Category: theology
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The Cross and the Lynching Tree
Having read very few black theologians over my past couple decades of reading theology, it was far past time for me to get to the late Dr. James H. Cone’s The Cross and the Lynching Tree. Dr. Cone, a longtime proponent of black liberation theology, makes a forceful case for the parallel between the cross of Jesus Christ and the hanging trees on which so many black people were lynched throughout American history.
Until we can see the cross and the lynching tree together, until we can identify Christ with a “recrucified” black body hanging from a lynching tree, there can be no genuine understanding of Christian identity in America, and no deliverance from the brutal legacy of slavery and white supremacy.
The book came with great reviews and reputation, so I was a little bit underwhelmed by the first few chapters. But then came chapter 4, “The Recrucified Christ in Black Literary Imagination”, and Cone introduces us to the vivid poetic imagery that black writers have used to parallel Jesus’ suffering with those of black Americans, and I found myself heading off to the internet to better acquaint myself with Countee Cullen, Robert Hayden, and Langston Hughes.
The concluding chapter, though, was worth the entire book. Dr. Cone shares his own experience and then explains his beautiful theological conclusions.
The Christian gospel is God’s message of liberation in an unredeemed and tortured world. As such, it is a transcendent reality that lifts our spirits to a world far removed from the suffering of this one…
…And yet the Christian gospel is more than a transcendent reality, more than “going to heaven when I die, to shout salvation as I fly”. It is also an immanent reality - a powerful liberating presence among the poor right now in their midst… Without concrete signs of divine presence in the lives of the poor, the gospel becomes simply an opiate; rather than liberating the powerless from humiliation and suffering, the gospel becomes a drug that helps them adjust to this world by looking for “pie in the sky”.
And so the transcendent and the immanent, heaven and earth, must be held together in critical, dialectical tension, each one correcting the limits of the other. The gospel is in the world, but it is not of the world; that is, it can be seen in the black freedom movement, but it is much more than what we see in our struggles for justice.
I could quote the whole last chapter but I won’t. It’s really worth picking the book up to read the whole thing.
Or maybe just one last paragraph.
As I see it, the lynching tree frees the cross from the false pieties of well-meaning Christians. When we see the crucifixion as a first-century lynching, we are confronted by the re-enactment of Christ’s suffering in the blood-soaked history of African Americans. Thus, the lynching tree reveals the true religious meaning of the cross for American Christians today…
Yet the lynching tree also needs the cross, without which it becomes simply an abomination. It is the cross that points in the direction of hope, the confidence that there is a dimension to life beyond the reach of the oppressor. “Do not fear those who kill the body’s, and after that can do nothing more” (Lk 12:4).
Simply wonderful.
Chaplain Mike: Exiting the Evangelical Wilderness
Oh man, I really appreciated this summary from Chaplain Mike over at InternetMonk.com today. While my path isn’t exactly the same as his has been, I resonate strongly with several of the moves he describes. He summarizes his move from the left-hand column to the right-hand column in a little table:
It’s worth reading Mike’s little summaries of each of those movements, but I found his concluding thoughts particularly interesting:
Here is what hit me earlier this week. The differences can be summed up in two letters. “J” and “P”. You may recognize them as the final letters in the Myers Briggs personality type indicator. While Myers Briggs has been somewhat discounted, it got me wondering. Have my theological choices been largely been a product of my personality or personal preferences? Is it just coincidence that many denominations are largely in one column or the other?
Then Wednesday’s Post came along with this humdinger.
Haidt (along with Richard Beck) have convinced me that when we take a stand for “truth” or “morality,” we are primarily revealing deep, fundamental visceral and emotional feelings and then using rational arguments to justify our “righteous” position. Furthermore, those who are on the more “liberal” end of the spectrum react intuitively to different things than those on the “conservative” end. (Chaplain Mike)
…
[I]t makes me wonder if most of my reasons for the theological changes I have made are because of the way I am wired. If I had been wired differently maybe I would have been quite happy to stay in the church of my youth. Conversely, perhaps those who are raised in traditions like the one I am currently in, and who crave certainty in their innermost being end up in those churches that promise more of that. And perhaps there are those who find they do not fit, and chose to chuck the whole church thing altogether.
Lots for me to consider there.
A good word from Jonathan Martin
From a recent sermon on his Son of a Preacher Man podcast:
The fake good news only sounds like good news to me and my tribe. The fake good news only sounds like good news if you go to my church. If they’re in another village, it’s bad news for them. But the real good news is not just good news for us, it’s good news for them.
It’s a sermon worth 40 minutes of your time.
You are always more ready to hear than we are to pray...
