Mike—you know I enjoy our conversations. I also hope no one thinks we’re bickering.  :-)   In my opinion, strong continued disagreement is actually an affirmation of the worth of the other, since his or her opinion matters enough to interact with. The final form of disdain is not conflict but rather disregard, and the ignoring of the other. As long as we’re talking, I think we’re ok.

Here’s how I heard your comments. Feel free to correct me.

1. The pepto-bismol didn’t actually multiply. It didn’t actually heal anyone in an unexpected way. I can’t help but experience that as condescension towards Shane. This isn’t a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away. This is a Princeton educated (though not graduated) 20-something brother in Philly. Have you read any of his books by the way?

2. Your distinction between history and myth is questionable. Surely every telling of history is story-laden. So if I tell you the Civil Rights Movement changed the U.S. for the better, I am referring to historical events through the lens of my worldview (where racism is a bad idea). That’s one distinction (call it ‘mere history’ vs. ‘interpreted history’—though all we can ever talk about is the latter). If I say the Civil Rights Movement happened in Ukraine two years ago, and Dr. King was an ardent Muslim, then I am not ‘interpreting’ history, I am falsifying it. Factual claims must be closely grounded (not loosely grounded) in fact (interpreted though it may be). So then if Jesus did not in fact raise Tabitha and Lazarus from the dead, then the biblical writers made it up. And if they made it up, they’re guilty of falsifying history, no matter how fuzzy it makes us feel.

3. You’re making a false distinction between ‘new creation’ as social change (and you know I’m all for, at least certain kinds of, social change) and New Creation as an outlandish other-worldly doctrine. This is a false dichotomy. There are real forces keeping us in bondage. Sometimes these are political orders, sometimes these are ‘laws of nature’ (or call them quasi-personal ‘powers’). New Creation encompasses both. As the new political order of God (the Church) is formed, the old nature (of humanity and of the world) falls away. The old nature says ‘if you have two fish and five loaves of bread, you can’t feed a crowd’. New Creation says ‘God is generous, and if we are faithful he will provide’. This is not other-worldly, it is new-worldly.

4. I ignore your request to explain ‘how’ creation is made new because I have no idea how it’s done. I just know that it is. Amputees regrow limbs, cancer is cured, the hungry are fed, Jesus walks through locked doors. How does it happen? Damned if I know! There’s undoubtedly some sort of molecular change, undoubtedly some sort of something going on, but I don’t know what it is. I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to presume I know that such things can’t happen, or that there’s nothing more to be learned about the infinite weirdness of the cosmos. If I had to understand how water turns to ice at 32 degrees before I could enjoy an icecube in my Coke, man I wouldn’t have had anything cold to drink until high school!

The problem with your potshot at NT Wright about being stuck on the ‘surface’ of the metaphor, is that you’ve ignored that some (not all) metaphors purport to describe the world as it is. Or perhaps more precisely, some symbolic acts carry symbolic power (e.g. Rosa Parks on a bus bench) precisely because they were in fact historically executed. Take Rosa off her bench and you can talk about metaphor all you want, but you can no longer make claims about ‘the beginning of the end of Jim Crow’ (or what have you). So the point is the meaning, but the meaning only comes if you have the thing that means. Know what I mean?

Cheers,
 -Daniel-