Reading through The Jewish Roots of Christological Monotheism has brought up a few things that I have not considered in a long time: interpretive maximalism. This idea, proffered by James B. Jordan and expounded by David Chilton in his magisterial Days of Vengeance, looks for symbolic resonances throughout Scripture. In many ways, it is sort of a "Scripture interpreting Scripture" on steroids. The thought behind it is that in an aural and oral society, verbal and symbolic resonances would be easily picked up by the hearers with a minimum of forward allusions. The classic example, if I remember correctly, is that of Abimelech's death in the book of Judges. He, an enemy of God's people, is killed by having a woman throw a stone upon his head. The verbal and symbolic import of the text, though, (not to mention syntactic parallels) ties it in with the promise of the redeemer in Genesis 3: an enemy of God's people, the serpent, is killed by the seed of the woman crushing his head. The key symbols here are the enemy, the woman, and the head-crushing (compare, once again, Sisera and Jael elsewhere in Judges). It is not, of course, an exact parallel, but rather an evocative way of telling a story. The idea of "intertextual echo" proffered by Richard B. Hays is in some respects similar, but his has to do more with narrative underpinnings, rather than symbolic repetition.
In reading an essay in Jewish Roots by Margaret Barker, these ideas came running back. While Ms. Barker tends to be into what I might call the strange side of interpretive maximalism (believing YHWH to be the son of El Elyon, for example), some of the resonances that she brings up about the high priest in ancient Israel deserve closer attention. Sometimes, when interpreting Scripture, it can be easy to stick just with rational and narrative analysis, which have arguably been the Protestant's bread and butter since inception. Oftentimes, as Barker proves unwittingly, this sort of symbolic interpretation can lead into some weedy territory, which the early Reformers wanted to avoid, especially as they saw it in some allegorizing in the Catholic tradition. To avoid symbolism in the Bible, though, is to throw the proverbial baby out with the (equally proverbial) bathwater. Care, of course, must be exercised and other interpretive methods must be used to balance the symbolic. Once this is the case, though, the symbolic can then be used in tandem with historical, narrative, and theological interpretive criticism to further probe the meaning of Scripture in its original context and for us today.
The difficulty, as I see it, is reconstructing anything like the ancient symbolic worldview. Our symbolic universe, replete with the goddess Freedom and her entourage, is hard enough to pin down since our public discourse is largely demythologized. Instead of the evolving hand of Marduk, we speak of evolutionary processes. Instead of the cruel mastery of Mammon, we talk about economic determinism, both capitalistic and socialistic. The list, as always, could go on and on. The ancient worldview, at least the ancient Israelite shared (with significant variation and mutation) by the Biblical authors, is populated by angels and demons, primeval "welter and waste", gardens, serpents, nudity and clothing, names and Names and naming, blood crying out from the ground, and wanderers with marks of protection, just to mention some of the symbols from the first chapters of Genesis. We hear talk of the earth, the heavens above, the waters in division, and the grave below: so temporal space is conceived tripartite, with the sea in league with the underworld. This symbolism is powerful and still resonates today, but with a muted voice. Reclaiming it in a post-secular, post-Enlightenment world may be impossible for life, but essential, at least, for understanding the Biblical mindset.
One of the things that Barker argues is a symbolic tie between the high priest's work and Jesus' acclamation in Philippians 2. I've heard interpretations using Adam and Israel and the Servant (all of which have very good points, but that it for another time), but never the high priest. The parallels that she draws are quite intriguing, if I ultimately disagree with her overall interpretive scheme (she has a hammer of Temple symbolism and therefore everything is a Temple nail). It is an occasion to further study in a passage that I love and deeply lack understanding of (most of the Biblical passages that I keep returning to in my studying and questioning I deeply lack understanding). But it must be carefully tempered, otherwise we may develop symbolic worlds that make sense to us, but separate us from the realities that they are supposed to point us towards.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Rethinking It All: Theonomy
My formative years of learning about what the Christian faith means in the day-to-day ethics of living came from the relatively small, but quite outspoken group known as the Theonomists or Christian Reconstructionists, headed by such luminaries as RJ Rushdoony, Gary North, and Kevin Craig. While practical application differed between the various schools of theonomists (how many schools? as many as there were theonomists), the exegetical base established by Greg Bahnsen seemed to be reasonably normative. That is to say, the Torah has abiding moral and legal principles for life in a post-resurrection world, which should not just be applied in a private or "spiritual" sense, but in the public realms of jurisprudence and legislation. In other words, "God's Law or Chaos" (so says a bumper sticker I have in my collection).
For many years, I have come under flak for being sympathetic to the theonomic cause. (I prefer the appellation 'theonomic' over 'Christian Reconstructionist' largely because of political differences inherent in those titles.) One professor even labeled the movement as 'demonic', albeit in some jest. The vitriol of many theonomic writers, especially North and David Chilton, occasioned this sort of derision. Looking back on some of their more polemic writings (especially "Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators"), it doesn't strike me as odd in the slightest that theonomists were, by and large, a lonely bunch. I still hold onto the basic tenet and exegesis: the Old Testament, especially the Torah on which the whole is built, is fundamentally important to the Christian Church and we ignore it or 'spiritualize' it to our own peril. The Torah of Moses does have very significant things to say not just about our individual, private or family lives, but also about our public and political discourse, especially in an increasingly antagonistic pluralist polytheist society (for many in the Church, I realize, the realities of the demonic side of the 'principalities and the powers' is a reality that the North American branch of the Church has not yet fully understood or contended with, but we are starting to feel the pressure).
My rethinking comes along the lines set forth, not only by the theonomists, but by much recent and erudite scholarship that is pouring over the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. That is, the ever present, and apparently and paradoxically divise, debate about Paul and the Torah, whether on the more scholarly level (Westerholm, Sanders, Wright, et al) or the more popular Lutheran-esque revisions (Piper and company). When thinking about this, though, it is important to set it in proper historical context, especially as we find it in the book of Acts: how does the relation of the Torah ("holy, just, and good") to the Gentile converts work?
In reading Marcus Bockmuehl's Jewish Law in Gentile Churches and Mark Nanos' The Mystery of Romans, I have been introduced to the halakhic concept of how Gentiles were supposed to act in the land of Israel if they wanted to be part of the common life and the worship (however limited they might experience it) of the one true God. These regulations are found primarily in Leviticus 18-20 (further confirming my suspicions that the Church's ignorance of this book has been theologically deadly) and consist mainly of three categories: idolatry/blasphemy, blood regulations (both dietary and 'blood shedding'), and sexual immorality. Interestingly enough, these same things appear in Acts 15 under the auspices of the Apostolic Decree, a document drafted to answer the question "What must Gentile converts to the Messiah do in order to be saved?" Of course, here, a redefinition of soteriology is in order -- in Acts the question is not "how does one get into heaven" but "how does one have a place in the eschatological community that will have a place in the age to come". Salvation is never primarily individualistic (although it does involve the individual), but speaks of how we are to be truly human now, in anticipation of God's final plans for creation (for example, Rom. 8).
These categories (which in later Rabbinic thought would be categorized under the heading of "Noachide Laws") give the theonomist much to think about. Many of the laws to Israel were exactly that, to Israel as it lived in the land. The relevance to diaspora Judaism has been much debated in Jewish circles, and Christians should consider the relevance to ethnic Jews who follow Messiah, as they are the restoration of "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (of course there is much debate here). But to the Gentile who believes in Messiah? It would seem that many of the laws, especially concerning 'ritual' or Sabbath or kosher or circumcision, do not have anything to say to the Messianic Gentile. These are the things that make Jews Jews, and Paul says (and the Apostolic Decree confirms) that "there is neither Jew nor Greek" (that is, Jews are Jews who follow Messiah, Gentiles are Gentiles who follow Messiah, they do not need to become the other). In thinking about public ethics, then, it becomes important not to overstate the theonomic case, but what is there in Lev. 18-20 and Acts 15 (not to mention Ex 20, the Ten Commandments, but that is another story for another time) must be studied and understood. In many ways, it seems, the New Testament understands the Gentile converts to not be a separate institution, but a part of God's eschatological community, which includes the restored Israel of which I've spoken in previous posts. The Church, then, is to be neither Gentile nor Jew, but builds off of what God started with Israel and forms something new, where the distinctions between Jew and Gentile are relativized in Messiah, but certainly foundational ethical principles form the basis of continued community life, in both intra-community dialogue and table fellowship and also in public discourse and legislation.
For many years, I have come under flak for being sympathetic to the theonomic cause. (I prefer the appellation 'theonomic' over 'Christian Reconstructionist' largely because of political differences inherent in those titles.) One professor even labeled the movement as 'demonic', albeit in some jest. The vitriol of many theonomic writers, especially North and David Chilton, occasioned this sort of derision. Looking back on some of their more polemic writings (especially "Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators"), it doesn't strike me as odd in the slightest that theonomists were, by and large, a lonely bunch. I still hold onto the basic tenet and exegesis: the Old Testament, especially the Torah on which the whole is built, is fundamentally important to the Christian Church and we ignore it or 'spiritualize' it to our own peril. The Torah of Moses does have very significant things to say not just about our individual, private or family lives, but also about our public and political discourse, especially in an increasingly antagonistic pluralist polytheist society (for many in the Church, I realize, the realities of the demonic side of the 'principalities and the powers' is a reality that the North American branch of the Church has not yet fully understood or contended with, but we are starting to feel the pressure).
My rethinking comes along the lines set forth, not only by the theonomists, but by much recent and erudite scholarship that is pouring over the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. That is, the ever present, and apparently and paradoxically divise, debate about Paul and the Torah, whether on the more scholarly level (Westerholm, Sanders, Wright, et al) or the more popular Lutheran-esque revisions (Piper and company). When thinking about this, though, it is important to set it in proper historical context, especially as we find it in the book of Acts: how does the relation of the Torah ("holy, just, and good") to the Gentile converts work?
In reading Marcus Bockmuehl's Jewish Law in Gentile Churches and Mark Nanos' The Mystery of Romans, I have been introduced to the halakhic concept of how Gentiles were supposed to act in the land of Israel if they wanted to be part of the common life and the worship (however limited they might experience it) of the one true God. These regulations are found primarily in Leviticus 18-20 (further confirming my suspicions that the Church's ignorance of this book has been theologically deadly) and consist mainly of three categories: idolatry/blasphemy, blood regulations (both dietary and 'blood shedding'), and sexual immorality. Interestingly enough, these same things appear in Acts 15 under the auspices of the Apostolic Decree, a document drafted to answer the question "What must Gentile converts to the Messiah do in order to be saved?" Of course, here, a redefinition of soteriology is in order -- in Acts the question is not "how does one get into heaven" but "how does one have a place in the eschatological community that will have a place in the age to come". Salvation is never primarily individualistic (although it does involve the individual), but speaks of how we are to be truly human now, in anticipation of God's final plans for creation (for example, Rom. 8).
These categories (which in later Rabbinic thought would be categorized under the heading of "Noachide Laws") give the theonomist much to think about. Many of the laws to Israel were exactly that, to Israel as it lived in the land. The relevance to diaspora Judaism has been much debated in Jewish circles, and Christians should consider the relevance to ethnic Jews who follow Messiah, as they are the restoration of "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (of course there is much debate here). But to the Gentile who believes in Messiah? It would seem that many of the laws, especially concerning 'ritual' or Sabbath or kosher or circumcision, do not have anything to say to the Messianic Gentile. These are the things that make Jews Jews, and Paul says (and the Apostolic Decree confirms) that "there is neither Jew nor Greek" (that is, Jews are Jews who follow Messiah, Gentiles are Gentiles who follow Messiah, they do not need to become the other). In thinking about public ethics, then, it becomes important not to overstate the theonomic case, but what is there in Lev. 18-20 and Acts 15 (not to mention Ex 20, the Ten Commandments, but that is another story for another time) must be studied and understood. In many ways, it seems, the New Testament understands the Gentile converts to not be a separate institution, but a part of God's eschatological community, which includes the restored Israel of which I've spoken in previous posts. The Church, then, is to be neither Gentile nor Jew, but builds off of what God started with Israel and forms something new, where the distinctions between Jew and Gentile are relativized in Messiah, but certainly foundational ethical principles form the basis of continued community life, in both intra-community dialogue and table fellowship and also in public discourse and legislation.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
The Limits of Competence
I have been raised and reared under the Gospel of Excellence. If everything we do is supposed to be "to the glory of God", then (the assumption goes) everything we do must be excellent, because only excellent things are worthy of the glory of God. However, having lived under that burden for many years now, I'm beginning to see that the assumption entailed in it are incorrect.
