theology
- “Trust in the inerrancy of Scripture” is waning. This is bad.
- This is happening in large part because Christians have more information than they used to have.
- If Christians having this information causes a bad result… maybe Christians shouldn’t have this information?
Christianity as cultural salt
Scott Sauls, pastor of Christ Presbyterian Church in Nashville, has a really good piece from earlier this week titled “No More Moral-Majority Thinking” in which he explores how the church’s influence in the culture should be viewed through Jesus' metaphor “You are the salt of the earth”.
Salt, he notes, when taken in by itself, offends the senses. It’s bitter and raises your blood pressure. But when it is a “minority ingredient”, it can bring out the best in the culture around it. He traces through history, pointing out that the church grew quickly under the persecution of the early Romans, but then became empty when Constantine established it as a state religion.
Sauls argues that rather than trying to drive Christian principles through government, American Christians should instead focus on being that salty, enhancing presence in the culture that leaves the world better than we found it.
There are many examples of this. All of the Ivy League universities except for one were founded by Christians. Let’s keep doing that. Many hospital names begin with the word “Saint,” pointing to their Christian beginnings. Let’s keep doing that. As secular journalist Nicholas Kristof says, evangelical Christians are the most self-giving, exemplary servants to the world’s poor. Let’s keep doing that. Rembrandt painted world class paintings. Beethoven and Handel made world class music. Dostoevsky wrote world class literature. Let’s keep doing that. Evangelical leader Kevin Palau recently partnered with the openly gay mayor of Portland to resource and bless an under-served public school. Let’s keep doing that. A little Baptist church in Texas pooled funds together to pay for an outspoken, anti-Christian atheist’s medical needs. Let’s keep doing that. But what if people misunderstand our intent? What if by associating with non-believers in such intimate ways, people begin to think we are soft on truth? If we must choose, and sometimes we must, it is better to be misunderstood and labeled as too soft on sin, than it is to be misunderstood as self-righteous, harsh and strict. Jesus was regularly accused of being a glutton and a drunk, even though he was neither. Why? Because Jesus lived his life around drunks, prostitutes, shady tax collectors, and the like…and never felt the need to explain himself. Jesus welcomed sinners and ate with them (Luke 15:1-2). Mustn’t we?
I love this reminder that Christians have indeed served the culture in amazing, caring ways to serve people in Jesus' name. My only hesitation is his assertion that “salty” Christianity “always does best” as a minority. Which historically may be true, but it raises a question in my mind.
I think it was the Mere Fidelity guys who talked about this at some point, but - sure, it’s great to be the minority element, the prophet calling out the sinful king and culture… but what happens if/when the king repents? How does Christianity work itself out in people who get elected to high office?
Maybe it’s a hypothetical point, and that Christianity always has been and always will be a minority, but to say it only really works well as a minority seems like an overstatement. Someday Christianity won’t be a minority. Of course, things will be a little different then.
Still, a really good piece from Pastor Sauls. Worth reading the whole thing.
By resurrection Jesus is cleared of the scapegoat charges against him...
By resurrection Jesus is cleared of the scapegoat charges against him. But the resurrection also acquits those who scapegoated him. While they certainly committed the crime and are certainly guilty, it is also incontestable that the one they are charged with killing is alive. They can be declared not guilty of Jesus' death by the fact that Jesus is not dead. The prosecution cannot proceed in this capital case without a dead body, and the tomb is empty. What the resurrection presents in court is a living person, what [Markus] Barth calls “the evidence of the raised victim.” It is thus righteous of God to account the accused not guilty, or justified by resurrection. Of course, the risen Christ could justly press for retribution against those who had wronged him, even if they did not succeed in silencing him permanently. But this, which is his right, is also his right to decline. And Christ does so, becoming instead an advocate for sinners.
-- S. Mark Heim, Saved from Sacrifice: A Theology of the Cross, Kindle location 1980
I got this book for Christmas and am finally getting the chance to dig into it. This is my first trip into the Girardian scapegoating theory of the atonement, and it’s quite a ride.
Aigner: Reframing Worship Arguments
I really appreciated this piece from Jonathan Aigner on Ponder Anew yesterday, wherein he suggests reframing so many of the discussions we have around music in the church.
For instance:
Bad Argument #1: Old songs are better. This argument usually descends into warm, fuzzy reminiscences of singing in church with Grandma. That’s all fine and good, but it’s not enough… Some beloved old hymns feature terrible, vapid poetry paired with disjunct, noodly tunes, yet continue to find acceptance because their emotional appeal is so strong. Reframing this discussion: -Singing old songs (in addition to new ones) keeps us grounded in the history of our faith and connects us to those who have come before, reminding us that we’re not alone. -Singing old songs (in addition to new ones) protecting us from the sins of narcissism and chronological snobbery. -Singing old songs (in addition to new ones) expands our worship vocabulary, and steeps us in the language of our faith.
