So, is faith without works dead?

Dan McClellan Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan. And

Dan Beecher I'm Dan Beecher.

Dan McClellan And this is Data Over Dogma, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan?

Dan Beecher Rocking and rolling, man.

Dan McClellan All right.

Dan Beecher Uh, it's a good day to be alive.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Uh, it's a good day for us here in, uh, Utah to have air conditioning.

Dan McClellan Yes. I have a vent at my feet in my office. And so it just kicked on, so I have AC running up under my shirt, and is really making me feel really nice right now. So, uh, I'm in a good mood.

Dan Beecher And, and we promise none of that is, uh, is naughty. Uh-

Dan McClellan No, of course not.

Dan Beecher Just, uh, and I, uh... So okay, we're gonna do a show. Let's get to it. I'm excited. It's a chapter and verse, but it's really just a whole darn book. Yeah. We're gonna be talking about the Epistle of James, and I am kinda stoked, 'cause I read the whole book, and n- not once did I think, "That's crazy." Yeah. So-

Dan McClellan It's, uh, it's one that, uh, you know, you, you read it and you think, "Why did Martin Luther hate this thing so much?" Uh, and-

Dan Beecher Oh, he did? ... we'll get to that. Oh my gosh. Okay.

Dan McClellan We'll get to that. Yeah.

Dan Beecher Let's dive in with chapter and verse. Okay, so here we are. It's, it's the Epistle of James.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Uh, or as my brain will never not hear it, the Epistle of James. Because as a Mormon kid growing up, that's how I was taught the New Testament books, uh- Uh-huh ... in order, was a song. So there you go. Uh-

Dan McClellan And I was never taught that song, so you are- ... in one dimension, uh, a better Mormon than I am. And there are probably a few of those dimensions, but- ... um, that's neither here nor there, so.

Dan Beecher Let's be honest, I don't think either of us was a particularly good Mormon. So, uh, we'll-

Dan McClellan I think, I think I have a, I think I have a, a good chance in a couple of arenas, but, uh- Yeah ... but, but not if Twitter has anything to say about it. So.

Dan Beecher Okay. Well, all right. Uh, let's, let's start off-

Dan McClellan Well, let's start talking about this. But, but first thing I wanna point out is, uh, when you look in the Greek, it actually doesn't say James. Do you recall what it says?

Dan Beecher No.

Dan McClellan Oh.

Dan Beecher I don't read it in Greek.

Dan McClellan Well, I, uh... Okay, sorry. Yeah.

Dan Beecher You may, you may have told me at some point.

Dan McClellan Yeah, Jacob.

Dan Beecher Oh, yeah. Okay. There you go.

Dan McClellan Yes. So when you, when you open up this, uh, this book in Greek, the title is Iakobou- Right ... uh, Epistole. So this is, uh, the Epistle of Jacob, which has become James, uh, through its various, uh, iterations in a bunch of, of different languages. So, uh-

Dan Beecher Yeah, it's so confu- Like, like I, I remember being a, a young, a, a teenager, and I used to go out and perform, uh, Shakespeare for the schools- Mm-hmm ... as a kid. And at one point a, a vice principal decided to really, uh, show off his knowledge and said, "Do you know the differ- Tell me about the difference between Elizabethan Shakespeare versus Jacobean Shakespeare." And I was like, "I don't... Who's Jacob? I don't even know who Jacob is."

Dan McClellan Yeah. 'Cause they, that's,

Dan Beecher they refer to King James as the Jacobean. So, okay.

Dan McClellan Yes. Yes.

Dan Beecher Here we go. This is, this is the Epistle of Jacob.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher Uh, all right. So Jacob-

Dan McClellan And so here's a question ...

Dan Beecher the servant of God and the Lord J- of, and of the Lord Jesus Christ. All right. Yes?

Dan McClellan Yeah, so that is, that is, um, uh, doulos, uh, w- of Jesus Christ and God, which I think is better rendered slave. But, uh, and, and this is something- Oh ... we see in Paul. But yes, to the 12 tribes in the dispersion.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Uh, greetings, uh, he says to them. But here's, here's a question, who is this James?

Dan Beecher Okay. Yes.

Dan McClellan Because we, we have a bunch of different people named James. You have James the-

Dan Beecher Yeah. We've got, we've had a lot of Jameses.

Dan McClellan Yes.

