Tonight at assembly...
Quick Note: I am having a dickens of a time typing tonight for some reason...
...we talked about "cults". Cults are interesting because if your view changes, what may have seemed a cult turns out not to be one. Cults look at Evangelical or Reformed assemblies as wayward cults. So, in other words, it is hard to come up with a suitable definition without making it sound something like this:
"A cult is anyone not like us."
Sounds kinda cultish.
Three particular doctrines were singled out as particularly "cultish": no Trinity, no two-natures of Jesus, no salvation by grace through faith alone. My question, though, is: were there any cults before Nicea? The doctrine of the Trinity has a long and sordid history and has never really satisfactorily been defined to an intelligible state (maybe it falls under the "description" idea I posted about earlier?). Also, does this make the Catholic faith at least a "little" cultish...as far as I know the whole third doctrine above (salvation by grace through faith) was the reason for a large Church split back in the 16th century.
So how do we define a cult? A better question, maybe, is how do we define the Church? Part of what the apostles teaching on the Church seems to be that the Spirit of God fills it, much like it did the ancient Temple and Jesus. Could this possibly be the test of what the true (and therefore what the false) Church is: the presence of the Spirit? I don't claim to know, at this point, what the "presence of the Spirit" is, but at times past it seems that God has made it very clear: fiery theophanies, a dove alighting on a wet Messiah, and odd tongues of fire appearing over people's head who were uneducated but speaking several languages fluently (I feel that I missed that part in my former language training).
I've said before here that I think we need pray about the division of the Church into so many parts because it doesn't necessarily show a divided emphasis (which is fine and different places need different things at different times), but because it shows a divided allegiance. God is not at war with Himself, but His Church seems to be at war with itself continually.
I guess that I'm kind of hoping for an Elijah-Mt.Carmel experience for the Church: we need to know who truly has the Spirit of God. Not, of course, that one denomination need have a monopoly on God's Spirit. There are certain beliefs, though, that I'm sure carry the divine imprimatur instead of others.
Come, Holy Spirit, guide us to unity in the faith and to unity of purpose together as God's people.
Sunday, February 20, 2005
Friday, February 18, 2005
Over there...
Over at my other blog, DavarLogos I have posted a "Biblical Liturgy of Psalm 107" and an introductory explanation of my purpose and method. Please tell me what you think.
Dialogical Worship
My tradition has a strong belief that every church worship service needs to have "the word preached" by a seminary ordained man. Historically, this has been very important to Calvinistic Protestantism. One of the few symbolic things established (and somewhat maintained) by the Reformers was that the Bible would be on a raised lectern (almost altarish) to show how the Word was to be honored above all. Since the "preacher" is the bearer of God's Word, then he also is accorded a high place. (BTW, I'm not writing this post because I am angry with my tradition or my pastor, I'm writing to just get some thoughts down). I wonder, though, about the expediency of this model. In my studies at Geneva's Higher Ed program I have been introduced to dialogical pedagogical techniques and (a modified) critical realist epistemology. They seem to work well for the creational nature of learning and knowledge. Since the Church's work is to be about 'learning and knowledge' I wonder if we should try and implement these things, not just in Sabbath school, but also in formal worship.
More on this anon...
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
A Comment and a Challenge
I originally wrote this entry with a bit of anger arrogance. I rewrite it because I want to say some things differently. Firstly, all the 'comments' that I made I want to save for a non-vitriolic blog entry in the future, they were: government as non-savior and the correct use of the Prophets. To be continued...
Next is my challenge: let us start a discussion, using the whole of Scripture, as to what the different spheres of government (individual, family, Church, State) have under their jurisdiction, their 'boundaries'. It is only by delving into our marching orders of Scripture that we can form some sort of semblance and consensus about how to go about ecclesial renewal and cultural renewal. My own analysis will necessary be sporadic, as my homework and work loads have both substantially increased.
Next is my challenge: let us start a discussion, using the whole of Scripture, as to what the different spheres of government (individual, family, Church, State) have under their jurisdiction, their 'boundaries'. It is only by delving into our marching orders of Scripture that we can form some sort of semblance and consensus about how to go about ecclesial renewal and cultural renewal. My own analysis will necessary be sporadic, as my homework and work loads have both substantially increased.
Sunday, February 13, 2005
Definitions
This blog isn't about the politics that I've been writing about in the last few posts. Honestly, I can't think of what else to say. If you can help, please post your comments in the comments section of the last entry "Christians in the Polis". I apologize, but once I put the pen down, so to speak, I lost my train of thought.
Anyway.
Today in assembly, the pastor talked about defining grace. He lamented the fact that he, being Reformed, could not think of an adequate definition. He asked us as a congregation how we should do it (in the pastor sort of way that tells you it is genuine, but rhetorical). As per my wont (I talk a lot during sermons), I leaned over towards my wife (Happy Song of Solomon Day, hun!) and said, "You can only define grace through a story." I did figure, though, that we were going to get a systematic definition. I was wrong, the pastor told a story about hobos to illustrate grace. He had to keep adding to the story, though, to get to where he could adequate (to him) define the concept. I wonder, though, should we do this?
When I think of grace (hesed in Hebrew, charis in Greek), I think of the Exodus, I think of the return from Exile, I think of the miracles, the death, the resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus. All these stories interplay and comment on one another to form my understanding of grace. But I can't define it. I don't think I want to.
Definitions are a way of domestication. When Adam was given a job, his job was definition: taxonomy to be precise. He had to classify, to name, the animals. 'Naming' in Scripture takes on an ownership quality. Whoever names is the superior (or higher) power, to whom we owe our allegiance and faith. God gives Abram a new name. The Pharoah gives Joseph a new name. Nebuchadnezzar gives Daniel and his biz-oys (I'm hip, I'm with it) new names. Being someone (or something) under your naming power puts them under your jurisdiction, your control. It domesticates them.
When CS Lewis talks about Aslan, he is always sure to say that "he is not a tame lion". Can we define God? Can we define his grace? Traditional theology (for the first question Nicea and Chalcedon and for the second the whole corpus of Reformed writings) has sounded an astonding and deafening 'yes'. In one sense, definition is very important. That is how we have foundation cognitively and socially (Torah plays this role in the Bible--I recommend Brueggemann's "The Creative Word" for more on this and related ideas, applied to church education). But, definitions can get stagnant and distorted as time goes by and situations change. The whole Hebrew Bible is a testimony to that. That is when the prophets step in and say, "Yes, we need to know grace, but we can't know it just through definition, we need to know it through embracing it, living our lives as if we are defined by it, not the other way around. All our definitions of God will be seen to be truncated and small, all our definitions of grace will be seen to favor (grace and favor are the same word in Hebrew) our way of living and not the way God has for us to live." God cannot be domesticated.
Who is God, then? All I know is what He has revealed in His Word, but even there I see that my knowledge is partial and cloudy. When I want to know God, I end up (every single time) finding myself drawn into a knowledge of a first-century Jew, whose complexities and idiosyncracies I cannot wrap my head around. When I want to understand grace, I end up being caught up (raptured, if you will) in the stories of Exodus, Exile, and Resurrection--the story of Israel and Jesus. Instead of defining God and grace, I find them ever more defining me.
Anyway.
Today in assembly, the pastor talked about defining grace. He lamented the fact that he, being Reformed, could not think of an adequate definition. He asked us as a congregation how we should do it (in the pastor sort of way that tells you it is genuine, but rhetorical). As per my wont (I talk a lot during sermons), I leaned over towards my wife (Happy Song of Solomon Day, hun!) and said, "You can only define grace through a story." I did figure, though, that we were going to get a systematic definition. I was wrong, the pastor told a story about hobos to illustrate grace. He had to keep adding to the story, though, to get to where he could adequate (to him) define the concept. I wonder, though, should we do this?
When I think of grace (hesed in Hebrew, charis in Greek), I think of the Exodus, I think of the return from Exile, I think of the miracles, the death, the resurrection, and the ascension of Jesus. All these stories interplay and comment on one another to form my understanding of grace. But I can't define it. I don't think I want to.
Definitions are a way of domestication. When Adam was given a job, his job was definition: taxonomy to be precise. He had to classify, to name, the animals. 'Naming' in Scripture takes on an ownership quality. Whoever names is the superior (or higher) power, to whom we owe our allegiance and faith. God gives Abram a new name. The Pharoah gives Joseph a new name. Nebuchadnezzar gives Daniel and his biz-oys (I'm hip, I'm with it) new names. Being someone (or something) under your naming power puts them under your jurisdiction, your control. It domesticates them.
When CS Lewis talks about Aslan, he is always sure to say that "he is not a tame lion". Can we define God? Can we define his grace? Traditional theology (for the first question Nicea and Chalcedon and for the second the whole corpus of Reformed writings) has sounded an astonding and deafening 'yes'. In one sense, definition is very important. That is how we have foundation cognitively and socially (Torah plays this role in the Bible--I recommend Brueggemann's "The Creative Word" for more on this and related ideas, applied to church education). But, definitions can get stagnant and distorted as time goes by and situations change. The whole Hebrew Bible is a testimony to that. That is when the prophets step in and say, "Yes, we need to know grace, but we can't know it just through definition, we need to know it through embracing it, living our lives as if we are defined by it, not the other way around. All our definitions of God will be seen to be truncated and small, all our definitions of grace will be seen to favor (grace and favor are the same word in Hebrew) our way of living and not the way God has for us to live." God cannot be domesticated.
