Category: theology
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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:
- “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?
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.