Dan Beecher We've talked about quite a few Jameses.

Dan McClellan Yeah. You've got, uh, there's Jim. There's Jimmy. There's Hymie. Um, so-

Dan Beecher Jimbo.

Dan McClellan Yeah. The, James the brother of Jesus. We've got, uh... And, and these are, um, early Christian, uh, people by the name of James. James- Right ... the father of Judas.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And not Judas Iscariot, but the other. James, the son of Zebedee, one of the 12. You got James, the son of Alphaeus, uh, also of the 12. James, the son of Mary, known variously as the lesser, the little, or the younger, and sometimes identified with James, the son of Alphaeus. So maybe that's two different Jameses.

Dan Beecher Wait. James the son of Mary- Maybe that's one ... is not James, the brother of Jesus? Even though Jesus was the son of Mary and- D-

Dan McClellan different, different, uh, different-

Dan Beecher Different James, different Mary. Okay. Fine.

Dan McClellan Yes. So-

Dan Beecher That's crazy ...

Dan McClellan and here I'm, I'm, and here I'm reading from Dale Allison's, uh, 2013 International Critical Commentary on, on James, which is a wonderful volume. But, uh, there, there are a bunch of different possibilities. I think the majority of scholars would say this is probably intended to be James, the brother of Jesus, because- Oh ... in, in early Christianity, if you just, if you wrote a letter and you were like, "It's me, James." You, the, the reader would probably be expected to know, oh, it's, it's the big James-

Dan Beecher Yeah. Okay ...

Dan McClellan who would be the leader of the Christian community in Jerusalem.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan The brother of, you know, the Lord. So, um- And,

Dan Beecher and a guy who has, who has sort of the cojones to write a l- an epistle not to a specific person, not to a, a city of people, but rather to the 12 tribes in the dispersion.

Dan McClellan Yes. Yes.

Dan Beecher That feels a little grandiose.

Dan McClellan It feels a little presumptuous, yes. Um, and there are some interesting things about, uh- About this epistle. One of the ones that, that I thought was, the first time I found out about this, I was like, "Huh, that's surprising." Can you guess who the first person... You- you've heard the names of a variety of different early Christians on this show-

Dan Beecher Yes

Dan McClellan ... for a while now. Can you guess who the first person to ever explicitly refer to the Epistle of James is in early Christianity?

Dan Beecher Oh. Oh. Uh, no, I cannot.

Dan McClellan 'Cause we have, we already have references to New Testament texts, either quotations or explicit references, starting at the beginning of the second century CE-

Dan Beecher Sure

Dan McClellan ... and maybe even the end of the first century CE. But we don't get a clear and explicit reference to the Epistle of James until the third century.

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan And it is Origen-

Dan Beecher Okay

Dan McClellan ... writing toward the, closer to the middle of the third century CE, who is the first person to actually explicitly refer to the Epistle of James. And there are folks who have argued that, well, the Shepherd of Hermas has some, there's some, you know, resonances and-

Dan Beecher Mm

Dan McClellan ... and points of contact, and so maybe Hermas knew about James, or maybe James knew about Hermas.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Or maybe they both were kind of swimming in the same waters. There are possible allusions in 1 Clement, uh, which is probably end of first century, beginning of second century. There are possible allusions in Irenaeus at the end of the second century, in Clement of Alexandria at the end of the second century. But nobody clearly refers to or quotes from the, the Epistle of James until, like, the second quarter of the third century CE.

Dan Beecher Wow.

Dan McClellan So th- and this raises an interesting question. When, when the heck was this text written? Because if-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... if this was written in, like, the early to mid-first century CE, as, as some scholars have argued, um, why did nobody talk about it when they were talking about all the other texts that were written by, uh, other prominent Christians? James, like James, Peter, and Paul were, like, three of the most prominent Christians, uh, after the death of Jesus.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan They were the ones who basically led communities in Jerusalem and elsewhere. So, um, it's, it's a head-scratcher. And for this reason, there are a lot of scholars who think that it was not actually written by James. It is pseudepigraphic. It's a, a false writing. And this has to do with when we think it was written. Because if it was actually written by James, the brother of Jesus, it was obviously written in the middle of the first century CE. And-

Dan Beecher Yeah, I think we can, I think we, we can safely assume that James himself didn't live to, like, 115 years or-