This is a beneficial approach; rather than focusing on arguments of preference we can discuss more significant issues that lie below the surface.
Aigner addresses these questions, too:
Bad Argument #2: The band is too loud. Bad Argument #3: I don’t like it.
It’s worth reading the whole thing.
Now this is good news!
A proclamation of the Gospel that I love and seems timely:
The joy of the gospel fills the hearts and lives of all who encounter Jesus. Those who accept his offer of salvation are set free from sin, sorrow, inner emptiness and loneliness. With Christ joy is constantly born anew…
The great danger in today’s world, pervaded as it is by consumerism, is the desolation and anguish born of a complacent yet covetous heart, the feverish pursuit of frivolous pleasures, and a blunted conscience. […] God’s voice is no longer heard, the quiet joy of his love is no longer felt, and the desire to do good fades. This is a very real danger for believers too. Many fall prey to it, and end up resentful, angry and listless. That is no way to live a dignified and fulfilled life; it is not God’s will for us, nor is it the life in the Spirit which has its source in the heart of the risen Christ.
I invite all Christians, everywhere, at this very moment, to a renewed personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or at least an openness to letting him encounter them; I ask all of you to do this unfailingly each day. No one should think that this invitation is not meant for him or her, since “no one is excluded from the joy brought by the Lord”. The Lord does not disappoint those who take this risk; whenever we take a step towards Jesus, we come to realize that he is already there, waiting for us with open arms. Now is the time to say to Jesus: “Lord, I have let myself be deceived; in a thousand ways I have shunned your love, yet here I am once more, to renew my covenant with you. I need you. Save me once again, Lord, take me once more into your redeeming embrace”. How good it feels to come back to him whenever we are lost! Let me say this once more: God never tires of forgiving us; we are the ones who tire of seeking his mercy….
The Gospel, radiant with the glory of Christ’s cross, constantly invites us to rejoice… Why should we not also enter into this great stream of joy?
There are Christians whose lives seem like Lent without Easter. I realize of course that joy is not expressed the same way at all times in life, especially at moments of great difficulty. Joy adapts and changes, but it always endures, even as a flicker of light born of our personal certainty that, when everything is said and done, we are infinitely loved. I understand the grief of people who have to endure great suffering, yet slowly but surely we all have to let the joy of faith slowly revive as a quiet yet firm trust, even amid the greatest distress: “My soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is… But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness… It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord” (Lam 3:17, 21-23, 26).
I never tire of repeating those words … which take us to the very heart of the Gospel: “Being a Christian is not the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea, but the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction”.
Thanks solely to this encounter – or renewed encounter – with God’s love, which blossoms into an enriching friendship, we are liberated from our narrowness and self-absorption. We become fully human when we become more than human, when we let God bring us beyond ourselves in order to attain the fullest truth of our being. Here we find the source and inspiration of all our efforts at evangelization. For if we have received the love which restores meaning to our lives, how can we fail to share that love with others?
That’ll preach.
[Disclaimer: I didn’t write this.]
A Meal Shared Among Friends
I’ve had the sacraments (especially the Eucharist) on my mind lately after reading James K. A. Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom, and then listening to the On Being podcast this morning I found this bit from Father Greg Boyle, a delightful Jesuit priest who has spent his life working with gang members in Los Angeles:
Jesus doesn’t lose any sleep that we will forget that the Eucharist is sacred; He is anxious that we might forget that it’s ordinary, that it’s a meal shared among friends, because if we don’t see that, then we’ll be unable to recognize the sacred in the ordinary, and that’s the incarnation.
Interesting to hear from a Catholic. But in my experience, this is a trap we Evangelicals have fallen into at various times, too.
Formation of the Heart
I’m working my way through Jamie Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom, and he is driving home the point that it’s not just our minds that need formed, but our hearts. He argues that humans are not, at a base level, thinkers, but lovers. As such, Christians need to be concerned not just with education, but with formation of our practices and desires. I’m sure I’ll have more thoughts later, but this quote stuck out today:
Unfortunately, the church often adopts a … misguided strategy: while the mall, Victoria’s Secret, and Jerry Bruckheimer are grabbing hold of our gut (kardia) by means of our body and its senses - in stories and images, sights and sound, and commercial versions of “smells and bells” - the church’s response is oddly rationalist.
