Author: Andre Coleman

Church-State Relations and Secularization

Throughout history there has developed a variety of relationships between Christian churches and governments, sometimes harmonious and sometimes conflictual. The major forms of relationships between Christian churches and governments are in large measure grounded in various perspectives in the Christian Bible. The Christian Bible is not a single book, but a collection of books written over more than a millennium and containing very diverse perspectives on religion and government.

One perspective, represented by the Psalms, which were hymns sung in the Temple in Jerusalem, exalts the king to an almost divine position, sitting at the right hand of God (Ps 110:1) and receiving the nations of the earth for an inheritance (Ps 2:8). Coronation hymns celebrate the king’s special relationship to God. This perspective dominates the self-understanding of the kings of Judah, the southern part of ancient Israel.

In sharp contrast, the prophet Samuel denounces kings as crooks and oppressors who are allowed by God only as a concession to human sinfulness. Samuel warns the tribes of Israel that if they choose to have a king, the king will draft their young men into his army and put the young women to work in his service. In this trajectory, prophets, armed only with the conviction that they have been called by God to proclaim the Word of God, repeatedly stand up to the kings of ancient Israel and denounce their sinfulness. Thus Samuel condemns Saul, Nathan condemns David, and later prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah condemn the kings of their times.

Meanwhile, in the Gospel of John, Jesus tells the Roman governor Pontius Pilate that his kingdom does not belong to this world (Jn 18:36). This suggests a separation of responsibilities between civil governance and religious leadership. Repeatedly in the gospels, when people want to make Jesus a king, he slips through their midst and escapes. His mission is to proclaim the reign of God, not to establish a worldly kingdom.

There are also various covenants that set forth the relationship of God and God’s people (Gen 9:8-17; 15:18-21; Ex 20; Deut 5); a covenant in the ancient Middle East was a solemn agreement that bound both parties to observe certain obligations. The covenant with Noah was made by God with all of creation. The covenant with Abraham initiated a relationship with Abraham and his descendants forever. The covenant made with Moses at Mt. Sinai became the central framework for the relationship of the people of Israel to God. The Book of Deuteronomy renews and reflects upon this covenant a generation later, as Moses is at the end of his life.

These four options would shape, respectively, later Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Lutheran, and Calvinist views of the proper relation between church and state. The political theologies of the later Christian tradition consist in large measure of a series of conflicting appropriations of these perspectives. One can read the major political options taken by later Christian communions as developing one or more of the biblical trajectories. The Byzantine Orthodox tradition and some aspects of the Roman Catholic tradition continue the tradition of sacred kingship. Later strands of the Roman Catholic tradition view earthly rulers as prone to corruption and in need of repeated rebuke by religious leaders, such as popes. The Lutheran tradition focuses on Jesus’s statement to Pilate that his kingdom is not of this world and concludes that there are two kingdoms: the kingdom of God, which is ruled by the gospel, and the kingdom of this world, which is ruled by civil governments. The Calvinist tradition focused on covenant in a way that none of the earlier traditions had done, placing covenant at the center of relationships both with God and with other human beings. In this lecture, I will not discuss the original biblical texts themselves, but I would like to explore the way in biblical perspectives have guided later Christian political theologies.

Divine Kingship

The ideology of the Judean monarchy, with its lofty view of the monarch as favored by God and called to mediate divine justice in the world would shape the Byzantine Orthodox tradition’s view of the Emperor as a sacred figure with responsibility for the empire and the church together. Psalm 110 proclaims: “The Lord said to my Lord: Sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool” (110:1). That is, God says to the king: be enthroned beside me. This strand of the Bible sees God as entrusting a special responsibility to the king, which included particular care for the rights of widows and orphans, who were usually the most vulnerable persons in the ancient world. In this perspective, kings are divinely chosen beings with both rights and responsibilities of proper rule.

This perspective would influence later Eastern Christian views of church-state relations. For example, after Constantine had unified the Roman Empire in the early fourth century and made Christianity legal, the fourth-century bishop Eusebius of Caesarea in Palestine described the Emperor who was formally only a candidate for reception into the church, as receiving, “as it were, a transcript of divine sovereignty” from God and directing the administration of the entire world, including the church, in imitation of God (Life of Constantine). That is, Constantine had a divinely given responsibility to govern not only the Roman Empire but also the Church. This view of a sacred emperor would shape the self-understanding of Byzantine Emperors until the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the self-understanding of the Russian Czars until 1917. All of the first seven ecumenical councils—meetings of bishops from throughout the world–acknowledged by the Byzantine Orthodox and Catholics were called by Roman Emperors and were presided over by them or their legates. If the pope did not wish to have a council, pressure would be applied. In the sixth century CE, the Byzantine Emperor Justinian wanted to call a council, but Pope Vigilius disagreed with him. Justinian had Vigilius kidnapped by the Byzantine police while he was saying Mass and held until he agreed to the council. Then the council was held in Constantinople, where Justinian wanted it, not in Sicily, where Pope Vigilius wanted it. At the end of the council Vigilius did not like the idea of condemning men who had died two centuries earlier in communion with the church. Justinian applied further pressure to the Latin clergy, and Vigilius eventually accepted the Condemnation of various bishops from two hundred years earlier.

The model of sacred kingship would also dominate early medieval Western views of kings and emperors from the eighth to the eleventh centuries. During the first millennium of Christian history, lay rulers, inspired by the ideology of the Judean monarchy, regularly called bishops and popes to account for their misdeeds and had recognized authority to depose unworthy ecclesiastical leaders and appoint new ones. In one year alone, 1046, Emperor Henry III, imbued with the divinely given mission of sacred kingship, deposed three popes (Sylvester III, Benedict IX, and Gregory VI) and appointed a new pope, Clement II. Before his death in 1056, Henry would appoint three more popes. There is certainly the danger of abuse of power here, but there was also a genuine concern that the papacy not be dominated by corrupt Roman nobility. This tradition leaves a heritage that challenges Christian political leaders to accountability to God for the way they enforce justice in this world and charges them with responsibility for good governance of the Church. During the first millennium popes from Gelasius I onward would insist on a distinction between sacred and secular authority in order to limit the role of Emperors in the church.

Like Samuel and other prophets who challenged the pretensions of biblical monarchs, Augustine rejected Eusebius’s exaltation of a Christian Roman Emperor and the entire model of sacred kingship. Like Samuel, Augustine thought earthly rulers were largely thieves and saw monarchy as a tragic necessity because of human sinfulness and not as directly willed by God. Augustine believed that no form of government could assure true justice in this world, and he questioned: “Justice removed, what are kingdoms but great bands of robbers? What are bands of robbers but little kingdoms?” Empires in principle are not Christian. This perspective would buttress the Gregorian Reform in the eleventh century, when a series of popes and reformers would reject the model of sacred kingship. Pope Gregory VII, echoing Samuel and Augustine, insisted that kings are largely thugs and oppressors who need to be called to accountability by religious leaders and who can be deposed by papal authority. The inability of either popes or emperors completely to dominate Europe would lead to new distinctions between secular and sacred in the twelfth century and in later medieval and early modern thought. From about the year 1100 on, emperors and pro-imperial apologists insist on a distinction between the sacred and the secular to limit the power of the papacy in politics. The suspicion of great empires as great robbers that need to be called to account by religious leaders would inform the battles of popes against emperors and kings for centuries and hovers in the background of Pope John Paul II’s challenge to the Soviet Empire on his trip to Poland in 1979 and his eloquent defense of human rights against oppressive governments around the world.

The claim of papal authority over kings and nations could manifest itself in dangerous ways as well. In Psalm 2, God promises the king: “I will give you the nations for an inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession. You shall rule them with an iron rod; you shall shatter them like an earthen dish.” Even though never fulfilled in ancient times, that promise, buttressed by the conquest narratives of the Hebrew Bible, lived on in Christian memory, and fifteenth-century popes saw themselves as the trustees of this inheritance. In 1452, as the Portuguese were inaugurating their journeys of discovery and conquest, Pope Nicholas V granted to the king of Portugal the right to conquer and enslave the entire non-Christian world: “In the name of our apostolic authority, we grant to you the full and entire faculty of invading, conquering, expelling and reigning over all the kingdoms, the duchies . . . of the Saracens, of pagans and of all infidels, wherever they may be found; of reducing their inhabitants to perpetual slavery, of appropriating to yourself those kingdoms and all their possessions, for your own use and that of your successors” (Nicholas V, Dum Diversas, 1452; quoted in Peter Schineller, A Handbook of Inculturation, 34). In 1493 and again in 1494, shortly after the discovery of the New World, Pope Alexander VI drew a line on the map of the Americas, marking a partition between the areas that Spain and Portugal could dominate. The dream of empire, inspired by biblical promises, would shape centuries of modern colonial history.

Reformation

During the Reformation, the two major Protestant traditions rejected both the Byzantine Orthodox and the Roman Catholic models, but they drew sharply contrasting visions of politics from the Bible. Citing the Gospel of John, where Jesus denies that his kingdom belongs to this world, Martin Luther used the distinction between two kingdoms as a central principle structuring his theology. Luther insisted that God rules God’s own people by the Gospel and God rules those outside the church by the Law (“Secular Authority: To What Extent It Should be Obeyed,” in Dillenberger, 368). However, Christians remain sinners throughout their lives, and so God also rules Christians by the Law insofar as they are sinners and part of a sinful society. Luther shared Augustine’s and Samuel’s skepticism about earthly rulers, but he interpreted Paul’s Letter to the Romans (chapter 13) as calling the Christian to obey even rulers whose policies offend a Christian conscience. He insisted on freedom to preach the Word of God, but he generally trusted governmental authorities to rule the temporal realm. In the later history of Lutheranism, contrary to Luther’s intention, the Lutheran church was generally subservient to the state, and the state often supervised ecclesiastical governance.

In contrast to all the earlier models, John Calvin placed the covenant at the center of his political theology, with implications that would echo through much of European and American history. For Calvinists, covenants governed relations not only between God and Christians but also between earthly rulers and their subjects. In various countries the Calvinist tradition developed a forceful critique of monarchy based on the mutual obligations of each party. For Calvin, God alone is truly king, and all humans are radically fallen and subject to constant temptations to idolatry. No figure, whether pope or emperor or king or even a Protestant preacher, can claim infallible, final authority. Since rulers are forever tempted to rebel against God, all earthly power must be limited. Calvin distrusted democracy because a majority can be just as tyrannical as an individual, and he thought democracy could easily lead to sedition. He judged that in a fallen world, no single figure can be trusted, and thus all political powers must be checked by the self-interest of others. He advocated a mixture of aristocracy and democracy, a model that would be very influential on political developments in North America.

Calvinists often suffered attacks and persecutions. After the St. Bartholemew’s Day Massacre in France, when Roman Catholics murdered thousands of Protestants, Theodore Beza, Calvin’s most faithful disciple, proclaimed the sovereignty of the people, the right of revolution, and the binding nature of a constitution. Presbyterians in Scotland insisted on mutual responsibilities of the covenant as a way of limiting the powers of the Stuart monarchs. When Mary Stuart accused John Knox of grasping for power, he denied the charge and insisted: “My one aim is that Prince and people alike shall obey God.” (Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches, vol. 2, p. 634). The rebellion against King Charles I began in Scotland with the proclamation of the National Covenant. Precisely because covenants spelled out mutual obligations for both ruler and the ruled, they could become the basis for rebellion and revolution when the terms were judged to have been violated. Through reflection on covenants in the Hebrew Bible and on natural law, Calvinists influenced early modern theories of government based upon a social contract and thus relying upon the consent of the governed.

Calvin saw the Gospel as a transformative social power, and there is a militant utopianism in Calvin’s vision of Christianity that would change the world. Geneva was to be the New Jerusalem. Puritans frustrated by the Stuart monarchs in England brought this energy and vision to New England, determined to build the city on the hill to inspire the world. Puritans understood themselves as the new Israelites fleeing slavery and coming to the Promised Land. As in earlier papal and imperial models, there was a negative side to the appropriation of biblical promises. Remembering that the ancient Israelites were instructed to destroy other tribes lest they tempt them to worship other gods, Puritan settlers viewed Native Americans as temptations to sin and sought to exterminate them or, at least, contain them in separate areas, reservations that were called “praying towns” (Richard Slotkin, Regeneration through Violence: The Mythology of the American Frontier 1600-1860, 40-42). When the Puritan Revolution in England failed in 1660, Puritans in America gave up hope for Europe and saw themselves as the millennial people, with a divine mission to convert the world after the failures in Europe.