Dan McClellan Unlikely

Dan Beecher ... or whatever the-

Dan McClellan Right. We don't know if he went paleo- ... and all of a sudden, you know, got rid of his gout and-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... and got rid of everything and made him live to be 110. But, um, yeah, it, no, he, he's actually on record as, as being m- uh, martyred-

Dan Beecher Oh, okay

Dan McClellan ... uh, fairly early in the history of Christianity. So, um, so that raises the question of, of the pseudepigrapha, pseudepigraphic nature-

Dan Beecher Okay

Dan McClellan ... of the text. And so I am of the opinion, and I'm, I'm, I'm working on this, this, uh, survey that I've talked about many times in the past. I think my part of the work is done in terms of composing it.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan I just need to get, um, sign-off from some other folks. But one of the questions on there is, is do you think this, uh, the letter James, Letter of James was written by, uh, the brother of Jesus or, or was written pseudepigraphically? I think the majority of scholars are gonna say it's pseudepigraphic. Um, so-

Dan Beecher I mean, that makes sense.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It's, like, like, I mean, what we know of that time period, we know for sure that some people were writing under other famous Christians' names. We know that that happened.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher So it makes sense that, uh, that, that every- with everything that you've said, I, I think that's a reasonable thing to-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... assume.

Dan McClellan Mm.

Dan Beecher Not that it matters, because the content is what's important.

Dan McClellan Yeah. But, but one of the things that might be going on in James is it sounds an awful lot like James is disagreeing with Paul.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan And this is something that's been argued in the scholarship for a while. Is, is James contradicting Paul when it comes to salvation by faith? Because the second chapter goes off on a bit of a rant-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... um, about the relationship of, uh, faith and works, and cites the same examples that Paul cites in arguing for, uh, salvation by faith. And so I, I and many other scholars would say that he's responding to Paul, or at least the way Paul is being represented in the time period in which the, the letter was written.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And because there, there are scholars who are gonna be like, "Ah, that's not actually what Paul's argument was." But, um, it, it's certainly not clear to me that, uh, the author of the Epistle of James was not allowed to misread Paul. Um, I, I think the, the author is disagreeing with a reading of what's going on, specifically in Romans, which is pretty late in Paul's career and probably would have, um, precluded the actual James, the brother of Jesus, from, from writing this.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan But there are other scholars who would say that Paul was actually, uh, riffing on James-

Dan Beecher Okay

Dan McClellan ... if, if this was written before Paul. Uh, but I, I think that's gonna be, I think that's gonna prove to be a minority view. But why don't we get into, uh, some of the, uh, some of the contents-

Dan Beecher Okay

Dan McClellan ... of the, yeah, Epistle of James.

Dan Beecher Um, do you wanna skip to chapter two and just get to the meat of it? Or do, 'cause chapter one, it's, it's a lot of, like, uh, there, there's a little bit about- How the rich are not great and, uh, how you're s- And we're gonna get... There's lots of that. Uh-

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah

Dan Beecher ... don't, don't be rich, uh, be cool. Or at least- ... be cool to poor people is a, is a big deal in this book.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Well, a- and, and chapter one brings up some interesting things because I think chapter one is... This is functioning kind of in the wisdom genre. Like, this, this has resonance with, with Proverbs, with Sirach, with, with the wisdom of Solomon.

Dan Beecher Sure.

Dan McClellan You've got a lot of these, uh, you know, these are the rules to living a good life, uh, kind of thing. And, and even The Shepherd of Hermas is, is, uh, have some, some overlap with this. But, uh, you know, "Let the brother or sister of humble means boast in having a high position, and the rich in having been humbled because the rich will disappear like a flower in the field." So-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... um, Comrade James is- ... very much in, in the wisdom, uh, tradition. And, and there are scholars who would argue that, you know, if you, if you left out the, a couple of references to Jesus, this might sound like just Jewish wisdom literature. We might not even be able to identify this as Christian-

Dan Beecher Wow

Dan McClellan ... uh, because of how, uh, how resonating it is with, with wisdom literature, with the Sermon on the Mount, with concern for the poor, and stuff like that. So-

Dan Beecher Yeah

Dan McClellan ... I like the social setting of, of James. And, and yeah, I think that brings us to chapter two, where we have some of the juiciest fruit, um, the, the sweetest plum, if, uh, if you will.