It plunks us down in a “worship” service, the culmination of which is a forty-five-minute didactic sermon, a sort of holy lecture, trying to convince us of the dangers by implanting doctrines and beliefs in our minds.
While the mall paradoxically appreciates that we are liturgical, desiring animals, the (Protestant) church still tends to see us as Cartesian minds. While secular liturgies are after our hearts through our bodies, the church thinks it only has to get into our heads. While Victoria’s Secret is fanning a flame in our kardia, the church is trucking water to our minds. While secular liturgies are enticing us with affective images of a good life, the church is trying to convince us otherwise by depositing ideas.
Hmmmmm…
Too much knowledge about the Bible a bad thing?
In a recent update of Christianity Today’s Leadership Journal they interviewed Josh McDowell about, among other things, current trends on the belief in the inerrancy of the Bible. Here’s how the first bit went:
Q: Trust in the inerrancy of Scripture, even among some evangelicals, has waned in recent years. Why do you think this is? There is no one reason. I think one of the major reasons is the information glut on the Internet. The Internet is so gigantic. It has leveled the playing field. Atheists and agnostics have such ready access to our kids. It didn’t use to be this way. Now, information—good and bad—is just one click away. Pastors, youth pastors, professors, and others are being confronted with deep theological, philosophical, and historical challenges to the Scriptures that no one would even hear about until their fourth year at a university. Believers are being confronted with so many opposing positions on the Scriptures—issues the majority from past generations simply didn’t confront. This has tended to undermine people’s belief system. That is why we need to redouble our efforts to communicate biblical truth.
"Gutenberg Bible" by Raul654. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
I think McDowell’s point is valid, but I’m a little disturbed about what it seems to imply. If I were to boil the Q&A down, the reasoning might go like this:
Now, McDowell doesn’t go fully there - he says that we just need to try even harder to communicate biblical truth - but I get wary any time I hear an argument that says the problem was caused by people knowing too much.
If you have an argument that you’re fully confident is true, shouldn’t you welcome the fact that people want to understand more about the Scripture, where it came from, how God uses it, and so on? If there are “deep theological, philosophical, and historical challenges to the Scriptures”, shouldn’t Evangelical leaders be addressing them head-on rather than decrying their broader availability?
Am I overreacting here?
I’m a bit put off by the phrase “trust in the inerrancy of the Scripture”. Of all the things Christians are called to trust in, that’s not one of them.
It seems likely to me that Evangelical leaders have often briskly asserted “inerrancy” as a linchpin for maintaining beliefs about other things (young-earth creationism, homosexuality, complementarianism, etc, etc) either without fully teasing out the difficult nuances of what “inerrancy” means, or (more likely) without dealing with the reality that many preachers will teach on “inerrancy” without any appreciation for those nuances.
Generations of Christians before may have gone through life without ever really stopping to think about what “inerrancy” meant, but as the internet broadens our social and intellectual horizons, the right response isn’t to decry that broadening, but to teach with more detail and nuance what we mean by the word.
For those of you still reading this post who are getting concerned about me putting the word “inerrancy” in quotes: I believe that the Bible is God-breathed, and profitable for doctrine, correction, reproof, instruction, etc. I also agree with John Piper’s nuance of “without error in the original manuscripts”, given his understanding of “error” [emphasis mine]:
A writer is in error when the basic intention in his statements and admonitions, properly understood in their nearer and wider context, is not true.
Relax
Richard Beck had a great little piece the other day about being relaxed. It challenged me.
In yesterday’s post I included the word “relaxed” in a list of traits that I felt characterize what it means to be a Christ-like human being. But relaxed isn’t a word you hear a great deal in discussions of Christian virtue and character. And yet, I think relaxation is key, a foundational issue.
I think he might be on to something here. So how do we relax, you ask?
Jesus’s answer is twofold. First, trust. Trust that God will take care for you. Consider the lilies and the birds. Second, place your heart in a location where moth and rust do not destroy or thieves break in and steal. Your heart must be “hidden in Christ” in a place where death has no dominion. Trouble is, these recommendations strike us as pious platitudes.
Not to deal with sin, but to save...
Grace is a difficult pill to swallow. A dangerous doctrine. The fact that the evangelical church has bought into that thought hit me between the eyes at my men’s bible study yesterday morning.
We’re in Hebrews 9 at the moment, the most familiar verse of which was a frequent memory verse in AWANA and whatever other church things I was in growing up. It was always presented for memorization this way:
…it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment. – Hebrews 9:27
This verse was frequently packaged in a set of verses designed as what we would’ve called a Gospel presentation. Inherent message: you’re gonna die, you don’t know when, and after that you’ll be judged. So, if you haven’t asked Jesus into your heart, do it today! And if you have, repent of that sin and clean your life up so you won’t have to fear judgment for your sins!
