The Revised Edition of “The Heresy of Ham” is Here

***I just found out today that the revised edition of my 2016 book The Heresy of Ham is already available. And so, I wanted to post this quick, initial “promotion” for it. What I’ve included below is that opening section of the book. If it catches your eye and intrigues you, please share this post with others and buy the book. It’s my birthday in a few days, so what better way to show your appreciate and express birthday wishes than to buy the book? …And remember, Christmas is just around the corner. It would make a great gift for family and friends!***

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Pastor Clark, a local Southern Baptist pastor whose children I had taught at the small Evangelical high school in town, wanted to meet with me. He came in during my free period right before lunch to talk to me about what I was teaching in Biblical Worldview. Pastor Clark was a rather large man with a thick Mississippi drawl and could easily pass for the big brother of Al Mohler, the president of the Southern Baptist Convention. As soon as he came in and sat down, I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach

Pastor Clark began in the following manner: “You know, Joel, let me just say up front that you are a brilliant man. I have read a number of posts on your blog, and you clearly have a sharp mind. Now, I probably should have come to you a few years earlier over some of my concerns, so for that I apologize. But last week, my son told me that you mentioned in class that you thought the book of Jonah was a parable. When you said that, you were telling my son that I was a liar.”

What?!?

I certainly didn’t see that coming. “No,” I stammered out, “I wasn’t saying you were a liar. I simply mentioned in passing that Christians interpret Jonah differently, and that I personally thought it read more like a parable.”

“But when you told my son that, you were telling him to doubt that the Bible is true. Now that’s just the most recent concern that I’ve had.”

Thus began a 90-minute inquisition that lasted through lunch, in which Pastor Clark grilled me on topics that ranged from Jonah to Genesis 1–11, biblical inspiration, biblical inerrancy, the atonement, the resurrection of Christ, salvation by grace, and, of course, hell. Let me tell you, inquisitions are no fun at all, especially when they cause you to miss your lunch!

Be that as it may, I was forced to discuss the historicity of Genesis 1–11 with a Southern Baptist pastor on an empty stomach. Even my attempts at finding common ground seemed to fall on deaf ears. Yes, I said, I didn’t believe Genesis 1–11 was meant to be read as straightforward history, but this was a topic that Christians have had different opinions on for 2,000 years. One’s salvation didn’t depend on it, and it certainly shouldn’t be something that divides the Church. He responded by saying, “Well, there are some things that I’m willing to divide the church over.”

Lunch ended and students began to trickle into my classroom. The 90-minute inquisition had to come to a close. As he got up from his chair, Pastor Clark said, “I have deep concerns over your qualifications to teach Worldview here at the school, and I don’t know what I’m supposed to do about it.” He then walked out. Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly in top form for my afternoon classes. I had been a teacher in Evangelical schools for 15 years, I had two master’s degrees and a PhD in the Bible, yet I knew that when a local pastor of a large church in the area issues a veiled threat that he was going to try to get you fired, you had better be concerned.

So, that night at the school football game, I made it a point to talk to Mr. Spencer, the new headmaster. I figured the best thing I could do was be open and honest, and make sure the headmaster had confidence in me. After all, I had been at the school for seven years, was one of the students’ favorite teachers, had never had any problems my entire time there, and had even been told by Mr. Spencer himself that when he took the job at the school, he considered my Biblical Worldview classes to be one of the selling points of the school.  Surely my job wouldn’t be in jeopardy, right?

When I told Mr. Spencer about the conversation I had with Pastor Clark that afternoon, I actually broke down and teared up. At one point I said, “Now, I’m not a young earth creationist, but I don’t see that as a fundamental issue of the Christian faith. I’m okay with Christians having different opinions on that topic.” Mr. Spencer’s response struck me as odd. He said, “Well, I am, but if the Board doesn’t agree with me, I’ll back off.”

What? What kind of answer was that? What did that even mean? Back off from what? Needless to say, that was one odd answer.

A week later, Pastor Clark sent me an email with a list of questions he wanted me to answer. Apparently, his lunchtime inquisition of me had caused him to question whether or not I was even a Christian, so he wanted some clarification on a few theological issues. To be honest, I was quite hurt by that insinuation. My Christian faith is the most important thing in the world to me and I have dedicated my life to the study of the Bible and the teaching of the Christian faith to others. Nevertheless, I decided to take the time to answer his questions as thoughtfully as I could. I ended up writing twelve pages.

Pastor Clark asked if I believed in the bodily resurrection of Christ, the second coming of Christ, and that salvation is by grace through faith. Obviously yes. The next question seemed to come out of left field. He asked if I believed the “gender distinctions” in reference to God were accurate. Pastor Clark must have figured that since I thought the book of Jonah was a parable, I must be one of those liberals who thought God was a woman. I’m not. I replied, yes, God is the Father and Jesus is a man.