Dan Beecher That juicy fruit, it's gonna move you.

Dan McClellan Oh, I walked right into that- ... I guess.

Dan Beecher You're welcome Gen X. Have fun with that.

Dan McClellan Oh, gosh. Um, we have, I think, uh, v- uh, chapter two, verse five, uh, starts with, "Listen, my, my beloved brothers and sisters," and we have this. And actually, is that... Yeah, it's just, uh, it's just adelphoi, or adelphoi in, in Greek. So it's, it's the masculine plural, but in Greek, if it is a mixed gendered group, you would, you would, um, default to the masculine.

Dan Beecher Sure.

Dan McClellan So, so, uh, the rendering, "My beloved brothers and sisters," is, is not necessarily inaccurate. "Has not God chosen the poor in the world to be rich in faith and to be heirs of the kingdom that he has promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor person. Is it not the rich who oppress you? Is it not they who drag you into the courts?"

Dan Beecher Yeah, Peter Thiel.

Dan McClellan Is it not... Yeah, if it... Is it not they who have a secret society that charge you $16,000 to attend their secret meetings?

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Where the people who are in charge of, of, uh, regulating industries, and the people who make money off those industries sit there and play grab ass while, uh- ... you know, the, the world burns to the ground around us. Anywa- That's not in the Epistle of James, for anybody who's wondering.

Dan Beecher It's mostly in there, though.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It, it, it's a, that's a, that's a light paraphrasing, but it's in there.

Dan McClellan Uh, is it not they who blaspheme the excellent name that was invoked over you? Don't blame the poor.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Blame the rich. It's their fault. If you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, you shall love your neighbor as yourself, you do well. And then, and then here's something interesting. It says, "But if you show partiality, you commit sin and are convicted by the law as transgressors, for whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point, has become accountable for all of it."

Dan Beecher Yeah. That was a little, that, that was a big one. I, I-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... when I read that, I was like, oof, that's rough.

Dan McClellan Yeah. But this also is, uh, this has shades of, uh, the Sermon on the Mount.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan And particularly Matthew 5:19, where we have the author of the Gospel of Matthew having Jesus say that, uh, "My words shall not," or the, the, "Neither a jot nor tittle of the law shall pass away until heaven and earth pass away."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And anyone who teaches you to violate the least of these laws, um, yeah, it, it, bad for them.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So, um, and, and a lot of scholars understand what's going on in Matthew to be advocacy for the continued relevance and authority of the entire law of Moses.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And there are scholars who will say it sounds like the author of the Letter of James is cut from the same cloth.

Dan Beecher Well, yeah, because the literal next thing that he says is, "For the one who said, 'You shall not commit adultery,' also said, 'You shall not commit murder.' If, now if you do not commit adultery, but you com- but you murder, you have become the, a transgressor of the law." So yeah, I mean, it's a direct reference to the, uh, the, the Decalogue there.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Um, but, but then we have, there are scholars who will say the next two verses actually, um, kind of throw that into doubt.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Because it says, "So speak and so act as those who are to be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy." And one of my favorite passages in the New Testament, "Mercy triumphs over judgment." And that's- Yeah,

Dan Beecher I loved that, too.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher That, I, that is a, that is an awesome, uh, uh, pow- a powerful statement, that is-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... that really goes against a lot of what we're hearing right now in the sort of far right extremist, uh, Christianity.

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm.

Dan Beecher Where it's like, "The Lord, God's gonna judge you, and you, you know, the, these, this person and this group and these LGBTQ whatever people are evil-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... and they got demons in them." But, and it's just like, it's all judgment and exactly zero mercy.

Dan McClellan Yes. And th- and this is one of, one of my concerns with the way people talk about the difference between judgment/justice and mercy. We tend to think of, uh, and particularly within the Latter-day Saint tradition, but in, in a lot of different Christian traditions, there's this notion that justice and mercy are kind of a standing tension.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan Where justice is, is the demands of the law, and then mercy is, um, you know, overcoming the, the, the demands of, of the law.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan And, and the idea is, oh, we gotta maintain both. And I think this is a misunderstanding of what justice is. One, when we look in the Hebrew and we look at what mishpat is and what tsedaqah is and, and things like that, it's not isometric with our contemporary concept of justice-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... as basically, um, uh, the proper and right and, and prescribed consequences, uh, of the law. It really, in the Hebrew Bible, it has to do with, um, just generating the proper relationships, the proper outcomes, uh, the proper equilibrium. It's, it's kind of making sure society is just rather than making sure the people who do things wrong are punished m- punished. But I love that James just says, "Nah, mercy triumphs over judgment." But this could be understood to be, be contrasting the idea of the law of Moses and the idea of the law of liberty.