Anyone under the burden of "perfectionism" knows that ultimately perfection is unattainable, but the drive to grasp it shoulders guilt upon us. So we try harder, and fail -- maybe a little, maybe epically -- and we try again to get it just right. I wonder, though, if this call to perfection might be part of Adamic pride, the desire to be as God without reference to God. If so, then it is a peculiar sin, since even God did not make all things perfect: ask any farmer about their marginal land, ask any carpenter about marginal wood, ask a coffee roaster about 'defect' beans, etc.
Instead, I would like to proffer the idea of competence: we work not for perfection, but for fit. To return to a bit of agriculture (or gardening, if you prefer), marginal land is not rendered useless by its status as marginal. Instead, special care and consideration is needed to make proper and sustainable use of that land (sustainable being understood as use that preserves or improves the fertility and integral structure of the land). Sometimes its best use, its most competent use, is being marginal: a barrier between the rows of crops and the 'wild'. However, if our agriculture standard is 'perfection' (and that usually is defined in an industrial economy as 'efficiency'), then marginal land qua marginal land is useless. It must be (incompetently) turned into row land, which makes it unsustainable and is deeply damaging to the structure of the land and the humans who are to care for it, as Wendell Berry might point out.
Competence, then, involves a few neccessary things that distinguish it from 'perfection': humility to see and know the work, land, idea, people as they really are; care to get into the marginal parts of life along with the 'better' elements and to understand them; place, since no thing is ultimately disconnected from where it grows, whether we are speaking of plants or ideas or factories. 'Perfection' or 'excellence' are, in the end, Platonic ideas, ideas beyond the reach of man that make us feel trapped in our creatureliness; competence embraces creatureliness, yet mourns sinfulness (not the same thing!), and makes the best of its created circumstances. Competence is thrifty -- even apple peels can have copious amounts of canning pectin rendered from them. Excellence ends up being wasteful, as apple peels cannot contribute to a larger goal (pectin is never the goal in perfection). The idea of scale really does hit home here: competence can be content with the small, with excellence is always striving for the 'big' solution to the 'big' problem.
Developing competence, of course, is no easy thing. Especially since competence is so wide ranging: one can be 'excellent' in only a few things; one can be competent in many. Consider just the duties of a house husbandman: carpentry, plumbing, painting, mechanical maintenance, care for animals, care for wife and children, etc. Competence in these things is developed over long periods of time and in conjunction with community (we observe and help others to build these skills). Excellence in any of these things, apart from a conscious disciplined career choice, is impossible for us -- I certainly will never understand the full inner workings of my car, but that doesn't mean that I cannot use and maintain it properly.
Excellence, however, is still needed. I strive for excellence in my theology and in my coffee roasting -- however, excellence must itself come by way of competence. Only when I have learned to care for these things as concrete entities, as placed things, can I develop them to their greatest potential.
Anyone under the burden of "perfectionism" knows that ultimately perfection is unattainable, but the drive to grasp it shoulders guilt upon us. So we try harder, and fail -- maybe a little, maybe epically -- and we try again to get it just right. I wonder, though, if this call to perfection might be part of Adamic pride, the desire to be as God without reference to God. If so, then it is a peculiar sin, since even God did not make all things perfect: ask any farmer about their marginal land, ask any carpenter about marginal wood, ask a coffee roaster about 'defect' beans, etc.
Instead, I would like to proffer the idea of competence: we work not for perfection, but for fit. To return to a bit of agriculture (or gardening, if you prefer), marginal land is not rendered useless by its status as marginal. Instead, special care and consideration is needed to make proper and sustainable use of that land (sustainable being understood as use that preserves or improves the fertility and integral structure of the land). Sometimes its best use, its most competent use, is being marginal: a barrier between the rows of crops and the 'wild'. However, if our agriculture standard is 'perfection' (and that usually is defined in an industrial economy as 'efficiency'), then marginal land qua marginal land is useless. It must be (incompetently) turned into row land, which makes it unsustainable and is deeply damaging to the structure of the land and the humans who are to care for it, as Wendell Berry might point out.
Competence, then, involves a few neccessary things that distinguish it from 'perfection': humility to see and know the work, land, idea, people as they really are; care to get into the marginal parts of life along with the 'better' elements and to understand them; place, since no thing is ultimately disconnected from where it grows, whether we are speaking of plants or ideas or factories. 'Perfection' or 'excellence' are, in the end, Platonic ideas, ideas beyond the reach of man that make us feel trapped in our creatureliness; competence embraces creatureliness, yet mourns sinfulness (not the same thing!), and makes the best of its created circumstances. Competence is thrifty -- even apple peels can have copious amounts of canning pectin rendered from them. Excellence ends up being wasteful, as apple peels cannot contribute to a larger goal (pectin is never the goal in perfection). The idea of scale really does hit home here: competence can be content with the small, with excellence is always striving for the 'big' solution to the 'big' problem.
Developing competence, of course, is no easy thing. Especially since competence is so wide ranging: one can be 'excellent' in only a few things; one can be competent in many. Consider just the duties of a house husbandman: carpentry, plumbing, painting, mechanical maintenance, care for animals, care for wife and children, etc. Competence in these things is developed over long periods of time and in conjunction with community (we observe and help others to build these skills). Excellence in any of these things, apart from a conscious disciplined career choice, is impossible for us -- I certainly will never understand the full inner workings of my car, but that doesn't mean that I cannot use and maintain it properly.
Excellence, however, is still needed. I strive for excellence in my theology and in my coffee roasting -- however, excellence must itself come by way of competence. Only when I have learned to care for these things as concrete entities, as placed things, can I develop them to their greatest potential.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Interlude: The Psalms
Dear Reader and Fellow Rethinker,
I appreciate your patience with this series of posts -- I do not know how many will be a part of the whole or even if I will "finish". In many ways, I hope that I do not, for that would call for another rethinking: I am not infallible and I must be allowed to disagree with myself. In some ways, this Arabian process is one of self-discovery -- but not in the sense of "self-actualization" but rather the sense of "it is no longer 'I' who lives, but the Messiah who lives within me". This process changes me, brings me to repentance, and is conforming me to an image of the Messianic Other. It is uncomfortable, and (as a friend tells me) dangerous considering some of the ties I have in the Christian world. But it is something that must be done and has been pressing on me for years.
Which brings me to the Psalms. My religious tradition uses only Psalms in corporate worship. It is one of the things that led me to embrace the tradition and which has caused this rethinking: in many ways that tradition is being consumed in the gnostic modernism that I described earlier, I do not wish it to be. The Psalms can be an antidote to that tendency.
The Psalms are, really, God's song-book. Whether or not a Church tradition makes use of them says much about that tradition. Many "evangelical" traditions forswear them or relegate them to "personal devotion", if that. The vapidity of much modern Church music does not need to be recited here, instead I would like to examine some of the positive aspects of the Psalms.
The Psalms connect the Messiah's Body and Bride with its past. This is a collection of works that span around a half-millennium in time, from the foundation of the Kingdom to the initial return from exile and speak of the common hopes of Israel. If the full restoration of Israel is important in understanding the New Testament, then the Psalms are indispensible: the themes of forgiveness, restoration, vindication, triumph, and God's royal sovereignty pervade the poems and songs. In that light, it is important, though, to recognize that even though we sing these songs and they do have modern applicability, they are Israel's songs. Those of us who are Gentiles in the faith must see them in their proper historical and eschatological light before we just take them as our own. When we sing of vindication over enemies, let us remember that God has done this in the death and resurrection of the Messiah. When imprecations are sung, let us remember that the Messiah is the conquerer and that the enemy may not be the Romans or the Taliban or whoever, but "the last enemy that shall be defeated is death". When return from exile is longed for, let us remember the book of Acts and our responsibilities towards the historically called Israel "according to the flesh", for the "gifts and calling of God are irrevocable".
The Psalms emphasize the community that God has called, not just the lone individual. We are called by the Messiah not to be individual brides, as if Jesus were some cosmic polygamist, but to be a part of -- to participate in -- his one Bride, the Church, made up of Israel and righteous Gentiles together praising God. Even those songs that are spoken from an individual point of view are often the king singing, giving them an undeniable Messianic cast. Those of Asaph often express the individual longing to be back in the community, amongst the throng of worshippers (such as Psalm 42/43). The individual finds meaning and purpose in the midst of this worshipping community, who share songs and history, who are called into being, not by themselves, but by the Shepherd.
The Psalms remind us that not everything is well, that there remains mighty acts of God for us to participate in, pray for, worship God for, and so on. There is exile still, there is sin, there are enemies, death still reigns over much of the world. But the Messiah has conquered and is conquering through that worshipping community. If man fell into sin by his selfish idolatry, what is true salvation but the restoration of worship and koinonia between man and his Creator? All is not well, but the Messiah reigns (Psalm 2) and the troubled history of Israel (Psalm 105-106) has brought the mighty act of God on the cross of Jesus of Nazareth to bear on the whole world.
The Psalms remind us that we know God, not by idle speculation or theological dogma, but through His acts in history to restore, redeem, and recreate. God is a revealer, but He does so through acting in history, especially through His chosen ("salvation is from the Jews"), culminating in their representative and our Lord, Jesus the Messiah. Christian knowledge is not esoteric, not far off, not the exclusive provenance of the priestly caste (regardless of ecclesial nomenclature), but the common property of His people and knowable by all who would investigate these things which "were not done in a corner".
The Psalms tell us that even though the public works of God are available to all -- Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free -- they ultimately lead us to recognize the Creator's great unfathomability: "how unsearchable are your works". God acts, we can understand, but let us not think that we have exclusive or exhaustive knowledge of God's doings or plans: "the secret things are God's, but the revealed things are our and our children's".
The Psalms, in other words, form important cornerstones for Christian worship and keep us grounded in the full history of God's mission in the world: Abraham to Israel through Moses to David past the exile to the Messiah and the ingathering of the Gentiles, of which many of us are. In the great words of the Psalmists: Praise Yah!
I appreciate your patience with this series of posts -- I do not know how many will be a part of the whole or even if I will "finish". In many ways, I hope that I do not, for that would call for another rethinking: I am not infallible and I must be allowed to disagree with myself. In some ways, this Arabian process is one of self-discovery -- but not in the sense of "self-actualization" but rather the sense of "it is no longer 'I' who lives, but the Messiah who lives within me". This process changes me, brings me to repentance, and is conforming me to an image of the Messianic Other. It is uncomfortable, and (as a friend tells me) dangerous considering some of the ties I have in the Christian world. But it is something that must be done and has been pressing on me for years.
Which brings me to the Psalms. My religious tradition uses only Psalms in corporate worship. It is one of the things that led me to embrace the tradition and which has caused this rethinking: in many ways that tradition is being consumed in the gnostic modernism that I described earlier, I do not wish it to be. The Psalms can be an antidote to that tendency.
The Psalms are, really, God's song-book. Whether or not a Church tradition makes use of them says much about that tradition. Many "evangelical" traditions forswear them or relegate them to "personal devotion", if that. The vapidity of much modern Church music does not need to be recited here, instead I would like to examine some of the positive aspects of the Psalms.
The Psalms connect the Messiah's Body and Bride with its past. This is a collection of works that span around a half-millennium in time, from the foundation of the Kingdom to the initial return from exile and speak of the common hopes of Israel. If the full restoration of Israel is important in understanding the New Testament, then the Psalms are indispensible: the themes of forgiveness, restoration, vindication, triumph, and God's royal sovereignty pervade the poems and songs. In that light, it is important, though, to recognize that even though we sing these songs and they do have modern applicability, they are Israel's songs. Those of us who are Gentiles in the faith must see them in their proper historical and eschatological light before we just take them as our own. When we sing of vindication over enemies, let us remember that God has done this in the death and resurrection of the Messiah. When imprecations are sung, let us remember that the Messiah is the conquerer and that the enemy may not be the Romans or the Taliban or whoever, but "the last enemy that shall be defeated is death". When return from exile is longed for, let us remember the book of Acts and our responsibilities towards the historically called Israel "according to the flesh", for the "gifts and calling of God are irrevocable".
The Psalms emphasize the community that God has called, not just the lone individual. We are called by the Messiah not to be individual brides, as if Jesus were some cosmic polygamist, but to be a part of -- to participate in -- his one Bride, the Church, made up of Israel and righteous Gentiles together praising God. Even those songs that are spoken from an individual point of view are often the king singing, giving them an undeniable Messianic cast. Those of Asaph often express the individual longing to be back in the community, amongst the throng of worshippers (such as Psalm 42/43). The individual finds meaning and purpose in the midst of this worshipping community, who share songs and history, who are called into being, not by themselves, but by the Shepherd.
The Psalms remind us that not everything is well, that there remains mighty acts of God for us to participate in, pray for, worship God for, and so on. There is exile still, there is sin, there are enemies, death still reigns over much of the world. But the Messiah has conquered and is conquering through that worshipping community. If man fell into sin by his selfish idolatry, what is true salvation but the restoration of worship and koinonia between man and his Creator? All is not well, but the Messiah reigns (Psalm 2) and the troubled history of Israel (Psalm 105-106) has brought the mighty act of God on the cross of Jesus of Nazareth to bear on the whole world.