Who is God, then? All I know is what He has revealed in His Word, but even there I see that my knowledge is partial and cloudy. When I want to know God, I end up (every single time) finding myself drawn into a knowledge of a first-century Jew, whose complexities and idiosyncracies I cannot wrap my head around. When I want to understand grace, I end up being caught up (raptured, if you will) in the stories of Exodus, Exile, and Resurrection--the story of Israel and Jesus. Instead of defining God and grace, I find them ever more defining me.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Christian in the Polis
I like the way that Gideon Strauss put it on the Dialogical Coffee House when he called 'Libertarianism' "Egyptian Gold". There are things in the philosophy that do, I believe, resonate deeply with Christian values. But, also, there are things that rail against it and so must be examined and critiqued. I am not a wholehearted endorser of the Libertarian movement. One such place is the over-focus on individualism. While individual liberty is a very important thing, it is not the only thing. Libertarians must be concerned with familial liberty, too. Also, since the family is the building block of both the Church and society, liberty in the family becomes how to express the desire of "liberty under God for all".
Second, many 'Libertarians' think that their philosophy allows them to be 'Libertines', those who have no moral foundation. They think that if there is no State to enforce anything, then I can do anything. The Christian horror at this should be obvious. There is no such thing as liberty without covenantal authority. In other words, those that believe they can live without God's Torah or nomos (Hebrew and Greek words for God's ordering principles), are fools (Ps. 14). This leads to something very important: there is no such thing as 'pure' liberty, only derivative responsibility.
This can be seen in Creation: sun, moon, and stars are given authority over what God had originally made to stand by itself--light. Man is given authority over beasts, birds, and bass. Authority (or, if you want, government) is creational; but is it derivative. It must answer to its higher authority, which is always and in all things going to be God. Part of the original creation is that God has set boundaries that keep order and preserve Creation for its true development. If any of the governing authorities let those boundaries be ignored or intentionally transgress them (the original meaning of 'transgress' is to step over a line), then their is chaos and oppression and violence. When these things get out of hand, all Creational boundaries are set free (by God) to stop those that would seek to establish their own boundaries (the Flood being a prime example of this phenomenon).
Along with this, there is also the recongnition that no single created authority is total or absolute. Only God is the absolute ruler and rules over all things. All governments (whether cosmic or human) have their boundaries that they must not cross, under penalty of divine judgement. Part of the right stewardship of God's creation is that we must determine those boundaries and preserve them through our politics, our economics, our ecclesial structures, etc. This can be done through many means: legislation, wisdom traditions, community standards (both implicit and explicit), etc. Determining how to enforce these boundaries is also part of the wise stewardship of Creation. Thankfully, we are not left alone to decide these things: God offers his Torah/nomos as the foundation of our thought about wise stewardship (I take Jesus' commands as part of that Torah/nomos complex, but not the only part).
In that sense 'government' is creational. This is because God has created hierarchies into His Creation, to glorify him and for the best use (least waste) of His Creation. However, that does not mean that all expressions of this created reality are good. Many can be totally rebellious, preserving only the idea of authority as their creational component. As neo-calvinists, we must realize that sometimes created structures are so distorted as to look 'new under the sun'. Just because there is a centralized State does not mean that is it good or the ultimate will of God, it may just be a perversion of God's mandate of caring, bounded authority. Too often we look at the institutions of today and think that since this is way it is, it is a good (maybe slightly corrupted) way. If 'government' steps outside its boundaries, it is not good and must be called back through prophetic speech and action.
What, then, are the different types of 'government' and their boundaries? That is one of the most important questions that can be asked. Another is, is there a hierarchical structure to them, in other words, is one form of governance more important than another?
First, there is family (or self) government, which is the most important type of all. If the family is weak, all of society (Church, State, business, agriculture, etc.) is weak. Families are the place of moral and educational training (Deut. 6 and the book of Proverbs); discipline (Proverbs and various Deut. laws); and long-term welfare (I Tim. 5:4). It is in this context that most of the things of life are to be exercised. Dominion (in the 'keep and till' meaning, not domination) is primarily a family enterprise: being faithful with the little we are given, not desiring more and not despising it, though it is little. That is why the fifth commandment is so prominent: the family is the basis of social order, if it is despised or mistreated, then all of society has no hope. Adultery leads to the same thing, societal collapse. Man can be most easily faithful when his family is given the freedom to puruse their own interests (in the context of a faithfilled community that lives by the Biblical narrative) and his authority wont be lost or nullified by a bureaucracy. I have spoken at this from an economic standpoint in "Creational Capitalism", to which I point the readers.
It is 'civil government' (too often erroneously shorthanded to simply 'government') that is the tricky issue. Civil government is to be concerned with the welfare of the poor and the establishment and protection of justice. No Christian, whether Left, Right, Center, or 'off the map', would disagree with that. The question is what the words mean and their proper boundaries. "Welfare of the poor" is that the '60 Great Society ideal? Or does it mean that in the court system, the local magistrate has the economic liability (and responsibility) to take up their case so that the rich cannot use their clout to buy the case (the Old Testament idea...which is probably the right one)? The 'establishment and protection of justice' is another tricky phrase. Most activities by man are not under the jurisdiction of the 'civil government', according to Scripture. Notice that no one is charged to enforce the Jubilee laws or the gleaning laws, the laws that we today call 'justice to the poor'. Instead, it is the responsibility of the poor to cry out to God and He will personally see to their justice (through His Church's generosity and teaching and through His historical sanctions). Any State that decides to enforce its own (non-Scriptural) defintion of 'justice' is in rebellion to God.
My hands and mind are tired and taxed at this point...I'll try and continue later.
Second, many 'Libertarians' think that their philosophy allows them to be 'Libertines', those who have no moral foundation. They think that if there is no State to enforce anything, then I can do anything. The Christian horror at this should be obvious. There is no such thing as liberty without covenantal authority. In other words, those that believe they can live without God's Torah or nomos (Hebrew and Greek words for God's ordering principles), are fools (Ps. 14). This leads to something very important: there is no such thing as 'pure' liberty, only derivative responsibility.
This can be seen in Creation: sun, moon, and stars are given authority over what God had originally made to stand by itself--light. Man is given authority over beasts, birds, and bass. Authority (or, if you want, government) is creational; but is it derivative. It must answer to its higher authority, which is always and in all things going to be God. Part of the original creation is that God has set boundaries that keep order and preserve Creation for its true development. If any of the governing authorities let those boundaries be ignored or intentionally transgress them (the original meaning of 'transgress' is to step over a line), then their is chaos and oppression and violence. When these things get out of hand, all Creational boundaries are set free (by God) to stop those that would seek to establish their own boundaries (the Flood being a prime example of this phenomenon).
Along with this, there is also the recongnition that no single created authority is total or absolute. Only God is the absolute ruler and rules over all things. All governments (whether cosmic or human) have their boundaries that they must not cross, under penalty of divine judgement. Part of the right stewardship of God's creation is that we must determine those boundaries and preserve them through our politics, our economics, our ecclesial structures, etc. This can be done through many means: legislation, wisdom traditions, community standards (both implicit and explicit), etc. Determining how to enforce these boundaries is also part of the wise stewardship of Creation. Thankfully, we are not left alone to decide these things: God offers his Torah/nomos as the foundation of our thought about wise stewardship (I take Jesus' commands as part of that Torah/nomos complex, but not the only part).
In that sense 'government' is creational. This is because God has created hierarchies into His Creation, to glorify him and for the best use (least waste) of His Creation. However, that does not mean that all expressions of this created reality are good. Many can be totally rebellious, preserving only the idea of authority as their creational component. As neo-calvinists, we must realize that sometimes created structures are so distorted as to look 'new under the sun'. Just because there is a centralized State does not mean that is it good or the ultimate will of God, it may just be a perversion of God's mandate of caring, bounded authority. Too often we look at the institutions of today and think that since this is way it is, it is a good (maybe slightly corrupted) way. If 'government' steps outside its boundaries, it is not good and must be called back through prophetic speech and action.
What, then, are the different types of 'government' and their boundaries? That is one of the most important questions that can be asked. Another is, is there a hierarchical structure to them, in other words, is one form of governance more important than another?
First, there is family (or self) government, which is the most important type of all. If the family is weak, all of society (Church, State, business, agriculture, etc.) is weak. Families are the place of moral and educational training (Deut. 6 and the book of Proverbs); discipline (Proverbs and various Deut. laws); and long-term welfare (I Tim. 5:4). It is in this context that most of the things of life are to be exercised. Dominion (in the 'keep and till' meaning, not domination) is primarily a family enterprise: being faithful with the little we are given, not desiring more and not despising it, though it is little. That is why the fifth commandment is so prominent: the family is the basis of social order, if it is despised or mistreated, then all of society has no hope. Adultery leads to the same thing, societal collapse. Man can be most easily faithful when his family is given the freedom to puruse their own interests (in the context of a faithfilled community that lives by the Biblical narrative) and his authority wont be lost or nullified by a bureaucracy. I have spoken at this from an economic standpoint in "Creational Capitalism", to which I point the readers.
It is 'civil government' (too often erroneously shorthanded to simply 'government') that is the tricky issue. Civil government is to be concerned with the welfare of the poor and the establishment and protection of justice. No Christian, whether Left, Right, Center, or 'off the map', would disagree with that. The question is what the words mean and their proper boundaries. "Welfare of the poor" is that the '60 Great Society ideal? Or does it mean that in the court system, the local magistrate has the economic liability (and responsibility) to take up their case so that the rich cannot use their clout to buy the case (the Old Testament idea...which is probably the right one)? The 'establishment and protection of justice' is another tricky phrase. Most activities by man are not under the jurisdiction of the 'civil government', according to Scripture. Notice that no one is charged to enforce the Jubilee laws or the gleaning laws, the laws that we today call 'justice to the poor'. Instead, it is the responsibility of the poor to cry out to God and He will personally see to their justice (through His Church's generosity and teaching and through His historical sanctions). Any State that decides to enforce its own (non-Scriptural) defintion of 'justice' is in rebellion to God.
My hands and mind are tired and taxed at this point...I'll try and continue later.