Wow, Proper 22 from the BCP this week:
Almighty and everlasting God, you are always more ready to hear than we to pray, and to give more than we either desire or deserve: Pour upon us the abundance of your mercy, forgiving us of those things of which our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things for which we are not worth to ask, except through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ our Savior; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Being Christians above all else
Really good piece from Father Thomas McKenzie yesterday about living as a Christian in these divided American times. This bit is worth it alone:
Have your political opinions. Seriously, you have the right to your opinions. You also have the right to voice them. Remember that other people have the same right. Challenge your own opinion. Where does your opinion match up with Scripture or the teachings of the Church. How does Jesus inform your opinion? Be humble enough to change your mind to match your faith. Because someone has a different opinion, they are not your enemy. They aren’t stupid, heartless, or evil. They are likely a normal person, a sinner, just like you. They may well be someone who loves Jesus, someone you’ll live with forever in Heaven. Treat them as you would like to be treated, remembering Jesus words to “love your neighbor as you love yourself,” and “do to others as you would have them do to you.”
His call for us to be Christians first, striving for healing and peace above all else, is a challenge to me. Worth reading the whole thing.
Three dimensions of salvation by allegiance
I’m reading Matthew W. Bates’ Salvation By Allegiance Alone this week, in which he argues that the word the Apostle Paul uses that is usually translated “faith” (pistis in the Greek) is better understood as “allegiance” in relationship to salvation. It’s an interesting way to look at things.
Bates argues that the essential proclamation of the Gospel in the NT doesn’t culminate in Jesus’ death and resurrection but rather continues to his ascension and reign as king and lord. He outlines it in eight points:
Jesus the king
- Preexisted with the Father,
- Took on human flesh, fulfilling God’s promises to David,
- Died for sins in accordance with the scriptures,
- Was buried,
- Was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures,
- Appeared to many,
- Is seated at the right hand of God as Lord, and
- Will come again as judge.
This is pretty well in line with NT Wright, not an uncommon take. Bates then outlines three “dimensions” of allegiance that he contends are components of salvific allegiance:
- Intellectual agreement - basic assent that those eight components of the Gospel are true statements;
- Confession of Loyalty - leaning heavily on Romans 10:9-10 here
- Embodied fidelity - what he describes as “practical fidelity” to Jesus as Lord, referencing heavily to Matthew 7 and the “not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord’” text.
None of this appears to be hugely controversial at this point, but the reframing is helpful to me to get my head around how we might articulate salvation by grace through faith and yet still say that faith without works is dead.
More to come, I’m sure.
Zahnd: Christianity vs. Biblicism
I attended the Water to Wine Gathering at Word of Life Church in St. Joseph, MO a couple weekends ago. WOLC’s pastor Brian Zahnd included in one of his talks some discussion of the dangers of biblicism. I had hoped to summarize that talk in a blog post, but happily Zahnd has published a post of his own doing just that. (It’s actually the preface to an upcoming book, but he shared it on his blog.) I find his thinking very helpful in how we approach and interpret the Bible.
I particularly enjoy his opening metaphor:
As modern Christians we are children of a broken home. Five centuries ago the Western church went through a bitter divorce that divided European Christians and their heirs into estranged Catholic and Protestant families. The reality that the Renaissance church was in desperate need of reformation doesn’t change the fact that along with a reformation there also came an ugly split that divided the church’s children between a Catholic mother and a Protestant father. In the divorce settlement (to push the metaphor a bit further) Catholic Mom got a long history, a rich tradition, and a unified church, but all Protestant Dad got was the Bible. Without history, tradition, or a magisterium, the Bible had to be everything for Protestant Dad — and Protestants have made the most of it.
He goes on to liken the Bible to rich soil out of which grows the tree that is the Christian faith. The Christian faith is rooted in and draws nourishment from the Bible, but Christianity and the Bible are not synonymous. To approach it this way, says Zahnd,
…is both conservative and progressive. Conservative in that it recognizes the inviolability of Scripture. Progressive in that it makes a vital distinction between the living faith and the historic text.
I probably have some readers getting very nervous at this point, but if so I would really recommend reading the whole thing. Zahnd and others like him are pointing the way to embrace Scripture while at the same time moving past reading it in a flat, biblicistic way.
The Greatest Show pointing to the greatest story
Whatever you want to say about The Greatest Showman, it’s not subtle. I know I’m late to the party discussing this movie musical. Hugh Jackman reminds us he can sing and dance while telling a story that in all likelihood bears little resemblance to the actual life of P.T. Barnum. What’s striking to me after watching it a couple times, though, is how the songwriters, performers, and director are expressing some very Christian themes.