He then wanted to know if I believed the Bible was the inerrant Word of God and if I believed in the verbal inspiration of Scripture. I told him I believed the Bible was divinely inspired, that it taught the truth about God, and that it gave us historically reliable accounts of God’s dealing with ancient Israel, as well as the life of Christ and the early Church. If that is what he meant by “inerrant,” then yes. But I didn’t take “inerrancy” to mean that it was giving scientifically accurate information. I also didn’t hold to the “verbal plenary” understanding of inspiration that claimed God basically dictated Scripture to the writers of the Bible (cf. 1 Cor 1:14–16).

He then had specific questions about Christ: Did I believe in the virgin birth? Did I believe Jesus lived a sinless life and that he never erred? Did I believe in the substitutionary atoning death of Christ? I told him yes, I believe in the virgin birth—it is in the creeds, and I affirm it. Ultimately, though, it’s a mystery, and it’s something that is never elaborated upon in the New Testament. Yes, I believed Jesus lived a sinless life, but what did Pastor Clark mean by “never erred”? I’m sure the toddler Jesus mispronounced words, maybe he occasionally got James and John mixed up (see Luke 2:52). Although he was divine, he still had human limitations like everyone else. Yes, I believed in the substitutionary atoning death of Christ. Still, that “legal language” isn’t the only way that the New Testament explains the significance of Jesus’ death. It uses “temple language” by describing Christ as the sacrificial lamb who restores fellowship and community with God. It also uses “physician language” that speaks of Christ as the one who heals us through his own sufferings and death. Christians need to recognize all three.

Pastor Clark then asked if I believed in a literal heaven and hell. I said the Christian hope is that believers will be resurrected with transformed, physical bodies and will live with Christ in the new creation. As for hell, I didn’t buy the medieval Catholic description of hell as being a place of literal fiery pits and devils with pitchforks. I said ultimately the real question concerning hell is whether it is a place of eternal torment for souls who haven’t accepted Christ or is it a place where those unsaved souls are annihilated and cease to exist. Either way, I believed in the existence of hell.

Finally, Pastor Clark asked if I believed Genesis 1–11 was actual, historical fact. I told him that the point of Genesis 1–11 was that God is the Creator, human beings are made in His image, but human beings sin and are estranged from God and are in need of salvation. It was speaking to the questions and concerns of the ancient Israelites in the ancient Near East (ANE), and wasn’t, thus, trying to address modern scientific and historical questions. If it was, then it would have meant nothing to ancient Israel.

With that, I touched upon the creation/evolution debate and said that regardless of one’s view of evolutionary theory, I didn’t see how it threatened the truth and reliability of the Bible. I said even though I appreciated the goal that young earth creationists like Ken Ham often state, namely, to combat atheism, secular humanism, and moral relativity in our society today, I felt that trying to tie all that directly to the biological theory of evolution was misguided. The problem with the human race isn’t the theory of evolution; it is sin, pride, and rebellion against God.

Pastor Clark didn’t respond back. At the time, I wanted to think that while he probably didn’t agree with every specific detail of my responses, he likely realized that when it came to the essential basics of the Christian faith, we really, truly were in agreement. As it turned out, I had unwittingly begun to provide the rope that would eventually get me hanged.  That was November 2013.

Fast forward to March 2014. Bill Nye and Ken Ham had their debate the previous month, and I had decided to share my thoughts on it on my blog. After I had written a few posts about it, I received an email from Pastor Clark. Now, in one particular post, I had actually criticized the atheist Richard Dawkins for trying to claim that evolution “proved” atheism. I had made the point that what he was, in fact, doing was trying to smuggle his philosophical atheism into the biological theory of evolution. Therefore, what he was doing was fundamentally dishonest.

Pastor Clark felt impelled to write to me and tell me that my argument against Dawkins, in fact, destroyed my own claim that Genesis 1–11 wasn’t historical. Pastor Clark actually said that the only reason I didn’t accept Genesis 1–11 as historical was because there was no evidence for it. But that just meant there was no evidence to my knowledge. Therefore, according to him, my conclusion was just a “mere philosophical claim.”

He concluded his email with, “Honestly Joel, wouldn’t it be easier and more intellectually honest to just believe what is written in the Scriptures that you say you believe God inspired or admit that you don’t believe it? Unfortunately, you seem to have chosen to make something else (literary genre, science, reason) a higher authority than the Word or the God who inspired it. That breaks my heart for you.”

What???

Mystified, I read his email again. For a moment, I actually felt sorry for him. He was a pastor, a staunch young earth creationist/biblical literalist, yet he didn’t understand a thing I had written. He evidently thought it was a virtue to believe something was historical, despite the fact there was no evidence for it. And did he insinuate I wasn’t being honest, and that I should just admit I really didn’t believe the Bible was true? Yes, I think he did. Wow…

Once again, though, nothing seemed to come of it. I never heard from Pastor Clark again.

Fast forward to June 2014. School had been out for a couple weeks, and I got a call from Mr. Spencer, the headmaster. He asked to meet me at Panera Bread to talk about the upcoming school year. Halfway through our chat, Mr. Spencer turned an abrupt corner and began to tell me that he had some concerns over some of my posts about the Bill Nye/Ken Ham debate. In one post, I had briefly written about how the early second century Church Father Irenaeus had written in his book Against Heresies, that Christians viewed Adam and Eve as being symbolic of childish humanity.