Sunday, January 16, 2005
Creational Capitalism
I am a capitalist. In some circles that I run around in, that is one of the most degrading terms that can be applied to a person. I, however, carry it as a soiled badge of honor. Soiled? Yeah, because capitalism separated from the rulership of Jesus produced the military-industrial economy that has set itself up as end and means, as the idol of consumptive, ignorant, idolatrous masses. As a follower of the true King, I want nothing of this false kingdom (although, in this case, words are much easier than actions). Capitalism cannot, let me emphasized this, cannot happen without the rule of God.
The basics of capitalism, as I see them, are (1) there is such a thing as a 'market' where people exchange goods and services, (2) that people, being both consumers and producers want to use this market, (3) people need the freedom to choose what is best with regards to their local communities and families as to what they will offer, buy, and leave out of the market, and (4) the civil government should have as little of a part in the market as possible. Obviously, these basics are colored by my Christian roots, but to present them otherwise is impossible.
The idea of a market is inevitable. As humans, we are not completely self-sufficient. We cannot produce everything we want or need for ourselves. That leads us to recognize diverse and different talents among our fellow men and women that we would be happy to trade something for their services (whether monetary or not). I, for example, have currently no good way of disposing of my wastes, so I pay the sanitation company to deal with them (this is a bad metaphor, I know, since most sanitation companies are government run therefore most of my waste ends up back in my drinking water or in someone else's backyard--but, for this point, it is an admittedly bad example).
A couple things culturally have led to our misuse of the market into its current, idolatrous, monstrous form. The first is reductionism: we have made everything into a "marketable" entity, when (we learn from experience and God's word) not everything should be made so. The second is the loss of any self-sufficiency: why make for ourselves what we can have others make for us? The third is our dependence on civil government: there are few services NOT provided by the civil government in this country, the basic premise being that if we give the government the power to run our lives, it will.
Is there any way to be a Christian capitalist?
Yes. First off, God is the freer of people to responsibility. Right after the Exodus, God gave His people the Torah. They were in covenant relationship, not autonomous entities (there is no such thing as autonomy). If the Son has set us free from sin and death, we should live that way. In our economic dealings, we should love God with all our heart, mind, and strength; and love our neighbor as ourselves. This requires, secondly, a suitable anthropology: man is a limited creature and shouldn't puff himself up to believe that he is. Here is a lot of the problem of modern 'capitalism' (which I don't think is capitalism at all, with its corporate dependence on government hand-outs, bail-outs, and contracts): man believes that through the market he can be the ruler of the world. There is only one ruler of the world and he delegates authority to those who show themselves responsible enough to use it. We must, in other words, be 'creational capitalists': humans who understand that God has committed extraordinary power into our hands, but who also understand the responsibility that entails and the limits that are inherent in it and that must be self-imposed.
Part of this, though, is the aspect of community. There is no such thing as a global economy. We work in our local areas after local standards, which should be the rule of economic dealings. We (by which I mean Christians) should not be trying to out compete people in other locales as they try to provide services to their communities. Instead of competing, we should be working with our local communities to offer services that actually are needed and helpful for all to follow their callings. A case in point for any entrepenuers in Beaver Falls: WE DON'T NEED ANY MORE TATTOO PARLORS OR BARS! (I might include here tanning salons, but considering the lack of sun for the better part of every winter, that might be an illadvised statement).
In this aspect of community, families must be (as much as possible) economically self-sufficient. Can we produce our own food, clean up after ourselves, and possibly offer something that we lovingly (after the pattern of God's creative acts) craft to our neighbors, whom we profess to love as ourselves (do loving neighbors offer each other food that is going to be detrimental to health or to the local ground, air, or water supply)?
Creational capitalists believe that God has given man freedom to pursue diverse and complementary callings in the care and development of the world. We cannot give these callings over to the government, but must pursue them in local, sufficient communities that are built upon the Greatest Commandment. We must care for what we earn our livelihood from and reduce human waste. Unlike socialism, we do not expect and do not want the government to handle all of this. Instead, we want to develop into mature, godly men and women that are responsible for our lives and the lives of our communities.
What then is the responsibility of government? Depends on which form of government you are speaking about. Self-government (by which I mean the self-governing of both individuals and families) is the first preventative step in the market. As families, the critique of products and services is likely to be more stringent and careful, since we will first offer the products to other family members (basically, I'm not going to give my family stones that I have advertised as bread). Families have an amazing economic control and regulation over themselves--read any essay by Wendell Berry to get a flavor of this--but families must have some backbone and not be worked over in fear by the other members. Family reconstruction and strengthening should be the chief purpose and issue of the church today. Church-government is the next step. If a person falls out of line by offering some sinful product to the market that the family has either been negligent about or not seen, the church steps in and disciplines both the family and the 'seller' in its redemptive way. Problem with that is listed in a previous post, "Elders for Everyone"--basically the church has become largely effeminate. As a strong community though, a whole church refusing to buy products from certain vendors makes a load of economic clout--all churches in an area doing it makes it even more powerful (but, like all power, this must be used wisely and with lots of hard thought and prayer). Thirdly, we have local civil government. Here is where things get a little tricky. Many have argued the line of anarchism in the market, but local government should be in place to limit any sinful activity: prostitution, pornography, etc. that has slipped through the first two levels (and if it has, the community has worse problems than prostitution, etc.). The point, though, is that the government is local and of a manageable size--less corruption comes from less power.
If we as Christians are the cultural vanguards of a creational (that is, limited and responsible) capitalism (that is, God-fearing and life-affirming voluntary and free exchange locally), we can have a great avenue to address the issues of cultural renewal, especially as they speak to things like individualism, consumerism, and other related things. Creational capitalism is the hardest economic theory to put into practice because it takes discipline and hard work, which the modern economy is rabidly against: but God is pleased by hard, good quality, honoring, and enduring work.
The basics of capitalism, as I see them, are (1) there is such a thing as a 'market' where people exchange goods and services, (2) that people, being both consumers and producers want to use this market, (3) people need the freedom to choose what is best with regards to their local communities and families as to what they will offer, buy, and leave out of the market, and (4) the civil government should have as little of a part in the market as possible. Obviously, these basics are colored by my Christian roots, but to present them otherwise is impossible.
The idea of a market is inevitable. As humans, we are not completely self-sufficient. We cannot produce everything we want or need for ourselves. That leads us to recognize diverse and different talents among our fellow men and women that we would be happy to trade something for their services (whether monetary or not). I, for example, have currently no good way of disposing of my wastes, so I pay the sanitation company to deal with them (this is a bad metaphor, I know, since most sanitation companies are government run therefore most of my waste ends up back in my drinking water or in someone else's backyard--but, for this point, it is an admittedly bad example).
A couple things culturally have led to our misuse of the market into its current, idolatrous, monstrous form. The first is reductionism: we have made everything into a "marketable" entity, when (we learn from experience and God's word) not everything should be made so. The second is the loss of any self-sufficiency: why make for ourselves what we can have others make for us? The third is our dependence on civil government: there are few services NOT provided by the civil government in this country, the basic premise being that if we give the government the power to run our lives, it will.
Is there any way to be a Christian capitalist?
Yes. First off, God is the freer of people to responsibility. Right after the Exodus, God gave His people the Torah. They were in covenant relationship, not autonomous entities (there is no such thing as autonomy). If the Son has set us free from sin and death, we should live that way. In our economic dealings, we should love God with all our heart, mind, and strength; and love our neighbor as ourselves. This requires, secondly, a suitable anthropology: man is a limited creature and shouldn't puff himself up to believe that he is. Here is a lot of the problem of modern 'capitalism' (which I don't think is capitalism at all, with its corporate dependence on government hand-outs, bail-outs, and contracts): man believes that through the market he can be the ruler of the world. There is only one ruler of the world and he delegates authority to those who show themselves responsible enough to use it. We must, in other words, be 'creational capitalists': humans who understand that God has committed extraordinary power into our hands, but who also understand the responsibility that entails and the limits that are inherent in it and that must be self-imposed.
Part of this, though, is the aspect of community. There is no such thing as a global economy. We work in our local areas after local standards, which should be the rule of economic dealings. We (by which I mean Christians) should not be trying to out compete people in other locales as they try to provide services to their communities. Instead of competing, we should be working with our local communities to offer services that actually are needed and helpful for all to follow their callings. A case in point for any entrepenuers in Beaver Falls: WE DON'T NEED ANY MORE TATTOO PARLORS OR BARS! (I might include here tanning salons, but considering the lack of sun for the better part of every winter, that might be an illadvised statement).
In this aspect of community, families must be (as much as possible) economically self-sufficient. Can we produce our own food, clean up after ourselves, and possibly offer something that we lovingly (after the pattern of God's creative acts) craft to our neighbors, whom we profess to love as ourselves (do loving neighbors offer each other food that is going to be detrimental to health or to the local ground, air, or water supply)?
Creational capitalists believe that God has given man freedom to pursue diverse and complementary callings in the care and development of the world. We cannot give these callings over to the government, but must pursue them in local, sufficient communities that are built upon the Greatest Commandment. We must care for what we earn our livelihood from and reduce human waste. Unlike socialism, we do not expect and do not want the government to handle all of this. Instead, we want to develop into mature, godly men and women that are responsible for our lives and the lives of our communities.