The Psalms remind us that we know God, not by idle speculation or theological dogma, but through His acts in history to restore, redeem, and recreate. God is a revealer, but He does so through acting in history, especially through His chosen ("salvation is from the Jews"), culminating in their representative and our Lord, Jesus the Messiah. Christian knowledge is not esoteric, not far off, not the exclusive provenance of the priestly caste (regardless of ecclesial nomenclature), but the common property of His people and knowable by all who would investigate these things which "were not done in a corner".
The Psalms tell us that even though the public works of God are available to all -- Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free -- they ultimately lead us to recognize the Creator's great unfathomability: "how unsearchable are your works". God acts, we can understand, but let us not think that we have exclusive or exhaustive knowledge of God's doings or plans: "the secret things are God's, but the revealed things are our and our children's".
The Psalms, in other words, form important cornerstones for Christian worship and keep us grounded in the full history of God's mission in the world: Abraham to Israel through Moses to David past the exile to the Messiah and the ingathering of the Gentiles, of which many of us are. In the great words of the Psalmists: Praise Yah!
Monday, June 01, 2009
Rethinking It All: The Primacy of Acts
When thinking about the ideas of simplicity and clarity in theology, one quickly runs into a fasinating doctrine from the Reformation: the perspicuity of Scripture. Perspicuity means clarity (why they don't use that much more clear word is beyond me) and has to do with the idea that the necessary things to believe for one to be a part of the people of God are accessible to anyone. I love this idea, but too often our understand of what we must believe for salvation is clouded by centuries of minutae from systematic theology: justification, the innards of trinitarian speculation, whatever eschatology we call home, etc. Instead, looking at Scripture, it is (with a few exceptions that prove this rule) a story -- exactly the story that we need in our postmodern/modern malaise and loss of certitude, exactly what we need to found and sustain a community such as I describe in the last post. In other words, what is necessary to believe is the mighty acts of God. These are relatively clear and point the way to being explained by the apostles in the New Testament. In that regard, if we are to reassess and understand New Testament theology, how it connects to the Hebrew Bible, and how the whole story fits together, primacy in interpretation must be given to Acts: the perspicuity of Scripture practically demands it.
However, how well do we know Acts? In some ways, due to its classification as a "historical" book, it often is slighted or ignored: where are its great discourses into Christology? Or Justification? Or any other doctrine that props us up against our theological enemies? Usually, when people start reading Acts, they begin to notice that their theology doesn't stand up to it, so they say that Acts is "early", "primative", "undeveloped", "not a credible witness", "perfunctory", "not normative" or something of the sort. Acts does not have a high christology, or concentrate very much on justification, and seems to up end any eschatological speculation (why, after all, does Peter say that his audience was in the last days? More on that anon). Acts humbles overly spiritual and overly intellectualized theologies both, and therefore gets tossed in the dust bin. Even if a Church or denomination claims to be centered on the "Word of God", rarely is Acts preached through or even mentioned -- except maybe to note the ostensible tension between it and Galatians, with Galatians always coming out on top as being Paul's "more mature thought". Whenever data that doesn't fit hits an entrenched worldview, it is often ignored or belittled until the evidence mounts so high as to create a paradigm shift or a breakdown of the sacred canopy. I know this because I do it myself, hence the need -- the desparate need -- for rethinking, for Arabia. Acts must send us to Arabia, to hear with fresh ears and to see with fresh eyes the magnalia Dei, the wonderful works of God.
Key, it has become clear to me, is the disciples question in the beginning chapter. "Will you at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel?" Often times, at least in all the commentaries I've read and all the sermons I've heard, this is considered a juvenile or completely off-base question: how, after all, can the disciples still be thinking and speaking in such earthly terms? How can they consider Israel important at all since the Messiah has come? But notice that Jesus does not chide them or say "O you of little faith" which was his common way of addressing their former failure to understand: "It is not for you to know the times and eras that the Father has set by his own authority, but you shall be my witnessess in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and unto the ends of the earth." In other words, they had not asked a wrong question, but the answer was not going to be given to them at that time. However, if we understand a little bit of the basic Jewish eschatology of the time (and I'm thankful for )Mark Nanos for bringing this obvious point to my attention), we know that the restoration of Israel from exile, to its position of God's wise stewards of Creation and ruler over the nations, was expected before the Gentiles could come into the true worship of the one God. Note the prevalance of this theme in Jeremiah 30-33: Israel is restored to God's favor, then the Gentiles worship alongside of them.
What happens in the book of Acts is that through the proclamation of Jesus as "Lord and Christ" (code, as it were, for the functions that the Messianic King was to have -- Anointed One over Israel "Christ" and Lord over the Gentiles), Israel is being restored: their sins are forgiven, the Spirit of God rests on them instead of the Temple, and the are united with the Messiah. The tricky part comes when Cornelius believes and receives the Holy Spirit, just like the Jews. This is unexpected, as it is generally believed at this time that the Jews will have a precedence over the Gentiles in the Kingdom -- lord to servant, if you will. For the Gentiles to become full members of the people of God, to become children of Abraham, they will -- in the mind of some Christian Jews -- be circumcised and take the full burden and privelege of Torah upon themselves. Not so say Peter and James and Paul, but instead they must comport themselves like changed Gentiles, "righteous Gentiles" in the Apostolic Decree (Acts 15). But the point is, since Israel is restored through the work of the Messiah and the proclamation thereof, the Gentiles can come into the Kingdom as equal participants, not as "second-class citizens" (basically the argument of Romans and Galatians). This is why Paul's ministry continues throughout to be "to the Jew first and also the Greek" -- Israel must be restored, then the Gentiles can enter in alongside as equals, both vindicated (justified/acquited) as God's people based on their faith in the Lord Messiah alone.
Reading Acts in this way, with the dual focus on the restoration of Israel and efficacy of the witness "unto the ends of the earth" calls for a rereading of the epistles: how do the situations and controversies in Acts find their expression in Paul's dense rhetoric in his letters; how about Peter; or John? Once situated thusly, I've been finding in my reading that the epistles make a lot more sense -- they speak to genuinely first century issues -- not to fourth century or even sixteenth century ones. That does not make them any less relevant, though. We live in a storied world, where Acts (not to mention Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Esther, Ezra-Nehemiah, etc.) makes up a vital chapter in our corporate history -- denying its validity would be tantamount to saying that because we don't relive the American Revolution constantly, it must not be important (which maybe the British wouldn't mind?). Such a devaluation of history in the Church bespeaks a prevalent and pernicious gnostic influence: only the timeless is important, history is important only if it teaches us lessons for today. May it never be in God's Church! Instead, we continue the narrative of Acts in our local parishes: we are witnesses, not to "personal conversion" but to the resurrection of the Messiah, to the restoration of Israel, to the in-gathering of the Gentiles to the true worship of God. What Jesus "began to do and teach" continues, by the Spirit he and the Father share, in the workings of the Church qua Church in the world today -- there is no need to relay the foundation of the Messiah and his apostles, but to build the Temple of God upon it (I Corinthians 1-3). Many of the lessons in the book, of course, do have contemporary relevance, especially since the arrogance of Jew over Gentile has been radically reversed in Church history: instead of Gentiles needing to become Jews, often times it is Jews that must become, not Jewish followers of the Messiah, but Gentiles!
It is high time for us to reconsider the role of Acts in our thought, actions, and worship as the people of God.
However, how well do we know Acts? In some ways, due to its classification as a "historical" book, it often is slighted or ignored: where are its great discourses into Christology? Or Justification? Or any other doctrine that props us up against our theological enemies? Usually, when people start reading Acts, they begin to notice that their theology doesn't stand up to it, so they say that Acts is "early", "primative", "undeveloped", "not a credible witness", "perfunctory", "not normative" or something of the sort. Acts does not have a high christology, or concentrate very much on justification, and seems to up end any eschatological speculation (why, after all, does Peter say that his audience was in the last days? More on that anon). Acts humbles overly spiritual and overly intellectualized theologies both, and therefore gets tossed in the dust bin. Even if a Church or denomination claims to be centered on the "Word of God", rarely is Acts preached through or even mentioned -- except maybe to note the ostensible tension between it and Galatians, with Galatians always coming out on top as being Paul's "more mature thought". Whenever data that doesn't fit hits an entrenched worldview, it is often ignored or belittled until the evidence mounts so high as to create a paradigm shift or a breakdown of the sacred canopy. I know this because I do it myself, hence the need -- the desparate need -- for rethinking, for Arabia. Acts must send us to Arabia, to hear with fresh ears and to see with fresh eyes the magnalia Dei, the wonderful works of God.
Key, it has become clear to me, is the disciples question in the beginning chapter. "Will you at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel?" Often times, at least in all the commentaries I've read and all the sermons I've heard, this is considered a juvenile or completely off-base question: how, after all, can the disciples still be thinking and speaking in such earthly terms? How can they consider Israel important at all since the Messiah has come? But notice that Jesus does not chide them or say "O you of little faith" which was his common way of addressing their former failure to understand: "It is not for you to know the times and eras that the Father has set by his own authority, but you shall be my witnessess in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and unto the ends of the earth." In other words, they had not asked a wrong question, but the answer was not going to be given to them at that time. However, if we understand a little bit of the basic Jewish eschatology of the time (and I'm thankful for )Mark Nanos for bringing this obvious point to my attention), we know that the restoration of Israel from exile, to its position of God's wise stewards of Creation and ruler over the nations, was expected before the Gentiles could come into the true worship of the one God. Note the prevalance of this theme in Jeremiah 30-33: Israel is restored to God's favor, then the Gentiles worship alongside of them.
What happens in the book of Acts is that through the proclamation of Jesus as "Lord and Christ" (code, as it were, for the functions that the Messianic King was to have -- Anointed One over Israel "Christ" and Lord over the Gentiles), Israel is being restored: their sins are forgiven, the Spirit of God rests on them instead of the Temple, and the are united with the Messiah. The tricky part comes when Cornelius believes and receives the Holy Spirit, just like the Jews. This is unexpected, as it is generally believed at this time that the Jews will have a precedence over the Gentiles in the Kingdom -- lord to servant, if you will. For the Gentiles to become full members of the people of God, to become children of Abraham, they will -- in the mind of some Christian Jews -- be circumcised and take the full burden and privelege of Torah upon themselves. Not so say Peter and James and Paul, but instead they must comport themselves like changed Gentiles, "righteous Gentiles" in the Apostolic Decree (Acts 15). But the point is, since Israel is restored through the work of the Messiah and the proclamation thereof, the Gentiles can come into the Kingdom as equal participants, not as "second-class citizens" (basically the argument of Romans and Galatians). This is why Paul's ministry continues throughout to be "to the Jew first and also the Greek" -- Israel must be restored, then the Gentiles can enter in alongside as equals, both vindicated (justified/acquited) as God's people based on their faith in the Lord Messiah alone.
Reading Acts in this way, with the dual focus on the restoration of Israel and efficacy of the witness "unto the ends of the earth" calls for a rereading of the epistles: how do the situations and controversies in Acts find their expression in Paul's dense rhetoric in his letters; how about Peter; or John? Once situated thusly, I've been finding in my reading that the epistles make a lot more sense -- they speak to genuinely first century issues -- not to fourth century or even sixteenth century ones. That does not make them any less relevant, though. We live in a storied world, where Acts (not to mention Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, Esther, Ezra-Nehemiah, etc.) makes up a vital chapter in our corporate history -- denying its validity would be tantamount to saying that because we don't relive the American Revolution constantly, it must not be important (which maybe the British wouldn't mind?). Such a devaluation of history in the Church bespeaks a prevalent and pernicious gnostic influence: only the timeless is important, history is important only if it teaches us lessons for today. May it never be in God's Church! Instead, we continue the narrative of Acts in our local parishes: we are witnesses, not to "personal conversion" but to the resurrection of the Messiah, to the restoration of Israel, to the in-gathering of the Gentiles to the true worship of God. What Jesus "began to do and teach" continues, by the Spirit he and the Father share, in the workings of the Church qua Church in the world today -- there is no need to relay the foundation of the Messiah and his apostles, but to build the Temple of God upon it (I Corinthians 1-3). Many of the lessons in the book, of course, do have contemporary relevance, especially since the arrogance of Jew over Gentile has been radically reversed in Church history: instead of Gentiles needing to become Jews, often times it is Jews that must become, not Jewish followers of the Messiah, but Gentiles!