Yesterday we read the verse in context with the rest of the chapter, and here’s what we read (emphasis mine):
24 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. 25 Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, 26 for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. 27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. – Hebrews 9:24 - 28
What a change of message! Now Christ is the one who died once for all, took the judgment, so that we, who accept that gift by grace, can wait eagerly for him to return and save.
Now that’s awesome news.
Then there’s this reminder from Sean Palmer guest-posting over on Scot McKnight’s blog today:
God loves you, just as you are, not as you might be some day. Embrace that.
Amen.
Can you name 5 ways the church differs from America?
There’s a challenging riff from pastor Brian Zahnd over on Missio Alliance today.
How, he asks, does the church differ from America?
The particular challenge for the American Christian is to distinguish the American way of being human from the church (the Jesus way of being human). If there is no essential difference between being Christian and being American (as a way of life), then what is the point of the church? This is a problem. Many American Christians would find it difficult to list five ways in which the Jesus way (the church) differs significantly from the American way. For them the church and the American way are essentially the same way of being human. Which in essence means this: The church does not actually exist. What exists is America. The church (and every other institution) exists only to support the supreme idea of America. Oh, boy.
He goes on to list 12. How many could you list? It’s worth considering.
Worship develops feelings for God, not vice versa
This wonderful little bit of insight came across my Twitter feed this morning and I’ve been chewing on it all day. It strikes me that this is one key reason why the lyrical content of worship songs sung in church is so important to me.
The insipid worship music designed to inspire a feeling nearly always rubs me the wrong way. I’m painfully aware of when my emotions are being manipulated, and I recoil.
On the other hand, when I sing good content, powerful truths, they move me. They sink in and then engage my emotions in worship. But it’s the willingness to come to worship and the truth sinking in to my heart that brings the emotion, and not the reverse.
Thanks, Pastor Eugene.
Don't Ask, Don't Tell Songwriting
Yesterday my worship pastor sent out a lead sheet and MP3 for a new song we’re going to learn and sing this coming weekend at church, and it’s causing me some odd internal conflicts. Not because I hate the song, or because I think the content of the song is bad or anything like that. No, it’s because I opened up the lead sheet and had a strong reaction to the name of one of the songwriters. In this case, the song is called “Only King Forever” by Elevation Worship, and the songwriter in question is the pastor of Elevation Church, Steven Furtick.
This is not about my pastor’s choice of this song or about Furtick specifically. I don’t want to get into those arguments. What it is about is this question that’s nagging me. How much should my opinion of a songwriter affect my reaction to their songs?
Don’t go dissing on my fun music
First off, let’s agree that this is specifically about songs used for worship in church services. Because when it comes to music I listen to for fun, I really don’t care. I’ve honestly got very little idea what Sergei Rachmaninov’s theology, morality, or politics were, but he’s still my favorite classical composer because his music is awesome. Heck, I’ve got a pretty good idea that John, Paul, George, and Ringo had fairly lousy theology and morality, but that doesn’t prevent me from enjoying a good Beatles song.
But when we get to “Christian” music, and more specifically worship music, the dynamic changes somewhat, though the Christian/church music industry’s application of standards seems to be uneven. For example, Jennifer Knapp’s excellent record Kansas fell out of Christian music favor when she came out as a lesbian. On the other hand, Phillips, Craig, and Dean don’t believe in the Trinity and still get played ad nauseum on Christian radio.
Did you just forget to take your cynical pills today, Hubbs?
So then we come to this song, and Steven Furtick. What’s the issue with Furtick? Well, maybe it’s me as much as anything. He’s a megachurch pastor from Charlotte, NC, in the Southern Baptist denomination. Good enough so far. However, there have been some significant concerns raised in the past couple years when his church had “plants” in the congregation to “spontaneously” come up for baptism and when he built an 8500-square-foot mansion on a 19-acre lot in a gated development from an undisclosed church salary and book deal. And if I’m honest, I’ve watched some of his sermon videos, and there’s something about the guy and his approach that just feels wrong, that gives me the creeps. It’s not humble teaching and servant leadership to make disciples; rather, it’s manipulative performance art for the sake of inspiring giving and driving attendance/membership numbers.
(Again, I’m not claiming that I’m completely right here about Furtick - only describing why I have the reaction I have to him when his name comes up.)
I don’t really have any issues with the content of the song itself; it seems theologically sound, certainly more Jesus-proclaiming and less mushy than some other stuff we sing. But I’m still struggling to get past the authorship.