What then is the responsibility of government? Depends on which form of government you are speaking about. Self-government (by which I mean the self-governing of both individuals and families) is the first preventative step in the market. As families, the critique of products and services is likely to be more stringent and careful, since we will first offer the products to other family members (basically, I'm not going to give my family stones that I have advertised as bread). Families have an amazing economic control and regulation over themselves--read any essay by Wendell Berry to get a flavor of this--but families must have some backbone and not be worked over in fear by the other members. Family reconstruction and strengthening should be the chief purpose and issue of the church today. Church-government is the next step. If a person falls out of line by offering some sinful product to the market that the family has either been negligent about or not seen, the church steps in and disciplines both the family and the 'seller' in its redemptive way. Problem with that is listed in a previous post, "Elders for Everyone"--basically the church has become largely effeminate. As a strong community though, a whole church refusing to buy products from certain vendors makes a load of economic clout--all churches in an area doing it makes it even more powerful (but, like all power, this must be used wisely and with lots of hard thought and prayer). Thirdly, we have local civil government. Here is where things get a little tricky. Many have argued the line of anarchism in the market, but local government should be in place to limit any sinful activity: prostitution, pornography, etc. that has slipped through the first two levels (and if it has, the community has worse problems than prostitution, etc.). The point, though, is that the government is local and of a manageable size--less corruption comes from less power.
If we as Christians are the cultural vanguards of a creational (that is, limited and responsible) capitalism (that is, God-fearing and life-affirming voluntary and free exchange locally), we can have a great avenue to address the issues of cultural renewal, especially as they speak to things like individualism, consumerism, and other related things. Creational capitalism is the hardest economic theory to put into practice because it takes discipline and hard work, which the modern economy is rabidly against: but God is pleased by hard, good quality, honoring, and enduring work.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
A New Blog
The word studies I promised won't be found on this blog. They will be found at DavarLogos, which is a combination of the Hebrew and Greek words for 'word' (or to speak, I kinda mixed a verb with a noun). None of the studies are there yet, but they will come. I try and throw out a heads up when I get one up (since, thanks to Gideon Strauss it is rumored that I have thousands of readers on this blog!), so more to come.
PS--I'll also explain what I mean by the "Creational Capitalist" in a soon to be blog.
PS--I'll also explain what I mean by the "Creational Capitalist" in a soon to be blog.
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Bridging Some Gaps?
It is very easy to take things out of Scripture and make them into general, "timeless" principles. I think it is the number one danger of Christian faith, a kind of baptized dualism that is hard to dispel. A lot of these things are found in uses of single words that 'sum' up the Christian faith: justice, mercy, holiness, etc. Obviously, as Christians we need shorthand words; we can't go around explaining the whole story of Scripture every time we talk about 'justice' or 'peace'. It is a distinct problem, though, that we have people talking past each other because we cannot agree on the most prevalent terms in our assemblies and in our nation (or nations).
In the Torah (or the Pentateuch, if you like), all the laws are prefaced with the book of Genesis. The Decalogue (or Ten Commandments, if you like) is prefaced with: "I am the LORD your God, I brought you out of the house of Egypt, out of the house of bondage". This single phrase says a lot more than the sum total of its word count--it tells the whole story from Abraham to the (then) present. From that story, especially its culmination in the events of the Exodus, the basis for all of Israelite law, wisdom, and praxis is laid.
Christians, though, walk around as if Jesus offered something essentially ahistorical which can be carried everywhere as long as we reference something about a virgin birth, a death, and a resurrection. A case in point is the various icons of Jesus looking either Greek or Roman or Chinese or African. Jesus has been dehistoricized and made into a divine Everyman. Nice way to make all races feel welcome, but it just isn't true. Jesus (probably, of course since no pictures remain) wasn't Swedish or Indian or Chilean--he was (and continues to be) a Jew. He has a history, tied intimately and delicately to that of ancient Israel, and ultimately to the whole world (compare Genesis 1 to John 1, for example). He didn't spout out timeless moral platitudes (which would make nonsense of why he got executed). No, he spoke into a specific environment with specific demands, warnings, and exhortations. What he did, though, laid the model and foundation for the Church's work. Our mission to the world must tell a Jewish gospel about a Jewish man who fulfilled the Israelite identity in himself and reconciled the whole world to God through that.
Christian faith and life, then, are tied up in the historical (placed, in other words) death and resurrection of Jesus. When we say, "Jesus is Lord", it isn't just that he is the religious head of our order, but that all other "lords" and "gods" are deluded at best and idolatrous at worst. The 'forces' that guide the world, whether they be economic, historical, political, or 'religious' aren't in charge of the world and must be reminded of their subordinate place to the Messiah Jesus. All our actions, our fruits of the Spirit, must be placed after a phrase like this: "This is what Jesus, the Messiah, says: I delivered you on that Roman cross from the house of bondage, the house of sin and death--therefore, go into all the world and make disciples..."
As Christians, we need to have the nerve to ask about anything and everything: how does the cross of Jesus affect this? How does the cross put the 'State' in its proper place? How does the cross organize the people of God into a 'church'? How does the cross affect my understanding and practice of 'justice' and 'mercy'? For the next few blogs (which will be few and far between for awhile, I'm heading out of town for class), I want to tackle the (seemingly) easy buzzwords of the Christian faith: justice, mercy, peace, love, knowledge, etc. (Please feel free in the comments section to write words in that I have forgot--it is almost midnight, so my mind isn't as sharp as it could be--or at least as sharp as I seem to think that it can be).
The first word to hit (conveniently for me since I have to lecture on this in March): covenant.
Shalom olam (peace always)...
In the Torah (or the Pentateuch, if you like), all the laws are prefaced with the book of Genesis. The Decalogue (or Ten Commandments, if you like) is prefaced with: "I am the LORD your God, I brought you out of the house of Egypt, out of the house of bondage". This single phrase says a lot more than the sum total of its word count--it tells the whole story from Abraham to the (then) present. From that story, especially its culmination in the events of the Exodus, the basis for all of Israelite law, wisdom, and praxis is laid.
Christians, though, walk around as if Jesus offered something essentially ahistorical which can be carried everywhere as long as we reference something about a virgin birth, a death, and a resurrection. A case in point is the various icons of Jesus looking either Greek or Roman or Chinese or African. Jesus has been dehistoricized and made into a divine Everyman. Nice way to make all races feel welcome, but it just isn't true. Jesus (probably, of course since no pictures remain) wasn't Swedish or Indian or Chilean--he was (and continues to be) a Jew. He has a history, tied intimately and delicately to that of ancient Israel, and ultimately to the whole world (compare Genesis 1 to John 1, for example). He didn't spout out timeless moral platitudes (which would make nonsense of why he got executed). No, he spoke into a specific environment with specific demands, warnings, and exhortations. What he did, though, laid the model and foundation for the Church's work. Our mission to the world must tell a Jewish gospel about a Jewish man who fulfilled the Israelite identity in himself and reconciled the whole world to God through that.
Christian faith and life, then, are tied up in the historical (placed, in other words) death and resurrection of Jesus. When we say, "Jesus is Lord", it isn't just that he is the religious head of our order, but that all other "lords" and "gods" are deluded at best and idolatrous at worst. The 'forces' that guide the world, whether they be economic, historical, political, or 'religious' aren't in charge of the world and must be reminded of their subordinate place to the Messiah Jesus. All our actions, our fruits of the Spirit, must be placed after a phrase like this: "This is what Jesus, the Messiah, says: I delivered you on that Roman cross from the house of bondage, the house of sin and death--therefore, go into all the world and make disciples..."
As Christians, we need to have the nerve to ask about anything and everything: how does the cross of Jesus affect this? How does the cross put the 'State' in its proper place? How does the cross organize the people of God into a 'church'? How does the cross affect my understanding and practice of 'justice' and 'mercy'? For the next few blogs (which will be few and far between for awhile, I'm heading out of town for class), I want to tackle the (seemingly) easy buzzwords of the Christian faith: justice, mercy, peace, love, knowledge, etc. (Please feel free in the comments section to write words in that I have forgot--it is almost midnight, so my mind isn't as sharp as it could be--or at least as sharp as I seem to think that it can be).
The first word to hit (conveniently for me since I have to lecture on this in March): covenant.
Shalom olam (peace always)...
Saturday, December 25, 2004
Elders for Everyone!
Being an American, it is hard for me to imagine 'church' as being anything but a one-man show in which I minimally participate (oddly enough, though, my home church isn't like that--behold the power of an acultured imagination) and which the church, not to mention those outside, minimally benefit. Part of the problem (especially being a language nerd) is that I really have no idea what 'church' (qua word) really means. However, I did some snooping and here's what I found:
'Church' comes (ultimately) from 'kuriakon' which means "Lord's house"--since post-apostolic fathers time it has been used for the idea of ekklesia, which is the word translated in our Bibles as 'church'. This could also be why since about that time, churches have been modeled after, and functioned like, little temples. The Lord's house, Old Testament style, was the Temple in Jerusalem (interesting side-note, the Hebrew word for temple also means 'palace'). However, since the people of God are the building blocks of the Temple, with Jesus as the Temple itself (see my first post ever), calling the ekklesia the temple is missing something: Jesus. The ekklesia isn't the temple, it is the building blocks with Jesus as the cornerstone. That may seem like semantics, but to say that the church is the temple is wrong, since Jesus is not part of the church (never are the two equated or combined in Scripture to my knowledge). So already we are working with a massive, largely ignored (which is important, but not for my polemic) misnomer. What, though, is an ekklesia?
An ekklesia, which you will see if you read the above article (which I don't endorse whole-heartedly, but it has some good stuff) is the ruling class of the basileia/kingdom. It is the King's council, if you will. However, unlike the ancient Greek system, it isn't a democracy. There is a hierarchy of authority in the ekklesia: elders, then the people. Every man should strive to be an elder or a deacon. The question is (and many local ekklesia get bogged down in this): what is an elder and what is a deacon? I Timothy obviously gives the qualifications of such, but what are they to do? To find out, we must return to the Hebrew Bible, to Exodus 18: here we find that elders adjudicate the disputes of the assembly (a better translation of ekklesia). They are, in a sense, a series of appellate court judges that apply the word of God to all of life, while still extending considerable freedom to their charges (I Corinthians 6). In other words, an elder is not a ruler, in the Greek sense (see the quote from the last blog), but he is a servant that is working to make the community work. He is a judge, but also (in that same function) a teacher, comforter, and exhorter. He is the wise man around town, a sort of Christian rabbi, if you will allow. Almost like a Levite of old (I'll tantalizingly let that stand and not develop it). Obviously, this is only the tip of the iceberg, but what if we adopted this model? What might change in our communities? Our ekklesias?