Secularization and Religious Freedom in North America

Thus far we have seen the major models of church-state relations through the 17^th century. Every pre-modern government with which I am familiar looked to religion for a source of legitimation. Emperors, kings, sultans, aristocrats all claimed to rule by the will of God. In China emperors ruled through the Confucian notion of the Mandate of Heaven. Buddhist kings cultivated harmonious relationships with Buddhist monasteries to demonstrate their devotion and piety. All this came under suspicion in early modern Europe.

During the 16^th and 17^th centuries, European Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, fought a series of bitter and bloody wars of religion. Each side claimed to be fighting on behalf of God; each side assumed that an empire, a nation, or a smaller polity should be unified in its religious belief and practice. Only a small minority of Protestants in the 16^th and 17^th centuries believed in religious freedom for each individual according to the person’s own conscience. Because religious convictions were so strong, and because religion was embedded in manifold political, social, and economic relations, the conflicts were relentless and merciless. The Thirty Years’ War in Germany, which raged from 1618 to 1648, began as a religious conflict among Catholics, Lutherans, and Calvinists. By the end the war was more political than religious, with Catholic France intervening on the side of the Protestants to weaken the Holy Roman Emperor; but the damage had been done. There were atrocities against civilian populations on all sides. This was the bloodiest war on the continent of Europe prior to World War I. Meanwhile, about the same time, England went through an extremely vicious, bloody civil war, which killed a higher percentage of the population of England than did World War I.

In the wake of these wars of religion, thinking people increasingly began to question whether religion could or should be trusted with the task of legitimating any form of government. Enlightenment thinkers began to reflect on the virtue of religious tolerance, of respecting the liberty of conscience of others in matters religious. They also began to reflect on the possibility of separating church from state.

About this same time, in the British colonies in North America, some began to question the wisdom of government regulation of religion. In New England Roger Williams surveyed the bitter history of religious conflicts in Europe since the time of Constantine and concluded that imposing religious loyalties was a violation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Williams interpreted Jesus’s parable of the wheat and the weeds as forbidding Christians to attack those with whom they disagreed. Williams daringly judged the Emperor Constantine, who legalized Christianity in the Roman Empire, to have been more of a danger than Nero, who had persecuted Christians. Under Nero, Christians had heroically suffered and died; with Constantine, Christians took power, became corrupted, and began to impose Christianity by governmental authority. Williams also argued that it was unjust for the King of England to pretend to have the right to give away lands where Native Americans had lived for centuries. For Williams, the fact that Native Americans had different religious practices did not deprive them of their right to their homeland.

In 1635 Williams was banished from Massachusetts as a dissenter. The following year he moved south, where he purchased land from Native American Indians and established a new community, Rhode Island, as a “haven for the cause of conscience,” founded on the principle of religious liberty for all. His ideal of religious freedom or, in his phrase, “soul liberty” was fiercely opposed by the Puritans in Massachusetts but would stand as a model for later generations.

About the same time, Lord Baltimore founded Maryland as a refuge for Catholics fleeing persecution in England. Purchasing land from Native American Indians, he intended the colony to be a home for followers of all Christian paths, and the charter founding the colony offered equal rights in religious freedom to all. In 1649 the Maryland Assembly passed a Toleration Act offering freedom of conscience to all Christians. The example of guaranteeing religious freedom spread to other colonies as well, with similar charters of religious liberty in New Jersey in 1664, in Carolina in 1665, and in Pennsylvania in 1682. There was increasing momentum in the colonies to end government interference in religious practice and to accept a variety of forms of faith.

The Americans who fought the Revolutionary war were struggling for religious liberty as well as for political liberty. The quest for religious freedom came from both the tradition of dissenting Protestantism and also Enlightenment ideals of religious toleration. Many of the founders of the United States of America were strongly influenced by the European Enlightenment, with its suspicion of Christianity, its critique of the wars of religion, its deist faith, and its doubts about any claims for supernatural revelation. Thomas Jefferson thought that the alliance of clergy and political officials inevitably led to tyranny, and he believed that clergymen should not be allowed to any hold political office. On occasion he excoriated them as “the real Anti-Christ.” In return, some New England preachers attacked Jefferson himself as the Anti-Christ and warned that if he were elected president, he would commandeer all Bibles and establish houses of prostitution in the churches. Jefferson and George Washington, like many of their contemporaries, were deists, for whom the natural religion of humankind provided the ultimate answer to the conflicts among particular religions. For both, religious freedom was indispensable for human progress. As military commander, Washington forbade the celebration of the English anti-Catholic feast, Pope’s Day, on November 5, 1775, at a time when he was seeking support from French-speaking Catholics in Canada. Ben Franklin was deeply influenced by Deism and is often considered a deist; but he shaped his own idiosyncratic view of natural religion, with a plurality of deities under the direction of one supreme deity. Franklin, Jefferson, and Washington would quietly attend Christian church services without believing traditional theology; more radical deists such as Thomas Paine, Ethan Allen, and Elihu Palmer, rejected Christianity more thoroughly, criticizing the Bible for its multiple contradictions and substituting a religion of nature for Christian practice.

While many of the founding fathers were deists of one form or another, American Protestants also contributed strongly to the revolution and interpreted the establishment of the new nation in religious terms. Indeed, the evangelical revival movement known as the First Great Awakening in the early eighteenth century did much to foster communication among the colonies, to establish awareness of a new shared American identity in contrast to the British, and also to arouse evangelical Protestant hostility to Anglican and Catholic forms of worship, thereby paving the way for revolt against the British king. The Puritan practice of interpreting the settlement in North America as a fulfillment of promises in the Book of Revelation was influential on supporters of the Revolution.

In Virginia the Church of the England was the established Church, and all other forms of worship were forbidden. The young James Madison was deeply shocked by the imprisonment of traveling Baptist preachers who openly expressed their religious beliefs in Virginia; he would later become one of the leaders in the quest for full religious liberty. Madison asserted, “Torrents of blood have been spilt in the old world, by vain attempts of the secular arm to extinguish religious discord. . . . Time has at length revealed the true remedy.” The remedy for Madison and his colleagues was full religious liberty and the separation of church and state.

The founders of the new nation resolved that the bitter religious wars of Europe should not be replicated on American soil. George Mason was the chief author of Virginia Declaration of Rights, which declared “all men should enjoy the fullest Toleration in the Exercise of Religion according to the Dictates of Conscience.” The Bill of Rights for the Commonwealth of Virginia, approved on June 12, 1776, was a landmark achievement, the first such list of rights in history.

On July 4, 1788, a parade in Philadelphia celebrated the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Clergy from various Christian denominations marched together and with them, arm, in arm, a Jewish rabbi. One observer, Dr. Benjamin Rush, commented, “There could not have been a more happy emblem contrived, of the section of the new constitution, which opens all its powers and offices alike, not only to every sect of Christians, but to worthy men of every religion.” Two years later George Washington visited the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, which still stands as the oldest synagogue in the United States. The Jewish community thanked him and the new government for “generously affording to all liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship”; Washington, in reply, affirmed that the U.S. government “gives to bigotry no sanction, to persecution no assistance,” and he went on to distinguish the religious toleration granted by the British and other European governments (often on condition that Jews “improve”) from the American recognition of religious liberty as an inherent natural right. In principle, followers of all religious traditions were to be fully equal citizens in the United States of America.

Secularization in the United States was not hostile to religion but allowed a free range of religious debate. One can read the history of the United States in terms of four Great Awakenings, each of which was linked to a movement of social or political reform. Alexis de Tocqueville would note the paradox that in Europe churches were established but languishing. In the United States, by contrast, no church was established, and all were flourishing. The free competition among Protestant churches called forth creativity and vitality.

France and the Papal Reaction

A few years after the American Revolution, another revolution began in France, which became far bloodier both in attacking established religion and also in devouring its own children. Because the Catholic Church was intimately intertwined with the ancien regime, the old way of life in France, the French Revolution targeted Catholic bishops, priests, nuns, churches and monasteries. Many Catholic leaders were killed, churches were turned into museums—as is the case with the Pantheon in Paris to the present day—monastery farmlands were confiscated by the French Republic and put up for sale to support the Revolution and its armies. The model of secularization in France was very, very different from that in the United States. Because the Catholic Church had been so powerfully established for centuries, the program of secularization aimed to eliminate the influence of the Catholic Church from the political sphere for the sake of laicite. This heritage lives on to the present day, continuing to shape relations between the French government and religions.

Catholic leaders in Europe saw the French Revolution as a direct attack upon the Catholic Church, and this prompted a profound suspicion of modernity and its newly proclaimed democratic ideals. Napoleon, after all, had humiliated Pope Pius VII, taking him as a virtual prisoner into France in 1808. Napoleon, in the presence of the pope, crowned himself emperor, thereby signaling that the pope had no role whatsoever to play. Many thought that this would be the end of the papacy. After the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, the victorious European powers gathered at the Congress of Vienna to plan the future of Europe. The pope sided with the forces of reaction. It was commented that the victorious European leaders had “forgotten nothing and learned nothing.” In this context, the papacy returned to a position of prominence and renewed vigor, albeit on the side of the forces of reaction in Europe.

In this atmosphere, a French Catholic priest, Felicite Robert de Lamennais, sought to accept the ideals of democracy, separation of church and state, and freedom of speech, of the press and of religion into Catholicism. He argued against the interference of governments in religious matters and supported revolutions to transform society. Pope Gregory XVI vigorously condemned him and the ideals of modernity. Pope Gregory condemned democracy, freedom of religion, separation of church and state, and freedom of the press. In a wordplay on the French term for railroads, “chemins de fer” (roads of iron), he even condemned railroads as “chemins de l’enfer”—the roads of hell. His successor, Pope Pius IX, was originally more positively disposed toward the reform movements in Europe, but after the Revolution of 1848 killed his Priume Minister and forced him to flee Rome in disguise, Pope Pius turned vehemently against the ideals of the modern world. In 1864 Pope Pius IX issued the Syllabus of Errors, which repeated earlier papal condemnations of modern ideals, and concluding by a famous condemnation of the notion that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and comes to terms with progress, liberalism, and modern civilization.”

During this time the Italian movement known as the Risorgimento was fighting to unify Italy into a modern nation. The pope had ruled the central portion of Italy, known as the Papal States, for centuries. By the time of the pontificate of Pius IX, this territory was reduced to the city of Rome, which was effectively defended by French troops. When in 1870 Prussia invaded France, the French troops were called home and the Italian General Garibaldi was able to capture Rome for the new Italian nation.

In protest, the pope declared himself a “prisoner of the Vatican” and refused to leave its precincts for the rest of his life. This precedent was followed for decades. The loss of temporal power profoundly transformed the papacy. For centuries popes had been not only spiritual leaders but also the temporal governors of Rome and central Italy. As such, they were involved in constant political squabbles and frequently papal armies fought in battles for land and power. Popes intervened on the side of their own families and were perceived as partisan political leaders. The papal states were long thought to be necessary to preserve the independence of the pope from domination by a temporal ruler.

In 1870 the worst nightmare of the popes came to pass. Pope Pius IX lost all the temporal possessions except for the Vatican itself. Pius refused any negotiations with the new Italian natgion. Finally, in 1929 Pope Pius XI would sign a Concordat with Benito Mussolini, officially establishing the relationship between the Holy See and the nation of Italy.

Paradoxically, however, the loss of the Papal States was one of the greatest possible blessings for the papacy. Once freed from the responsibilities of ruling the central portion of Italy, popes were eventually able to become respected moral and spiritual leaders on an unprecedented global level. This came to fruition in the middle and late 20^th c. Pope John XXIII, who served as pope from 1958 to 1963, was beloved by many, many people beyond the borders of the Catholic Church. He was, in a sense, the grandfather to the world, a kindly, spiritual man who spoke vigorously for peace and the welfare of the poor. During the Cuban missile crisis in the fall of 1962, when the United States and the Soviet Union came the closest they ever did to nuclear war, Pope John XXIII served as an intermediary, passing messages between them. Pope J

Berkhof says, “It has been customary to speak of three offices in connection with the work of Christ, namely the prophetic, the priestly, and the kingly office” (Berkhof, p. 356). The Old Testament tells us that Israel had three main offices and these are Prophet, Priest and the King. All these offices pictured the work of the Messiah here on earth. The early church fathers believed in the existence of three offices and among those Calvin was the one who recognized the importance of differentiating these offices (Berkhof, p. 356). It would be wrong to assume that all people agree that there are three offices in connection with Christ’s work. Some theologians recognize the existence of prophetic and priestly offices only. The question that will be dealt with in this paper is who is a prophet? What are their functions? How is Jesus Christ a Prophet, Priest and King? The paper will also present the views of other people pertaining to the prophetic, Priestly and Kingly office of Jesus Christ.

