Bad Theology means Bad History

The ever-insightful Joe Bob Briggs offers his contribution to the "what would Jesus drive" discussion. He says, and he's right, that so much of the WWJD discussion is silly. Jesus had other issues on his mind than what modern Americans should drive, and some of the things that did catch his attention got fairly countercultural treatment.

I do have one nit to pick with Joe Bob. It's something that seems to be surfacing in different contexts, and is the notion that Jesus or early Christianity had nothing to say about abortion. Joe Bob writes:

I should throw in one more for the pro-life people. He didn't speak against abortion at all. This was in a culture that not only had abortion, but the practice of abandoning babies to die of exposure if they were discovered to have physical flaws or diseases.

Sorry, Joe Bob. Pagan culture had that attitude. As Sociogist R. Stark in The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History notes Christianity's historical success derived in substantial part from Christian morality. Because Christianity did not throw away its children, and practiced safe sex in the form of monogamy and chastity, Christian outbred and replaced pagan populations. Stark notes in this article:

It is true, of course, that the Christian commitment of historians in earlier generations often did make the rise of Christianity seem to be the inevitable triumph of virtue via divine guidance. Indeed, as [L. Michael White] noted, ..."the term 'expansion' comes to be used . . . as a virtual synonym for 'triumph of the gospel message.'" But if these excesses prevented more thorough scholarship..., that is not a sufficient justification for dismissing theology as irrelevant. Indeed, in a number of earlier chapters it has been evident that doctrines often were of immense importance. Surely doctrine was central to nursing the sick during times of plague, to the rejection of abortion and infanticide, to fertility, and to organizational vigor. Therefore, as I conclude this study, I find it necessary to confront what appears to me to be the ultimate factor in the rise of Christianity.
Let me state my thesis: Central doctrines of Christianity prompted and sustained attractive, liberating, and effective social relations and organizations.

In short, there was an early Christian morality, the gist of which rejected the "culture of death" which surrounded it. So, Joe Bob engages in bad history.

But the further problem is bad theology. A theological tradition which finds scripture sufficient and complete is going to have problems with the implicit challenge of Joe Bob's, and other's, argument that if its not found in the New Testament, Jesus didn't say it, and if He didn't say it, it can't be important. There's a lot of things that Jesus taught which aren't written down. There are things that are important which were worked out as implications of what He did say. Those things are of course traditions. Certain of those traditions, like the very firm tradition against abortion and infanticide, were critical to the success of Christianity.