How about the diaconate? Firstly, I think that it is important to say that the Greek word means "servant". Whether or not it is a Biblical 'office' is still in debate and probably will be for quite some time. If we look at the Hebrew Bible context, we might see that a servant is someone who is a courtier of the King: his advisors, his errand runners, etc. It might apply to the Temple also, since priests and Levites were known as servants--maybe the two combine when we realize that the Temple was a Palace. I'm not so sure on this right now.
What, though, is to be the chief end of these individuals (may the whole ekklesia be full of them)? Maturity. In Paul's words:
Growing up. Maturing. Leaving behind old ways. That is what the ekklesia, in all its diverse parts is to be about. A light to the nations. If we are mature, we will not need to worry about what the State does because we will be self-governing, learning under our elders (of whom we try to emulate as they emulate the Messiah), and approaching life with the basis of Torah and the wisdom of God as the guiding principle through the Spirit.
The ekklesia, then, is to be a counter-imperial (counter-State, in other words) body that fights its wars with prayer and proclamation, wins through service of hospitality and self-sacrifice, and rules through love and humility. No empire can stand against that: against such things there is no law. Yes, the empire, threatened by this new Lord, may respond with violence or (worse) tax-increases, but we believe in the justice of God against theft (State-sponsored or not) and we believe in resurrection, that the last enemy, Death (which is the power of Caesar) may be swallowed up in life through the Messiah Jesus.
Iesous Xristos Kurious estin
Baruch hu' beshem YHWH
(Jesus Messiah is Lord...Blessed be he in the name of YHWH)
'Church' comes (ultimately) from 'kuriakon' which means "Lord's house"--since post-apostolic fathers time it has been used for the idea of ekklesia, which is the word translated in our Bibles as 'church'. This could also be why since about that time, churches have been modeled after, and functioned like, little temples. The Lord's house, Old Testament style, was the Temple in Jerusalem (interesting side-note, the Hebrew word for temple also means 'palace'). However, since the people of God are the building blocks of the Temple, with Jesus as the Temple itself (see my first post ever), calling the ekklesia the temple is missing something: Jesus. The ekklesia isn't the temple, it is the building blocks with Jesus as the cornerstone. That may seem like semantics, but to say that the church is the temple is wrong, since Jesus is not part of the church (never are the two equated or combined in Scripture to my knowledge). So already we are working with a massive, largely ignored (which is important, but not for my polemic) misnomer. What, though, is an ekklesia?
An ekklesia, which you will see if you read the above article (which I don't endorse whole-heartedly, but it has some good stuff) is the ruling class of the basileia/kingdom. It is the King's council, if you will. However, unlike the ancient Greek system, it isn't a democracy. There is a hierarchy of authority in the ekklesia: elders, then the people. Every man should strive to be an elder or a deacon. The question is (and many local ekklesia get bogged down in this): what is an elder and what is a deacon? I Timothy obviously gives the qualifications of such, but what are they to do? To find out, we must return to the Hebrew Bible, to Exodus 18: here we find that elders adjudicate the disputes of the assembly (a better translation of ekklesia). They are, in a sense, a series of appellate court judges that apply the word of God to all of life, while still extending considerable freedom to their charges (I Corinthians 6). In other words, an elder is not a ruler, in the Greek sense (see the quote from the last blog), but he is a servant that is working to make the community work. He is a judge, but also (in that same function) a teacher, comforter, and exhorter. He is the wise man around town, a sort of Christian rabbi, if you will allow. Almost like a Levite of old (I'll tantalizingly let that stand and not develop it). Obviously, this is only the tip of the iceberg, but what if we adopted this model? What might change in our communities? Our ekklesias?
How about the diaconate? Firstly, I think that it is important to say that the Greek word means "servant". Whether or not it is a Biblical 'office' is still in debate and probably will be for quite some time. If we look at the Hebrew Bible context, we might see that a servant is someone who is a courtier of the King: his advisors, his errand runners, etc. It might apply to the Temple also, since priests and Levites were known as servants--maybe the two combine when we realize that the Temple was a Palace. I'm not so sure on this right now.
What, though, is to be the chief end of these individuals (may the whole ekklesia be full of them)? Maturity. In Paul's words:
And he himself gave some to be royal heralds, some covenant lawyers, some 'good-news'ers, and some as shepherd-teachers; for the equipping of the holy ones for the work of service, for the building up of the body of the Messiah, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the covenant loyalty of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Messiah; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of teaching, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, we may grow up in all thing into him who is the head--the Messiah--from whom the wohle body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the building up of itself in love. This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord: that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk...(Russ' expanded version)
Growing up. Maturing. Leaving behind old ways. That is what the ekklesia, in all its diverse parts is to be about. A light to the nations. If we are mature, we will not need to worry about what the State does because we will be self-governing, learning under our elders (of whom we try to emulate as they emulate the Messiah), and approaching life with the basis of Torah and the wisdom of God as the guiding principle through the Spirit.
The ekklesia, then, is to be a counter-imperial (counter-State, in other words) body that fights its wars with prayer and proclamation, wins through service of hospitality and self-sacrifice, and rules through love and humility. No empire can stand against that: against such things there is no law. Yes, the empire, threatened by this new Lord, may respond with violence or (worse) tax-increases, but we believe in the justice of God against theft (State-sponsored or not) and we believe in resurrection, that the last enemy, Death (which is the power of Caesar) may be swallowed up in life through the Messiah Jesus.
Iesous Xristos Kurious estin
Baruch hu' beshem YHWH
(Jesus Messiah is Lord...Blessed be he in the name of YHWH)
Thursday, December 23, 2004
Church and State
David Whitcomb has an interesting post on his site about how the retreat of the Church causes a vacuum readily filled by the State (capitalized, of course, is different from non-capitalized--it's all about capitalism, I suppose). I think that Eliot (whom Whitcomb quotes) was on to something more than just theoretical, it was also intensely historical.
When the Church joined hands with the State under Constantine, it was already in the process of handing over any power it had--the council just solidified what was already happening. Earlier, most notably in Origin and Justin Martyr, the narrative thought-world of Hebrew religion (itself, importantly, thoroughly mixed with some ideas from Hellenism and other ancient religions, but that is another blog--see "Fightin' Mad Monotheism" for a taste) was linguistically replaced by that of neo- and middle-Platonism. The Church became about the 'soul' and its salvation, not about the world and its true Lord. When the lordship of Caesar is no longer contested (the famous phrase "Jesus is Lord" loses its thrust when not placed against the contemporary, and more popular, confession "Caesar is Lord"), Caesar has little trouble regaining his position. This time, though, he did it without a fight. That drama and its consequences is chronicled elsewhere though.
The whole 'two-swords' theory is also based on this historical tension between these two 'powers': power of the sword for the State, power of the Word for the Church. The list, of course, of both instances historical and theoretical could go on indefinitely.
The question that comes to my mind is whether these two 'powers' can coexist at all. Kuyper, of course, would say 'yes' and they should be separate, but inform one another. Kevin Craig would say that neither can exist in a Christian society. Both are, to some extent or another, Neo-Calvinists. The question, maybe, lies in a more basic, but rarely asked (and even more rarely sufficiently answered): what is power?
For Caesar (which I use largely as a derogatory, innuendo-ladened substitute for 'State') power follows Mao's dictum--it comes from the barrel of a gun. For Jesus, it comes also rather violently, but violence taken upon one's self. For the Church? Jesus said:
Herein, it would seem, lies the true road to 'power': servanthood. The slaves are the greatest, the first, the most blessed, the most powerful. Why is that? It is possible that once we give everything we have, we have really gained all:
But how does one do this? If one tries to gain the whole world, he becomes a slave. If one gives up on sin and follows the renewed Torah proclaimed on the Mount, he gains the whole world--the meek inherit the land. What would this mean for politics, a part of life concerned supremely with issues of servitude (taxes), land (national security and sovereignty), and power. Anything, though, would have to happen at a small level--politics reflects what is going on in the nation's hearts, minds, and hands. Politics is properly a 'power': something that was originally created good, but was twisted through man's royal abdication and that therefore enslaved him (or became his master by default). Colossians 1 makes a point to say that politics is to be, as all the 'powers' are, reconciled to the true King, the Messiah who claims both worldly governments to follow his law and the Church--the body (a metaphor closely resembling that of the Roman Empire back in the day).
But if Messiah is competing, in a way, against the 'kingdoms of this world', what is politics supposed to look like? An ecclesiocracy? Depends, I guess, on what you mean by 'ekklesia' (Church for the non-Greekers)...I think that that will be the subject of the next entry, I need to spend time with some family and friends tonight!
The King has come! Let his subjects rejoice! (Merry Christmas, in other words)
When the Church joined hands with the State under Constantine, it was already in the process of handing over any power it had--the council just solidified what was already happening. Earlier, most notably in Origin and Justin Martyr, the narrative thought-world of Hebrew religion (itself, importantly, thoroughly mixed with some ideas from Hellenism and other ancient religions, but that is another blog--see "Fightin' Mad Monotheism" for a taste) was linguistically replaced by that of neo- and middle-Platonism. The Church became about the 'soul' and its salvation, not about the world and its true Lord. When the lordship of Caesar is no longer contested (the famous phrase "Jesus is Lord" loses its thrust when not placed against the contemporary, and more popular, confession "Caesar is Lord"), Caesar has little trouble regaining his position. This time, though, he did it without a fight. That drama and its consequences is chronicled elsewhere though.
The whole 'two-swords' theory is also based on this historical tension between these two 'powers': power of the sword for the State, power of the Word for the Church. The list, of course, of both instances historical and theoretical could go on indefinitely.