Prophetic institution dates back in Exodus when God chose Aaron to be Moses’ spokesman. In Deut. 18:14-15 Moses as the first major prophet forewarned the Israelites before possessing the promised land that they must not listen and practice sorcery and divination because the Lord their God whom they serve never allowed them to do so. He told them that God would raise up a prophet like him among themselves and they must listen to him. A prophet is a person who speaks on behalf of God or God’s spokesman. In other words they are people who represent God to people and also represent people before God. Or they are “go betweens” between God and people. The Old Testament predicted that the Christ would come as a Prophet. In the New Testament we read about Christ speaking of himself as a Prophet (Luke 13:33).

Grudem (1994) says, “Christ as a prophet fulfills this office by revealing God to us and also by speaking God’s words to us” (p. 625). A prophet receives divine revelations from God and passes these messages on to people. So Christ as a prophet he claimed to bring a message from the father (Jn 8:26-28). He was the great prophet in all history. Grudem (1994) said, “Christ’s greatness as a prophet was in two ways. He (Jesus Christ) claimed that all the prophecies in the Old Testament were about him” (Grudem. p 625 – 626). Luke 24:27 says that Jesus Christ interpreted all what the scripture said about him beginning with Moses and all the prophets. The other way is that Jesus was and is the source as well as the messenger of God’s revelation. Watson (1997) said, “Christ as a prophet he taught externally by his word and inwardly by the spirit” (Watson, p. 166). When Christ is teaching he exhibits a difference in that he teaches the heart and gives us a taste of the word. His teaching causes people to obey and instills in us a desire to learn. Christ’s teachings are illuminative in nature.

In explaining the Priestly office of Jesus Christ Grudem present us three functions of how Christ was and is a Priest. As a Priest Christ offered himself as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. Not only that, he (Jesus Christ) persistently presents us near to God. The last way is that Jesus Christ as the Priest prays for us unceasingly (Grudem, p. 626-627). Something very insightful I discovered from Grudem is that Adam was a Prophet, Priest and King. In his role as a Prophet Adam had the true knowledge about God and that in his true knowledge he was honest to God and his creation. In his role as a Priest Adam would offer prayers and praises to God freely. These were prayers and praises of thanksgiving and not of sin (Heb. 13:5). The couple in the Garden of Eden (Adam and Eve) as Kings (or King and Queen) was given power to rule over God’s creation (Gen. 1:26-28). The entrance of sin in the Garden of Eden made these offices to no longer function as they were supposed to. Partial restoration of these offices came during when Israel was a kingdom. The coming of Christ fulfilled these roles (Prophet, Priest and King). In defining a Priest Hodge (1976) said, “A Priest is a man divinely chosen, qualified, and authorized to appear before God and to act in behalf of men.” He differentiated a Priest and a Prophet by saying that a Priest goes up from man Godward while a Prophet comes from God manward” (Hodge, p. 208).

The questions are do these roles exist today? If the answer is yes, how do we (as Christians) fulfill these roles today? In answering these questions Grudem said that as prophets we fulfill this role when we truthfully speak about God to believers and nonbelievers (Grudem, p. 630). The role of Christians as prophets is to proclaim the good news. In Peter two verses nine says that we belong to the royal priesthood family. Now as Priests we fulfill this role by offering sacrifices of praise and worship to God through Jesus Christ. As Priests we have access to the Holy of holies through Jesus Christ just like the Old Testament Priests had through the blood of the bulls and goats. Grudem (2002) said that we share in partially the kingly reign of Christ because the Bible says that we have been raised up with Christ and are seated with him in heavenly places (Grudem, p. 630). Kings in the Old Testament were given power to lead, control and direct the Israelites. In Matthew 2:2 we read that Jesus Christ was born as the King of Jews. He clarified to the Jews that his Kingship was not like an earthly one. Jesus as king has a kingdom and his kingdom contains people who have been regenerated. In Matthew 28:18 when Jesus Christ was commissioning his disciples (thus after resurrection) he opened his conversation with them by saying “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” This authority shall fully be realized when Christ comes in the Second Advent (Mt 26:64). This is the time when he will be known as King of Kings and Lord of Lords (Rev. 19:16) because every knee shall bow down to him and every tongue confess that he is Lord.

There are many different positions as regards to the offices of Christ. Scholars have differing views pertaining to his offices. Berkhof (1969) said that Gerhard (a Lutheran) was the first to develop the doctrine of the three offices (p, 356). People like Quenstedt disregarded the three offices of Christ as essential. Some people recognized that there are two offices of Christ: prophet and king. Berkhof (1969) said that the Lutherans divide themselves about the offices of Christ. Ernesti disagreed with the fact that there are three offices of Christ. He asserted that the distinction is purely artificial, not found in scripture and should not be used to describe the work of Christ. The latter Lutheran theologians denied the distinction of these offices (Berkhof, 1969. p. 356). People like Ritschl, and Haering rejected the existence of the three offices of Christ. In his argument Ritschl said, “The term “vocation” should take the place of the misleading word “office” (Berkhof, 1969. p. 357). He regarded the Kingly office of Christ as primary and the other two offices (Priestly and Prophetic office) as secondary. Haering on the other hand emphasized on calling as opposed to the three offices of Christ. The Socinians limit the work of Christ to the time of his public ministry (Berkhof, 1969. p. 358).

Moslems believe that Jesus Christ was one of the prophets. In fact they say that as a prophet he came before Mohammed. They believe that Jesus Christ prophesied about the coming of Mohammed by quoting John16:7-11. Moslems do not believe that Jesus Christ was the son of God and he was God. They do regard him as one of the prophets like those who appeared in the Old Testament. Roman Catholics believe that a priest is a person who has received the sacrament of holy orders and these holy orders are received by the laying on of hands. Thereafter this Priest becomes the partaker of the priesthood of Jesus Christ. Catholics also believes that only priests are the ones to offer the Eucharist sacrifice.

Though people have differing positions on offices of Christ but from scripture point of view I believe that there are three offices of Christ in which he operated: prophet, priest and king. God created man to function as a prophet, priest and king. Christ came to earth as an ideal man in order to restore man to his original condition he necessarily functioned as God’s prophet, priest and king. Now Jesus Christ as prophet (God’s mouthpiece) he brought the good news to the people. I believe that not everyone in the Old or New Testament was the prophet. In the Bible God would call some people to be prophets according to his plan. Serenius (year unknown) defined a prophet as “The one who speaks by inspiration from the one true and living God and from Jesus Christ, by and through the Holy Spirit” (Serenius, p. 13). A prophet was and is a person whom God entrust with his words, revelations or visions, and his work. His main duty was to bring the message of hope and salvation to the people. My belief is that Christ as the prophet when he came on earth he revealed God to us and brought the message of hope and salvation to the whole world. Jesus Christ continues his prophetic ministry even today by the Holy Spirit working through the word.

The Old Testament priestly practices prefigured the priesthood of the Messiah. The high priest in the Old Testament foreshadowed the priestly Messiah. Priests in the Old Testament would offer sacrifices to the Lord for the people and for himself. Jesus Christ as the priest gave up himself as a self-sacrifice for my sins and the sins of the world. This tells me that through him (Jesus) I have access to the father. Christ himself is our propitiatory sacrifice. As a priest he spoke and still speaks to God on behalf of us and speaks to us on behalf of God. He represents us to God because he intercedes for us (Heb. 7:25). High priests in the Old Testament would enter into the Holy of Holies for people and himself. Christ as the High priest entered heaven to appear for us in the presence of the Lord God (Heb. 9:24).

Christ as the son of God and king shares in the dominion of God over the world. I believe that his kingship is established in the hearts of believers. The administration of his kingdom is done by his word and the spirit. The kingship of Christ is exercised in the gathering, governance, protection and perfecting of his church. Christ as king is the head of the church (Eph. 1:20-22; 5:23). The kingdom of God is first the kingship of Christ established in believer’s hearts by the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit and it is both present and future reality. Christ as king rules over the universe and has power over everything (Mt. 28:18). As the king he has power to change people. To crown it all, the offices of Jesus Christ do exist until today. I believe that these offices are still in operation today. We may have trouble in distinguishing true and false prophets but God still speaks today.

All places, people, cultures and religions have a beginning; something or someone had to create the land, sea, animals and people. The story of creation varies from culture to culture but in some instances you can find similarities between two cultures that were divided by an ocean and thousands of miles. The two creation myths are those of the Christians and the Navajo peoples. These myths have been passed down from generation to generation and never forgotten. The creation myths for these two cultures are the building blocks for their futures. These two cultures weren’t only divided by an ocean and thousands of miles but by different languages and the time period in which each creation takes place. Despite the difference between these two myths, the similarities that are found are quite remarkable. The creation myths of the Navajo and Christian people contain specific symbolisms that make each unique, from the different characters, to the presence and development of evil and the floods that wiped out life or moved life forward, these show that no matter how great the distance there can be similarities and not just differences.

Each creation myth will be assessed individually because it is easier to fully understand the relation between the two myths. The Christian creation myth will be addressed first because it is the most well known of the two. In the Christian creation myth there was one God, The Triune God that consists of The Father, The Son and The Holy Spirit. He was the divine creator in the Christian creation myth that is told in The Book of Genesis. The Lord God of the Christian creation myth has the ability to create anything from nothing. He takes an earth that does not yet have form to it and creates the heavens, the land and all living creatures on it, including man. When God creates the earth it takes him six days to create the world and he rests on the seventh day. He didn’t create the earth all at once, he did it in steps. First he created light, then the heavens, then the land and plants, next the sun and moon, then the fish and birds and on the final day he created the animals and man. The Lord God, The Divine Creator, is a figure of great power and wisdom that is not always believed to be true later in the bible.

If you look past the initial creation of the earth and focus on the sixth day when man was created you will find two characters that started human life on earth. Adam was the first male to be created. He was created from dust and the breathe of god that gave him life and breathe of his own. God created Adam to rule over all the animals and to tend to the Garden of Eden. Adam was also tasked with the job of naming all the birds and animals. God tried to find a helper for Adam so that he didn’t have to care for Eden alone, but none of the animals god created was capable of helping Adam. Since God could not find a suitable helper for Adam he put him into a deep sleep and removed one of Adams ribs and used it to create the first woman, Eve.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve could eat whatever plants and fruits they wanted, except the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eating the fruit was forbidden and they both were told that if they ate it, they would die. This is the part of the story where the first instance of evil is introduced. One day when Eve was working in the garden she was approached by a serpent. This serpent was no normal serpent, it was Satan disguised as one of God’s creatures. As the serpent, Satan tricked Eve into eating and sharing with Adam a fruit from the forbidden tree. When Satan is disguised as the snake, he is seen as a trickster who gets his way through tricking and manipulating the helpless. When God found out what Adam and Eve had done he cursed them, as well as the serpent. The serpent was cursed to forever crawl on his belly and eat dust for the rest of his life. Eve was cursed with severe pains when birthing children and that her husband will always rule over her. When God got to Adam he cursed the ground that he will plant his crops and it will produce inedible foods. All of this pain and suffering was all because of a trickster.

After Adam and Eve were banished from Eden for eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they made love and Eve got pregnant. The lord had blessed them with their first son and they named him Cain. Eve looks as her son as a blessing and realizes that the lord had given her Cain and also realized that he is the ultimate source of life. Eve also had another son that was named Abel. Cain worked the land and soil and Abel watched and worked the flocks of sheep or other various animals. When these two men went to bring gifts to God, Cain brought gifts of fruit from the soil and Abel brought gifts of fat portions from the younger part of the flock. The lord favored Abel’s gift over Cain’s and this made him angry.

The Lord God asked Cain why he was so angry and explained to him that if you allow sin to get a grasp on you it will eventually lead to something terrible. After this talk with God, Cain went to find Abel and asked him to go to the field with him. Once there Cain attacked and killed Abel because he was jealous of how God favored Abel’s offering over his. When he returned from the field God asked Cain where his brother is and he told him that he didn’t know where he was. God knew what had happened to Abel and cursed Cain and told him that the ground will never yield crops to him again. Cain left his home and became a wanderer and said that whoever finds him will kill him. God said that that is not so for whom ever kills Cain will suffer vengeance seven times over. This is because he wants Cain to live as long as he can so that he will always have the burden of knowing that he killed his brother. Cain and his wife lived in the land of Nod which was east of Eden. Cain eventually married and his wife had a child named Enoch. Cain built a city here and named it after his son. Enoch eventually has sons who had sons that. Down the lineage one of the family members of Cain had murdered a young man and he was also cursed like Cain. Adam and Eve were blessed again with another child in place of the slain Abel, his name was Seth. Seth also had a son, he called him Enosh. After Enosh was born the people of the land started to call to the lord and pray to him.