Mr. Spencer was extremely concerned by this. He asked, “Aren’t you putting man’s fallible word and the traditions of men over the infallible Word of God? If Adam and Eve weren’t two historical people, then you are saying that God lied, and you are undermining biblical authority.”

What??? (Again with the whole “lying” accusation!)

I said, “I’m not putting man’s fallible word over the Bible. I’m just pointing out that that was how the early Christians interpreted the Adam and Eve story. The fact that Irenaeus was a student of Polycarp, who was a student of John, who was a disciple of Jesus himself, tells me that we should take what Irenaeus says seriously. After all, what he was teaching could very well have come from Jesus himself. We want to make sure we’re interpreting Genesis 2—3 correctly. I think what Irenaeus says makes sense.”

Mr. Spencer smiled and said, “Yes, that’s the problem. It makes sense to you. You’re letting your own reason have authority over God’s Word.”

WHAT?

I saw this conversation was on the verge of spiraling down into the abyss very quickly, so I decided to hit upon what I thought was an undisputed fact about the Bible that every Christian would surely agree. I said, “Listen, since we believe the Bible is inspired, whenever we read anything in the Bible, we need to make sure that we understand the original message, right? Because the original message is the inspired message, right?”

“Right.”

“Okay, so for example, when we read Romans, we need to realize that Paul was writing to real people living in Rome around AD 60. Therefore, since the Bible is inspired, and since Paul was writing to those people back then, the original, inspired message had to make sense to them, first and foremost, right?”

“Oh no. I disagree with that.”

WHAT???

“What do you mean you disagree with that?”

“God’s Word is God’s message to humanity for all time.”

At that point, I felt like Mugato in the movie Zoolander, and thought, “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!” One moment, Mr. Spencer had agreed that original context was important in interpreting the Bible in general, and within seconds he was disagreeing with that idea when it came to any specific example. I was mystified.

In any case, Mr. Spencer then told me that not only did he have concerns over how I read Genesis 2—3, but he was also concerned with the fact that I was Orthodox. To be clear, even though I had joined the Orthodox Church in 2005, there wasn’t an Orthodox church within 80 miles of where I now lived, and I had been attending a Baptist church for the past six years. That didn’t matter to Mr. Spencer. Orthodoxy was suspicious to him.

By the end of what I call, “The Inquisition: The Headmaster Strikes Back,” Mr. Spencer told me even though my job was safe for the upcoming year, he had deep concerns about me staying at the school after that. He didn’t feel I was “a good fit” for the Biblical Worldview program…the Biblical Worldview program that I had built up from scratch. It wasn’t because there had been problems with parents, or any complaints from students. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I was a favorite teacher of the students, and I had, in fact, been told by Mr. Spencer himself that when he was interviewing for the job, he heard only great things about my Worldview classes. No, that wasn’t the issue. Now that he knew of my personal stance on Genesis 1–11, it was a matter of biblical authority, and he had deep concerns about having the Biblical Worldview teacher who found Orthodoxy appealing and who, according to him, undermined biblical authority.

Mr. Spencer then, in very Pastor Clark type fashion, asked for more answers to be submitted to him in writing. He wanted me to write out my understanding of Orthodoxy and then email it to him within two weeks. So, over the course of the next two weeks, I wrote a concise explanation of Orthodoxy, although I knew full well that his real beef wasn’t with Orthodoxy. It was with my take on the creation/evolution debate.

Thus began an exchange of emails and discussions in which I tried to keep my job. It ended up being a summer-long debate with Mr. Spencer over a number of issues ranging from the Bible, Church tradition, salvation, social issues, to what his real concern was all along: the creation/evolution debate. At every opportunity, I tried to give open and honest answers to his questions and explain the intricacies to the issues he brought up. Most importantly, I went out of my way to reassure him that we shared the same core Christian beliefs that Christians for the past 2,000 years have held in common.

In the end, it would not matter. Deep down, from the moment Mr. Spencer first brought up my critique of the Nye-Ham debate, I saw the handwriting on the wall. I just wasn’t able to actually read it right away. Throughout the course of that year, though, it became abundantly clear to me that not only did Mr. Spencer not want me there, but he saw me as a dangerous enemy, a liberal enemy who was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Needless to say, my last year at that school was a hard one. The long and short of it was that when that school year ended, my sixteen-year career in Evangelical schools was over because I disagreed with the standard YECist claims that the universe was 6,000 years old.

What I had thought in to be simply a secondary issue that Christians tended to have differing opinions on, turned out to be a fundamental plank in the theology and culture war of a growing segment of Evangelicalism that I had no idea really existed. I had taught Bible for sixteen years, and never dreamed that I would one day be forced to walk the plank on a young earth creationist version of Noah’s Ark.

Looking back, I should have seen it coming.