The question that comes to my mind is whether these two 'powers' can coexist at all. Kuyper, of course, would say 'yes' and they should be separate, but inform one another. Kevin Craig would say that neither can exist in a Christian society. Both are, to some extent or another, Neo-Calvinists. The question, maybe, lies in a more basic, but rarely asked (and even more rarely sufficiently answered): what is power?
For Caesar (which I use largely as a derogatory, innuendo-ladened substitute for 'State') power follows Mao's dictum--it comes from the barrel of a gun. For Jesus, it comes also rather violently, but violence taken upon one's self. For the Church? Jesus said:
You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave--just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.
Herein, it would seem, lies the true road to 'power': servanthood. The slaves are the greatest, the first, the most blessed, the most powerful. Why is that? It is possible that once we give everything we have, we have really gained all:
If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains that whole world, yet forfeits his own self? Of what can a man give in exchange for himself?
But how does one do this? If one tries to gain the whole world, he becomes a slave. If one gives up on sin and follows the renewed Torah proclaimed on the Mount, he gains the whole world--the meek inherit the land. What would this mean for politics, a part of life concerned supremely with issues of servitude (taxes), land (national security and sovereignty), and power. Anything, though, would have to happen at a small level--politics reflects what is going on in the nation's hearts, minds, and hands. Politics is properly a 'power': something that was originally created good, but was twisted through man's royal abdication and that therefore enslaved him (or became his master by default). Colossians 1 makes a point to say that politics is to be, as all the 'powers' are, reconciled to the true King, the Messiah who claims both worldly governments to follow his law and the Church--the body (a metaphor closely resembling that of the Roman Empire back in the day).
But if Messiah is competing, in a way, against the 'kingdoms of this world', what is politics supposed to look like? An ecclesiocracy? Depends, I guess, on what you mean by 'ekklesia' (Church for the non-Greekers)...I think that that will be the subject of the next entry, I need to spend time with some family and friends tonight!
The King has come! Let his subjects rejoice! (Merry Christmas, in other words)
Monday, December 13, 2004
The Purpose of Blogging
Gideon Strauss has issued himself a challenge: to speak Christianly to the wider world. It is a wonderful challenge that I think needs to be heard, proclaimed, promolgated in the wider Christian ghetto.
However, after thinking about his challenge, I've decided to go the other way. Cultural engagement is a Christian necessity and I'm glad that someone like Gideon is going to be leading the way. I myself, though, feel the calling to 'stay in the ghetto' as it were and proclaim the third-way to its dwellers. 'Judgement begins at the house of God' and I feel the need to talk to the Church about God's way as I understand it (that last clause is very important as I do not pretend to speak for God).
Does this mean that I'm trying to contravert Gideon? Ma Genito (Paul's phrase in Romans for "May it not be" or KJV "God forbid")! No, this is just an example of the Body of Christ metaphor taken up and developed by Paul--we need people inside and outside the walls to be proclaiming the message, engaging the world, and 'taking dominion' in the Genesis sort of way. I think that these approaches are nothing if not complementary--the Church cannot turn away from the world, but it cannot turn totally away from itself either.
So, my posts will probably be more directed towards Christians of all stripes; they will seek to integrate Biblical faith with contemporary faithfulness; they will (Lord willing) wisely engage all of life--politics, economics, agriculture, art, theology, linguistics, etc. It will (again, Lord willing) be where Torah (Law) and Hocmah (Wisdom) meet over a cup of Fair Trade...
Iesous Christos Kurious estin...
However, after thinking about his challenge, I've decided to go the other way. Cultural engagement is a Christian necessity and I'm glad that someone like Gideon is going to be leading the way. I myself, though, feel the calling to 'stay in the ghetto' as it were and proclaim the third-way to its dwellers. 'Judgement begins at the house of God' and I feel the need to talk to the Church about God's way as I understand it (that last clause is very important as I do not pretend to speak for God).
Does this mean that I'm trying to contravert Gideon? Ma Genito (Paul's phrase in Romans for "May it not be" or KJV "God forbid")! No, this is just an example of the Body of Christ metaphor taken up and developed by Paul--we need people inside and outside the walls to be proclaiming the message, engaging the world, and 'taking dominion' in the Genesis sort of way. I think that these approaches are nothing if not complementary--the Church cannot turn away from the world, but it cannot turn totally away from itself either.
So, my posts will probably be more directed towards Christians of all stripes; they will seek to integrate Biblical faith with contemporary faithfulness; they will (Lord willing) wisely engage all of life--politics, economics, agriculture, art, theology, linguistics, etc. It will (again, Lord willing) be where Torah (Law) and Hocmah (Wisdom) meet over a cup of Fair Trade...
Iesous Christos Kurious estin...
Saturday, December 11, 2004
J. Alfred
This is a poem based off of two previous works: The Love Story of J. Alfred Prufrock by TS Eliot and Prufrock by Charles Modro (a coworker of mine and part of the band Xara. Some of the subject matter is a bit adultish (but not in the late night Cinemax sort of way), so parental discretion advised. Once again, the Blogger formatting isn't friendly to my style of aesthetic writing, so I apologize that you all will miss some of the important indents. Please enjoy...
_______________________________
J. Alfred
I can think of death
I can think of life
But to live! that’s the thing
Whether by boats or cars or planes
TVs with a thousand neglected channels on satellite
Computers blazing graphics of endless death
Sex often and obscure—yet I die too.
The car rusts
The TV tubes burst
The orgasm ends
Not with a bang, but a whimper.
I’ve become the Hollow Men, for we are many.
What foul principality has a hold of us now?
Whiter teeth in twenty days
Faster internet speed
Now this new, now that new
But the grass still grows the same way.
The body has severed the Head
Then the arms
Now the toes have to learn war.
Cry out, “God, deliver us!”
Deliver us from our greatest enemy!
The Hater of our souls!
His name is Hollow Men.
“Make war on our foes!” we cry
Waiting for the evening news
To flash our enemies’ demise
And the falling price of gasoline.
This is your life,
Ending one second at a time.
Two and you’re considered fortunate.
Priests on Viagra is the opiate of the masses
Turning our hearts away from finding
The hidden God.
The Hollow Men is filled up to the brim,
His cup overflows with the wrath of the lamb
A table is set in the presence of his enemies
A table for one please
I’ll be dining alone tonight.
Eat well and eat long
Glut on varied delights
I’d like fries with that
Coffee two…no three cups
The poor wouldn’t like the taste anyway
They should be happy they have jobs
God loves everyone
The vomitorium, replies the waiter, is on your left.
The Lord is coming, the Lord is acomin’
Shield Co. will stop the nighttime thief
Whose house we stole.
Beware.
_______________________________
J. Alfred
I can think of death
I can think of life
But to live! that’s the thing
Whether by boats or cars or planes
TVs with a thousand neglected channels on satellite
Computers blazing graphics of endless death
Sex often and obscure—yet I die too.
The car rusts
The TV tubes burst
The orgasm ends
Not with a bang, but a whimper.
I’ve become the Hollow Men, for we are many.
What foul principality has a hold of us now?
Whiter teeth in twenty days
Faster internet speed
Now this new, now that new
But the grass still grows the same way.
The body has severed the Head
Then the arms
Now the toes have to learn war.
Cry out, “God, deliver us!”
Deliver us from our greatest enemy!
The Hater of our souls!
His name is Hollow Men.
“Make war on our foes!” we cry
Waiting for the evening news
To flash our enemies’ demise
And the falling price of gasoline.
This is your life,
Ending one second at a time.
Two and you’re considered fortunate.
Priests on Viagra is the opiate of the masses
Turning our hearts away from finding
The hidden God.
The Hollow Men is filled up to the brim,
His cup overflows with the wrath of the lamb
A table is set in the presence of his enemies
A table for one please
I’ll be dining alone tonight.
Eat well and eat long
Glut on varied delights
I’d like fries with that
Coffee two…no three cups
The poor wouldn’t like the taste anyway
They should be happy they have jobs
God loves everyone
The vomitorium, replies the waiter, is on your left.
The Lord is coming, the Lord is acomin’
Shield Co. will stop the nighttime thief
Whose house we stole.
Beware.
Saturday, December 04, 2004
Please Remind Me of This
I have been a Christian for almost a decade (I find it hard to even think in those terms!) and I've had providential opportunity to reflect on my time in the Kingdom and hopefully where it is going. The sovereignty of God is a strange, strange thing...
There has been one thing that has had me hang on for this long and for the indefinite future: the gospel. Yes, I know that sounds trite, but it is true--I don't usually speak Christianese anyway. It is the promises of the gospel that keep me going, all exemplified in the weirdest place: the raising to life of an insignificant Jewish peasant political 'rebel'.
The gospel, by which I mean the summing up of the Israel story in Jesus and the progressive application through the Spirit to a hurting world, had to me--even (and especially!) as a Christian--remained largely hidden. The 'powers' and 'principalities' exerted massive control over the Israel-Church (not the nation Israel, but the Church as Israel--think Meredith Kline use of hyphens). Salvation was about me--my justification, my sanctification, my glorification. I remember asking questions about whether I would recognize loved ones in heaven and thinking heaven was whatever I wanted to do most (how post-modern!).
The proclamation of Jesus as King broke those bonds. Now I no longer had to feel pessimistic about life (worse and worse till AntiChrist) or optimistic (world is getting better, sin is getting less); instead I could have legitimate hope that wrong would be righted, even if I couldn't at first see it: Psalm 73 made true sense for once. The gospel wasn't just for me and to hell with the rest of the world; it bred compassion for a lost world that had once included me. I admit, I've not yet reached the goal of maturity in Christ--being able tolay down my own life for the restoration of the world--but I'm now striving for it, not against it.The gospel also makes some parts of Calvinism more palatable, so to speak. God is saving not just a few elect here and there and (once again) to hell with the rest of the world, but he is saving the elect here and there so that the world as a whole won't have to go to hell! Election with purpose; foreknowledge with promise! Life isn't about me anymore, but God in Christ restoring the world to Himself!