The conclusive symbolic event that happens in the Christian creation myth is the flood that destroys all living creatures below the heavens. The flood is brought on by God because he was disgusted by how corrupt and violent life on earth had become. God spoke to a man that he felt would bring balance back to earth after the flood; this man’s name was Noah. God instructed Noah to build an Ark made from cypress wood to his exact dimensions. After the Ark was built Noah was told to gather two animals of every kind, one male and one female and put them on the ark to save them from the flood. He was also told to bring seven pair of the “clean” animals onto the ark. The “clean” animals were to be used for sacrifice once the flood waters had receded. God also instructed him to bring his wife, all three of his sons and his sons wives onto the ark as well. Noah was given seven days to complete all this before the rain started. Once the rain started it would not stop for 40 days and 40 nights. The water from the rain rose so high that they covered the highest mountains on earth.

Eventually the rain stopped, but the water did not recede for one hundred and fifty days, the God sent a wind that started lowering the flood waters. As the flood waters receded the ark found a resting place on the Mountains of Ararat. Noah sent a raven to see if it could find dry land and it returned with nothing. Later he sent a dove out to do the same thing and it too returned with nothing. Seven days after the first dove returned, Noah sent out the dove again and this time it returned with an olive branch. In another seven days he would send the dove out again and this time it would not return. This told Noah that the flood waters receded and it was now safe to leave the ark. After Noah, his family and all the living creatures left the ark; God came to Noah and told him and his family to repopulate the earth. After the flood God vowed never to curse the ground again because of humans, he originally cursed the ground because of Adam and Eve’s betrayal and it led to the death and destruction of all life on earth.

From these symbols, it’s easy to see how they all, in their own way, affected the creation of earth. Of the different themes in this creation myth the one that defines God as the Divine Creator is the most extensive one because he has the ability to create anything from nothing. At the beginning of the creation myth there is only one being, the divine creator, God. His power of creation is never rivaled during the telling of the Christian creation myth. As he creates the earth and all the creatures, man is created in his likeness.

When Adam is living in Eden with Eve another meme is introduced; the division of good by evil. This takes place when Eve is tempted by Satan, as the form of a serpent, to eat an apple from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. She does so and also shares some of it with Adam. When this happens, it divides Adam and Eve from God and he curses them and the serpent. Satan, as the serpent, is pleased because he successfully divided God from man. Eating that apple leads to corruption and violence on Earth. This is when God purges the earth with the flood. It seems that, with the creation of land, water, creatures, or man, evil will be present in some form.

You have read about different symbols and themes in the Christian creation myth but the form in which it was originally to be important as well. The story was passed down from person to person through speech. It was an oral tradition for quite a while. It was not recorded in written form until God gave it to Moses on Mt. Sinai. The source of the story is in the Old Testament of the Holy Bible in the Book of Genesis. The book of Genesis is one of five books that comprise the bible.

It is felt by many scholars that the language in the Christian creation myth was formally recorded. The bible as it is known today in the United States is a translation of the original bible that was recorded thousands of years ago. When the bible was originally translated from Hebrew to English, it is said that they translated it word for word instead of translated phrases or whole sentences or thought for thought. The story that is heard today is the translation of Hebrew text that was passed down from God. The Christians believed this story of creation when it was first written and they still believe in it and all its characters today.

The people to which the Christian creation myth came to was the Hebrew people. The role of women in their culture can be seen as being below man all through the bible. Its starts pretty early when God is cursing Eve for eating the apple and he tells her that she will forever be ruled over by man. This lack of respect for women is found in almost every book of the bible in various ways. Women are treated like lesser beings. This is even true in the Christian religion today. Men are considered the ruler of the house and of the church. In the modern church women don’t play any major roles. Women cannot be priests, bishops, cardinals or even the pope. I don’t think that will ever change due to the strict beliefs and history towards women in the Christian church.

The Navajo creation myth compared to the Christian creation myth is a bit more complicated. The story of the Navajo creation begins in a dark world, on a piece of land that is surrounded on four sides by water. Each side represented a direction and color; white for the East, blue for the South, yellow for the West, and black for the North. On this piece of land were the insect people. No actual “god” is present at this point but someone or something has to be with the insect people because they are expelled from the first world for arguing too much. Unlike the Christian creation myth, no god or creator is visible at the beginning of the Navajo creation myth.

After the insect people leave the first world, they go to the second world where they meet the bird people and not long after are asked to leave because they continued to argue. When they emerged into the third world, they meet the grasshopper people and got along with them for awhile. Eventually, however, they were asked to leave this world, too. They left this world and emerged with four grasshopper people; each colored the same color as one of the directions. In this world there were for mountains, each facing a specific direction. The insect people searched for people to the south, east, and west, and they found nothing. Then they traveled north and came across farming community. It’s people, the Pueblo’s, taught the insect people to farm, along with other necessary skills for survival.

At this point in the creation story, the first god appears to the insect people, sometime during the first autumn. The god’s name was “talking god” and with him appeared four other gods called: White Body, Blue Body, Yellow Body, and Black body. The Black Body God spoke and told the insect people to be more god-like or human and less like insects. They were also told to do a thorough self-cleanse and the Gods would return in twelve days. The Gods returned in twelve days with the Blue Body and the Black Body gods each carrying holy buckskins and the White Body and Yellow Body gods each carrying an ear of similarly colored corn. One buckskin was laid down facing east and the ears of corn were placed with eagle feathers on the buckskins and then covered with the other buckskin. By the request of the gods, wind blew between the buckskins, one from the east and one from the west. While the winds were blowing, eight mirage people encircled the mirage four times. When the top skin was removed, a man was where the white corn had been placed and a woman was where the yellow corn had been placed. They were known as the first man and first woman, or the holy people.

The men and women did not always get along. Much like in the Christian creation myth there seemed to be a divide between the men and the women. The Navajo people had an argument about the true reason that men hunt. This reason is that the sexual power of the women makes them hunt. The men became angry at this notion. The women felt that men and their abilities were not needed and they left the men. They traveled to the other side of the river where they lived for four years. During this time each side had performed “unclean” sexual acts. The women masturbated and the men would have sex with dead animal parts such as the liver of a slain deer. These unclean acts lead to the creation of monsters that will later devour and plague the people for some time. Once instance where this happened was during a river crossing with a man, woman and their two young daughters. The man and woman got across but realized their daughters did not. This is when the two people and coyote went in to the river to find the girls and they eventually did in the lair of the water monster. The water monster did not resist when the parents came to take their children back. During this time when everyone was distracted, Coyote stole the water monsters two babies and hid them under his robe.

One of the symbols that keep repeating throughout the Navajo creation story is the number four, along with multiples of four. This may be because there are four main directions in the world. However, this is not made clear. Eight years after man was created a archetypal trickster appears in the creation myth. The trickster is a coyote, much like the serpent in the Christian myth. The coyote is a trouble maker and, although he is mischievous, he is not an evil being like the serpent was in the Christian myth. Coyote secretly stole the children of the water monster. This act of thievery is actually helpful in the long run. More than anything, he seemed to make bad situations worse and never seemed to be helpful.

In the Navajo creation myth, there is a flood as well. However, it differs from the Christian myth because the Navajo gods did not cause the flood in order to destroy all life on earth. The people were noticing that animals were starting to leave and realized the flood was approaching. They carried with them soil from the sacred mountains and, in that soil; they planted four reeds that combined into one with a hole in the east side. All the people climbed the reed as the flood waters came. The climbed up the reed and emerged into the fifth and final world. They soon realized, however, that water was following them through the hole and they used the stolen water monster children to plug the whole.

When everyone emerged into the fifth world, an argument broke out between the Navajo people and the Pueblo people. This causes the Navajo and the Pueblo people to move apart from each other at this time. Later in history, they would meet again and teach each other different skills. After this split between Pueblo and Navajo, the first man and the first woman remade the four mountains with help from the gods; using the soil from the mountains in the fourth world. All the symbols found in the Navajo creation story have a specific role or purpose.

The theme of the Navajo creation myth is not a story of a divine creator, such as in the Christian myth, but it is a story of emergence through four worlds that each has their own difficulties. The Navajo emergence story is called the “Dine Bahane” and is one of the most complex stories to be originally presented orally. It is eventually written down, but for many years it was simply passed on from person to person verbally. It was not until much later that the oral rendition was translated and taken to written form. It is said that when Navajo people want to feel reborn or renewed as a culture, they perform a special ceremony. During this ceremony, they reenact the emergence creation myth. This story is just one of many ways that the creation myth is still remembered today.

In conclusion, when comparing the Navajo and Christian creation myths, the symbolism that arise between the two is quite similar considering the distance between these two cultures. The research shows similar archetypes, symbols, and how the myth was first presented and passed down to its audience. The two cultures represented within these distinct creation myths lived thousands of miles apart, and yet still had a few striking similarities within their myths. However, although they had their striking similarities, they also had many dramatic differences between the two that clearly distinguishes one creation story from the other. No matter what creation myth you believe to be true, no one knows for certain how humans came to inhabit the earth.

Okonkwo response to the collision of culture by resisting it. He continuously tries to fight the changes happening within the Ibo society. He disagree with the West ideas and believe the Ibo people should join together to forcefully remove the Western people. Okonkwos identity is challenged by the cultural collision because before the Western people came in he is the ‘top man’ of the Ibo people, he is respected and feared and greatly honored for his fighting skills. However now that the Western people are in-charge he losses all that because the Western people take away the fighting games they(the Ibo people) had. Also the other Ibo people will not assist him in his mission to get rid of the Western influence and through that Okonkwo is shown to loss the respect he once had over everyone.

In life, people often follow the rules and traditions of their community because it is all they have ever known. Most people do not want to break tradition because they do not want to run the risk of creating a state of disorder in their community, also MANY feel that by breaking the status quo they will become social outcasts. Through this unconditional faith that most people have in the traditions of their community, people turn a blind eye to some of the immoral practices that are followed. Despite the majority of people that will continue to follow these practices, a small amount of others will question their morality, causing others to feel threatened by their “backward” stance on community values.

The reason a person decides to turn against the traditions they once believed in can result from many different things in their life. When a person of a community decides to change the way they behave and to stop following the practices of their community, other people, in turn, are often affected by this decision. The effect that a person’s decision has on other people holds the ability to cause a revolutionary change in the community. In Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Nwoye turns towards the Christian faith as a refuge from the questionable practices of his Ibo village, in turn, spreading anger and confusion amongst the people of the community.

Nwoye’s decision to turn away from the practices of the Ibo village results from a combination of several sources. When the Christian missionaries came to preach about their religion for the first time the author describes Nwoye’s reaction by saying, “The hymn about brothers who sat in darkness and in fear seemed to answer a vague and persistent question that haunted his young soul-the question of the twins crying in the bush and the question of Ikemefuna who was killed. He felt a relief from within as the hymn poured into his parched soul.” Nwoye feels that the Christian religion answers his doubts about the cultural practices of the Ibo, such as the abandonment of twins and the killing of his friend Ikemefuna. HOWEVER, because Nwoye now has the opportunity to immerse himself in a religion In which the beliefs allow him to turn away from immoral practices of the Ibo culture, he is able to release his bitter feelings. When the author describes the way in which Okonkwo reacts to Nwoye’s interest in the Christian faith he says,”Nwoye turned round to walk into the inner compound when his father, suddenly overcome with fury, sprang to his feet and gripped him by the neck… He seized a heavy stick that lay on the dwarf wall and hit him two or three savage blows.” The way in which Okonkwo reacts to his son’s interest in the Christian faith allows Nwoye to believe that he is an outcast within a family and a community that believes disobedience towards the Ibo faith is NOT MASCULINE. Because Oknonkwo makes Nwoye feel as if he is an outsider, Nwoye turns towards the Christian faith, where everyone, including social outcasts, is seen as equals. Therefore, Nwoye’s decision to become a part of the Christian faith, results from his unwillingness to continue agreeing with the practices of the Ibo culture.

Nwoye’s rebellion against his father and the society he embodied is seen as a peaceful retaliation with an undertone of vengeance. When the author speaks about Nwoye’s curiosity in the Christian faith he says, “Although Nwoye had been attracted to the new faith from the very first day, he kept it a secret. He dared not go too near the missionaries for fear of his father. But whenever they came to preach in the open marketplace on the village playground, Nwoye was there(pg 149).” Although Nwoye is infatuated with this new faith and believes it to be more sensible than the Ibo faith, he feels that it is best to stay only a mere observer in order to avoid unnecessary chaos. Through Nwoye’s placid behavior, he passively opposes his father’s violent reaction towards everything in his life. Nwoye’s vengeful behavior towards his father is shown when the author says, “He went back to the church and told Mr.Kiaga that he had decided to go to Umuofia where the white missionary had set up a school to teach young Christians to read and to write…Nwoye did not fully understand. But he was happy to leave his father. He would return later to his mother and his brothers and sisters and convert them to the new faith.” Nwoye wants to get back at his father for always making him feel inferior, but because he is not a violent person, Nwoye does so in a quiet manner. Nwoye’s actions allow the reader to see that his rebellion stems from a strong desire to gain vengeance over his father. Therefore, although Nwoye’s actions are NONVIOLENT they still inflict hurt upon the people who are a part of his life. Nwoye’s decision to revolt against his FAITH

There are multiple principles that have been taught in this course that have changed my view of being a Christian but here I would like to focus on temptation and the Crown of Life. These two topics shed new light in my understanding of resisting temptation and the reward for doing so. Not all Christians know how to deal with temptation nor that their efforts go unnoticed in the grand scheme of things. Resisting temptation can prove to be very difficult at times and one of the biggest temptations can be to avoid persecution for being a Christian. But not only does resisting temptation help one stay on the way to Heaven, God will single out those who resist temptation and are willing to die for their faith, and reward them justly.