It is high time for us to reconsider the role of Acts in our thought, actions, and worship as the people of God.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Rethinking It All: The Church
In some ways, it is rather odd to start rethinking with the Church. After all, the Church is emphasized only in the New Testament (it is in the Hebrew Bible, but not in the same capacity) and only after the work of the Messiah brings the eschatological fulfillment of Israel's hopes to bear. History, however, has shown that the Church -- where Christians of all stripes live and move -- has not been particularly faithful to its mission or even to its constitution. From early on, it has been gnosticized and mysticized beyond any reasonable recognition of an institution that would have grown out of Temple and synagogue. However, this is where we most fully image the Messiah, as his body, so the Church is indeed one of the forgotten emphases of the faith, one that desparately needs to be recovered before any positive steps can be taken in the redemptive acts of God in the world.
Rather than talking about the marks of the "true" Church, which could be classified as one of the most damaging and violent debates of all human history, re-examining the difference between visible and invisible Church is in order. I am used, in the past, to speaking of the invisible Church as being those who "truly are in faith" as opposed from the "masses" who populate the pews. Philip J. Lee, in his wonderful Against the Protestant Gnostics, calls this what it is: gnostic elitism, leading to a bifurcated people of God, the superspiritual versus the moderate or the normal. Really, this gnostic belief is the same as the Judaizers, only in different terminology: you must be circumcised to be a part of the Messiah's people, or, you must have "true" faith to be part of the Church. Since we can never know for certain whether or not anyone other than ourselves have "true" faith, we must rely instead on the visible Church as our means of defining the community of God's people. In other words, as far as humans are concerned, those who are united with the Messiah are those who unite with his people in worship -- which seems to be Paul's argument throughout the book of I Corinthians. To take it a step further, though, the argument can (and should) be made that the only real example of what the Church is, is found in the local parish. The Church, the true Church, is made of a collection of real people in real places that have participation with the Messiah through faith and therefore have participation with each other, the Messiah's body. The word koinonia, which often is translated rather dully as "fellowship", has this double edge to it: we participate in the Messiah, so we participate with each other. The idea of the imago Dei finds its fullest expression here as well: if the Messiah is the imago, and we are united with the Messiah, even called by his name (12:12), then we -- as the body -- are imago Dei as well. (A quick note to say that this does not mean that either individuals or those outside of the Church are not imago Dei, but the Church qua Church is the expression of the renewed, redeemed imago found in the Messiah).
What then of the invisible Church? We do have the "wheat and tares", however I'm not sure if that parables applies outside on the historical division between those who are allegiant to the Messiah and those who are not, evidenced at AD 70 and AD 135. We do have a wonderful model to consider, though, in the book of Revelation. In God's throne room, where the seer John is taken up, we see not only the redeemed of Israel (the symbolic 144,000), but also ones from "every tribe, tongue, nation in the earth". While we normally experience the Church only on the local level of real people that we know and can interact with, when we worship the one true God, we join the rest of those who are outside of our parish community in heaven, so that the Messiah's body is one on the local level and one worldwide.
The question becomes, and quite relevant, what makes the Church itself? The word itself, ekklesia, comes from the idea of being "called out"; called away from being destructive and dehumanizing, called into a mission of living a truly human life in the midst of sin -- characterized by hospitality, mutual submission, and self-giving. In an earlier post I talked about the unfortunate marriage of religion and power, or probably better put, religion and violence. The New Testament is clear, it seems to me, that the Church is the court of the Messiah, his Session if you will: Paul says that those "called out" are "seated in the heavenlies with the Messiah" -- that seating, of course, is next to the one enthroned at the right hand of God the Father. However, that rule is not to be "live the Gentiles who lord it over their subjects" but rather "the greatest among you shall be the servant of all". The rule of the Messiah turns all other rule, by what Paul calls the "principalities and powers", on its head, openly shaming all those who call themselves the "true authority" or the "answer". The Church, the visible Church wherever it is, is supposed to lead this -- by leading lives characterized by love, mutual edification, and worship of the true God, who is the Creator and, through the Messiah, is the Redeemer of Jew and Gentile.
Rather than talking about the marks of the "true" Church, which could be classified as one of the most damaging and violent debates of all human history, re-examining the difference between visible and invisible Church is in order. I am used, in the past, to speaking of the invisible Church as being those who "truly are in faith" as opposed from the "masses" who populate the pews. Philip J. Lee, in his wonderful Against the Protestant Gnostics, calls this what it is: gnostic elitism, leading to a bifurcated people of God, the superspiritual versus the moderate or the normal. Really, this gnostic belief is the same as the Judaizers, only in different terminology: you must be circumcised to be a part of the Messiah's people, or, you must have "true" faith to be part of the Church. Since we can never know for certain whether or not anyone other than ourselves have "true" faith, we must rely instead on the visible Church as our means of defining the community of God's people. In other words, as far as humans are concerned, those who are united with the Messiah are those who unite with his people in worship -- which seems to be Paul's argument throughout the book of I Corinthians. To take it a step further, though, the argument can (and should) be made that the only real example of what the Church is, is found in the local parish. The Church, the true Church, is made of a collection of real people in real places that have participation with the Messiah through faith and therefore have participation with each other, the Messiah's body. The word koinonia, which often is translated rather dully as "fellowship", has this double edge to it: we participate in the Messiah, so we participate with each other. The idea of the imago Dei finds its fullest expression here as well: if the Messiah is the imago, and we are united with the Messiah, even called by his name (12:12), then we -- as the body -- are imago Dei as well. (A quick note to say that this does not mean that either individuals or those outside of the Church are not imago Dei, but the Church qua Church is the expression of the renewed, redeemed imago found in the Messiah).
What then of the invisible Church? We do have the "wheat and tares", however I'm not sure if that parables applies outside on the historical division between those who are allegiant to the Messiah and those who are not, evidenced at AD 70 and AD 135. We do have a wonderful model to consider, though, in the book of Revelation. In God's throne room, where the seer John is taken up, we see not only the redeemed of Israel (the symbolic 144,000), but also ones from "every tribe, tongue, nation in the earth". While we normally experience the Church only on the local level of real people that we know and can interact with, when we worship the one true God, we join the rest of those who are outside of our parish community in heaven, so that the Messiah's body is one on the local level and one worldwide.
The question becomes, and quite relevant, what makes the Church itself? The word itself, ekklesia, comes from the idea of being "called out"; called away from being destructive and dehumanizing, called into a mission of living a truly human life in the midst of sin -- characterized by hospitality, mutual submission, and self-giving. In an earlier post I talked about the unfortunate marriage of religion and power, or probably better put, religion and violence. The New Testament is clear, it seems to me, that the Church is the court of the Messiah, his Session if you will: Paul says that those "called out" are "seated in the heavenlies with the Messiah" -- that seating, of course, is next to the one enthroned at the right hand of God the Father. However, that rule is not to be "live the Gentiles who lord it over their subjects" but rather "the greatest among you shall be the servant of all". The rule of the Messiah turns all other rule, by what Paul calls the "principalities and powers", on its head, openly shaming all those who call themselves the "true authority" or the "answer". The Church, the visible Church wherever it is, is supposed to lead this -- by leading lives characterized by love, mutual edification, and worship of the true God, who is the Creator and, through the Messiah, is the Redeemer of Jew and Gentile.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Rethinking It All: Part Two
One other figure in the Bible that sojourned in Arabia was Elijah. Like Paul, he went there to seek God, asking similar questions: how can these things be? In his case, it was about the idolatry of Israel and the impending destruction at the hands of those idols. For Paul, it was how the God of Israel's righteousness could be revealed in the death of the Messiah. My own escape has clarified, at least a little bit, the historical crises that confront us today (all history is crisis, a golden age has never been).
One of the most alarming trends that I have been a witness to is the prevalent defection from the faith: one strong Christians hanging their hats elsewhere or nowhere at all. At the start of my Arabian adventure, I was there as well -- I have almost left the faith a number of times in the last decade (rethinking, after all, does not come without its perils). By the grace of God, by which I mean the resurrection of Jesus, I have not left -- but I have not been left unscathed.
People change allegiances for a variety of reasons: I am not here to comment on any individual reasons for doing so. If you have left the faith, you know them and you know whether or not they are good reasons. My place, and I would argue most everyone else's, is not to judge your reasons, but instead to try and figure out what exactly it is that is creating and nurturing the environment for those reasons to exist in.
One of the most obvious to me, for I keep running headlong into it, is the dissolution of the old certitudes. Any superficial student of history knows that it is ridiculous to call Christianity a religion of peace: early on it was coopted for the purposes of violence and power, and it has been comfortable in that position. The railing of many "Christians" in our day and age about politics sounds oddly familiar to the railings of elder Christians who argued for the establishment of denominations: the State "defends" the Church with the sword against all enemies, whether heretics or homosexuals or infidels or (insert whatever your church tradition is against). Digging a little deeper into history (ever repeating) it is also easy to see that the Church is in no position to separate itself from this history, since its very theology since the 4th century has been concerned with nurturing and furthering the relationship between Christ and Caesar. I do think Christianity is a religion of peace, but only once it is separated from its dependence on power to assert and maintain its claims.
But this is only one of the old certitudes that have been shattered. The rise of modernism with the Enlightenment was seen by many as a deathblow to Christianity ("God is dead and we have killed him" for example). Christianity adapted and adopted adeptly and became thoroughly modernist, even those branches (American Reformed churches, for one) that clung to an older, "purer" fundamentalism: instead of decimating the division between doctrine and experience (or facts/values, faith/science, whatever dualism you want) the church solidified it in its actions, but denied it in its words. So now we have Christians quite content to say their prayers as a private action, believe in their own salvation (in opposition, of course, to everyone else), but yet not be noticibly different from those who adhere to none of the teachings of the Messiah. Postmodernism, in many ways, has shown that form of Christianity to be a sham: it is all about power, about sex, about money, about the tenets of Nietzsche, Freud, or Smith instead of Jesus. But, as any student of pomo knows, no story replaces the shattered myths, leaving us without a sacred canopy to give direction and meaning.
Now we live in a storied world, as before (even though we denied it), but it is not a coherent or cohesive story: it is many stories, almost all in opposition, vying for credibility, for power, for the 'means of production', for cultural change. Which story to follow, which 'ism' to grasp onto, is the question of the day, even if it is unconscious or implicit. I have seen many students crash upon the waves of consumerism, of 'hard-headed realism', of various forms of theodicy, and not come out the other side. If we believe that God exists to make us happy, or wealthy, or comfortable, or understanding, or anything other than a fellow crucified disciple of Jesus, then our worldview will shatter upon the rocks of the fallen world. Many students have written in papers recently that their main goal in life is to 'be happy', in a sort of morbid (and moribund) christian Utilitarianism. Mill and the Pleasure Principle coopt Christ and the Crucifixion. In a world of competing stories, how can we say what is right or wrong for anyone else (always a good question) or for ourselves? The restrictions, the boundaries, the limitations of the covenant are forgotten because we have no story to bind us to them: our Exodus has been so overly spiritualized that it means absolutely nothing. If our ultimate goal is to attain individualism in heaven, then it makes sense to seek it pre-emptively on earth.
In the midst of this, I feel somewhat like Habbakuk: how is this better? The violent Babylonians of Modernism and Postmodernism cannot really be the scourge that will eschatologically cleanse the people of God! But like Habbakuk, I must realize that my eyes do not see clearly, that the violent -- whether Christian or pagan -- do not ultimately triumph, but the meek shall inherit the earth.
One of the most alarming trends that I have been a witness to is the prevalent defection from the faith: one strong Christians hanging their hats elsewhere or nowhere at all. At the start of my Arabian adventure, I was there as well -- I have almost left the faith a number of times in the last decade (rethinking, after all, does not come without its perils). By the grace of God, by which I mean the resurrection of Jesus, I have not left -- but I have not been left unscathed.
People change allegiances for a variety of reasons: I am not here to comment on any individual reasons for doing so. If you have left the faith, you know them and you know whether or not they are good reasons. My place, and I would argue most everyone else's, is not to judge your reasons, but instead to try and figure out what exactly it is that is creating and nurturing the environment for those reasons to exist in.
One of the most obvious to me, for I keep running headlong into it, is the dissolution of the old certitudes. Any superficial student of history knows that it is ridiculous to call Christianity a religion of peace: early on it was coopted for the purposes of violence and power, and it has been comfortable in that position. The railing of many "Christians" in our day and age about politics sounds oddly familiar to the railings of elder Christians who argued for the establishment of denominations: the State "defends" the Church with the sword against all enemies, whether heretics or homosexuals or infidels or (insert whatever your church tradition is against). Digging a little deeper into history (ever repeating) it is also easy to see that the Church is in no position to separate itself from this history, since its very theology since the 4th century has been concerned with nurturing and furthering the relationship between Christ and Caesar. I do think Christianity is a religion of peace, but only once it is separated from its dependence on power to assert and maintain its claims.