Now the Church can gain a clear sense of itself: the training up of believer-elder-priests to 'rule' the world by God's love and restorative cross. Worship takes on a new meaning because it is no longer about abstract, mystical communion or abstract, timeless ethical principles, but about concrete community (through the symbol, importantly, of communion) and worship--the, so to speak, putting of God in His place (the Throne) and listening to His Inscripturated Word for marching orders. The Church isn't this narrow, exclusivist body, but a welcoming body inviting others to stop fighting, stop running, stop rebelling against the living One and come join our cosmic renewal party. This also sharpens the Church's prophetic critique of the world and itself--it must make the terms of refusal known--destruction--but woe over it (Bruggeman makes the excellent point that the prophetic 'woe' oracles aren't anger, they are lament--"The Prophetic Imagination"). All of this orchestrated and empower by the Spirit of God itself, the Breath that hovered over the waters and created man in the first place.
Hallelujah!
There has been one thing that has had me hang on for this long and for the indefinite future: the gospel. Yes, I know that sounds trite, but it is true--I don't usually speak Christianese anyway. It is the promises of the gospel that keep me going, all exemplified in the weirdest place: the raising to life of an insignificant Jewish peasant political 'rebel'.
The gospel, by which I mean the summing up of the Israel story in Jesus and the progressive application through the Spirit to a hurting world, had to me--even (and especially!) as a Christian--remained largely hidden. The 'powers' and 'principalities' exerted massive control over the Israel-Church (not the nation Israel, but the Church as Israel--think Meredith Kline use of hyphens). Salvation was about me--my justification, my sanctification, my glorification. I remember asking questions about whether I would recognize loved ones in heaven and thinking heaven was whatever I wanted to do most (how post-modern!).
The proclamation of Jesus as King broke those bonds. Now I no longer had to feel pessimistic about life (worse and worse till AntiChrist) or optimistic (world is getting better, sin is getting less); instead I could have legitimate hope that wrong would be righted, even if I couldn't at first see it: Psalm 73 made true sense for once. The gospel wasn't just for me and to hell with the rest of the world; it bred compassion for a lost world that had once included me. I admit, I've not yet reached the goal of maturity in Christ--being able tolay down my own life for the restoration of the world--but I'm now striving for it, not against it.The gospel also makes some parts of Calvinism more palatable, so to speak. God is saving not just a few elect here and there and (once again) to hell with the rest of the world, but he is saving the elect here and there so that the world as a whole won't have to go to hell! Election with purpose; foreknowledge with promise! Life isn't about me anymore, but God in Christ restoring the world to Himself!
Now the Church can gain a clear sense of itself: the training up of believer-elder-priests to 'rule' the world by God's love and restorative cross. Worship takes on a new meaning because it is no longer about abstract, mystical communion or abstract, timeless ethical principles, but about concrete community (through the symbol, importantly, of communion) and worship--the, so to speak, putting of God in His place (the Throne) and listening to His Inscripturated Word for marching orders. The Church isn't this narrow, exclusivist body, but a welcoming body inviting others to stop fighting, stop running, stop rebelling against the living One and come join our cosmic renewal party. This also sharpens the Church's prophetic critique of the world and itself--it must make the terms of refusal known--destruction--but woe over it (Bruggeman makes the excellent point that the prophetic 'woe' oracles aren't anger, they are lament--"The Prophetic Imagination"). All of this orchestrated and empower by the Spirit of God itself, the Breath that hovered over the waters and created man in the first place.
Hallelujah!
Friday, December 03, 2004
More About Truth
It is amazing that emt (truth) is such an absorbing subject--epistemology really takes you in. The danger, I think, is that truth can take you so abstractly that you no longer see how it affects real life. What does it matter if we know how we think and why we think like we do if our world is crumbling? What does Athens have to do with Jerusalem?
Other than that (and I think that there are many ways to connect learning to life, I bring up the questions metaphorically) epistemology is an incredible subject.
Talking with a friend today, he helped explain to me the division between Truth and truth. Basically, if we say that there is some 'metaphysical' Truth and that we cannot know anything about it, that is Kant's noumenal category. What we experience is 'truth' or 'phenomena'. Ok. I think I got that, maybe...possibly.
So, is there a Truth out there? I would feel compelled to say yes--and only God has it. Sounds a bit like Kant, though. However, we know God in truth--in relationship, in praxis--and He has revealed enough of the Truth to us so that we may make it truth. It isn't, then, until Truth becomes truth that it matters to us (or to the Kingdom). But it all still sounds Kantian to me...and I have a presuppositional bias against Kant.
What do you all think?
Other than that (and I think that there are many ways to connect learning to life, I bring up the questions metaphorically) epistemology is an incredible subject.
Talking with a friend today, he helped explain to me the division between Truth and truth. Basically, if we say that there is some 'metaphysical' Truth and that we cannot know anything about it, that is Kant's noumenal category. What we experience is 'truth' or 'phenomena'. Ok. I think I got that, maybe...possibly.
So, is there a Truth out there? I would feel compelled to say yes--and only God has it. Sounds a bit like Kant, though. However, we know God in truth--in relationship, in praxis--and He has revealed enough of the Truth to us so that we may make it truth. It isn't, then, until Truth becomes truth that it matters to us (or to the Kingdom). But it all still sounds Kantian to me...and I have a presuppositional bias against Kant.
What do you all think?
Wednesday, December 01, 2004
Knowledge and Salvation
Well, Russ has fully entered the postmodern world and is seeking to find his way through the quagmire into some sort of Christian cultural critique. Reading books like The Truth About the Truth by Walter Truett Anderson and Truth Is Stranger Than It Used to Be by Walsh and Middleton isn't helping at all, either. It is just causing me to rethink my whole epistemology.
Tonight in class, we shortly (oh, too shortly) discussed the concept of 'absolute truth' and basically it came out that the students who had studied philosophy disagreed with the Prof. No surprises there (beware, lest ye fall Keith!). Regardless, it did raise some interesting points. If we discuss anything 'absolutely' we are begging the question, can we know anything absolutely, or to use ol' Francis Schaeffer language, can we know anything exhaustively? Schaeffer (and Walsh and Middleton, et al) would say no, of course not. We are not God (or even 'god') and cannot stand outside of the Creation to view it. Does this mean that there is no 'objective' knowledge? Depends on what you mean as objective, etc.
One of the most interesting parts of the discussion is whether we should connote the two different (but ultimately undefinable) 'truths' by using capital and lowercase letters: Truth v. truth. It ended up being that one student said that Truth existed, but you can't know it, but 'truth' is what we live out. Maybe someone could help me, but isn't that Kant's phenomenicological (it must have that many letters, I'm sure of it!) and noumenal categories?
Well, that got me to thinking, what about the historic Creeds of the Church (however you define 'historic', 'creed', and 'church', isn't postmodernism fun?)? If, as finite human creatures, we cannot know something totally or exhaustively (or even at all), how can we be dogmatic about our intra-faith problems? Within the faith, it would seem that a more open discussion should be taking place, "to see whether these things are so" (which I've noticed is a wonderful thing to say in a sermon to lull the congregation into a state of happy acceptance of whatever is about to be said). Can we say, with the Athanasian Creed that whoever doesn't ascribe to the obtuse philosophical discourse contained within it that they are 'anathema'?
Or, to get at it another way, since all knowledge is culturally conditioned, can we even live the creeds out since they are very conditioned to an early synthesis of neo-Platonism and Christianity? Or, to press it further, can we live out the New Testament (not to mention the Old) since they are even more remotely conditioned?
I think that all my questions come down to this: if we are to have a knowledge of God for salvation and all our knowledge is culturally and individually conditioned, how can we ever be sure that we are believing the right things? In other words, how can we know that we have salvation, without collapsing into either a Gnostic mysticism or a Platonic autonomy?
Will the Bible survive this epistemological catastrophe?
Tonight in class, we shortly (oh, too shortly) discussed the concept of 'absolute truth' and basically it came out that the students who had studied philosophy disagreed with the Prof. No surprises there (beware, lest ye fall Keith!). Regardless, it did raise some interesting points. If we discuss anything 'absolutely' we are begging the question, can we know anything absolutely, or to use ol' Francis Schaeffer language, can we know anything exhaustively? Schaeffer (and Walsh and Middleton, et al) would say no, of course not. We are not God (or even 'god') and cannot stand outside of the Creation to view it. Does this mean that there is no 'objective' knowledge? Depends on what you mean as objective, etc.
One of the most interesting parts of the discussion is whether we should connote the two different (but ultimately undefinable) 'truths' by using capital and lowercase letters: Truth v. truth. It ended up being that one student said that Truth existed, but you can't know it, but 'truth' is what we live out. Maybe someone could help me, but isn't that Kant's phenomenicological (it must have that many letters, I'm sure of it!) and noumenal categories?
Well, that got me to thinking, what about the historic Creeds of the Church (however you define 'historic', 'creed', and 'church', isn't postmodernism fun?)? If, as finite human creatures, we cannot know something totally or exhaustively (or even at all), how can we be dogmatic about our intra-faith problems? Within the faith, it would seem that a more open discussion should be taking place, "to see whether these things are so" (which I've noticed is a wonderful thing to say in a sermon to lull the congregation into a state of happy acceptance of whatever is about to be said). Can we say, with the Athanasian Creed that whoever doesn't ascribe to the obtuse philosophical discourse contained within it that they are 'anathema'?
Or, to get at it another way, since all knowledge is culturally conditioned, can we even live the creeds out since they are very conditioned to an early synthesis of neo-Platonism and Christianity? Or, to press it further, can we live out the New Testament (not to mention the Old) since they are even more remotely conditioned?