Dan Beecher Sure.

Dan McClellan So similar to the way Paul talks about, uh, are we under the law, and saying, you know, we're no longer under the law because of the gospel. So I can see that reading as well.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan But this is something that is, that is debated by scholars, and, and there are plenty of scholars out there who would say that James probably thought that the, the whole law of Moses, uh, was still in effect, so. And, and one last thing I'll say about that is, is there's this word hesed in the, in the Hebrew that I, I see brought up a lot on social media, and it gets transliterated because it's a het, uh, which is a h.

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.

Dan McClellan It gets transliterated with a C-H. And so when, when I hear somebody say, "There's this word in Hebrew, it's chesed," um, it's like immediately, no. Uh, you, you very clearly don't know Hebrew. But, um, but it gets translated as, like, loving kindness, uh, and, and things like that in the King James Version.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan And some people will render grace or something like that. And it's, it's kind of a, a squishy term, but I, I think the best explanation I've ever heard is that it is, um, it's a combination of two things. It's doing things for people that they can't do for themselves, and doing things for people that are not necessarily demanded by the law.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan So you see hesed brought up in, uh, in the Book of Ruth, where the idea seems to be that, like, Ruth goes above and beyond what is expected of her by society, by the law, in relation to Naomi. And then Boaz goes above and beyond what is demanded by the law and expected by society in relation to Ruth. So it's a story of, of people, and, and this is referred to as hesed. And so it's a story of people who are going above and beyond, and I think that is much closer to the idea of mercy-

Dan Beecher Mm

Dan McClellan ... than it is to the idea of justice or judgment. And so when you talk about people today say, "Well, we got, we gotta have mercy, but also justice or judgment," and they're judging, um, based on what they understand the law to allow them to do or require they do, uh, yeah, it, it certainly does seem like wouldn't it be better to go above and beyond what the law demands and show mercy and treat people better than you are required to by the law that you, that you imagine you're under, whether that's the law of liberty or whatever.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Um, so we, we can, we could be doing a lot better, uh-

Dan Beecher Yeah, yeah

Dan McClellan ... when it comes to the way we're, we're treating other people, and particularly, uh, people who are, have historically been minoritized, marginalized, and oppressed.

Dan Beecher It is, it is the official stance of this podcast that mercy triumphs over judgment.

Dan McClellan Exactly. Um, we'll put that on a shirt.

Dan Beecher Yeah, exactly.

Dan McClellan Um, yeah. Uh, and then we get into the, what I think is, is one of the best little diatribes in the, uh, in the New Testament.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan Starting in verse 14 where James goes, "What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if someone claims to have faith but does not have works? Surely that faith cannot save, can it? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm, and eat your fill,' and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead."

Dan Beecher Yeah, that's a, that, that's a big deal, uh, in, in, in one of the prominent debates of Christianity, that's a pretty big deal nail in a coffin.

Dan McClellan Well, yeah, it certainly seems like it. Although what w- the, the interpretation of this passage that I hear most commonly from, from Christians who, who want to understand James as in perfect alignment with Paul when it comes to the relationship of, of, uh, works to salvation, what they will argue is that the works are just the downstream outcome-

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm

Dan McClellan ... of a saving faith.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So James seems to be saying, "You must construct your faith by your works, and demonstrate your faith by your works." And, and what they get from that is, um, "No, you gotta have the faith, and then the works are just this magical thing that happens because-