But this is only one of the old certitudes that have been shattered. The rise of modernism with the Enlightenment was seen by many as a deathblow to Christianity ("God is dead and we have killed him" for example). Christianity adapted and adopted adeptly and became thoroughly modernist, even those branches (American Reformed churches, for one) that clung to an older, "purer" fundamentalism: instead of decimating the division between doctrine and experience (or facts/values, faith/science, whatever dualism you want) the church solidified it in its actions, but denied it in its words. So now we have Christians quite content to say their prayers as a private action, believe in their own salvation (in opposition, of course, to everyone else), but yet not be noticibly different from those who adhere to none of the teachings of the Messiah. Postmodernism, in many ways, has shown that form of Christianity to be a sham: it is all about power, about sex, about money, about the tenets of Nietzsche, Freud, or Smith instead of Jesus. But, as any student of pomo knows, no story replaces the shattered myths, leaving us without a sacred canopy to give direction and meaning.
Now we live in a storied world, as before (even though we denied it), but it is not a coherent or cohesive story: it is many stories, almost all in opposition, vying for credibility, for power, for the 'means of production', for cultural change. Which story to follow, which 'ism' to grasp onto, is the question of the day, even if it is unconscious or implicit. I have seen many students crash upon the waves of consumerism, of 'hard-headed realism', of various forms of theodicy, and not come out the other side. If we believe that God exists to make us happy, or wealthy, or comfortable, or understanding, or anything other than a fellow crucified disciple of Jesus, then our worldview will shatter upon the rocks of the fallen world. Many students have written in papers recently that their main goal in life is to 'be happy', in a sort of morbid (and moribund) christian Utilitarianism. Mill and the Pleasure Principle coopt Christ and the Crucifixion. In a world of competing stories, how can we say what is right or wrong for anyone else (always a good question) or for ourselves? The restrictions, the boundaries, the limitations of the covenant are forgotten because we have no story to bind us to them: our Exodus has been so overly spiritualized that it means absolutely nothing. If our ultimate goal is to attain individualism in heaven, then it makes sense to seek it pre-emptively on earth.
In the midst of this, I feel somewhat like Habbakuk: how is this better? The violent Babylonians of Modernism and Postmodernism cannot really be the scourge that will eschatologically cleanse the people of God! But like Habbakuk, I must realize that my eyes do not see clearly, that the violent -- whether Christian or pagan -- do not ultimately triumph, but the meek shall inherit the earth.
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Rethinking It All: Part One
In my mind, one of the most important historical bits of Scripture for my personal life is when Paul says (in Galatians) that after his meeting with Jesus at the Damascus Road, he went to rethink everything for over a decade in Arabia. That passage has caused much consternation over what exactly I should do with the training I have received and nurtured for close to a decade. The more I read of historically-based exegesis, the more troubled I become with the history of Christian interpretation, the history of ecclesial activity (especially the confluence of theology and power), and the basis of present Christian devotion and worship. In many ways, I feel completely outside the pale of this long-standing historic community. I've called it my "postmodern Protestant dilemma" (those interested can look up the link). It is, and will remain, a critique from within -- I am a follower of Israel's Messiah and the Gentiles' Lord. I do not critique out of spite, but out of gratitude for the grace I have received in that Messiah. My writing and thinking revolve around the twin foci of being faithful to God's revealed Word (a faithfulness that does not equal correctness necessarily) and God's redeemed people (both Jew and Gentile who worship the one true God in the Messiah).
My start down the road to Arabia began with a simple premise: the broad outlines of God's mission and work in the world should be comprehensible to all of God's people, even if that comprehension comes from the Spirit rather than 'rationality'. In other words, if an idea/doctrine takes a clergyman to understand, then it probably is there to legitimate power rather than a part of God's revelation. In many ways, I still hold to this premise, but what I have found is that the simplest of things can, upon further investigation, but intricately complex. I understand how a car goes, but I could not tell you the intricacies of a driveshaft, powertrain, or fuel-injection (God bless you if you can). The other premise is that a doctrine or theology must be practical. This one has been harder to hold onto -- many teachings in the history of the Church were practical for that time, but have devolved into abstract, ahistorical concepts now. I learned this, interestingly enough, from pagan philosophy: Plato's battle with the Sophists produced amazingly complex philosophy that was practical in his time, but seems so disconnected now (and has destroyed much theology because of it). These two premises, clarity and simplicity still drive my thought. They have, though, both been chastened. Might I even call them mature?
Even though I teach Bible, I still feel in Arabia. I know I have said things that I do not now agree with: theology must be understood as a human endeavor -- anyone claiming the title of 'mouth of God' perpetuates a dangerous and damaging lie (Let those who have ears hear). The power that comes from the burden (yes, a burden) of teaching the Bible is frightening: I am influencing those for whom the Messiah died. Anyone who teaches that is not scared to death of that should not teach, ever. That fear is a necessary part of my Arabian experience: I have been humbled, and continue to be humbled, but this calling from the Most Holy God. Reading student essays this last semester brought this home to me: are we teaching our students well enough to be independent of their teachers? When erudite non-Christians challenge them on their allegiance to the Messiah, will they be able to stand? I fear the worst.
And so I remain rethinking it all. Some of the conclusions I have come to have rocked my world, so to speak. I have had to hold tightly at points to the resurrection of Jesus as the only fixed point in my faith. In the end, it is not my knowledge that leads me into the life of the age to come; he is my Lord and he holds me in his hands. I mean that in a significantly different way than I did years ago. It is no mere religious trifle or pleasantry, but rather the only way I can speak about my everyday reality: the Messiah loved me and gave his life for me and now the life that I lead must be in the Son of God.
My start down the road to Arabia began with a simple premise: the broad outlines of God's mission and work in the world should be comprehensible to all of God's people, even if that comprehension comes from the Spirit rather than 'rationality'. In other words, if an idea/doctrine takes a clergyman to understand, then it probably is there to legitimate power rather than a part of God's revelation. In many ways, I still hold to this premise, but what I have found is that the simplest of things can, upon further investigation, but intricately complex. I understand how a car goes, but I could not tell you the intricacies of a driveshaft, powertrain, or fuel-injection (God bless you if you can). The other premise is that a doctrine or theology must be practical. This one has been harder to hold onto -- many teachings in the history of the Church were practical for that time, but have devolved into abstract, ahistorical concepts now. I learned this, interestingly enough, from pagan philosophy: Plato's battle with the Sophists produced amazingly complex philosophy that was practical in his time, but seems so disconnected now (and has destroyed much theology because of it). These two premises, clarity and simplicity still drive my thought. They have, though, both been chastened. Might I even call them mature?
Even though I teach Bible, I still feel in Arabia. I know I have said things that I do not now agree with: theology must be understood as a human endeavor -- anyone claiming the title of 'mouth of God' perpetuates a dangerous and damaging lie (Let those who have ears hear). The power that comes from the burden (yes, a burden) of teaching the Bible is frightening: I am influencing those for whom the Messiah died. Anyone who teaches that is not scared to death of that should not teach, ever. That fear is a necessary part of my Arabian experience: I have been humbled, and continue to be humbled, but this calling from the Most Holy God. Reading student essays this last semester brought this home to me: are we teaching our students well enough to be independent of their teachers? When erudite non-Christians challenge them on their allegiance to the Messiah, will they be able to stand? I fear the worst.
And so I remain rethinking it all. Some of the conclusions I have come to have rocked my world, so to speak. I have had to hold tightly at points to the resurrection of Jesus as the only fixed point in my faith. In the end, it is not my knowledge that leads me into the life of the age to come; he is my Lord and he holds me in his hands. I mean that in a significantly different way than I did years ago. It is no mere religious trifle or pleasantry, but rather the only way I can speak about my everyday reality: the Messiah loved me and gave his life for me and now the life that I lead must be in the Son of God.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
What is salvation?
From Luke 1:67-75:
Now [John's] father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying:
Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people, and raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David...that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to perform the mercy to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant--the oath that He swore to our father Abraham: to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.
Wait, Zacharias! What about going to heaven when we die?
Now [John's] father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied, saying:
Blessed is the Lord God of Israel, for He has visited and redeemed His people, and raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David...that we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us, to perform the mercy to our fathers and to remember His holy covenant--the oath that He swore to our father Abraham: to grant us that we, being delivered from the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him all the days of our life.
Wait, Zacharias! What about going to heaven when we die?
Friday, February 13, 2009
Developing Virtue
The whole corpus of Biblical law and ethics is focussed on one goal: the maturation of families (and individuals within them) to exercise God's rule upon the earth. To do that, responsibility, the fruits of the Spirit, and virtue must be practiced. The mature Christian's job is to lead others in that development (here is the true Biblical idea of eldership).
I have found myself in the position, more than once, of helping others mature. As I look at my employees and (more significantly in many ways) my daughter, I am struck by my own lack of maturity, of real Christian virtue. How can I hope to see God's will done on earth in my tiny sphere of influence if I haven't been willing to do what His will is?
I desire for Olivia that she be thrifty, hard-working, honest, faithful, dependable, loyal, trusting-yet-shrewd, long-sighted, and loving. I am few of those things and none all the time. How can I hope for her what I am not?
But God gives us the Spirit to be made and remade into the image of His Son.
I have found myself in the position, more than once, of helping others mature. As I look at my employees and (more significantly in many ways) my daughter, I am struck by my own lack of maturity, of real Christian virtue. How can I hope to see God's will done on earth in my tiny sphere of influence if I haven't been willing to do what His will is?
I desire for Olivia that she be thrifty, hard-working, honest, faithful, dependable, loyal, trusting-yet-shrewd, long-sighted, and loving. I am few of those things and none all the time. How can I hope for her what I am not?
But God gives us the Spirit to be made and remade into the image of His Son.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Faithless Christians
After a long time doing an informal study, I'm convinced that many (if not most) Christians do not believe in prayer. We do not believe that it has power, that it changes things, that it is effective (and therefore important) in any way. So we don't do it. When we do, it isn't prayer that is deep or meaningful or even semi-articulate. It certainly doesn't assume that we are part of the royal court of Christ's kingdom, co-rulers with the one at the right hand of God. We don't, for that same reason, believe in blessings or benedictions. Pious words, maybe, but nothing more. Today in class, during the final benediction, the students--acting in accord with their underlying presuppositions--packed their bags. Nice words, well-meaning (of course) but devoid of any power to create or change. These are the same students that placed great energies into believing either on "Country First" or "Change". It may be that we don't believe in the Spirit of God (we don't--we wouldn't know what it would be like to have a genuine revival, regardless if we are Pentecostal or not).
Could it be that we are now faithless because we finally have succumbed to what other, alien cultures have said the world really is? That there is no way scientifically or biblically that the world might have been created in 6 days? That the worldview of angels and demons, divine kingship, and speaking assess is bogus or "naive"? Assess still speak, instead of being beaten, though, we now elect them to offices political and ecclesial. This degradation of language and symbol could be posited back to the rise of rationalism as an alternative to orthodox Christianity. It could be posited back to when categories of shaliach and malach were replaced with "ousia" and its various forms. I'm not sure--but I know that the powers that be, which are supposed to be in subjection to Christ through his Church, do not want us to think biblically or apart from the Church's or State's "sanctioned" (ordained) interpreters.
Faithlessness is easy.
Could it be that we are now faithless because we finally have succumbed to what other, alien cultures have said the world really is? That there is no way scientifically or biblically that the world might have been created in 6 days? That the worldview of angels and demons, divine kingship, and speaking assess is bogus or "naive"? Assess still speak, instead of being beaten, though, we now elect them to offices political and ecclesial. This degradation of language and symbol could be posited back to the rise of rationalism as an alternative to orthodox Christianity. It could be posited back to when categories of shaliach and malach were replaced with "ousia" and its various forms. I'm not sure--but I know that the powers that be, which are supposed to be in subjection to Christ through his Church, do not want us to think biblically or apart from the Church's or State's "sanctioned" (ordained) interpreters.
Faithlessness is easy.
Saturday, January 03, 2009
A Theological Burden
My brother and I were talking the other day about the way various philosophers interact: mainly using hubristic personal attacks and ignoring evidence. His specialization is philosophy of science, which I know precious little about. His comments, though, could easily be transfered over to the realm of theology, where I dwell. So much hatred spreads back and forth in this discipline, centered often, I think, on the assumption that what these folks say is what God says (vox theologica, vox dei?). That, depending on which theologians you cling to, whether explicitly or not, determines your salvific standing before Christ. Let me profer a new way of understanding theology:
All theology is man's attempt to understand the self-disclosure of God.
A few notes are in order. "Man" here is shorthand for any human creature that seeks to understand the divine, with the background assumption of the "noetic" effects of sin. That is, man's mind has difficulty understanding the things of God because sin effects all of creation, including the mind of man. For all the smoke blown about theological humility in every Christian tradtion, the noetic effects have often been the burden of whoever your theological opponent is. But you, dear budding theologian with a chip on your shoulder, are impacted by sin as well. And me as well.
