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!

Gentleness and Respect for all - addressing 'the transgender issue'

But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your good behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander. For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil. -- 1 Pet 3:15-17, NIV

I promised myself and my readers not too long ago that my theo-rage-blogging days are over. Which means I’ve wrestled with myself now about whether or not to write this post. I’ve come down on the side, though, of writing it, because I think there’s something here to say that isn’t tied to any group or denomination or particular theological persuasion. So here goes.

This is the cover of the latest issue of Time magazine. It features Laverne Cox, a transgender actress best known for starring in the Netflix series “Orange is the New Black”.

“The Transgender Tipping Point”, it declares. “America’s next civil rights frontier.”

I’m not a subscriber to Time, and haven’t been past a newsstand lately, so my first awareness of this cover came from a (re)tweet by Russell Moore (@drmoore) that looked like this:

https://twitter.com/drmoore/status/472105205211750400

Dr. Moore is President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, and a not-infrequent commentator on social and political topics. I don’t mean to call him out personally here; his attitude and commentary are likely no different than what I’d hear from many other corners of the evangelical church.

But I’m bothered by the approach. “Are you prepared for what’s next?” implies a significant level of us-against-them, fight-the-culture-war-to-win-it mentality that disrespects transgender people and doesn’t seem to recognize that they are cherished divine image-bearers just as much as we are.

I thought I was reading a little too much into it - afraid of my own biases, as it were - but then I read the stream of replies to Moore’s tweet. Those replies are even more disturbing. Referring to the actress as “it”, as a “fake ‘woman’”. Expressions of disgust ("…permanently lost my appetite.", “want to go into a bubble”). When one person refers to the actress as “her”, another one replies to ‘correct’ the first with “*his”.

To his credit, Dr. Moore’s follow-up tweet linked to a more nuanced position on ’the transgender issue’, as he puts it, which includes the declaration that “As conservative Christians, we do not see transgendered persons as “freaks” to be despised or ridiculed.” Later on he says that “…this also means that we will love and be patient with those who feel alienated from their created identities.”

One hopes that, on reflection, Dr. Moore and the folks who replied to him might recognize that those tweets have every likelihood of being interpreted as alienating and despising rather than loving and patient.

As Christians, we must do better.

In the verse I quoted at the top of this post, the Apostle Peter says that our testimonies of faith must be given with “gentleness and respect”, so that any accusations of bad behavior will be undeserved and slanderous.

I will be the first to admit that I don’t have a fully-formed theological position when it comes to transgender issues. This is a topic that will no doubt soon get fuller treatment in the theological world much as homosexuality has over the past decade.

But I do know this: as Christians we should cultivate an approach and reaction to all people that starts with love, care, and concern, not one of disgust and alienation. If we can’t even respect a person enough to address them by their preferred gender, how can we ever hope that they’ll listen to us long enough that we can tell them about God’s love for them?

“But we’re going to lose the culture war!”

Yeah, we are. We probably already have. We’re not called to win it. We’re called to be faithful. The Apostle Peter wasn’t ‘winning the culture war’ in his day, either. Which might be why he followed up the call to gentleness and respect with these words: “For it is better, if it is God’s will, to suffer for doing good than for doing evil.”

May that be the legacy of Christians in this place and time.

Real Transformation happens when?

In light of the whole Tullian Tchividjian / Gospel Coalition dust-up in recent days, Mark Galli has an interesting piece at Christianity Today online titled “Real Transformation Happens When?”. Galli’s thesis will make you do a double-take:

I want to raise one sanctification issue that I don’t see discussed much. I do not doubt the biblical call to holy living (1 Pet. 1:15 being the quintessential text). But after living the Christian life for nearly a half century, I doubt the ability of Christians to make much progress in holiness.

What the what?

But don’t stop there, keep reading.

I look at my own life and marvel at the lack of real transformation after 50 years of effort. To be sure, outwardly I’m more patient, kind, gracious, and so forth. But even after half a century of transformation, my thoughts and motives are a cauldron of evil. Just one small example: When a friend fails to show up on time, I’m outwardly patient and kind, but inwardly I battle judgment and condemnation. Earlier in life, I would have lashed out at him for being tardy, as lack of respect for me among other things. Now I have some self-control as I smile and say, “Not a problem.”

Galli goes on to recognize that while he has undoubtedly improved in some areas, his motivations remain as torn as ever. He also sees patient, kind non-Christians and wonders whether his behavioral improvement is simply the result of maturity and not the Holy Spirit in his life.

Galli’s conclusion:

This is not to say that we are not “being transformed … from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18, NRSV) even now. But it seems to me the greatest transformation is not necessarily in outward virtue, but in increasing levels of self-awareness — awareness of the depth of our sin — and consequently increasing repentance and humility. Not a humility that points to some virtue in our lives and says, “It wasn’t me, it was the Lord working through me,” but the deeper humility that sees the desperately wicked heart and desperately prays daily, “Lord, have mercy.”

There’s plenty worth reading and considering in Galli’s full post, which I highly recommend you go read.

There are a couple of things that seem like omissions - likely intentional on Galli’s part but that are worth mentioning: first, that he’s writing primarily from the perspective of one who has spent a long time in the faith. A more comprehensive look at the topic would surely recognize that the Holy Spirit can and does make dramatic changes toward holiness in the lives of believers, especially in the case of new believers who have long lived for self before coming to Christ.

The second thought is that Galli may be a bit hard on himself in this article. And yet, as he notes in the post, the Apostle Paul himself, near the end of his life, described himself as “the worst of sinners”, writing in Romans 7 that

For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing…

I’m reminded of a conversation I had with a pastor one day on this topic where I quoted the first lines of Romans 6: “shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?”. I shook my head regretfully, knowing full well both Paul’s answer to his own rhetorical question, and the fact that I too often fail to measure up.

The pastor’s response was immediate, gracious, and breathtakingly honest: “well, I’ve generally found that to be my experience, yeah.”

I find myself once again incredibly thankful for God’s grace.

To be a Christian is to believe that all political ideologies are suspect.

Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry nails it:

To be a Christian is to believe that all political ideologies are suspect. And wrong. It doesn’t mean that Christians should retreat from all political ideologies — as that would also be a political ideology, and also wrong. By all means, be a Christian liberal. Be a Christian conservative. But if you are a Christian liberal, if you are a Christian conservative, then by definition there will be tensions between your Christianity and your political ideology. It’s axiomatic. And if you are a Christian first and an ideologue second, you should confront those tensions instead of papering over them.

The whole post is worth a read.