding Jesus praying: “Now it occurs to me that Jesus needed to call home in the middle of the hassles as much as I did...He needed a minute with someone who would understand.”
WGW23 Jesus “went to great pains to be as human as the guy down the street”. He went to synagogue though he didn’t need to study, and worked at carpentry though he didn’t need money.

Now we are hardly denying that God “knows” of all these things by the power of omniscience. However, there is very little justification for the premise that God is empathizing so deeply with even such trivialities as “impossible deadlines.” This has all the scent of a God remade in the image of a modern Westerner whose most stressful daily experience, on average , is deciding which gas station to patronize in order to save 3 cents a gallon. I am not saying that Lucado would deny God’s empathy with more serious issues. However, a God empathetic with trivia is a pure invention.

Lucado provides no Scriptural justification for this depth of “personal identification.” The most that can be justified, contextually, is that we are indeed to seek our identity in Christ, as he is our “ingroup” leader. (See more on this here.) The closest Lucado comes to a Scriptural justification is the fact noted above that Jesus went to synagogue, worked as a carpenter, and so on. However, in the agonstic setting of the ancient world, no one would have looked upon this as a way of Jesus “going to great pains to be human.” Rather, his attendance at synagogue, etc was a matter of meeting social expectations that would enable him to spread of his message and ministry. It was utilitarian, not empathetic.

God as companion and giver of personal attention. At TL12, Lucado dismisses those who have an idea of God as a “genie in a bottle,” a “sweet grandpa,” or a “busy dad” seen only on Sunday. However, elsewhere his commentary is full of indications of God as a “sweet grandpa” (or rather, father!) whose concern is to keep us company so we don’t get lonely or afraid:

GFA66 “He saw you in your Garden of Gethsemane – and he didn’t want you to be alone.”
TL110 “You may be facing debt, but you aren’t facing debt alone; the Lord is with you.” The same is also said regarding unemployment, marital struggles, etc.
WGW174 “God flirts with us. He tantalizes us. He romances us.”
CT82 “[The Holy Spirit] is like a father who walks hand in hand with his little child. The child knows he belongs to his daddy, his small hand happily lost in the large one…suddenly the father, moved by some impulse, swings his boy up into the air and into his arms and says, ‘I love you, Son.’ He puts a big kiss on the bubbly cheek, lowers the boy to the ground, and the two go on walking together.”
GFA90 (also IGG 174) “God is for you. Had he a calendar, your birthday would be circled.” 

Justification for this view is hardly less sparse than for the prior view, and rooted as well in misconception:

• At GFA68-9, Lucado notes that Jesus referred to Judas as “friend” and says, “What Jesus saw in Judas as worthy of being called a friend, I can’t imagine. But I do know that Jesus doesn’t lie, and in that moment he saw something good in a very bad man.” Lucado has imported the modern meaning of “friend” into the text; in the ancient context, it meant rather one who was an ally in an ideological sense – and it is also quite likely a touch of sarcastic irony on the part of Jesus in that light, since Judas is doing precisely what a friend of that sort would not do. There is a similar misuse of the word “friend” and the phrase “face to face” in Exodus 33:11 at WGW179. Here Moses is simply recognized as the authorized broker of the covenant – not as God’s personal buddy.
• At WGW24-5, Lucado says that Jesus went to the Cana wedding to have fun, not to turn water into wine (it was a “was a favor for his friends”). He goes on: “So, forgive me Deacon Drydust and Sister Somberheart. I’m sorry to rain on your dirge, but Jesus was a likeable fellow.” In this Lucado is not wrong to suppose that it is not a sin to enjoy jokes, or to have fun. But this episode in John 2 has nothing to do with “having fun”: An ancient village wedding meant that the whole village and family was invited as a matter of course; for Jesus to refuse the invitation would have been regarded as highly insulting, essentially wishing the bride and groom ill. In addition, it is clear that John regards the situation as providentially tailored for Jesus to perform his first public “sign”. Fun may have been had, but it would hardly have been foremost in anyone's mind as the reason to attend the wedding. In all of this I am not saying Jesus did not truly enjoy the festivities. However, this text is poorly used by Lucado to justify this point.

God as modern father. Lucado presses home texts that he supposes equate God with a father in the sense found in modern, Western family structures. His justification for this view is even more tenuous:

• At GFA107-8 he equates the father in the story of the prodigal son with God, an error we discussed in the last E-Block.
• At GFA125-6, he uses a story of a modern Jewish father – addressed as “abba” by his daughter -- who reined in his little girl who tried to cross a busy street alone; midway through the crossing, he lifted her up into his arms, and Lucado says that we need “[a]n abba who will hear when we call...take our hand when we’re weak…guide us through the hectic intersections of life…swing us up into his arms and carry us home.” As we have discussed in this issue, however, abba simply cannot be read this way. And of course, it does not occur to Lucado that the social world of the Bible is any different than the modern, Western world.