Another note. Labeling theology as "man's attempt" is crucial. All theology apart from the inscriptured, authoratative documents of the Bible, is fallible. All creeds, confessions, synods, anathemas, and footnotes are subject to constant revision and error-correction. There is no reason to assume that God wouldn't allow a recalcitrant people to be led astray by a doctrine for a long period of time--he did it will ancient Israel when they became inflamed with pagan power (I Sam 8), why wouldn't he do it when the Church became inflamed with the same power (approx. time range is the early 2nd century)? For all the philosophical brillance of the Church Fathers, the Reformers, and others throughout Church history, theology remains a human endeavor.
If theology is a human endeavor, then motives must be very clear. Oftentimes, theological thinking has been related to power. If the Church has the power to say "this one is (or is not) saved..." then the Church's teaching can easily be corrupted to exclude whatever groups or individuals the teachers of the Church do not like/do not want to share power with. So the gentile Christians become anti-Semitic. So the Christian Platonists revile the Aristotelians. The Aristotelians look down on those who do not adhere to Thomism, etc. The power of the Church, which historically quickly became associated with the wealth, land-holdings, and politics of the State as "faith-protector", becomes another way of exercising god-like authority over the "infidel". In other words, the Church becomes an empire as tyrannical as Caesar ever was. Except that Caesar could only destroy the body.
This is not to say, and this is important, that all theologians (or even any theologians) are solely motivated by power or greed or sex or what-have-you. Such a Nietzchian analysis does not hold up in any way, shape, or form to historical reality. But all theologians, given that they are human creatures in the line of Adam, have mixed motives and cannot usually see the long-term consequences of their actions. Do you think the Puritans envisioned they way their legal and educational policy would change into modern Massachusetts (Increase Kennedy, anyone?) or Harvard University?
The way of persuasion remains. It is not that it has been tried and failed, but that it is assumed to fail and therefore not tried. Yes, there are those who are so recalcitrant in their beliefs that they won't listen to reason. Them we will always have with us, no matter our force of arms or tongue. Presenting arguments that are clear, concise, and well-reasoned may not carry the day with your opponent, but it will carry the day with many of those in the audience.
Why, if adequate persuasion has been used, have the same issues been violent bones of contention in Church history? Christology, ecclesiology, soteriology, and on and on the list goes of "obvious" or "established" or "orthodox" doctrines that are held in force by power (often times that of the State), but that well-meaning Christians have problems with. Sometimes, yes, the opponent, the "heterodox" has power on their minds--but that just shows the deeper disease of which the heretic is a symptom. Jesus said that the greatest among us, the one who wants or who holds power, should become servant of all. Impractical? Yes. Thank God for the impractical. Instead of burning your brother at the stake of the State or the stake of your fiery tongue, why not follow the command of Jesus in Matthew 18 (go to your brother, reason with him, if he doesn't listen, take witnesses and help, if he doesn't listen, take him in front of the believing community, if he doesn't listen, don't let him eat with you)? Persuasion does sometimes lead to ostracism, but the witnesses and the church are supposed to balancedly ascertain the issues and reasonably decide--not descend into an orgy of fire and blood because a system is challenged.
It comes down to this: unless you can show why your way is right and your opponent's is false, you should probably keep quiet until you can do so. I need to follow that advice just as much as others.
All theology is man's attempt to understand the self-disclosure of God.
A few notes are in order. "Man" here is shorthand for any human creature that seeks to understand the divine, with the background assumption of the "noetic" effects of sin. That is, man's mind has difficulty understanding the things of God because sin effects all of creation, including the mind of man. For all the smoke blown about theological humility in every Christian tradtion, the noetic effects have often been the burden of whoever your theological opponent is. But you, dear budding theologian with a chip on your shoulder, are impacted by sin as well. And me as well.
Another note. Labeling theology as "man's attempt" is crucial. All theology apart from the inscriptured, authoratative documents of the Bible, is fallible. All creeds, confessions, synods, anathemas, and footnotes are subject to constant revision and error-correction. There is no reason to assume that God wouldn't allow a recalcitrant people to be led astray by a doctrine for a long period of time--he did it will ancient Israel when they became inflamed with pagan power (I Sam 8), why wouldn't he do it when the Church became inflamed with the same power (approx. time range is the early 2nd century)? For all the philosophical brillance of the Church Fathers, the Reformers, and others throughout Church history, theology remains a human endeavor.
If theology is a human endeavor, then motives must be very clear. Oftentimes, theological thinking has been related to power. If the Church has the power to say "this one is (or is not) saved..." then the Church's teaching can easily be corrupted to exclude whatever groups or individuals the teachers of the Church do not like/do not want to share power with. So the gentile Christians become anti-Semitic. So the Christian Platonists revile the Aristotelians. The Aristotelians look down on those who do not adhere to Thomism, etc. The power of the Church, which historically quickly became associated with the wealth, land-holdings, and politics of the State as "faith-protector", becomes another way of exercising god-like authority over the "infidel". In other words, the Church becomes an empire as tyrannical as Caesar ever was. Except that Caesar could only destroy the body.
This is not to say, and this is important, that all theologians (or even any theologians) are solely motivated by power or greed or sex or what-have-you. Such a Nietzchian analysis does not hold up in any way, shape, or form to historical reality. But all theologians, given that they are human creatures in the line of Adam, have mixed motives and cannot usually see the long-term consequences of their actions. Do you think the Puritans envisioned they way their legal and educational policy would change into modern Massachusetts (Increase Kennedy, anyone?) or Harvard University?
The way of persuasion remains. It is not that it has been tried and failed, but that it is assumed to fail and therefore not tried. Yes, there are those who are so recalcitrant in their beliefs that they won't listen to reason. Them we will always have with us, no matter our force of arms or tongue. Presenting arguments that are clear, concise, and well-reasoned may not carry the day with your opponent, but it will carry the day with many of those in the audience.
Why, if adequate persuasion has been used, have the same issues been violent bones of contention in Church history? Christology, ecclesiology, soteriology, and on and on the list goes of "obvious" or "established" or "orthodox" doctrines that are held in force by power (often times that of the State), but that well-meaning Christians have problems with. Sometimes, yes, the opponent, the "heterodox" has power on their minds--but that just shows the deeper disease of which the heretic is a symptom. Jesus said that the greatest among us, the one who wants or who holds power, should become servant of all. Impractical? Yes. Thank God for the impractical. Instead of burning your brother at the stake of the State or the stake of your fiery tongue, why not follow the command of Jesus in Matthew 18 (go to your brother, reason with him, if he doesn't listen, take witnesses and help, if he doesn't listen, take him in front of the believing community, if he doesn't listen, don't let him eat with you)? Persuasion does sometimes lead to ostracism, but the witnesses and the church are supposed to balancedly ascertain the issues and reasonably decide--not descend into an orgy of fire and blood because a system is challenged.
It comes down to this: unless you can show why your way is right and your opponent's is false, you should probably keep quiet until you can do so. I need to follow that advice just as much as others.
Monday, November 17, 2008
Review of Pagan Christianity
The history of Christian doctrine and ecclesial practice has long been a passion of mine. There is something distinctly unsettling about the way and the why of our corporate actions. Too many doctrines that ignore or downplay passages of Scripture that don't seem to fit. Too many practices that seem well and good, but were added by the powerful to either protect the regular Joe Churchgoer (positively) or to keep the regular from becoming the powerful (negatively). The question that Viola and Barna explore in this small tome (with powerfully small-type footnotes) is "Are we doing Church 'by the book'?" Their answer: no. Unsettling? Yes. Completely convincing? No, but mostly because of internal faults, not faults of evidence.
At the start, Viola and Barna (and the main author seems to be Viola, with Barna there for his research clout--henceforth I'll refer to both of them as "Viola") set a polemic, rather than a neutral tone. A neutral tone would convey something more like an academic feel, which Viola makes clear is not his intention. Such a book would "be read by a few people" (xx). An academic writing style does not necessarily a dull book make, however. Viola often descends into quite harsh and inflated polemic, which is often contracted and softened in the "Delving Deeper" sections that end each chapter. However, rhetoric aside, the writing style betrays an underlying anti-intellectualism that pervades Viola's vision of the Church. He speaks often of how the institutional church of Protestantism depends so much on the intellectual sermon to build spirituality in its listeners--a practice that he and I would both agree has negatively affected the church. He also lambasts seminaries as being too academic (my experience with seminaries, interestingly enough, has tended towards the opposite direction)--opting for what he calls "Spirit-led, open-participatory meetings and non-hierarchical leadership" in the church: non-ordained, non-theologically trained leadership in the Church. I actually don't disagree with him, at least superficially, but I am concerned that a voice of studied reason within one of these meetings would be marginalized as not partaking enough of the "Spirit", where everyone brings a message, a psalm, and whatnot. While it seems that this was Paul's practice, as per the Corinthian correspondence, the first generation believers, even the Gentiles, had a greater grasp and understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures than most church members do today. I've heard highly educated people say some stupid things in church, but that doesn't mean theological education is a bad thing--it needs heavy reform. His system of apprenticeship (the "elders" teaching the youngin's of the congregation) would work as long as the "elders" were properly educated themselves--something he leaves up to the post of the "church-planter apostle" who gets trained by? The answer is unclear, but Viola presupposes some sort of "apostolic succession" (as all Christians do, whether they realize it or not), especially as he says that the ekklesia shouldn't follow the ways of the historical Church, but should follow its teachings (262). Here, though, is where the anti-intellectual bent of the book becomes positively schizophrenic. Viola, for all his historical research, has not combined the historical practice of the church with its historical beliefs. Would the Church have called synods, councils, creedal assemblies without the rise of the one-bishop rule, the college of bishops, and the institution of a clergy-laity system? Would our historical, creedal doctrines have taken the shape they did without the influence of the church-state marriage (both Arianism and Nicene orthodoxy were heavily politicized doctrines which gave the Caesar power of the decisions of the church--an outcome that was quickly regretted, but never alleviated by rethinking the doctrines outside of a pagan, Greco-Roman philosophical milieu)? Probably not. However, he says "the historic creeds can be helpful guideposts to keep a church on track when it comes to the essential teachings of the faith" (262). The problem is that with one goes the other: you cannot reject the teachings of ecclesial practice without calling into question the doctrines that gave rise to them. If one wants cake, one must eat it as well.
The Viola concept of worship also has some issues to be dealt with. Once again, the issue isn't necessarily evidence, but the way it is presented. Peppered throughout the book is that phrase already mentioned: "Spirit-led, open-participatory meetings and non-hierarchical leadership". The problem here is that Viola never really defines what that means. To figure it out, as footnote readers will quickly become weary and wary of, you must read some other book he has written. This tactic is less about saving space as it is about making money: to figure out how Church should really be, you must buy another book. To figure out God's "eternal purpose" other than "saving souls", you must buy another book. Not to mention that Viola never mentions any other books, by scholars perhaps?, that back up his view of the Church or God's eternal purpose. Only his own get highlighted. Of course, theology should never be dictated by the more learned, eh?
The "non-hierarchichal leadership" clause, repeated over and over again to provoke Pavlovian egalitarians to drool, is suspect. He speaks of "informal" elders and leadership, which is what I take his meaning behind "non-hierarchical" to mean, however any sort of leadership, no matter how fluid, is hierarchical. The family is made up of husband-wife-children hierarchy that is, yes, mutually submitting to one another (at least as Paul conceives it). Just because there is mutual submission does not take away that there is hierarchy. God-Jesus-Church also exhibits the same qualities ("God is the head of Christ; Christ is the head of the Church; etc"). Once again, just because Jesus submitted himself to die for the Church does not make an egalitarian situation: he is Lord Messiah, we are his ruling council (a meaning for ekklesia that Viola ignores). The problem he has, as readers of the book no doubt notice, is with a static leadership that creates passivity among the regular Joe Churchgoer (to borrow from the recent pagan presidential race). Fair enough, but the language used to describe what the Church should be needs to be precise and accurate. There is leadership in the people of God and it is hierarchical, just not rigidly so. The orthodox Jewish community, interestingly enough, gives some creedence to this view. The older members (dare we call them elders?) teach the younger members who will take their place in business, religious training, and social activity: it isn't rigid, even the rabbi has an outside job to support himself and he is always teaching other members of the community how to rightly exegete the Scripture and Talmudic tradition. Protestantism could learn a lot from this system, but hierarchy is still there. The question isn't hierarchy or no hierarchy, but which hierarchy?
So far, this has been a fairly negative review. However, I did appreciate the historical research and the clarifications that the book offered. If it were rewritten, it could be a major catalyst for change in the Christian world. However, as it stands, it is self-defeating and will only cause disappointment in the authors and in the lives of those who take up their style of polemic and ambiguous definitions.