Temptation can be theologically defined as a trial; “a being put to the test” (Easton, 2007). In basic terms, it is the enticement to sin. The devil brought temptation into the world. Thankfully, Jesus Christ sacrificed his life to save us from sin and overpower Satan. It is up to each person to make a concerted effort to resist temptation, just as Jesus did in the wilderness. In the Old Testament, the word for temptation is the Hebrew word maccah, which translates to temptation or trial. In the New Testament, the word in Greek is peirasmos, which means temptation(s) or to try. According to the Blue Letter Bible website, the word “temptation” appears in the King James Version sixteen times in fifteen verses.

One of the foundations for the doctrine comes from Matthew 26:41: “Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (KJV). The first recording in scripture of Satan tempting humanity is when he tempted Eve’s loyalty through her lust of the flesh to God, which led her to eating the forbidden fruit. He also appealed to her lust of the eyes whereby the appearance of the fruit caused her to desire what she did not already have as well as feeding on her basic feeling of self-worth and self-preservation. Temptation is even mentioned in The Lord’s Prayer: “And forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one that is indebted to us. And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil” (Luke 11:4, KJV).

There are several practical applications regarding the issue of temptation. One of the best ways to protect oneself is to stay alert at all times and remember that the flesh is weak. Be sure to test everything that comes across your path and question whether it is from God or not. People should make every attempt to avoid conditions that might lead them to temptation. It is always important to focus on the truth and if we follow Christ, He will show us the truth, and it will set us free. When a person feels tempted, if they turn to prayer, God will always provide another way. You just have to be vigilant in looking for His way.

Crown of Life

The Crown of Life is one of the rewards for believers that will be given by Jesus from his seat of judgment. Theologically defined, the Crown of Life is not something that is received as soon as someone becomes a Christian but something the Christian will receive from God after proving firmness in faith. It is also sometimes referred to as the martyr’s crown. This crown has a guarantee and is a promise to those that suffer deprivation now and to those specifically who love God and honor Christ. Simply put, the Crown of Life is God’s reward to humanity for his perseverance in faith and his honoring of Jesus Christ.

There is a lot more biblical foundation for this doctrine than I thought I would find when I began my research. Revelation 2:10 stands out the most to me: “Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a Crown of Life” (KJV). Jesus specifically tells us that we will be tempted throughout out lives and we will more than likely receive persecution for our faith in Him. It is our duty to keep Satan beneath our feet and proclaim the truth in Jesus in order to receive this honor. James 1:12 is also another great reference for this doctrine: “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation: for when he is tried, he shall receive the Crown of Life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him” (KJV). Dr. Towns pointed out that the author could have been referring to temptations of Christians to “compromise their witness” instead of dealing with the discrimination of being one of the faithful “at the cost of their lives” (Towns, 1983).

The applications of this doctrine are more than practical but one must be very cautious because this is not a reward to be making bets for when you choose to live a life in faith. You do not live in faith just to receive this reward, quite the contrary. You receive this award for living in faith without regard to being rewarded for it. Making it through the temptation and persecution is of way more value than the gaining of the crown itself. If a Christian loses everything they have, Christ is still worthy of honor and the Crown of Life is still worth the steadfastness. Do not get wrapped up in things of this world such as money being the source of self-worth, security, and/or power. These things can only be appropriately received through faith in God and if a person lives by biblical principles with a true heart and without regard to their own humanly wants and temptations, they will receive their just reward – the Crown of Life. If a Christian loses everything they have, Christ is still worthy of honor and the Crown of Life is still worth the steadfastness.

Conclusion

Everybody gets tempted in life. Pleasing God is all in how you deal with those temptations. The world today is so far gone from what God seeks from His people now that temptation is rampant. So many sinful behaviors are seen as normal everyday things that are okay for people to do. This denial of God’s truth will keep His people from grace and all of His rewards, including the Crown of Life, which is eternal and assured for all of those who live righteously. People should not resist temptation just to receive the crown reward but rather should earn it by living everyday in light of God’s desires. Resisting temptation is a huge part in earning the Crown of Life. It is not going to be easy if one does it alone, but if they look to God, he will help make it a little more bearable.

Q1: What is the central paradox of all Christian theology? There are two paradoxes described in a lot of the locations i.e. Trinity and Incarnation. The apperception of God as Trinity has continually been both axial and uncertain to Christianity, yet “Three methods in one God” summarizes spiritual adumbration about the functions of the Godhead. The content of the Trinity has been again assaulted as casuistic bribery of God by various curved unprivileged. In the Incarnation, as usually genuine by those Chapels that follow the Authorities of Chalcedon, the all-powerful functions of the Son was associated but not alloyed with beast functions.

Q2: What is Israel’s “primary narrative” in brief? How does it shape Israel’s understanding of God as liberator and Creator?

Israel has a main conventional to abduction and generate over the acquired Palestine to get its details and the most perfect little angels resources which are hidden in Palestine. The fight of Israel and Palestine was begun returning 1882. There has never above been an approved real conventional bookkeeping and approved on to both Israelis and Palestinians. The approval of God as liberator of Israel defined the position of God as the God of Israel. It was the bit-by-bit capability that the God who absolved Israel is these God who designed the apple organization company organization that began out the way for finish monotheism. If God is the designer of all factors and of all people, again God is the God of all.

Q3: What is the meaning of theosis? And how it is central to the doctrine of Trinity? Explain your answer by refereeing to “ascent-descent” pattern in key passages from scripture, as well as the structure of Nicene Creed.

The “theosis” has two explanations, the action or the supplement of incredible and improve of man. Alone God has the action of incredible in and of Himself. No man can whenever they want acquire accurate divinity. There is alone one God and we are not Him. However, theosis is the supplement of getting divinized or God-infused, both in overall look and personal. Theosis is associated with addition theosis stated which is anecdotic adjust amongst wedding being of the Trinity. Therefore, theosis is associated with to his adeptness for perichoresis, or interrelationship, in which God prevails aural His monster growth. As an aftereffect of theosis, and this inherited adjust of God, man is developed existing, finish, and finish. The Nicene Rule is a function of acceptance for Religious followers in all places and a lot of modifications. The Nicene Rule is stated the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed, because the finish current framework of the canon eos was authentic by bishops at the Regional regulators of Nicaea (AD 325) and Constantinople (AD 381). Catholics, Conventional, and abounding Protestants acquire the age-old Nicene Creed. The Nicene Rule gradually explains the Church’s material about the Trinity, but it indicates actual information of Jesus’ way of life. Even recognizing the canon eos does not anon adduce Scriptures passages, it is based on religious concepts and information.

Questions for Discussion, pp. 47-48

Q1: Have you ever thought of the question, “why is there something rather than nothing” what sort of feelings or thoughts does such a question elicit from you?

Religious people (at least the sophisticated ones) have abandoned trying to argue as evidence that god provides explanations for how things work. They have realized that this is a losing strategy as science has made god redundant as an explanation for anything, and that signs of god’s power seem to show a notable inverse correlation to the advance of science. As a consequence they have shifted ground to questions of meaning such as “why is there something rather than nothing?” In particular, they apply it to the existence of the universe, since the origins of the universe seem to be slipping from their grasp as an insoluble mystery to be explained by god.

Q2: What are some other examples of Theophany in scripture or perhaps in other religious context? How do people today typically speak of encounter with the divine, and are such accounts similar or different from celebrated instances in the past?

At the foot of Mount Sinai, God appeared to the people of Israel in a physical form. This is called a theophany. Here are some of the other times God appeared in Bible people. The angel appeared to Sarah’s servant, Hagar, announcing the birth of Abraham’s son Ishmael, The Lord appeared to Abraham, foretelling Isaac’s birth, The angel stopped Abraham from sacrificing Isaac, The angel of the Lord appeared to Moses in anxiety in a bush, God appeared to Israel in pillars of breaker and alarm to adviser them through the wilds, The Lord batten to Moses face to face, One “like a actual being” appeared as the fourth man with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the afire furnace.

Q3: Do you think it important to maintain a balance between transcendence and immanenxe in one understands of God? In what ways do you think the doctrine of the Trinity might assist in this? Do you agree with the author that the doctrine of the Trinity, by its emphasis on relationship and self-giving, present a strong challenge to the individualism of much modern life? Explain. Might such a doctrine promote a more open and dialogical attitude towars people of other religions? Again explain your thinking in this regard.

Questions on p. 70:

Q1. Explain the Sinai Covenant and its conditions?

Sinai Covenant also called Laws-Covenant means Laws or God’s Code of holiness. All Covenants in Scripture are unilateral, except for the Covenant of Works, which was ancient bogus with unfallen Adam and afresh at Sinai with Israel. In both situations, this Works-Covenant bootless because it counted on absent-minded man. This is the aloft could cause why it could not and will not anytime succeed.

Q2. What does the word apocalyptic mean?

Apocalyptic means prophetic of devastation or ultimate doom or affording a revelation or prophecy or pertaining to the Apocalypse or biblical book of Revelation.

Questions for Discussion, p. 71

Q1: What are some of the important theological themes of Torah? Why do you consider them important?

The Torah provides itself as the anterior of the guidelines offering Judaism work out. One might, believe, then, that the primary craving for food of acceptance Torah would be the animadversion of these guidelines and the apperception of an alteration for their performance. In the rabbinic ideas, Torah needs antecedence over all else–even, in some circumstances, over the lord’s complete will. In a definitely adventuresome apostolic announcement, the rabbis beforehand that the Torah predates the apperception around the planet, and that God uses the Torah as adjust for growth. In the same way, the Talmud symbolizes God as making an investment the traditional three duration of every day acceptance Torah. Several rabbinic information signifies the apperception of the angel as codicillary on the Jews’ biggest acknowledging of Torah. According to these information, if the Judaism individuals had disallowed to availability the Torah, God would acquire modifying the angel to its pre-creation situation. One who analysis Torah is effectively strong to be relationship up the complete world.

Q2: How might the threefold arrangement of the books of the Tanak influence one understands of the concept of the Messiah?

The excellence the guides are categorized as they are- helpful that the acclimation goes from holiest’ the Torah, to little holy- the information in Ketuvim. This chooses antecedence for what is effective as a lot of precise and what maintains issue. This becomes essential if there is one or engaged organization to obtain something- successfully abolishment in Nevi’im (Prohets) agree to be considered to agree to with the Torah and abolishment in Ketuvim agree to agree to with both Nevi’im and the Torah with Torah demography issue. With this in concepts, one can catch the prohecies and negligence any concepts that activity with the Torah, and once again any that activity with Nevi’im.

Q3: Why do you think apocalyptic literature is sometimes used to frighten people rather than to provide them with hope?

Apocalyptic is not developed to surprise us or benefits us overseas from knowing Scripture; rather, it is adventuresome to admonition us approval God, achievements, wish, elegance, the lord’s strategy, and that He is in achievements in control. The alone methods who should be abashed are those who abatement and abhorrence God and abounding of us just do not approval it passionate because it is passionate of negative to our terminology, training, and heritage; thus, we consumption it or abusage it or dry at it as finish activity else.

Additional Question:

What methods of scriptural interpretation do you find most helpful? Why?

The scriptures passages is the lord’s Phrase. But some of the knowing acquired from it is not. There are abounding cults and Spiritual groups that declaration their knowing is appropriate. Too often, however, the knowing not stopped adjusts abominably but are incredibly uncertain. This does not abject that the Scriptures are ambiguous documents. Rather, the issue can be discovered in those who adjust and the methods they use. Because we are sinners, we are butterfingers of understanding the lord’s babble absolutely all of plenty of your energy and energy and effort. The program, ideas, will, and angel is impacted by sin and achieves 100% analytic accurateness challenging. This does not abject that accurate supportive of the lord’s Babble is challenging. But it does abject that we allegations to entry His babble with care, humbleness, and objective. Furthermore, we need, as best as can be had, the admonition of the Holy Spirit in understanding the lord’s Phrase. After all, the Scriptures are enhancing by God and is settled to His people. The a lot of connected use of the acclimation of Scriptures consumption familiar as the Conventional Phrase Sentence Acclimation began in Antioch, Syria, in the third a eon a.d. in acceptance to the Allegorical Strategy, which had developed several millennium impressive in Alexandria, The red sea. The Alexandrian Acclimation was an acclimation of the acclimation of Philo, a Judaism professional who lived from 20 B.C. to a.d. 55. Philo lived in Alexandria.