Other validations. There are other, miscellaneous texts Lucado appeals to for a view of God as very familiar:
The name texts.

• TL13 – “God has told us his name. (How he must long to be close to us.)” In this, Lucado imports the modern idea of sharing names as a way to open friendship. In the Biblical world, however, a name was revealed in order to say something about character and nature of a person, and had nothing to do with wanting to be “close” to someone.
• WGW2: Lucado uses Is. 49:16: “See, upon the palms of my hands I have written your name; your walls are ever before me.” Initially, the reader might think this fits a quite familiar relationship with God, as the full context seems to say so back to verse 13: Sing out, O heavens, and rejoice, O earth, break forth into song, you mountains. For the LORD comforts his people and shows mercy to his afflicted. But Zion said, "The LORD has forsaken me; my Lord has forgotten me." Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you. See, upon the palms of my hands I have written your name; your walls are ever before me.
  However, we must be careful not to import modern ideas into such texts. The word “comfort” to us brings up images of soft blankets, warm food, and a fireplace setting where we are curled up with a cup of cocoa. For the ancient Israelite, however, “comfort” would have amounted to assurance of a year without having too little to eat, or not being subject to sickness, or having to worry about invasion. If anything, we ought to read “comfort” here in terms of not being subject, for example, to the Deuteronomic curses.
  It might also be argued that there is a comparison to a mother and her infant, so that this indicates closeness. However, the analogy does not compare God to the mother; rather, it is a sort of early qal vohmer: If the lesser is true, so is the greater. And the subject is not forgetting obligations – not personal closeness.
  The name on God’s hand thus does not indicate any sort of modern sense of familiarity, but rather, dedication to covenant. In a similar vein, Lucado misuses:
• WGW199: Rev 2:17 – To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and in the stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. Of this Lucado says, “Isn’t it incredible to think that God has saved a name just for you?” It is indeed incredible, but it does not have the significance Lucado ascribes to it. As noted above, a name revealed character and nature of a person. Here, the new name on the stone – which parallels the names of the tribes of Israel on the stones of the shoulders of the high priest (Ex. 28:9-12) – indicates participation in the covenant community.

Shepherd imagery. Lucado believes that the image of God as shepherd indicates a high level of familiarity. At TL26 he says the shepherd “lavished attention on the sheep day and night.” Really? As one who has done agricultural surveys which include a few sheep farms, I certainly have not seen any shepherd “lavishing” attention on his sheep – certainly not being friends with them, or having conversations with them. Lucado is far overstating the role of the shepherd, who as a whole is a passive guardian, and seldom interferes unless there is a serious threat.

In summary, we find Lucado’s presentation of God as far too familiar, and unjustified by the texts he makes use of. We will reserve further commentary for the end of this article.

Exegesis Errors
In this category, we are pleased to note that Lucado makes very few errors. He does offer several midrashic or homiletic expansions of texts: for example, at GFA49-5, the “come and see”of John 1:46, is expanded into meaning, “come see the works of Jesus in things like the rehabilitation of alcoholics.” I found only the following major issues of note otherwise:

GFA134: Lucado uses Mark 16:16 to justify a point, with no awareness of the issues surrounding the authenticity of that passage.
Lucado offers a frequent emphasis on grace apart from works, and this is well and proper. But he also emphasizes doing good works – and never resolves the apparent contradiction. He says nothing of works as the basis for rewards in heaven.
CT44: Lucado says, “What happened to Lazarus will happen to us.” He confuses Lazarus’ resuscitation with endtime resurrection in a glorified body.
And so, Lucado actually makes fewer mistakes with Scripture in this regard than most writers we have evaluated. This is actually surprising in that he seldom lists his sources, and when he does, they are never serious scholars, but rather inspirational writings. In IGG is the only exception: he offers reference to only one commentary, Morris’ work on Romans, but this is a secondary reference to a work by Stott. On the other hand, with the bulk of his work, again, consisting of anecdotes and jokes, perhaps he just doesn’t have as much opportunity to make these kinds of mistakes!

Unsatisfactory Answers
 
Like Swindoll, Lucado regrettably resorts to exceptionally unsatisfactory answers when there is a need to confront difficult questions.