At the start, Viola and Barna (and the main author seems to be Viola, with Barna there for his research clout--henceforth I'll refer to both of them as "Viola") set a polemic, rather than a neutral tone. A neutral tone would convey something more like an academic feel, which Viola makes clear is not his intention. Such a book would "be read by a few people" (xx). An academic writing style does not necessarily a dull book make, however. Viola often descends into quite harsh and inflated polemic, which is often contracted and softened in the "Delving Deeper" sections that end each chapter. However, rhetoric aside, the writing style betrays an underlying anti-intellectualism that pervades Viola's vision of the Church. He speaks often of how the institutional church of Protestantism depends so much on the intellectual sermon to build spirituality in its listeners--a practice that he and I would both agree has negatively affected the church. He also lambasts seminaries as being too academic (my experience with seminaries, interestingly enough, has tended towards the opposite direction)--opting for what he calls "Spirit-led, open-participatory meetings and non-hierarchical leadership" in the church: non-ordained, non-theologically trained leadership in the Church. I actually don't disagree with him, at least superficially, but I am concerned that a voice of studied reason within one of these meetings would be marginalized as not partaking enough of the "Spirit", where everyone brings a message, a psalm, and whatnot. While it seems that this was Paul's practice, as per the Corinthian correspondence, the first generation believers, even the Gentiles, had a greater grasp and understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures than most church members do today. I've heard highly educated people say some stupid things in church, but that doesn't mean theological education is a bad thing--it needs heavy reform. His system of apprenticeship (the "elders" teaching the youngin's of the congregation) would work as long as the "elders" were properly educated themselves--something he leaves up to the post of the "church-planter apostle" who gets trained by? The answer is unclear, but Viola presupposes some sort of "apostolic succession" (as all Christians do, whether they realize it or not), especially as he says that the ekklesia shouldn't follow the ways of the historical Church, but should follow its teachings (262). Here, though, is where the anti-intellectual bent of the book becomes positively schizophrenic. Viola, for all his historical research, has not combined the historical practice of the church with its historical beliefs. Would the Church have called synods, councils, creedal assemblies without the rise of the one-bishop rule, the college of bishops, and the institution of a clergy-laity system? Would our historical, creedal doctrines have taken the shape they did without the influence of the church-state marriage (both Arianism and Nicene orthodoxy were heavily politicized doctrines which gave the Caesar power of the decisions of the church--an outcome that was quickly regretted, but never alleviated by rethinking the doctrines outside of a pagan, Greco-Roman philosophical milieu)? Probably not. However, he says "the historic creeds can be helpful guideposts to keep a church on track when it comes to the essential teachings of the faith" (262). The problem is that with one goes the other: you cannot reject the teachings of ecclesial practice without calling into question the doctrines that gave rise to them. If one wants cake, one must eat it as well.
The Viola concept of worship also has some issues to be dealt with. Once again, the issue isn't necessarily evidence, but the way it is presented. Peppered throughout the book is that phrase already mentioned: "Spirit-led, open-participatory meetings and non-hierarchical leadership". The problem here is that Viola never really defines what that means. To figure it out, as footnote readers will quickly become weary and wary of, you must read some other book he has written. This tactic is less about saving space as it is about making money: to figure out how Church should really be, you must buy another book. To figure out God's "eternal purpose" other than "saving souls", you must buy another book. Not to mention that Viola never mentions any other books, by scholars perhaps?, that back up his view of the Church or God's eternal purpose. Only his own get highlighted. Of course, theology should never be dictated by the more learned, eh?
The "non-hierarchichal leadership" clause, repeated over and over again to provoke Pavlovian egalitarians to drool, is suspect. He speaks of "informal" elders and leadership, which is what I take his meaning behind "non-hierarchical" to mean, however any sort of leadership, no matter how fluid, is hierarchical. The family is made up of husband-wife-children hierarchy that is, yes, mutually submitting to one another (at least as Paul conceives it). Just because there is mutual submission does not take away that there is hierarchy. God-Jesus-Church also exhibits the same qualities ("God is the head of Christ; Christ is the head of the Church; etc"). Once again, just because Jesus submitted himself to die for the Church does not make an egalitarian situation: he is Lord Messiah, we are his ruling council (a meaning for ekklesia that Viola ignores). The problem he has, as readers of the book no doubt notice, is with a static leadership that creates passivity among the regular Joe Churchgoer (to borrow from the recent pagan presidential race). Fair enough, but the language used to describe what the Church should be needs to be precise and accurate. There is leadership in the people of God and it is hierarchical, just not rigidly so. The orthodox Jewish community, interestingly enough, gives some creedence to this view. The older members (dare we call them elders?) teach the younger members who will take their place in business, religious training, and social activity: it isn't rigid, even the rabbi has an outside job to support himself and he is always teaching other members of the community how to rightly exegete the Scripture and Talmudic tradition. Protestantism could learn a lot from this system, but hierarchy is still there. The question isn't hierarchy or no hierarchy, but which hierarchy?
So far, this has been a fairly negative review. However, I did appreciate the historical research and the clarifications that the book offered. If it were rewritten, it could be a major catalyst for change in the Christian world. However, as it stands, it is self-defeating and will only cause disappointment in the authors and in the lives of those who take up their style of polemic and ambiguous definitions.
Tuesday, November 04, 2008
For the Next Four Years
I don't know if you voted today or who will win. If you know me, you know that I don't care about either thing for various reasons. What I do care about, though, is seeing a change in the way we Americans do things. Politics, for what it is worth, is about the ability to extract involuntary taxes from various groups of the populace or the whole of the populace. Civil governments may use the resources for good things or bad things, but the point remains that civil government uses violence to collect taxes (Don't believe me? Then don't pay your taxes next year.) I do not believe that Obama or McCain, or anyone else for that matter, will be able to extract enough taxes or inflate/debase the currency enough to "solve" America's problems without creating massive new ones. So, over the next four years, regardless of who you voted for (or didn't), I'd like to ask you to join me in rethinking what politics are about. The only way to do that isn't really to waste our time discussing the relative merits of Socialist Warmonger A versus Warmongering Socialist B. Instead, during the next four years consider doing one of these things to become more self-governing:
--start a business that your community (within walking distance from your house) needs
--talk to a scared young girl who is pregnant and help her through the adoption system
--help an impoverished person to stand on their own two feet, regardless of whether their poverty is their fault or the systems or just plain bad-luck
--insulate your house
--repair a bike and use it for your small chores and errands and also to reduce your dependence on the Industrial-Military-Medical Complex
--learn to cook and share with your neighbors and the poor
--learn to bake and share with your neighbors and the poor
--learn to sew, mend, darn, resole, or some other task that could help your neighbors save money and reduce the relentless asinine commerce we are so subjected to
--learn to maintain and improve your house/rental property; look up the defintion of usufruct
--(from Kevin Craig) write/speak to a politician once a month about how they can reduce/eliminate taxes/government programs--make sure to tell them how you are reducing your and your neighbors dependence on them!
--grow your own vegetables/fruits, or exercise your consumer preference and power by helping local farmers meet your needs/demands
--help your neighbors/friends/family members settle a conflict peacefully
I'm sure there are other ways that we can act free, even though our freedoms are becoming less and less by the year. I'd love to hear your ideas in the comments.
--start a business that your community (within walking distance from your house) needs
--talk to a scared young girl who is pregnant and help her through the adoption system
--help an impoverished person to stand on their own two feet, regardless of whether their poverty is their fault or the systems or just plain bad-luck
--insulate your house
--repair a bike and use it for your small chores and errands and also to reduce your dependence on the Industrial-Military-Medical Complex
--learn to cook and share with your neighbors and the poor
--learn to bake and share with your neighbors and the poor
--learn to sew, mend, darn, resole, or some other task that could help your neighbors save money and reduce the relentless asinine commerce we are so subjected to
--learn to maintain and improve your house/rental property; look up the defintion of usufruct
--(from Kevin Craig) write/speak to a politician once a month about how they can reduce/eliminate taxes/government programs--make sure to tell them how you are reducing your and your neighbors dependence on them!
--grow your own vegetables/fruits, or exercise your consumer preference and power by helping local farmers meet your needs/demands
--help your neighbors/friends/family members settle a conflict peacefully
I'm sure there are other ways that we can act free, even though our freedoms are becoming less and less by the year. I'd love to hear your ideas in the comments.
Monday, October 20, 2008
The Snark, oh the Snark
This last week or so I've been confronted with the need for change. My sense of humor has been getting the best of myself and my friends, starting a slow process of alienation from them. I'd best explain...
Humor for me is a way of being. It is in my blood: my dad and his dad trading barbs, my dad and myself trading barbs, etc. It is our way of communicating. However, I'm noticing that it is also our way of keeping real human interaction to a minimum. When you snark someone, if they are not on the same wavelength as you (as no one really is), then it is going to push them away. I'm thankful enough that one of my friends told me to stop; another friend has drawn away, and I don't blame him.
Humor, in that way, is a means to power. If you tear someone down, even if it is "all in good fun", you position yourself in authority. You are better than them, even in a jocular sense. It is fitting to me, I guess, that this would be the form of power I struggle with. I've spent so much of my life avoided and forswearing power. I was warned by my collegiate advisor to be careful how I led; not to not lead, but to be wary of my own ability to sway people--an ability that at the time I didn't even know I had. Now, years later, I do know that I have that power and not just because I inhabit offices of authority as a business owner or professor. I've had friends tell me that they hang on every word I say, that they've changed their opinions because of mine. I've always been a tad bit confused about that, though, since I rarely actually set out to change anyone's opinion. In all my aversion to power, however, I developed a way to lead. Instead of working out some godly way to lead my family, my friends, my employees, and my students, I've turned to a sick sort of dark and malicious humor to assert dominance. It isn't a question of whether to exercise authority or not, but how authority is going to be exercised. I'm not, by nature and by gifting, a follower, but I've been so uncomfortable with leading that I don't know exactly how to do it rightly and justly.
And so, I set off down a long road of discipleship, always keeping in mind that passage in Matthew: "the Gentiles lord it over their subjects, but it shall not be so among you, whoever wants to be greatest shall become the servant of all." The pagans lord it over through malignant humor and I'm not called to be a pagan. Funny how my means of human connection do the exact opposite. Funnier still how I long ever more piquantly for connection with every barb I trade.
Humor for me is a way of being. It is in my blood: my dad and his dad trading barbs, my dad and myself trading barbs, etc. It is our way of communicating. However, I'm noticing that it is also our way of keeping real human interaction to a minimum. When you snark someone, if they are not on the same wavelength as you (as no one really is), then it is going to push them away. I'm thankful enough that one of my friends told me to stop; another friend has drawn away, and I don't blame him.
Humor, in that way, is a means to power. If you tear someone down, even if it is "all in good fun", you position yourself in authority. You are better than them, even in a jocular sense. It is fitting to me, I guess, that this would be the form of power I struggle with. I've spent so much of my life avoided and forswearing power. I was warned by my collegiate advisor to be careful how I led; not to not lead, but to be wary of my own ability to sway people--an ability that at the time I didn't even know I had. Now, years later, I do know that I have that power and not just because I inhabit offices of authority as a business owner or professor. I've had friends tell me that they hang on every word I say, that they've changed their opinions because of mine. I've always been a tad bit confused about that, though, since I rarely actually set out to change anyone's opinion. In all my aversion to power, however, I developed a way to lead. Instead of working out some godly way to lead my family, my friends, my employees, and my students, I've turned to a sick sort of dark and malicious humor to assert dominance. It isn't a question of whether to exercise authority or not, but how authority is going to be exercised. I'm not, by nature and by gifting, a follower, but I've been so uncomfortable with leading that I don't know exactly how to do it rightly and justly.
And so, I set off down a long road of discipleship, always keeping in mind that passage in Matthew: "the Gentiles lord it over their subjects, but it shall not be so among you, whoever wants to be greatest shall become the servant of all." The pagans lord it over through malignant humor and I'm not called to be a pagan. Funny how my means of human connection do the exact opposite. Funnier still how I long ever more piquantly for connection with every barb I trade.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
The End of the Exile
Now that Tom Wright has brought the concept of the exile to the mainstream conversation, there are some questions to be asked. That the "end of exile" is an important piece of salvation in Christ I take for granted. I recommend either Wright's The New Testament and the People of God or Brant Pitre's Jesus, the Tribulation, and the End of the Exile for starters.
The basic thrust is this: the end of the Babylonian (and in Pitre's arguement the Assyrian) exile is necessary for the Messianic "new age" to arrive. That is to say, one of the major promises made to Israel/Judah in the latter Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, etc.) is the return of these groups to "the land". Recently, while reading David Klingenhoffer's Why the Jews Rejected Jesus, I noticed that this reason for rejection came up often. It is, however, not a problem much dealt with in Christian theology: we tend to look at "return from exile" passages as
Rapture passages.