Introduction

The Book of Galatians highly believed to be written by Apostle Paul was written in its original form as instructions to the Christians in southern Galatia, which was a Roman province in what is now Turkey. Galatia was the area where on his first missionary journey Paul established the congregations in Pisidia Antioch, Iconium, Lystra, and Derbe .

Although there have been several other books written by bible scholars alike on Paul’s letter to the Galatians but that of Ralph Martin and Julie Wu under review is by normal standard one of the best annotated books of understanding.

The book is explicit and clear in its outline with the use of interesting pictures and boxes to highlight points in a very concise manner, the colour combination is attractive and makes the book appeal to reading and learning.

Authorship and date

Paul was attributed to have written no fewer than thirteen epistles in the New Testament. Out of this thirteen, seven are almost universally accepted, three are considered in some academic circles as other than Pauline for textual and grammatical reasons, and the other three are in dispute in those same circles.

It was gathered that Paul writing documented today in the book of Galatians was a dictation through a secretary (or amanuensis), who would usually paraphrase the gist of his message, as was the practice among first-century scribes.

It was also gathered that the message in the book of Galatians was first circulated among the Christians, where they were read aloud by members of the church along with other works. That was why some bible scholars regard Paul’s epistles which was said to have been written between 50-62 to be one of the earliest-written books, if not the first written book of the New Testament as they were cited around c. 96 by Clement of Rome.

It must be emphasised that this letter which was largely traceable to Paul was part of the intensive trips/missions to the east and west of the Aegean Sea…during which he concentrated in the succession of the provinces of Galatia, Macedona, Achaia and Asia

Although, scholars have not agreed on a specific date because the exact year is difficult to determine, but some placed the date of Paul’s writing his letter to the Galatians between 48 to 52 AD.

To some scholars the date was a time when Paul’s writing was put before the Jerusalem Council. According to then, the materials before the Council dealt with the issue of circumcision and the Law of Moses and whether such issue is relevant in view of the New Testament teachings.

The argument here is that Paul’s letter to the Galatians did not mention the Jerusalem Council and that if the council had met before the date of Paul’s writing his letter, Paul would have mentioned the decisions of the apostolic council in Jerusalem. Before of this assumption, scholars believed Paul must have written this letter to the Galatians before the Jerusalem Council, which was around 48 to 49 AD.

Expectedly, there is another group of scholars who argued that Paul’s Galatian letter should be dated at a date after the Jerusalem Council. According to this group, Paul began his second missionary journey after the Council had met. This group cited Acts 16:4 where it was recorded that Paul revisited the churches of Galatia to deliver the decisions reached by the apostles and elders in the Jerusalem Council. They also argued that it was after this date that Paul went to Greece to teach for close to two years while on his second missionary journey, this would place the date of its being written around 52 AD.

Purpose

Galatian’s purpose was primarily to resolve the dispute among churches in Galatians. During Paul’s mission in Corinth, false teachers were overturning the decision of the Jerusalem Council by claiming that the Gentile Christians must be circumcised according to the Law of Moses to be saved. To try to settle the matter, Paul wrote his letter to the Galatians from Corinth, where he was unable to leave his missionary work at the time. In other words, Paul wrote his letter to Galatians while in Corinth.

Another purpose is for Paul to counter the Judaizer view. Paul was particularly interested in refuting the false teachers spread by false teachers and to remind the Galatians of the roots of their faith. The three issues surrounding false teaching Paul was trying to tackle include:

That Paul was not a true apostle and did not have the full backing of the church in Jerusalem and that they (the false teachers) are the true apostle accredited by James;
That while Paul brought the Galatians the gospel of Jesus Christ, he had failed to give them the full undiluted gospel and that;
Without adherence to the Jewish Law, the church would have no ethical guidelines and would fall into immorality.
Structure

The book of Galatians has 6 Chapters, and was written in polemical style and tone, yet with a clear rhetorical structure and deep pastoral concern for the readers, to enforce the twin themes of faith and freedom (9).

The book is carefully structured into five distinct parts. The first part contained greetings and introduction (Galatians 1:1-10). The second part (Galatians 1:11-2:21) was used to defend Paul apostolic ministry of the pure gospel as against the false teachers.

The third part was used to defend the gospel of justification and salvation by grace and faith alone (Galatians 3:1-4:31) while the fourth part was dedicated to defending the freedom Christians have to love one another and live by the Spirit. Galatians 5:1-6:10. The last part includes conclusion and summation (Galatians 6:11-18).

Conclusion

This work has been to review Paul’s letters to the Galatians at the time the false prophets and teachers were spreading fake counsels and heresies about Paul and his teachings. The book was structurally crafted to treat the purpose and intent of Paul in a very clear manner. Paul’s Galatians is regarded as his very first epistle in the New Testament.

While it may not have always been clear why blood was a necessity for humans to survive, it was always worshiped unlike anything else. Practically every tribe and civilization throughout Mesoamerican history has participated in some sort of blood or human sacrifice. Even though each group of people may have had very different beliefs and even different rituals, blood was central part in many ceremonies. Nevertheless, the extent to which blood had been used was extremely different. While some civilizations sacrificed thousands of humans, some only participated in animals sacrifices, and others had no sacrifices at all. Blood ceremonies happened for a number of various reasons, anything from a coming of age, to the induction of a new king, to the construction of a new temple. Most often sacrifices were made to appease the gods, as a sign of piety and could be performed by anyone from a lowly servant to a king. While the Aztec, the Maya, and the Kuna were all very different people living at different times in Mesoamerica with entirely different ceremonies and beliefs, all used blood as an integral part in many of their rituals.

The Aztecs, also known as the Mexicas, were a group of culturally united people that mostly spoke Nahuatl and lived and ruled in Central Mexico during the fourteen to sixteenth centuries. They ruled from a large city called Tenochtitlan, which is now the present-day location of Mexico City. Out of all of the Mesoamerican civilizations, the Aztecs had the most prolific blood rituals and human sacrifices. They especially thought it was important to sacrifice humans, at least once a month so that they could appease the gods and bring good luck to their land. However, researchers have found that human sacrifices in the Aztec empire were done much more often than once a month. Even many of the Aztec myths surround human sacrifice. The “Legend of the Five Suns” attempts to explain the formation of all of the gods and why there is a need for human sacrifices all in a single story. It begins with the god Ometeotl creating four sons who would be the four cardinal directions and who would also create all other gods that the Aztecs worshipped. These four gods created people and when they did they had to create a god that would serve as the sun as well. Unfortunately the gods that would be created for the sun were not be perfect and kept fighting and the sun god kept changing which kept killing all of the people on earth. Finally Quetzalcoatl decided that he would not let the people that he created be destroyed so he went to the underworld to steal their bones and resurrect them. At the same time created for them a new sun called Huitzilopochtli. This is the sun that the Aztecs believed was in the sky over their heads. They also thought that every time it turned dark Coyolxauhqui, the goddess of the moon, and the stars were fighting with Huitzilopochtli to try to take his spot. In Tenochtitlan: Capital of the Aztec Empire Jose Luis de Rojas emphasizes the conclusion of the myth: “The myth dramatizes the triumph of the sun over the moon and the stars when it rises each day” (pg. 16). Additionally, the human sacrifices performed by the Aztecs were supposed to help give Huitzilopochtli the strength to fight back and to rise again each morning. In The Aztecs: New Perspectives Dirk R. Van Turenhout explains the importance of sacrifices: “The Aztecs shared with other Mesoamerican peoples the belief that sacrifice to gods was necessary to ensure the continued existence of the universe” (pg 188). Without human sacrifices there could be no life sustained on earth.

Even the founding of Tenochtitlan is a legend based on the human sacrifice of a princess. It is said that when the Mexica, or the Aztecs, first came to Central Mexico they were forced to settle in Chapultepec, a region with very poor resources and living conditions. Here they fell under the rule of another city called Culhuacan whose rulers were said to be descendants of the Toltecs. After the Mexica city helped Culhuacan defeat an enemy the King of Culhuacan gave away his daughter for marriage to one the Mexica leaders. Unfortunately when he arrived for the marriage ceremony to Chapultepec, to his disbelief he saw one of the Mexica priests wearing his daughter’s skin over his head. Upon being questioned the priest explained that their god, Huitzilopochtli asked for them to sacrifice the princess. Outraged the King forced all of the Mexica off of the land. They wandered aimlessly for weeks searching for a place to settle when Huitzilopochtli came down from the heavens and told them to settle down when they see an eagle perched on a cactus killing a snake. They came across this scene in the middle of a marshland and there founded their soon to be great capital of Tenochtitlan. Just like this one many of the Aztec myths are based on human sacrifice, or at least have human sacrifice, demonstrating how important of a ritual it was in their lives.

For the Aztecs most of the human sacrifices were performed by a set of five or six priests. The victim would be dragged up the stairs to the top of the temple where a few of the priests would hold him down on a stone slab and one priest would make an incision in the victim’s abdomen with a flint knife. He would then reach in and quickly pull out the still beating heart for all to see. The heart would then be placed in a bowl which would be offered to the gods and the body would be pushed down the stairs. Meanwhile all of the spectators were expected to perform some sort of bloodletting ritual themselves. While this was the most standard form of human sacrifice each god had a specific sacrificial ritual that had to have been followed. In the Handbook to Life in the Aztec World Manuel Aguilar-Moreno describes the different human sacrifice rituals of the Aztecs:

“Types of sacrifices included extraction of the heart, decapitation, dismemberment, drowning, or piercing by arrows, to name some examples. Instruments of choice included, but were not limited to, a techcatl, which was a sacrificial stone; a cuaubxicalli, a container to hold hearts; a teepatl (flint knife), which was used to stab the subject” (pg. 154).

The Aztecs used the most elaborate ways they could think of to kill their victims in order to show their obedience and respect to the gods. The Aztecs performed the most gruesome and grotesque human sacrifice rituals in Mesoamerica.

Out of all neighboring civilizations the Aztecs held the largest human sacrifices and in recent times researchers have speculated about the causes of these mass sacrifices. They have come up with a number of reasons, though the most important three seem to be religious, political, and ecological. The Aztecs seemed to believe that sacrificing humans to the specific gods would bring them anything that they wanted, from a season of good rain, to a well-built temple, to a victory against an enemy. If things were not going the way they were planned it was often thought that the particular god was not pleased with the sacrifice so more would have to be made. For example when building the Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan the Aztecs sacrificed more than eighty thousand prisoners, approximately ten per minute during the four day building process. Many of the sacrifices could have had more backing by political reasons though. In The Aztecs: New Perspectives Dirk R. Van Turenhout writes: “Modern scholars of Aztec religion are convinced that the frequency with which these sacrifices occurred had the additional aspect of propaganda” (pg. 190). It is believed that the Kings would sacrifice as many people as possible to demonstrate their strength and influence as well as make sure that all of the servants obey. The Aztecs held a lot of land at their peak that was occupied by people who were not Aztec descendants so they had to be kept in line; the thousands of human sacrifices could have been the annual tributes that these villages each had to pay to stay protected by the Aztec empire. Not only did this have a strong effect on the people living in the civilization it could also have been an intimidation factor for the civilizations around. In his book, City of Sacrifice: The Aztec Empire and the Role of Violence in Civilization, David Carrasco explains the role of the sacrifices in instilling fear in the surrounding populations;

“The ritual extravaganza was carried out with maximum theatrical tension, paraphernalia, and terror in order to amaze and intimidate the visiting dignitaries who returned to their kingdoms trembling with fear and convinced that cooperation and not rebellion was the best response to Aztec imperialism” (pg. 75).

Some even think that the numbers of sacrificed could be much lower than is believed and reported by the Aztecs because the number of deaths were inflated to scare their enemies.