Am I holding a double-standard here? Probably. I mean, sure, we’ve all heard about Horatio Spafford writing “It Is Well With My Soul” after a great personal tragedy, and stories about Fanny Crosby’s saintly approach to her blindness, and I’ve heard good things about that Charles Wesley guy who wrote a bunch of solid hymns. But I know very little about the personal lives or theologies of most of the other songwriters whose songs we sing on Sundays. And in general that’s OK with me. As long as the song is good, let’s sing it.
And yet…
But, Chris, you sing songs written by Pentecostals and Catholics and others of every theological stripe and enjoy them. Why is this different?
It does seem different somehow. I think it’s because in those cases, while I don’t personally agree with those folks' theology, I can understand how someone could, I find it reasonable, and I wouldn’t shy away from recommending someone attend one of those churches if it otherwise made sense for them. Furtick’s case is different. It’s not necessarily his theology, but his personality and apparent views toward leadership and money and pastoring. I can’t imagine I’d ever recommend that somebody go attend his church.
Isn’t your attitude then just basically ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ with regard to songwriters' beliefs and personalities?
Yeah, I guess maybe it is. But hey, don’t ask, don’t tell has some Biblical basis, after all. Isn’t that what Paul basically advised Corinthian Christians with regard to eating meat sacrificed to idols?
Hey, couldn’t we just solve this by singing nothing but Psalms in church?
Well I dunno, King David wrote most of those and he wasn’t always an upstanding moral example, either… wait, you’re just trying to confuse me now, aren’t you?
Well, maybe…
Anyway, we’ll be singing the song on Sunday, and if it seems like a good fit, likely many Sundays after that. I suppose I’ll learn to live with the internal conflict. Maybe my friend Jason summed it up best:
Is the goal to win the argument?
These two tweets showed up on my timeline within 10 minutes of each other this morning. And they highlight a fundamental concern I have with the intellectual defense arguments for the Gospel.
Don’t get me wrong - I’m not advocating a check-your-brain-at-the-door version of Christianity. But I think Zahnd is right - arguments by themselves don’t win people.
I mean, hey, the next time a Jehovah’s Witness approaches you at a restaurant or bar you can grab the nearest napkin and sketch out a little grid that will logically completely prove that you’re right and they’re wrong. But if you think that once you’ve done that the JW is going to tear up their Watchtower and come to your evangelical church next Sunday, you’ve got another think coming.
When I look over my own spiritual progression of the past two decades, I’ve never had an intellectual Eureka! moment change my beliefs. (I might almost say that reading NTW’s Surprised by Hope was that sort of experience, but that was more putting words and reason to what I knew must be true but hadn’t heard expressed before.) What has changed me is a long, persistent interaction with other believers over time.
Changes haven’t come by having my arm twisted; they’ve come by others gently taking my hand and saying “hey, I’m headed this way, what do you think?”. Sure, occasionally an earthquake radically moves things in a moment; far more often wind and rain slowly shape new paths where before there were none.
There are a lot of things I’m not saying here, so don’t hear them. I’m not saying that we should never present logical arguments for the Gospel, or that we shouldn’t share it with JWs or anyone else that comes along. I’m glad that there are people who have written great intellectual defenses of the Christian faith. I’m not saying that God can’t or won’t use a direct presentation of the Gospel as the tool to bring someone to faith.
But the attitude of “here’s the diagram you need to know to prove the JWs wrong” greatly neglects the realities of how people change, and instead encourages an attitude of intellectual superiority. Please don’t go out there with the attitude that any unbeliever will suddenly see the light if only you can draw the right back-of-the-napkin diagram.
We of all people should recognize that it is only God’s action to open our eyes that brings us to faith, and that should provoke in us not an intellectual arrogance but rather a great humility.
The War of Christmas
@pegobry with a great post about the subversive and challenging nature of Christ’s advent:
Is there a war on Christmas? No, there’s no war on Christmas. There’s a war of Christmas. Because that’s what Christmas is: a declaration of war. Against all the thrones, dominions, principalities and powers who hold creation in bondage. Saying there’s a war on Christmas is like saying the Germans fought a war on D-Day–of course there’s a war on Christmas. How do we fight this war? Not by yelling at Walmart greeters who say “Happy Holidays.” Not with consumerism. Like Jesus fought his. With increased penance and asceticism and prayer and reception of the sacraments. With corporeal works of mercy. With peace, mercy, some truth-telling, and a very large heaping of loving-kindness. This is our D-Day: this is the most stupendous claim of Christianity.
PEG sounds like he’s been reading his NT Wright. Really good stuff.