Barnum is unashamedly putting together his “circus” (a critic’s derogatory term that Barnum chooses to embrace) of oddities and “freaks”. There’s the very tall man, the very short man, the very fat man, the very tattooed man, the trapeze artists, and (most notably in the show) the bearded lady. They are living in the shadows, mocked for their differences by the people around them.
I am not a stranger to the dark Hide away, they say ‘Cause we don’t want your broken parts I’ve learned to be ashamed of all my scars Run away, they say No one will love you as you are But I won’t let them break me down to dust I know that there’s a place for us For we are glorious
What makes these people receptive to Barnum’s invitation to perform, though, is that he doesn’t see them as freaks or mistakes but as people who need to be seen and loved and appreciated for who they are.
As a follower of Jesus I can affirm and need to be reminded of this attitude. Each person I encounter, even (especially?) if unseemly, is glorious, because they are a human who bears God’s image. They are deserving of love and embrace, not in spite of who they are but because of who they are.
The movie goes on a fairly predictable story arc from there - Barnum’s ambition drives him to pursue greater and greater success. His desire for the approval of the wealthy and elite drives him to be ashamed of his family of misfits. He chases high culture and leaves his wife and children behind to tour the country with a prima donna. He has his moment of realization, heads back home to try to reconcile with his wife and circus family, loses everything in a fire, and is finally brought back from despair by his circus family who have been there all along.
It’s all very on the nose. There are no real surprises. But it rings true, maybe not in a “that’s realistically how it could’ve happened” sense, but more in a “this is what the redemption arc should look like” sense.
And the gospel themes are present even right there in the finale. As Hugh Jackman is belting out the message that he has learned his lesson and will not, in the future, be blinded by the bright lights of fame, the circus performers have their own hopeful chorus in response.
And we will come back home And we will come back home Home again!
And there is the cry of every heart, though it manifests in diverse ways: a cry for redemption and for restoration. A cry that we could be home, loved for who we are, embraced by a family.
There’s no obvious sign that The Greatest Showman was intended to bring any sort of Christian message. But it highlights to me how direct and relevant the message of Jesus is, even for those who may not be looking for it: that God is love, that we are created gloriously in His image, that He is working in our brokenness for redemption, and that He calls us to follow Jesus and be a part of that restoration.
This is the greatest story.
What will happen with the children of post-evangelicals?
Richard Beck has an insightful piece up on a topic that’s had me thinking. While he’s a decade older and from a different denominational background than I am, he and I have traveled a similar path from a strict conservative Christianity into a progressive post-evangelicalism. But what impact, he asks, does this have on our children?
Anyway, we were talking about how our kids now view the church. We’ve become liberal in our views and so we’ve raised our kids as liberals. We’ve preached messages of tolerance and inclusion. And we’ve been successful. Our kids don’t look on the world with judgment and suspicion. They welcome difference. But we’ve noticed that this comes with a price. Our kids don’t have the same loyalty to the church as we do. We were raised conservatively, so going and being loyal to a local church is hardwired into us. We can’t imagine not going to church. It’s who we are. But our kids weren’t raised by conservatives, they were raised by us, post-evangelical liberals. Consequently, our kids don’t have that same loyalty toward the church. So we were talking about this paradox in our small group, how our kids weren’t raised by our parents, they were raised by us, and how that’s made our kids unlike us. Especially when it comes to how we feel about church. Basically, our kids aren’t post-evangelicals. They are liberals.
He goes on to say that he doesn’t mean that being a liberal is a bad thing, but that he wonders if his children will have a rootedness in a community and deep sense of belonging that he experienced growing up in a more conservative environment.
I’ve had similar questions about raising my own children. While I consider myself pretty solidly post-evangelical, as a family we have spent the last decade as committed members of a fairly conservative evangelical church. My kids attend Sunday School and youth group and get taught many of the same things I did when I was their age. Then they come home and I feel the tension keenly when we have discussions about hot topics that have come up - things like evolution, gender roles, religious tolerance, and historical and textual criticism of the Bible.
Maybe my willingness to stay committed to a conservative church gives lie to the claim that I’m post-evangelical. I guess that’s ok with me - it’s not like post-evangelicalism is a club for which I need to establish my bona fides. What I’m really hoping for my kids is that we can find a sweet spot in the middle - one that doesn’t view orthodox doctrine and social responsibility as an either/or proposition but rather a both/and, one that sees questions as a sign of a strong faith rather than a weak one about to shatter.
Maybe it’s truly the journey that has shaped my theology and Christian outlook into what it is today, but I’m holding onto hope that my children can find their path to a confident faith even through being raised by a meandering post-evangelical.