Dan Beecher Which is-

Dan McClellan ... you, your faith is, is adequate." Um, and, and it is the next- ... couple of verses that actually supply their proof text for that, because it says, "But someone will say you have faith and I have works. Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you faith."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Uh, and, and so the idea is, see, see, the works are just to show other people f- your faith. And, and I, and, and I think this is pretty presuppositional because i- it's basically you're renegotiating what's going on in James so that you can make James align with Paul. As I've said many, many times, you approach the text, you figure out which texts agree with the presuppositions you've brought to it-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... and then you reinterpret all the other texts to bring them into alignment with the texts that agree with your presupposition. So I think, I think that's what's going on there. But also, I, I think it's funny that it turns faith, it turns faith into something that you are required to display to others so that they can accept you.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan It really does make it more of a social club. It's, it's not that the faith is there, you know, is, is all about this vertical relationship with God. No, your faith is so I can judge you-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... whether you are good enough, whether your faith is adequate for me to consider you part of the group. Uh, so, so I, I think it kind of, it shows that they're wearing on their sleeve the, the approach to faith as, as an identity marker, and as a-

Dan Beecher Hmm

Dan McClellan ... as a bit of costly signaling, as a way to put on display to others that, that your faith is good enough.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Uh, which I think-

Dan Beecher As, as opposed to what, what I would interpret this to say, which is just that, uh, the important thing here regard- like faith aside, the important thing is are you doing good things and are you being, are, are, are you treating your brothers and sisters kindly?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Uh, and I, I alwa- I, I must admit, from the first moment I heard the faith versus works debate and like which, what gets you into heaven, what's the real one-

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm

Dan Beecher ... is it faith or is it works? I just thought, like the first time I actually heard it, two, two guys going at each other over faith versus works, and I was like, "You guys are saying the exact same thing." Like what, what is happening right now?

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And it seems so weird to me to even have a debate because, yeah, I- it seems to me that the theology should be faith is vital, and doing kindnesses to others is vital.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher And you don't get I- you don't get away without having either. You, you have to have both.

Dan McClellan Yeah, I, I think, I, I think James's point is, if your faith does not generate good works, it is not saving faith. It is not adequate. Not in the sense of you, the, um, faith alone is the soteriological principle, and then the works are just how you prove to other people that your faith is good enough.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan But in the sense of, hey, the point is-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... to make a better world.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan And so faith is not an end in and of itself. Faith is just a component that contributes to creating a better world. He goes on to say-

Dan Beecher And, and if it-

Dan McClellan Go ahead

Dan Beecher ... and if it doesn't have works, it's dead.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher It's literally dead faith. What good is dead faith?

Dan McClellan Yeah. And, and so I, I don't think it's perfectly aligned with Paul. In fact, I think James is gonna go on to disagree with Paul in a, a couple verses down.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan But he says, "You believe that God is one. You do well. Even the demons believe and shutter," or shudder. Excuse me.

Dan Beecher Shudder, yeah.

Dan McClellan Shu- they shutter the windows.

Dan Beecher Yeah. They close, they close their windows.

Dan McClellan I don't know why I decided to remember that as S-H-U-T-T-E-R.

Dan Beecher That's okay.

Dan McClellan Um, but the idea being that, hey, demons are not gonna get saved, but they believe in God, and they believe that God is one.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So you can see that just believing God is in and of itself is not enough.

Dan Beecher Insufficient, yeah.

Dan McClellan Yeah. So, so I think the idea is faith minus works equals dead. Um, faith, faith plus works equals salvation, and not faith equals salvation, and the works are just there to, to prove to the online apologists that you get to be called a Christian.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Um, uh, he goes on, "Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith apart from works is worthless? Was not our ancestor Abraham justified by works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? You see that faith was active along with his works, and by works, faith was brought to completion." And here, I, I want to point out James pretty clearly saying that the faith was contingent on the works.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Not the other way around. The works are what put in the reps for the faith so the faith could get stronger. "Thus, the scripture was fulfilled that says Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness, and he was called the friend of God. You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone." And to me, this, uh, is explicitly directly calling out Paul in Romans, where Paul says that appeals to Abraham, quotes the same verse, and says that, "You see, you are justified by faith apart from the works of the law." And so I, I think that we-

Dan Beecher And so James is pointing out, like, "Hey, that was a work."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher "What, where, where, why are you talking about that? That was a work moment."