Paul counting his privilege as rubbish - Alistair Roberts' take on Philippians 3
There’s an interesting piece from Alistair Roberts over on Political Theology today. Roberts thinks through Philippians 3:4-14 and has a slightly different perspective than most I’ve read before.
In Philippians 3 Paul recounts his credentials:
If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. 8 More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord…
I’ve typically read and heard this taught as Paul recounting all of his accomplishments, and then recognizing that his good works were worth nothing compared to knowing Christ. But, Roberts suggests, we should recognize that much of what Paul recounts here isn’t a result of his work, but of his position from birth. Roberts draws a striking analogy:
If the identity that Paul is describing here is not that of the classic legalist, what is it? I believe that an analogous sort of identity could be found in the patriot. Paul wasn’t that unlike the patriot who takes pride in the fact that he is a true American (as opposed to all of those unwelcome immigrants). His family’s presence on American soil dates back to the Mayflower. His forefathers fought for their country. From as early as he can remember, he has been steeped in American culture. He has a large stars and stripes flying outside of his house and a wall devoted to portraits of the presidents within. He is a hard worker who is living his own American dream, attending church twice a week, and putting money back into his community. He only buys American products, he devotes himself to studying American history, and has always been politically involved and invested in the wellbeing of the nation. The ‘performance’ of such a patriot isn’t undertaken to ‘earn’ American status, but to demonstrate and broadcast his claims to it, to mark him out from those who aren’t Americans (or are ‘lesser’ Americans), and more fully to ground and celebrate his sense of identity in it.
It’s an angle worth considering in a day when American exceptionalism and Evangelicalism usually go hand in hand.
Argument is offered to justify the felt judgment...
I’ve finally been catching up with Richard Beck’s Unclean: Meditations on Purity, Hospitality, and Mortality and I’m finding it fascinating. Beck is a professor of psychology at Abilene Christian University and his work usually sits at the intersection of faith topics and psychological study.
In Unclean he looks at the psychology of purity and disgust and how Christianity interacts with those built-in reactions (such as disgust) and how they shape our attitude toward sin and toward others. I’m only about 20% of the way in so far, but this paragraph caught my eye:
These dynamics [feelings leading to reasons, rather than vice versa] make conversations about God inherently difficult because our experience of the divine is being regulated by emotion rather than logic, affect rather than theology. I think people in churches have always known this, and felt that people in conflict within the church were generally talking past each other. One reason for this is now clear. Very often, arguments and the warrants found within them are secondary to the felt experience. Argument is offered to justify the felt judgment of the sacred or profane. And as self-justifications these arguments often fail as acts of persuasion or forms of consensus-building.
I’m looking forward to reading more.
Do what he puts before you. Strive to do it well. Pass on what you learned. That’s it.
Over on CT, Ed Stetzer is starting a blog series titled “Act Like Men”. (First article: “What It Means To Fight”). This has predictably caused a bit of feedback from the egalitarian evangelical set, with Scot McKnight posting a response piece from Wheaton New Testament professor Lynn Cohick making the case that Paul’s appeal to “act like a man” (1 Cor 16:13) was directed to both men and women and “reveals the limitations of the Greek language” rather than “making a particular point about masculinity”.
I’m highly unqualified to comment on the Greek, but down in the comments on Stetzer’s post is a fantastic bit from Christopher T Casberg. I’ve got no idea who Mr. Casberg is, but his comment stands on its own (emphasis all mine):
I’m a Marine Corps veteran. I’ve got a sword above my bookshelf. I like rare steak, the rumble of an old Mustang, and American Ninja Warrior. I have fond memories of ramming a foam pugil stick into the belly of a much larger opponent and then knocking him senseless with a (confessedly unfair) blow to the head. I also think the ongoing debate on manhood in Christian culture is ninety percent macho nonsense. I’m tired of hearing it. We’ve drawn cartoonish caricature of men that resembles Tim Allen more than it resembles Christ and made that our standard. Our leaders continuously imply that their likes and hobbies (MMA fights, fishing) aren’t personal idiosyncrasies but are what actually constitute Biblical manhood. That is ludicrous. I’ve spoken with young believers who are worried about their manhood because they’re not yet fathers or husbands, don’t own a gun, don’t have a “manly” vocation; in other words, our young men are worried that their lives don’t resemble a sitcom character’s. It does not follow. We do need to ground our conversation in the Gospel, as Ed says. And we do have to allow that there’s Stuff Guys Like and Stuff Guys Do. We endanger our mission with the Gospel, however, when we conflate the two. Being the man God intends is real simple. Do what he puts before you. Strive to do it well. Pass on what you learned. That’s it. You don’t have to convince yourself that everything is a fight (a word used over 20 times in this article, by the way). You don’t have to call prayer ‘battling Satan’ or worship a ‘call to arms.’ It’s just prayer. Just worship. Do it, do it well, and pass it on. True manliness emerges from obedience, not the other way around. (The funny thing about Scripture is a woman would do everything Ed exhorts men to do and come out perfectly feminine. It’s not about replicating a certain portrait of your gender. It’s about doing what God asks you to do.)