I think that all my questions come down to this: if we are to have a knowledge of God for salvation and all our knowledge is culturally and individually conditioned, how can we ever be sure that we are believing the right things? In other words, how can we know that we have salvation, without collapsing into either a Gnostic mysticism or a Platonic autonomy?
Will the Bible survive this epistemological catastrophe?
A Misnomer If I Ever Saw One
The previous post to this, "Old Friends" was originally intended to talk about the experiences I had with my high school friends this last Thanksgiving...but ended up being about relatives.
Those responsible for the error have been sacked.
-Mgmt
Those responsible for the error have been sacked.
-Mgmt
Monday, November 29, 2004
Old Friends
Thanksgiving Break...ah...the turkey...the lack of sleep...the relatives...
One of the hardest thing about this break was my blog. Obviously, the upkeep wasn't the problem (I intentionally took the week off), it was what I have written. One of the things about a consistent, Christian localism is that you are close to your family. This week gave me the perfect opportunity to work it out in practice...I'm not so good as on paper. Family is hard work.
It reminds me rather of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, since the family fights and fights, but is still close and cohesive and, dare I say, loving. Apart from the usual clashes between family members, this T-Day was the calmest and smoothest. But it hit me during it (thanks to the faithful proddings of my wife) that I was not living to my recreated imago dei potential. I was short, seclusive, and bitter at times. I felt stretched out and bored at others. Other times I was happy and joyful with my extended family.
Life is hard, but life is wonderful.
One of the hardest thing about this break was my blog. Obviously, the upkeep wasn't the problem (I intentionally took the week off), it was what I have written. One of the things about a consistent, Christian localism is that you are close to your family. This week gave me the perfect opportunity to work it out in practice...I'm not so good as on paper. Family is hard work.
It reminds me rather of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, since the family fights and fights, but is still close and cohesive and, dare I say, loving. Apart from the usual clashes between family members, this T-Day was the calmest and smoothest. But it hit me during it (thanks to the faithful proddings of my wife) that I was not living to my recreated imago dei potential. I was short, seclusive, and bitter at times. I felt stretched out and bored at others. Other times I was happy and joyful with my extended family.
Life is hard, but life is wonderful.
Thursday, November 18, 2004
Torah Torah Torah
I promise you, o patient readers, that I will discuss things other than theology. But, they say, "write what you know" (not to say that I know anything about anything, but theology is as close as it gets)...
I'm currently reading Story as Torah by G.J. Wenham. It is definitely right up my alley and has helped to further define my vocation calling in the area of Old Testament studies and Hebrew (can you say nerd?). Here are some quotes that I want to interact with, especially in light of what I said about theonomy earlier (see "Is Theonomy a Four-Letter Word?"):
The law sets a minimum standard of behavior, which if transgressed attracts sanction. It regulates institutions like marriage or slavery, but it does not prescribe ideals of behaviour within marriage. (pg.80, italics not for emphasis, but to show a quotation without those pesky, modernist quotation marks)
[T]he ethical expectations of the Old Testament are higher than the legal rules. Laws define a floor of tolerable behaviour. Break them and punishment follows. But that does not mean that simply keeping the laws is sufficient...Ethical duty involves much more than keeping the law. (pg. 104)
In traditional Protestant preaching, that we cannot keep the law is a mainstay. The implications that these quotes have for that are astounding. Not only are we not keeping the law, we aren't even living up to our greater ethical duty. How can we expect to love our spouses, children, and be merciful to the 'other', if we cannot even keep the more simple laws like not carving images in our minds or by our hands? The mercy of God is great everyday.
Secondly, because this serves as such a ego deflation, it should kick the wind out of the traditional theonomist sails. It is no underexaggeration that theonomists are seen as arrogant (which many are), but the fact that many don't live up to the Biblical standard of human decency is appalling--I include myself in this indictment.
Now for the real meat of what I wanted to get to. The Torah cannot just be transposed into our 21st century context, without doing much violence to the text and to our society. Many take this as the argument against any application of the Torah today. However, if Wenham is right (and I am inclined to believe this) then it isn't the Torah that is the problem. The Torah just serves as a baseline ethics standard--not necessarily universally applicable, but a good guidepost since we still deal with some similar situations (murder, debt, etc.) and are still the people of God, just redefined around Jesus. What the problem is is the lack of wisdom in applying the larger 'ethical duty' (which, interestingly, Wenham aruges cannot be set down in propositions, but must be exemplified through narratives). The Pharisees in the first century had a certain way of doing this, which later became codified as Talmud and Mishnah. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, is reacting to this by saying that the 'ethical duty' is not what they have defined, but what he is defining. Jesus, in this way, intensifies Torah for the new situation (the rule of God through himself). How does one fulfill the Torah on murder? What is the 'ethical duty' that the law serves as a baseline for? "Love your neighbor AND your enemy." This isn't to undermine Torah, but to provide how Wisdom (thereby emulating God--Proverbs 8ff.) fulfills what Torah can only point to: life with God and neighbor (and enemy) in society. You can't legislate that sort of thing.
What about adultery? Many wised and learned rabbis would say that as long as their is no intercourse or physical touch, you are fulfilling Torah. Jesus says, "Don't even look at another woman (or man) lustfully." Not legislation, but wisdom in going further than the Torah ever could.
I think that this is fruitful, especially for the Reformational movement. Often, it seems like our ethics are flying in the wind and blown in whatever direction we deem 'justice' to be defined in. However, with an actual rhetorical criticsm of our narratives, we might see how to fulfill God's wise law by being wise ourselves, living according to the narrative and not ignoring the first principles that it builds off of.
I'm currently reading Story as Torah by G.J. Wenham. It is definitely right up my alley and has helped to further define my vocation calling in the area of Old Testament studies and Hebrew (can you say nerd?). Here are some quotes that I want to interact with, especially in light of what I said about theonomy earlier (see "Is Theonomy a Four-Letter Word?"):
The law sets a minimum standard of behavior, which if transgressed attracts sanction. It regulates institutions like marriage or slavery, but it does not prescribe ideals of behaviour within marriage. (pg.80, italics not for emphasis, but to show a quotation without those pesky, modernist quotation marks)
[T]he ethical expectations of the Old Testament are higher than the legal rules. Laws define a floor of tolerable behaviour. Break them and punishment follows. But that does not mean that simply keeping the laws is sufficient...Ethical duty involves much more than keeping the law. (pg. 104)
In traditional Protestant preaching, that we cannot keep the law is a mainstay. The implications that these quotes have for that are astounding. Not only are we not keeping the law, we aren't even living up to our greater ethical duty. How can we expect to love our spouses, children, and be merciful to the 'other', if we cannot even keep the more simple laws like not carving images in our minds or by our hands? The mercy of God is great everyday.
Secondly, because this serves as such a ego deflation, it should kick the wind out of the traditional theonomist sails. It is no underexaggeration that theonomists are seen as arrogant (which many are), but the fact that many don't live up to the Biblical standard of human decency is appalling--I include myself in this indictment.
Now for the real meat of what I wanted to get to. The Torah cannot just be transposed into our 21st century context, without doing much violence to the text and to our society. Many take this as the argument against any application of the Torah today. However, if Wenham is right (and I am inclined to believe this) then it isn't the Torah that is the problem. The Torah just serves as a baseline ethics standard--not necessarily universally applicable, but a good guidepost since we still deal with some similar situations (murder, debt, etc.) and are still the people of God, just redefined around Jesus. What the problem is is the lack of wisdom in applying the larger 'ethical duty' (which, interestingly, Wenham aruges cannot be set down in propositions, but must be exemplified through narratives). The Pharisees in the first century had a certain way of doing this, which later became codified as Talmud and Mishnah. Jesus, in the Sermon on the Mount, is reacting to this by saying that the 'ethical duty' is not what they have defined, but what he is defining. Jesus, in this way, intensifies Torah for the new situation (the rule of God through himself). How does one fulfill the Torah on murder? What is the 'ethical duty' that the law serves as a baseline for? "Love your neighbor AND your enemy." This isn't to undermine Torah, but to provide how Wisdom (thereby emulating God--Proverbs 8ff.) fulfills what Torah can only point to: life with God and neighbor (and enemy) in society. You can't legislate that sort of thing.
What about adultery? Many wised and learned rabbis would say that as long as their is no intercourse or physical touch, you are fulfilling Torah. Jesus says, "Don't even look at another woman (or man) lustfully." Not legislation, but wisdom in going further than the Torah ever could.
I think that this is fruitful, especially for the Reformational movement. Often, it seems like our ethics are flying in the wind and blown in whatever direction we deem 'justice' to be defined in. However, with an actual rhetorical criticsm of our narratives, we might see how to fulfill God's wise law by being wise ourselves, living according to the narrative and not ignoring the first principles that it builds off of.
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Cast Off (Poem)
I write poetry a good deal. I'd like to share some, also. Here's one I wrote tonight during class. Please feel free to comment on it, as I'm always looking at improving my writing. Unfortunately, the blogger doesn't like my formatting, so you miss some of the visual detail the poem is supposed to evoke...sorry.
______________________________
Cast Off
I am the master of my fate,
Captain of my soul
Shipwrecked on this lonely island--
Building my raft out of my ingenuity:
An objective construct that
(hopefully)
won't hold water.
I will get home:
So that I can avoid my wife
And drop off the kids at day care...
Because I need more time in the sandbox:
Here I control the sands.
______________________________
Cast Off
I am the master of my fate,
Captain of my soul
Shipwrecked on this lonely island--
Building my raft out of my ingenuity:
An objective construct that
(hopefully)
won't hold water.
I will get home:
So that I can avoid my wife
And drop off the kids at day care...
Because I need more time in the sandbox:
Here I control the sands.
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