Dan McClellan Yeah. And, and, you know, when we... What do we have? Romans, I think it's four. "For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness. Now, to one who works, wages are not reckoned as a gift, but as something due." But to one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, such faith is reckoned as righteousness. We're quote, quoting the exact same verse and arriving at a different conclusion. Now again, there are scholars who are gonna say that's probably just the reading of Paul that was not perfectly accurate that was in circulation at the beginning of the second century when this was probably written, not necessarily James saying the actual Apostle Paul was wrong. Now there, and, and there are people who are like, "Well, did James think that's really what Paul meant? Or was James just responding to something he knew to be a misunderstanding of Paul?" That's a little more granular than I wanna get in this discussion, but-

Dan Beecher Sure

Dan McClellan ... um, but yeah, that, that, people are, are discussing that, so you don't have to worry about that. Um, but, but I, I think James is disagreeing with that reading of, of Romans 4, and I, I think this is, by the way, why, uh, Martin Luther called this an epistle of straw.

Dan Beecher Ooh.

Dan McClellan Because, uh, for Martin Luther, this was rejecting Paul's, uh, grace alone salvation or faith alone salvation. And so for Martin Luther, this, uh, this was something up with which he could not put. So, uh, so he called this an epistle of straw, and this, along with a number of other texts, like Revelation, like Hebrews, uh, like the Apocrypha, uh, Martin Luther in the first edition of the new translation of the Bible that he published moved them into a different section of the Bible, and the only thing that stuck from that was moving the Apocrypha into a separate section.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Everybody else was like, "Uh, no, we're take- we're bringing these other things back."

Dan Beecher We're gonna bring these other ones back.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Uh, he w- he was a little, he ha- was having a bad day that day. And I think he just got a little too grumpy.

Dan McClellan Yeah, yeah. The, the mutton just wasn't lean enough. Um, so yeah. So, um, so I th- I think the case is stronger to make that, that James is disagreeing here, at least with a common reading of Romans 4, if not Romans 4 itself.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Uh, and then, and then he goes on, "Likewise, was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcomed the messengers and sent them out by another road? For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead." So I think that's, uh, that's an effective diatribe against-

Dan Beecher There you go

Dan McClellan ... yeah.

Dan Beecher Uh, I wish we had more time because, uh-

Dan McClellan One more thing we need to say, though-

Dan Beecher Okay, okay, okay

Dan McClellan ... before we go. We will go, uh, soon. Uh, James 1:27, the last verse of the, of the first chapter of James, is where he says famously, and, and the NRSVue translates, uh, threskeia as religion. Uh, religion as we understand it was unknown back then. Uh, threskeia should be piety.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Um, piety that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this, to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world. And I think that's the message of James.

Dan Beecher Boom.

Dan McClellan If you really, if you really wanna be a follower of Jesus, care for the orphans and the widows, which is, which is symbolic of-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... the, uh, a kind of social justice that we see in the prophets and, and in the Gospels. And then keep yourself unstained by the world, unstained by the algae growing in the reflection pool- ... of the world. Somebody, somebody said the paint is now coming off of the-

Dan Beecher Oh, no

Dan McClellan ... because of all of the-

Dan Beecher Because of the algae?

Dan McClellan ... uh, hydrogen peroxide that they dumped into the-

Dan Beecher Oh.

Dan McClellan Yeah. Yeah. So that, that's neither here nor there. That is not related to the-

Dan Beecher No, no

Dan McClellan ... Epistle of James, um, unless you understand, uh, this movement to be condemned within the Epistle of James, which I think you could make an effective case for. But anyway, uh, that is all, uh, we have time for.

Dan Beecher Yeah. It's too bad that we can't move on to chapter three and talk about the, uh, the, the, the dangers of speech.

Dan McClellan Yes, the right and wrong ways to use your tongue.

Dan Beecher Yeah. So, yeah. It, it doesn't get a lot into the right ways-

Dan McClellan No

Dan Beecher ... uh, but it does get a lot into the wrong ways and how dangerous it is. Uh, but we're, we're gonna move on. Uh, thanks so much to everyone for, uh, for joining us. If you think that this was a cool thing and you'd wanna share it with other people, please do. Uh, give us a like, give us a subscribe. Head on over to the Patreon. That's patreon.com/dataoverdogma, and you can get early and ad-free access to all of our shows. Plus you can get, uh, the weekly, um, uh, the bonus content that is our after party, and we, we, we're, we have a lot of fun with that. So if you want all of that, please head over to Patreon and figure out what level you wanna sign up on and sign up there. And thanks so much to Roger Gowdy for editing the show. Thanks to Sam for being our right-hand guy, and thanks to all y'all for tuning in. We'll see you again next time.

Dan McClellan Bye, everybody.