Yes and amen.
Kirk: The Missional Diagnostic Question
“Missional” is a word that has been used so much in the evangelical church-planting movement over the past decade that it’s almost losing meaning. (See also: “Gospel-centered”.) But Fuller seminary professor J. R. Daniel Kirk proposes a ‘missional diagnostic question’ today that makes a lot of sense to me.
The question is this: “If this church disappeared, would our community miss it?” That’s it. If we are on mission in such a way that we are loving our neighbors and seeking their good rather than our own, it will be a cause of grief for our community if our church shuts its doors. If we’re living to build the place, pack in as many as we can, then they won’t care.
This rings true to me, and it’s a question I’d love to see our churches and ministries that talk about being “missional” ask of themselves. It might just be a useful evaluation.
Mere Fidelity Podcast on NT Wright
I’ve recently started listening to the Mere Fidelity podcast, a theological conversation between Americans Derek Rishmawy and Matthew Lee Anderson, and Brits Alistair Roberts and Andrew Wilson. On a recent episode they took up the topic of Anglican theologian NT Wright.
Now it’s no secret to any readers of this blog that I’m a huge NT Wright fan; I have given away more copies of Surprised By Hope to friends than any other volume, heard him in person once, and in general point to him as one of the most influential authors in my theological development over the past decade. I’ve read most of his recent popular-level books, and the first three of his Christian Origins series. (His two-volume fourth part of that series is sitting in my to-read pile.)
All the participants on the podcast expressed a great deal of admiration and appreciation for Wright before launching into their criticisms, but it was the criticisms that had me wanting to shout “but… but…” at my phone as I listened. I think much of my disagreement with them may be explained by my American layman’s perspective, and indeed they may have provided enough caveats through the podcast that we’re likely not in great disagreement, but I want to trace their thoughts and my responses here if only to benefit my own thinking.
Wright’s Characterization (Caricature?) of Evangelicalism
This is where I’m going to bang heads with the MF guys (and probably mostly Anderson) the most. At one point he says this:
[…in Surprised by hope] he [Wright] has a narrative about evangelicalism that’s largely de-historicized. That rips even hymn verses out of their context and uses them to show all of these problems within the evangelical milieu. And he says lots of true things in doing so, but he creates such a caricature of the mentality that he’s disagreeing with along the way that I think it’s really unfortunate. [at 13:20 or so in the podcast]
And later on:
The only reason anyone should ever by ‘surprised by hope’ in this world is if they ignored Augustine, ignored Calvin, ignored Aquinas, ignored Luther, ignored everyone who has been saying ‘new creation’ and ‘resurrected bodies’ for the past two thousand years. [at 20:45]
Here, I suppose, the evangelical academic’s caricature is the layman’s sense of reality. I would respond to Anderson here that for every historic evangelical who would largely align with Wright, thus making Wright’s claims a caricature, that there is likely a current evangelical who would not, or at least who knows little on the subject, thus making the “caricature” something much closer to reality.
At the sampling of evangelical churches I’ve belonged to in my 37 years (including Baptist, Bible, Christian & Missionary Alliance, and Evangelical Free), never once have I heard a full-bodied story of resurrection taught in the way Wright proclaims it. Most often the eschatology isn’t taught at all, or it’s lightly glossed over - certainly never brought in a way that emphasizes (as Wright does) how that understanding of the Kingdom impacts how we live in the here and now. My conversations with fellow church members anecdotally indicate that the Left Behind series continues to more significantly influence the common evangelical layman’s view of end times than anything else. (Maybe the upcoming Nic Cage remake of the Left Behind movie will change that? Nah.)
As to the specific point about ripping lines of hymns out of context, I’ll say just two things. First: that the hymns he calls out are some which I have grown up loving dearly, which makes Wright’s criticism a bit painful; second: That this bit of the book will fall flat with American evangelicals within the next 10 years or so since most of us are singing only modern praise songs now, the content of which typically struggles to be correct theologically about even the basics of the faith, and which almost never addresses eschatology.