The Mayans were a very advanced civilization living on the Yucatan peninsula in Mesoamerica starting during the pre-classic period and reaching its peak between 250 and 900 AD. The Maya were a very progressive civilization for their time having creating a written language as well as mathematical and astrological systems. Unlike the Aztecs, the Mayan people were not as inclined to participate in human sacrifices, yet they often had blood rituals. The Mayans had a large number of religious festivals and rituals throughout their calendar year but as researchers have found none included the sacrifices of humans. The festivals based off of the calendar had a few animal sacrifices and most importantly all had some sort of bloodletting ceremony. These bloodletting rituals could be performed by practically anyone, such as a young boy or a servant male but for the large gatherings it would be the king or the priests preforming public bloodletting. In Handbook To Life In The Ancient Maya World Lynn Vasco Foster explains the importance of bloodletting in Maya culture: “Despite the pain, the Maya elite carried out bloodletting rituals for a variety of purposes. They believed they could traverse cosmic boundaries in bloodletting rituals, and Maya rulers could contact deities and ancestors” (pg 191). The bloodletting would be done by sticking a barbed rod through the tongue, ear, or foreskin and blood would be collected on a piece of parchment and then burned for the gods. The foreskin or the vagina was the most common places where blood would be taken from because of the great significance of these body parts. For obvious reasons the blood from these locations was considered to have fertile qualities and was used in ceremonies concerned with the plant life and the growing of crops.

One of the most important reasons for bloodletting and any blood ritual was to see the Vision Serpent. The serpent was by far the most important social and religious symbol for the Mayans and the Vision Serpent was the most important of all serpents. Often the purpose of the bloodletting was to contact and communicate a deceased relative or a god. During a successful bloodletting the participants would see the Vision Serpent and out of its mouth would form the head of the god or ancestor they are contacting. The Vision Serpent was a direct link for the Mayan people from the physical world to the spiritual world. In Ancient Maya: The Rise and Fall of a Rainforest Civilization Arthur Andrew Demarest mentions the importance of bloodletting in art: “The importance of bloodletting is confirmed by archeological evidence, as well as iconographic representations and carved texts” (pg 188). One of the most famous depictions of bloodletting from the Mayans is found on a limestone carving called Lintel 24 which was discovered in Yaxchilan by a British archeologist named Alfred Maudslay in 1882. This lintel depicts the ruler Shield Jaguar holding a torch while Lady Xoc pulls a rope with shards on it through her tongue to produce the vision serpent. The hieroglyphs state that the carving dates back to the 28th of October 709 and also give the names of the two represented. Depictions like these were popular in Mayan civilizations and adorned many tombs demonstrating the importance of these rituals.

Though according to records the Mayan people rarely had human sacrifices during the calendar festivals, they may not have been as “innocent” as the Spanish conquistadors thought. During excavations of various pyramids and other influential sites bodies were found that told a very different story. The Mayans were a very aggressive civilization and often participated in war, even with other Mayan groups. When this would occur any prisoners that would be taken would usually be sacrificed in grandiose celebrations. In The Ancient Maya Sylvanus Griswold Morley explains the importance of these rituals: “These sacrifices were apparently essential to the sanctifying of important rituals, such as the inauguration of a new ruler, the designation of a new heir to the throne, or the dedication of a new building” (pg. 543). These sacrifices were a way to induct a new king or simply show how powerful and successful a current king was. Often after a king died, his son would not be allowed to rule until he brought back prisoners from an enemy tribe and sacrificed them. If during this escapade he would be murdered himself, that would be his fate and the next in line for the thrown would have to do what he failed to accomplish. While both the Aztecs and the Maya had very elaborate blood rituals, both were very different. The Mayans only used human sacrifice as a way to demonstrate that a King was worthy of ruling the city, otherwise for the most part human sacrifices were shunned. While the Aztecs would sacrifice thousands to ask the gods to help them construct a great pyramid the Mayan people chose to sacrifice animals instead. In comparison with the neighboring civilizations of the same magnitude the Mayan people can be considered to have had very mild blood rituals.

Unlike the Mayan and Aztec decedents, the Kuna tribes of today still participate in the same, or at least very similar, blood rituals as they had before the Spanish invasion. The Kuna people live in villages in present day Panama and off of the coast on the San Blas Islands. A significant difference between the Kuna and most other Mesoamerican tribes and civilizations is the great emphasis that they put on women in their society. The Kuna are matriarchal and women are held as the ultimate symbol, participating in many tribal decisions and gatherings that would in most other cases be solely for males. Similarly, most ceremonies are centered around women and in a few of them blood plays a substantial role. The inna tunsikkalet ceremony is the second largest ceremony that revolves around Kuna women. This is a two day puberty ceremony which is this first in a series of coming of age rituals and is very similar to the inna suid rite, or the hair cutting ritual, that is held later once the girl is ready to be married. Unlike many other Kuna rituals, the inna tunsikkalet is a “family and household event” (280, The Art of Being Kuna). During this time the young girls are isolated from the rest of the community and are not allowed to touch the ground with their feet and have to be carried if they need to leave their room for whatever reason. During this ceremony it is believed by the Kuna that the young girls are getting rid of all of the bad in their bodies through this blood. They are expelling any evil spirits from their bodies through the flow of blood. A few months after the Kuna girls have been secluded from all others and have finished their first menstruation the girl’s family sponsors a “collective drinking bout” (280, The Art of Being Kuna) during which the girls are again isolated. This time they are put in a surba, or a small, rectangular, wooden enclosure where they are painted in a black dye from the genipa fruit. Alexander Moore writes that after they have completed their rite “the pubescent girls, then, have emerged in this modern community as the paramount symbol of community life” (276, The Art of Being Kuna).

In comparison with the Maya and the Aztec the Kuna did not participate in any animal sacrifices nor did they see it necessary to sacrifice humans to appease the gods. The use of blood in their ceremonies was purely symbolic and was not forced out of the body in any way. Unlike the other people of Mesoamerica the Kuna did not see a need to feel pain or show penance during their blood rituals and in this way can be considered a more advanced and civilized tribe of their time. The differences between the Kuna and the other people of Mesoamerica can be attributed to the small communities that never fought, but also were never conquered. They never saw any gruesome battles or bloodshed and for the most part have been a peaceful tribe. For this reason many of their blood ceremonies and rituals are not as extreme as the Aztec or Mayan sacrifices. Yet blood was still an all important part of their lives, without it there would be no inna tunsikkalet, or puberty rite.

Blood played an integral part in just about every civilization and tribe throughout Mesoamerican history. Though, this doesn’t come as a surprise; blood ceremonies, in some way, have been a part of practically every single culture from the beginning of time until the present. From the enormous, public gladiator battles and executions in the Coliseum during time of the Roman Empire in the 70 AD to the symbolic drinking of Christ’s blood during the Eucharist under Christian theology in today’s world, blood has and will always play an important role. While human sacrifices have long been gone from our world, some religions, such as the Santeria, still participate in animal sacrifices as a way of healing. One of the possible explanations for the importance of blood in so many different cultures and societies over such a long period of time is that blood is practically the same in just about everyone. Whether one was a Mayan king or a humble servant he still had blood that flowed in exactly the same way. Anyone who wanted could participate in these blood rituals and show their piety to the gods, even if it did not mean a public ceremony. Blood is also universal, every single person who has ever walked this earth had blood flow through their veins. For this reason it is safe to assume that most people were aware of it and for most it was something of a mystery, something that could mean the difference between life and death, something that could be worshipped. Whether it is for religious, cultural, or medical reasons, blood will always play a significant role in our lives. Blood is as important as air, water, or food, without it we would not survive.

‘Keeper N Me’ by Richard Wagamese, is a novel based on the necessary balance between life and the culture in which one belongs to. This is a necessary aspect in order to maintain a steady relationship with one’s self. In this novel passing on traditions or a certain way of life from generation to generation is one of the most important aspects of guiding someone of the Ojibway culture, as the Ojibway people have very strong beliefs and take their culture very seriously. The people of the Ojibway culture believe that through storytelling and dreams one can realize the importance of tradition and its influence on their identity. Wagamese throughout his novel tries to teach the readers the power of one’s community and traditions as he reflects a positive view of Native life. Passing on traditions is a very important aspect of guiding someone of the Ojibway culture in this novel, but to stick to a certain way of life has its challenges as everyone receives different views and opinions from the many different people they encounter throughout their life. The author’s concept in Keeper ‘N Me is much more than just someone who provides guidance but it is how storytelling and the teaching of traditions are used to help guide. Garnet Raven, being isolated from the rest of his family, has struggled with knowing his true identity. Furthermore, the author shows not only the significance of finding a place to belong, but rather the importance of one’s actions and emotions in finding a balance in life but at the same time not letting the presence of dominate views overlook the power of one’s self.

Passing on traditions in the Ojibway culture is a very important aspect of guiding and teaching someone. Due to the Ojibway people having such strong beliefs, they take their culture very seriously. The culture must be maintained for future generations to come as the generations is slowly being bombarded by “white” society. Such behaviour results in the newer generations of Ojibway people to become less interested in learning and living in the traditional Ojibway lifestyle. These younger generations of Indians need to be guided by their elders in order to keep that traditional culture alive, which creates a a string bond with one’s family and ancestors, inspiring them to become guides for next generations as well. Dreams are also a guide in Ojibway culture, “‘one of the things that elders tell you nowadays to try real hard to remember, write them down even to help you.’” (Wagamese 252). It is believe that through dreams one receives visions that are “‘sent to them by the spirit world. That vision could be just about anything and was meant to be a sacred and private thing for the seeker. Gave a direction for their life.’” (252). Dreams are believed to be important messages that provide one with “‘direction and strength’”(252).

The Ojibway honour the traditional way of storytelling as a guide in which it provides a way to pass on words of wisdom and tradition from one generation to the next. Bernice Weissbourd says: “Because it’s not only a child is inseparable from the family in which he lives, but that the lives of families are determined by the community in which they live and the cultural tradition from which they come.” In Keeper’n me, Garnet was taken away from his family and placed in numerous different white foster homes starting from the age of three; “‘ everywhere they moved me I was the only Indian and no one ever took the time to tell me who I was, where I came from of even what the hell was going on.’” (16) Because he was isolated from family and culture, he lacks the knowledge and strength he needs to be himself. Garnet, living in an all white society is unaware of what culture and from what society he actually belongs to, which is why he is in constant search for something he can call his own. Garnet does not know what its like to be Indian which initially

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makes him feel unease and disconnected with his family and culture; “‘growing up in all-white homes, going to all-white schools, playing with all-white kids can get a guy to thinking and reacting all-white himself after a while. I just figured I was a brown white guy’” (17) so he feels that he has no choice but to become one of them, as he knows no different. Soon after that, Garnet learns the negative stereotypes about Native people when one of his foster fathers drives him to the Indian section of town showing Garnet all the drunks and homeless people, “‘See. Those are Indians. Look at them. If you don’t start shaping up and doing what you’re told around here, that’s what you’re going to be!’” ( 18) this takes away all the culture he ever had and encouraged him to not want to be Indian as he did not want to become like the people he saw. Keeper as a storyteller tries to pass the message of traditions and a way of life to guide Garnet, once he arrived in White Dog reservation. Finally, after spending some time at the reservation, Garnet was given another chance to gain confidence with the person he was. With the help of Keeper, Garnet is learning how it feels to be part of the Ojibway culture for the first time. Garnet was taught that to be a true Indian one must be a participant. To be a true Indian, one needs to learn “‘the why of this life instead of just the how’”(307).

Author Richard Wagamese with the help of Bernice Weissbourd’s quote informs the readers of the importance of tradition and its possible influences on one’s identity. The culture in which an individual grows up molds the views of one’s self and the world around them, in which maintains a connection with ancestors and traditions. A necessary factor in the lives of many people today, is the feeling of belonging to a group of people with similar interests, beliefs, religion, culture, traditional ways, etc.. Such behaviour is a very important aspect in the shaping of identity. Many are taught at a young age that ethnic traditions are meant to be celebrated and carried on from one generation to the next. In this novel, one of the most significant lessons to be taught is to always

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find balance between culture, yourself and the world; “‘Find balance with things. Yourself. The world. Everything, on accounta change is the biggest law of nature. Fight change you fight yourself’” (196). Culture is so important because its extends the inner self of a person, to members within a society, or a community. Culture can form invisible bonds between members in the community, which can result in the passing on of values and traditional ways. This also builds up a long term tradition after years and years. Culture and tradition is strengthened by the passing on from generations and provides a background to its later generations, allowing there to be gain in a sense of belonging withing people and the culture in which they share.

Throughout Keeper ‘N Me, Richard Wagamese portrays and informs the importance of tradition in the novel based on the necessary balance between life and the culture in which one belongs too, in order to maintain a steady relationship with one’s self. It is made clear to the reader of the significance of passing on traditions or a certain way of life from generation to generation, and how it is one of the guiding aspects of the Ojibway culture. Wagamese throughout his novel is also tries to teach the readers the power of one’s community and traditions as he reflects a positive view of Native life. Furthermore, the author shows not only the significance of finding a place to belong, but rather the importance of one’s actions and emotions in finding a balance in life but at the same time not letting the presence of dominate views overlook the power of one’s self.