• TL92: To answer the question of what happens to those who die without hearing the Gospel, Lucado avoids the matter of hell and asks, “How do we know they didn’t repent at the last second?” He also notes 2 Peter 3:9, which speaks of God’s will that all be saved, and remarks, “And he usually gets what he wants.” Is Lucado suggesting universalism? How does he deal with clear indications that some are inevitably going to perdition (like Matthew 25)? Unfortunately, Lucado seems more intent on avoiding offense than tackling a hard question.
• WGW37: Do we all hear the voice of God? Lucado does not follow the likes of Bevere and Stanley in claiming to have discussions with the Almighty, but he does opt for a too-easy answer for whether anyone does. Noting that we all have same Holy Spirit as apostles like Philip, Lucado notes that Acts says Phillip was spoken to by an angel. In plain language, the text cannot be read any other way than that Phillip heard a voice, and there is no genre-based reason to read the text otherwise. However, Lucado asks, “How do you know Philip did [hear a voice]?” – in essence evading the question of who gets revelation and why by arbitrarily downgrading Phillip’s revelation to the sort of subjective feeling anyone might get.
• WGW54: Lucado, like Swindoll, verges on emergent when he says: “I’m not for watering down the truth or compromising the gospel. But if a fellow with a pure heart calls God Father, can’t I call that same man Brother? If God doesn’t make doctrinal perfection a requirement for family membership, should I?” Should he? Mormons and JWs would say that they have a pure heart, yet Lucado in one other place acknowledges that Mormonism contains false teaching. At the same time, most of the epistles include doctrinal correction. It seems fairly clear that right doctrine on certain points was one (not the only) “requirement for family membership.” Devotion is pointless if it is a devotion to the wrong object.
• CT97ff: Lucado provides a thoroughly unsatisfactory answer to the problem of evil: “God’s ways are always right. They may not make sense to us. They may be mysterious, inexplicable, difficult, and even painful. But they are right.” As we have noted in other reports, this amounts to a rationalization. Relatedly, Lucado also makes some use of what we have called “parking space theology” in past reports, for example, at CT119, saying how God protects us: “A slanderous critic heading toward your desk is interrupted by a phone call. A burglar en route to your house has a flat tire. A drunk driver runs out of gas before your car passes his.”

We will save the last instance for our conclusion, as it offers a fitting way to round off our evaluation.

Lost Perspective
 
Perhaps the most disturbing rationalization offered by Lucado is at CT120, where Lucado says to those who have suffered: “Have bad things really happened to you? You and God may have different definitions of the word bad.” He notes that a middle schooler considers a pimple “bad” but his dad doesn’t. Is Lucado seriously suggesting that perhaps a bout with cancer is viewed by God as equivalent to a pimple? (This, note, from the perspective of a sufferer, not from that of God.)

Readers of past evaluations are aware by now that when a teacher like Lucado says something like, “God uses struggles to toughen our spiritual skin,” I view these as little more than pious rationalizations used to explain why God as Lucado sees Him – someone intimately involved in our lives – doesn’t seem intimately involved at times of suffering. My own view of the matter – which sees God contextually in terms of an ancient patron, not as remote as the deist God, but also not as micromanagerial as a Lucado would make Him out to be – resolves this issue in a matter that satisfies context, experience, and logic. The view of Lucado and other popular pastors we have seen does not. It cannot explain away the paradox of God’s intimate love (as they see it) versus suffering as it is now manifest. Lucado, et al can never reconcile visions of God as a daddy offering a helping hand across a busy street with the Christian who lies in a hospital ward racked with cancer.

I would make no issue of this, save that many have abandoned their faith precisely because they too cannot resolve this paradox. Others have decided that the best way to deal with the paradox is to ignore it and drown themselves in supposedly spiritual experiences, distracting themselves from the problems with a rousing praise chorus that never ends.

This leads to a comment in close. The modern addiction to emotional experiences which distract from the realities of life makes "therapeutic theology" books like Lucado’s, which soothe modern, Western psychological discomforts, obscene in a sense. Jesus has been hired out, as one of my readers said long ago, as “Dr. Phil with holes in his wrists.” I do not say that Lucado does this intentionally. I believe that he, like many popular pastors, simply does not have a sufficiently broad perception; they are locked into a narrow view of life as something in which we do all we can to avoid even the most minute displeasures, racing from one emotional fulfillment or enjoyment to the next, doing what work needs to be done in between so that we can settle down to another fulfillment or enjoyment as quickly as possible.

This is best illustrated in ES99-100, where Lucado tells of how he was turning down a speaking engagement for the sake of family time. What sort of time? A wedding? A funeral? A child’s graduation? Not at all: Rather, he speaks of how, had he taken that speaking engagement, he would have missed such earth-shaking events as his daughter climbing into an inner tube for the first time. “There are a hundred speakers who could have addressed that crowd, but my girls just have one daddy,” he affirms. Oh? But don’t each of those hundred speakers have children or family as well, for which they are the “only one” to their own family? How would it be if each of them turned down the responsibility of a teacher for the sake of such trivialities as this?

Modern Christianity has lost an eternal perspective, trading it in for the wonder of the Now – and I regret to say that Lucado merely encourages it.

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