Anderson doesn’t let it go, though. Later on he argued that Billy Graham’s view of resurrection and heaven isn’t really that different from Wright’s, if you know the code words:
For all the good that he [Wright] is doing, the straw man has brought an unnecessary antithesis and hostility towards the older ways of framing things that doesn’t realize that evangelicals have shorthand, and a whole cluster of concepts behind that shorthand, and it’s not all as bad as NT Wright presents it as being in his lay-level work. [at 22:50]
A couple of thoughts here: first, I wouldn’t assume that Wright “doesn’t realize” that evangelicals have this shorthand. I would assume it is familiar to him and most all scholars who have even a passing familiarity with the history of evangelical thought. However, Surprised By Hope is a popular work, and at the popular level I think there are many, many evangelicals who aren’t familiar with this shorthand.
Fortunately, Rishmawy chimed in on this point:
You and I know that’s shorthand… [but] I think there are times when the shorthand has gotten lost in pop evangelicalism or pop fundamentalism or whatever, where people hear this and are, like, ‘this is totally new’ and you’re right, my pastor has kind of sounded like that. The best of the tradition has never lost sight of this. [at 23:20]
I’m not sure what bits of evangelical tradition Derek deems “the best”, but his comments about that shorthand being lost in pop evangelicalism are, in my experience, right on. When I heard Wright speak in Nashville a couple years ago he noted that, as a surprise to him, he’d developed ‘something of a side ministry’ helping American evangelicals find their way out of the Left Behind sort of theological mess. I’m one of those, and grateful for it.
At another point in the discussion, Roberts, in making an (apparently obligatory on Mere Fidelity) Oliver O’Donavan reference brought up a point that I very much appreciated - that American fanboys of Wright, in feeling that Wright is some sort of Pied Piper (no, not that Piper) leading them out of evangelicalism, would not be feeling their current disillusionment with Wright on social issues if they understood his theology more fully. To wit:
It was Oliver O’Donavan in a conference in dialog with NT Wright that I attended - he made the point that Wright always makes these hyperbolic statements that seem to be anti-traditionalist in order to cover up just how traditionalist he actually is, how conservative his position is, because otherwise people wouldn’t realize how firmly in continuity it is with Reformed evangelical tradition. [at 19:20]
This has actually led me to appreciate Wright even a bit more lately than I had before, because I find myself having pushed pretty hard against evangelicalism the past several years, only to consistently find that while I am often sympathetic with the plight of some of my more progressive brethren, I can’t fully get on board with them when it comes to much of their social progressivism. It’s encouraging to have someone like Wright seemingly closer to that middle ground where I often find myself.
To the esteemed gents on Mere Fidelity - first, thanks for the great conversation. Yours has quickly become a favorite podcast of mine. But I’d urge you, in the midst of your theological erudition, to not so quickly pooh-pooh Wright’s pop characterization of evangelicalism. By many accounts he is speaking evangelical truth at a level that is reaching many who may never delve into Augustine, Calvin, Aquinas, or Luther. And for that we should be thankful.
The Mere Fidelity guys are promising a second discussion on Wright to discuss the Reformed folks' issues with his theology. I’ll listen with interest but, not being Reformed myself, without much of a dog in the fight.
NT Wright on the intersection of the Bible, ethics, and doctrine
In a recent interview by Jonathan Merritt on Religion News Service, Anglican bishop NT Wright had this to say about the Bible and how we work out ethics and doctrine (emphasis mine):
…it’s important that we do not reduce the Bible to a collection of true doctrines and right ethics. There are plenty of true doctrines and right ethics there, of course, but they come within the larger thing, which is the story of how the Creator is rescuing and restoring the whole creation, with his rescue and restoration of humans at the heart of it. In other words, it isn’t about “do we allow this or that?” To ask the question that way is already to admit defeat, to think in terms of behavior as a set of quasi-arbitrary, and hence negotiable, rules. We must ask, with Paul, “This new creation God has launched in Jesus—what does it look like, and how can we live well as genuine humans, as both a sign and a means of that renewal?” We need to remind ourselves that the entire biblical sexual ethic is deeply counter-intuitive. All human beings some of the time, and some human beings most of the time, have deep heartfelt longings for kinds of sexual intimacy or gratification (multiple partners, pornography, whatever) which do not reflect the creator’s best intentions for his human creatures, intentions through which new wisdom and flourishing will come to birth. Sexual restraint is mandatory for all, difficult for most, extremely challenging for some. God is gracious and merciful but this never means “so his creational standards don’t really matter after all.”
Such good perspective. I didn’t realize until reading this interview that Wright has a new book out: Surprised by Scripture: Engaging Contemporary Issues. Another one to add to my reading pile!