A cultural comparison can be made between the United Kingdom and Greece by examining these dimensions and their stances on each. Lets first look at power distance, which addresses the inequality of power in organizations. The UK scores a relatively low 35 and Greece is moderately high at 60. Large power distance, like Greece, indicates an acceptance of a hierarchy in which everyone has a position in society and no further validation is needed. The UK on the other hand, with a low power distance society, seeks power equilibrium and requires validation for disparities of power in organizations.

Collectivism maintains a high interdependence within a society, where individuals presume their community will take care of them; it is based on loyalty. Individualism fosters a society that is much more independent where people only look after themselves and immediate family. The UK at an 89 is very high on individualism where Greece with a relatively low 35 nurtures a society where the community watches out for one another.

Masculinity advances material successes, high levels of achievement, and decisiveness. Femininity promotes quality, humility, relationships, and morality for the weak. The UK and Greece are most similar in this regard scoring a 66 and 57 respectively. They are both slightly on the masculine side. However, the UK is closer to the masculinity side of the spectrum. They are a little more concerned with accomplishment and heroism, while Greece maintains some reserve for the overall quality of life and Adam Smith’s fellow feeling.

Uncertainty avoidance is the amount of ambiguity a society feels comfortable with, whether you attempt to control the future or let it happen. A high uncertainty avoidance culture sustains firm beliefs and is unaccepting of radical ideas. Weak uncertainty avoidance cultures view principles inferior to practice and have a much more relaxed environment. The UK has low uncertainty avoidance at 35 while Greece is extremely high at 112. Unlike the UK, Greece does not tolerate ambiguity and deviations well. Their organizations will serve to defend conformity and certainty.

These cultural dimensions discussed are also correlated to accounting values. The UK ranks high in individualism and low in uncertainty avoidance and power distance, implying an accounting culture that would rank high in professionalism over statutory control. Professionalism allows for judgments to be made in certain situations, whereas statutory control aims to regulate how to account for each transaction without the interpretation of the professional. Greece with extremely high uncertainty avoidance would favor statutory control.

Greece ranks high in uncertainty avoidance and power distance while being low in individualism. This would correlate with an accounting culture fostering uniformity over flexibility. The UK on the other hand with low uncertainty avoidance would support a system with comparability/uniformity subject to the prerequisite of flexibility.

Greece is much more likely to be conservative with a high uncertainty avoidance and a low ranking for individualism. Conservatives tend to under value assets and profits while over estimating liabilities to hedge the uncertainties in future events. The UK with high levels of masculinity and individualism and a focus on achievement, would be prone to be more optimistic with their valuations.

With a low level of uncertainty avoidance and power distance accompanied by a high level of individualism the UK would foster an accounting culture with more transparency as compared to Greece employing more secrecy. Secrecy surfaces from a need to preserve security and elude conflict while also maintaining power disparities through restricted financial statements. Transparency appeals to the UK because they are more focused on the individual and his achievements while they are not concerned as much with the uncertainty that accompanies many company’s books.

There are many links that have been hypothesized by Hofstede and his use of cultural dimensions. However, as prior research shows, it remains very controversial as to the identification of how national systems develop their accounting policies. Much empirical examination must still be done to understand the degree of correlation between accounting and societal values. It will be important to integrate external impacts in the research to truly understand the findings. The ideas presented by Hofstede reveal promising relationships in the realm of accounting, which could prove to be crucial as we attempt to move towards a unified global accounting system.

Resources:

S.J. Gray, Towards a Theory of Cultural Influence on the Development of Accounting Systems Internationally

Question 2

It is clear that accounting systems across the globe are heavily influenced by culture and major discrepancies exist between IFRS and countries that have not adopted its standards, specifically the Islamic world. There is an ever-growing need in our macro quantum world to apply an accounting system that is consistent across all nations to allow comparability across international organizations. The fact that culture does play such a significant role in developing accounting policies, and that cultures are so vastly different from one country to the next, how could we cultivate a culturally acceptable accounting system? Hofstede’s analysis of cultural dimensions and accounting values could offer some insight into this growing problem.

Hofstede identifies four cultural dimensions: power distance, individualism, masculinity, and uncertainty avoidance that can be used to predict and explain cultural differences. These dimensions are then linked to accounting values in the form of statutory control, uniformity, conservatism, and transparency. Using this framework to analyze Islamic nations we can better understand their cultural and accounting values, which will help formulate a socially acceptable accounting system.

Islamic law is very collectivist, every individual is required to work and produce. They also attempt to distribute wealth through zakat, which is an almsgiving, and if that is not sufficient the government will impose a temporary tax on the affluent as a means to provide balance. This also displays a moderate to lower level of power distance by striving for equalities. Living extravagantly or in poverty is condemned, further exemplifying a lower power distance as the society aims for equalities. Muslims are expected to be socially accountable to their community so that the whole community will benefit. These ideals also embrace femininity by caring for the weak and living a life of modesty and quality. They display a low level of uncertainty avoidance by trying to eliminate any doubt or ambiguity in society, the Qu’ran is the truth and it will take care of you.

Islamic law requires full disclosure that is fair and accurate, which means they believe in transparency over secrecy. This is in line with a nation with high collectivism and femininity, while having lower power distance. They are required to keep adequate records, especially in regards to debts; they aim to eliminate uncertainty and doubt. This would put Muslims at a moderate to high level of uncertainty avoidance. Islamic accounting is conservative in nature, not optimistic. The holy Qu’ran reveals the truth and the best way of living, thus disclosure must reveal the entire truth in all faithful obligations so that investors can afford their religious responsibilities such as the zakat. It is forbidden to attempt to deceive; therefore optimistic accounting would not be advised. Islamic law would lean towards statutory control and uniformity in accounting policies to ensure records meet their strict presentation requirements.

In formulating a culturally acceptable accounting system it is imperative to fully understand the cultural differences that are unavoidable in society. We must address and embrace these differences in order to formulate a system that is satisfactory to all. Hofstede’s dimensions provide a framework for analyzing and grouping cultures to find similarities and offer insight to why there are discrepancies. The IASB can then utilize this information to help nations understand each other’s reasoning and beliefs concerning financial reporting. Using this mechanism we can come together and make compromises where necessary and construct an accounting system that will benefit the majority.

Resources:

Tsakumis Campbell and Doupnik, IFRS: Beyond the Standards

Mervyn K. Lewis, Islam and accounting

Christopher Napier, Defining Islamic accounting: current issues, past roots

S.J. Gray, Towards a Theory of Cultural Influence on the Development of Accounting Systems Internationally

Question 3

We live in a macro quantum world where every aspect of the global economy is becoming exponentially interconnected. There is an immense ripple effect in our society that reaches every corner of the globe. As things become more and more connected the cultural differences within our societies are becoming increasingly more evident and influential.

There is a need for a unified accounting system in our macro quantum world as transactions and investing are taking place on the global stage. Recently there has been pressure for the rest of the world to adopt the western “conventional” accounting standards. The problem is that the rest of the world has different political, social, and commercial environments. Requiring a nation to adopt such standards is not possible without detrimental effects to the home country’s society and economy.

As Hofstede alluded to, accounting and cultural values are interrelated. Accounting practices form cultural realities and the controlling forces within the culture inherently influence these practices. If the capitalist peace is to be achieved in the macro quantum world, state and non-state actors will have to find something within that allows for a peaceful arrangement that will benefit the society as a whole.

Adam Smith believed people have a conscience formed through self-love and sympathy that is kept in check by the impartial spectator. Sympathy to Adam Smith was closer to the emotion of empathy, the ability to understand another’s feelings and being able to step in their shoes and embrace those feelings. Although, empathy is not so much a word but a capacity to actually feel the pain someone else is experiencing. As we continue to globalize it is imperative to be able to see the world from another nations point of view in order to initiate policies that will serve the greater good. If we cannot truly understand our cultural differences and the purposes behind them we will be unable to create a culturally acceptable macro quantum world.

We all have an inherent need to be approved by others; we achieve this through an understanding of the desires of others, thus being in sympathy. This is the fellow feeling. This feeling is essential to life, we need to be loved and we need to love others. Understanding the trials and tribulations of developing nations and being able to lend aid allows us to grow. This will be mutually beneficial in the long run. We cannot simply implement policies in other countries because we believe them to be correct, we must empathize with them and comprehend we are both seeking a similar end, its just the means that needs to be sorted out.

Adam Smiths concepts of sympathy and the fellow feeling apply to much more than the harmonization of accounting standards. They apply to the entire macro quantum world. Embracing the fellow feeling is one of the best ways to eradicate poverty and deriving a plan to combat healthcare issues. If we could all truly empathize with one another there would be now need for security or defense. By embracing the fellow feeling we would be able to better realize the impacts of negative externalities of energy on our neighbors.

Everything that happens in a macro quantum world has effects felt across the globe. Incorporating Adam Smith’s teachings about the fellow feeling and sympathy into our everyday lives would have major positive influences. We must set aside our selfish ways and empathize with others. Only then will we be able to truly grasp our neighbor’s troubles and come to their aid. Our selfishness leads to prolonged policy making and constant political gridlocks. More than ever do we need to realize this and do something about it. By embracing sympathy and the fellow feeling we can realize a capitalist peace in our macro quantum world.

Resources:

Shahul Ibrahim, Nurtured by ‘KURF’ the Western Philosophical Assumptions Underlying Conventional (Anglo-American) Accounting

Jonathon B. Wight, Saving Adam Smith

Peter Marber, Seeing the Elephant

Question 4

It has become very clear over the past decade that outsourcing of domestic jobs will be very prevalent in the future. Daniel Pink argues much of this is due to one very “scary” word, routine. As companies are able to reduce certain tasks to a series of steps that produces the same end, they are able to outsource these tasks to countries that have cheaper labor. Many tasks within the accounting profession are already heavily outsourced to India. KPMG’s tax practice utilizes their “Q-center” in India, which performs all of its routine tax preparation work. Daniel Pink argues that these left-brain attributes will no longer secure the fruitful jobs they once did. Pink suggests certain right brain attributes that we need to develop in order to prevent our position/career from being outsourced.

In A Whole New Mind Daniel Pink identifies six senses: design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning as qualities to build upon that will differentiate yourself from the routine. As a professional you must be literate in design, it has become a fundamental business attribute. Design is the remedy to commodification. With the implementation of the Internet facts have become free, which eliminates its value, we must be able to put these facts in context and present them with emotional influence, thus story. The third facet is symphony; this is the ability to see the big picture and combine incongruent things into previously unrealized concepts. Empathy is the ability to step in someone else’s shoes and understand their situation; it is similar to Adam Smith’s fellow feeling. A disposition of playfulness and humor is good for you physiologically and psychologically and promotes better attitude in the working environment. The final aspect is meaning. Everyone seeks meaning in what they are doing. Pink expands on this discussing “not only for profit” companies that can generate profits, gratify their shareholders, and do right by their employees, while using a vehicle that links purpose, profit, and public spirit. The main underlying link between all of these qualities is that they are all incredibly hard to outsource and or automate, this is the key to ensuring you career does not end up overseas.

In Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us Daniel Pink pinpoints three more elements: autonomy, mastery, and purpose. Autonomy is the desire to be engaged and self-directed. The strive for mastery drives motivation is such a way that such things like Wikipedia have been made possible, where people devote countless hours of work in their discretionary time. We all have the desire for purpose, the desire to be part of something more. It is much like the need for meaning, discussed earlier. These elements will serve to provide the proper motivation to achieve and thus diminish the possibility of the individual being outsourced.

As an up and coming CPA, I feel confident that there are many things I can do to prevent my job from being offshored. Motivation will be key. I strive to master my craft, continuing to learn everyday and fully understand the concepts of taxation to be able to consult my clients in a manner unrivaled by tax preparers in India. Symphony will play a major role in my future. It will be imperative to comprehend the bigger picture of a company’s current affairs and future goals in order to provide the best tax planning strategies. Empathy will also play a vital role in helping clients cope with certain issues and also in acquiring new clients. The ability to grow my billable book will be an asset that cannot be achieved overseas. It will be crucial to always be learning and developing these right brain attributes that will prove to be the differentiators in the future. The key is to be able to utilize and expand upon your inherent attributes that cannot be easily outsourced or automated.

Pink addresses three questions you can ask yourself about your role in the workforce: Can someone overseas do it cheaper? Can a computer do it faster? And is what you’re selling in demand in an age of abundance/significance? We must stray from the routine and develop our right brain characteristics in order to differentiate ourselves in the future as we are shipping our left brain overseas. In our growing macro quantum world, where new avenues for labor cost reduction present themselves everyday, it is crucial in every vocation to mature these core senses.

Resources:

Daniel Pink, A Whole New Mind

Daniel Pink, Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us