The problem arises, of course, because the return of either group, did not happen within Jesus' lifetime or Paul's. In fact, Paul, in his missionary journeys, seems to hedge more towards the one Abrahamic family of Jew and Gentile, even to leaving the synangogues (and the Jews therefore) when they responded in disbelief. However, this is balanced with his statements in Romans 9-11, where he speaks of the bringing in of the Gentiles (then followed by the Jews? depends on who you ask) as the "salvation of all Israel".
I think that Jesus, though, does talk about this. Compare Matthew 24:31 with Deuteronomy 30:1-5. The destruction of Jerusalem is tied directly to the return from exile; paradoxical, yet fitting as Jesus has cast Jerusalem into the role of Babylon and Assyria. However, it does still leave the question of how will God return the exiles, especially since "land" and "temple" have been redefined by the Messiah's appearance.
I'm beginning to think that "angels" as Matthew 24 has it is not the best translation. Better to go with "messangers"--Jesus sends out the messengers to gather the exiles unto himself; Paul speaks of the heralding of Christians bringing about the salvation of "all Israel". The exile has begun to end with Jesus; his people bring it to a definitive conclusion by their faithful work through his Spirit. Certainly gives a different look to evangelism.
The basic thrust is this: the end of the Babylonian (and in Pitre's arguement the Assyrian) exile is necessary for the Messianic "new age" to arrive. That is to say, one of the major promises made to Israel/Judah in the latter Prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, etc.) is the return of these groups to "the land". Recently, while reading David Klingenhoffer's Why the Jews Rejected Jesus, I noticed that this reason for rejection came up often. It is, however, not a problem much dealt with in Christian theology: we tend to look at "return from exile" passages as
Rapture passages.
The problem arises, of course, because the return of either group, did not happen within Jesus' lifetime or Paul's. In fact, Paul, in his missionary journeys, seems to hedge more towards the one Abrahamic family of Jew and Gentile, even to leaving the synangogues (and the Jews therefore) when they responded in disbelief. However, this is balanced with his statements in Romans 9-11, where he speaks of the bringing in of the Gentiles (then followed by the Jews? depends on who you ask) as the "salvation of all Israel".
I think that Jesus, though, does talk about this. Compare Matthew 24:31 with Deuteronomy 30:1-5. The destruction of Jerusalem is tied directly to the return from exile; paradoxical, yet fitting as Jesus has cast Jerusalem into the role of Babylon and Assyria. However, it does still leave the question of how will God return the exiles, especially since "land" and "temple" have been redefined by the Messiah's appearance.
I'm beginning to think that "angels" as Matthew 24 has it is not the best translation. Better to go with "messangers"--Jesus sends out the messengers to gather the exiles unto himself; Paul speaks of the heralding of Christians bringing about the salvation of "all Israel". The exile has begun to end with Jesus; his people bring it to a definitive conclusion by their faithful work through his Spirit. Certainly gives a different look to evangelism.
Sunday, September 28, 2008
John 14:2-6 in Historical Perspective
The Gospel of John is sort of like the highest peak in a mountain range. It is the benchmark by which all other mountains are measured: the mountaineers all boast of their ability to climb it, but few ever accomplish it. In modern American evangelicalism, however, those who have claimed to climb it have stridently asserted its ease for the newcomer to the faith, with many disastrous effects. John is, and will remain, one of the most opaque books in the Christian Scriptures. Almost every dialogue that Jesus has in it ends with confusion: whether Nicodemus, the "crowds", the "Jews/Judaeans", or his own disciples. Confusion seems to be a reigning theme throughout the book--while on the surface many things seem simple, even the "teachers of Israel" struggle with the words and actions of this mysterious Rabbi, whom John would claim as the historical embodiment of God's long-awaited message of salvation. This should warn us enough to not base entire systems of Christology, eccesiology, or soteriology upon the text: we don't understand it enough to do so. However, its mystery has led many to invent and propagate many doctrines that seem to work prima facie with the text, but do not upon further investigation. The text of chapter 14 has suffered much at the hands of neoPlatonic evangelicalism, so it is my focus today.
Looking at the mountain, however, I do not claim that it is easy to climb, or that I have successfully climbed it. I have not. The book largely remains a mystery to me, so I undertake this exegesis with a healthy amount of fear and trepidation: my interpretation of this passage, though I think it works well with the historical background and the overall message of the book, is tentative and subject to revision, both by me and by others more qualified than I. Such is the nature of all theology, even the theology that has long defined our communities of faith.
The keys to understanding this passage are two: the Temple and Jesus' Messiahship. That the book of John is primarily concerned with Jesus' claim of "Messiah" (and not, as is often supposed from the prologue, his divinity) is manifest from the end of the book: "...these are written that you may believe Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name" (20:31). What exactly that means, however, will take us to what the Messiah was to accomplish.
If the Messiah was supposed to be like David (his son, in fact) or like Solomon or like Zerubbabel in Zechariah, then his main activity was to be the building/restoration of the Temple, and therefore God's throne, for God's people. Any Messiah that did not accomplish a Temple-building action would not be a Messiah, but a fake and a fraud. Hence the charge laid at Jesus' feet in all the Gospels: "Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up." The Messiah would build and outfit the eschatological Temple expected since the days of Isaiah and the other great prophets. Part of this would be the "preparation" of various priestly rooms and vestibules in the Temple precincts--the places where they lived while on duty or cooked the sacrifices, etc. There were, judging from the accounts of Chronicles and Ezekiel (in the vision of the great eschatological Temple) many rooms.
But none of this would matter except that regularly in the Old Testament, the Temple was referred to--not with the Hebrew word for "temple" which was reserved to describe the holy of holies--by the word for "house". In other words, the Temple was "my Father's house".
Jesus, his face set towards the confrontation with the priests and the Pharisees, tells his disciples that he is going to accomplish the great Messianic act of building the true Temple of God. Once he has accomplished that, he will receive his disciples to himself, that is, he will install them as the true priests of God's Temple--not the disinherited Sadducees or the would-be defenders of Israel, the Pharisees. The disciples, because of their allegiance to this King, would be rewarded, much like the priests and aristocrats that followed David were rewarded once he finally had his rule established. So Jesus' statement, "and where I go you know, and the way you know" takes on a cryptic tenor to his disciples: he has filled them in with no details. They do not know the plan of attack, as it were, nor the strategy for rescuing God's Temple from the Romans or the Judaean leadership. So Thomas says, "Lord, we do not know where you are going, and how can we know the way?"
It is here that Jesus brings together his understanding of his vocation and God's eschatological plan. Jesus is not going to restore the Herodian Temple or prepare it for God's worship (which required the sacrifice of animals to "make atonement" for the altar and sanctuary, etc.). That Temple Jesus already judged and condemned in chapter two. Instead, Jesus is going to the cross to symbolically destroy the current Temple and raise a renewed, everlasting Temple in its place. "Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up" referred not to the Jerusalem Temple, as his interlocutors and false witnesses assumed, but rather to his body, his flesh that had been made the dwelling place of God's word, his plan of salvation. Now the "atonement" of God's final dwelling place with man would be secured by the death of the Messiah; the establishment of that Temple as where God would forever meet with his people, the connection between heaven and earth, would happen as that Temple was raised from the grave, never to be defiled (as the other Temples had been) and never to be destroyed. He would receive them to himself after his resurrection, making them cornerstones in his Temple, leaders over his body (the origin, I suppose, of Paul's metaphor).
The way to make this happen though, which the disciples must follow, is the way of Jesus' humiliation and crucifixion. They must follow, they must be faithful to his vision of what the Messiah is and is supposed to do, if they wish to be the priests who appear before the Father: there is no other way.
This interpretive schema, which has many resonances in the following verses ("we will come and make our home with him, etc."), brings together many disconcertingly fragmented bits of traditional Johannine interpretation. The indwelling logos from chapter one, the indwelling Spirit from chapter 14, the many claims to supersede the Herodian Temple and the Saduceean priesthood, and the tension between what was expected of the Messiah and Jesus' cryptic actions. It also pulls the interpretation out of some neoPlatonic and Philo-based worldview that posits Jesus as basically advocating non-Jewish mysticism and world-escapism. Instead, it puts Jesus squarely within the Jewish Scriptures and forces the choices that his disciples would have to make: not "pie-in-the-sky", but rather allegiance in the "here-and-now". Even on an initial ascent up the mountain, one can see that the ending vista is beautiful and even promises glimpses of the Promised Land.
Looking at the mountain, however, I do not claim that it is easy to climb, or that I have successfully climbed it. I have not. The book largely remains a mystery to me, so I undertake this exegesis with a healthy amount of fear and trepidation: my interpretation of this passage, though I think it works well with the historical background and the overall message of the book, is tentative and subject to revision, both by me and by others more qualified than I. Such is the nature of all theology, even the theology that has long defined our communities of faith.
"In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself; that where I am, you may also be. And where I go you know, and the way you know." Thomas said to him, "Lord we do not know where you are going and how can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me."
The keys to understanding this passage are two: the Temple and Jesus' Messiahship. That the book of John is primarily concerned with Jesus' claim of "Messiah" (and not, as is often supposed from the prologue, his divinity) is manifest from the end of the book: "...these are written that you may believe Jesus is the Christ, the son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name" (20:31). What exactly that means, however, will take us to what the Messiah was to accomplish.
If the Messiah was supposed to be like David (his son, in fact) or like Solomon or like Zerubbabel in Zechariah, then his main activity was to be the building/restoration of the Temple, and therefore God's throne, for God's people. Any Messiah that did not accomplish a Temple-building action would not be a Messiah, but a fake and a fraud. Hence the charge laid at Jesus' feet in all the Gospels: "Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up." The Messiah would build and outfit the eschatological Temple expected since the days of Isaiah and the other great prophets. Part of this would be the "preparation" of various priestly rooms and vestibules in the Temple precincts--the places where they lived while on duty or cooked the sacrifices, etc. There were, judging from the accounts of Chronicles and Ezekiel (in the vision of the great eschatological Temple) many rooms.
But none of this would matter except that regularly in the Old Testament, the Temple was referred to--not with the Hebrew word for "temple" which was reserved to describe the holy of holies--by the word for "house". In other words, the Temple was "my Father's house".
Jesus, his face set towards the confrontation with the priests and the Pharisees, tells his disciples that he is going to accomplish the great Messianic act of building the true Temple of God. Once he has accomplished that, he will receive his disciples to himself, that is, he will install them as the true priests of God's Temple--not the disinherited Sadducees or the would-be defenders of Israel, the Pharisees. The disciples, because of their allegiance to this King, would be rewarded, much like the priests and aristocrats that followed David were rewarded once he finally had his rule established. So Jesus' statement, "and where I go you know, and the way you know" takes on a cryptic tenor to his disciples: he has filled them in with no details. They do not know the plan of attack, as it were, nor the strategy for rescuing God's Temple from the Romans or the Judaean leadership. So Thomas says, "Lord, we do not know where you are going, and how can we know the way?"
It is here that Jesus brings together his understanding of his vocation and God's eschatological plan. Jesus is not going to restore the Herodian Temple or prepare it for God's worship (which required the sacrifice of animals to "make atonement" for the altar and sanctuary, etc.). That Temple Jesus already judged and condemned in chapter two. Instead, Jesus is going to the cross to symbolically destroy the current Temple and raise a renewed, everlasting Temple in its place. "Destroy this Temple and in three days I will raise it up" referred not to the Jerusalem Temple, as his interlocutors and false witnesses assumed, but rather to his body, his flesh that had been made the dwelling place of God's word, his plan of salvation. Now the "atonement" of God's final dwelling place with man would be secured by the death of the Messiah; the establishment of that Temple as where God would forever meet with his people, the connection between heaven and earth, would happen as that Temple was raised from the grave, never to be defiled (as the other Temples had been) and never to be destroyed. He would receive them to himself after his resurrection, making them cornerstones in his Temple, leaders over his body (the origin, I suppose, of Paul's metaphor).
The way to make this happen though, which the disciples must follow, is the way of Jesus' humiliation and crucifixion. They must follow, they must be faithful to his vision of what the Messiah is and is supposed to do, if they wish to be the priests who appear before the Father: there is no other way.
This interpretive schema, which has many resonances in the following verses ("we will come and make our home with him, etc."), brings together many disconcertingly fragmented bits of traditional Johannine interpretation. The indwelling logos from chapter one, the indwelling Spirit from chapter 14, the many claims to supersede the Herodian Temple and the Saduceean priesthood, and the tension between what was expected of the Messiah and Jesus' cryptic actions. It also pulls the interpretation out of some neoPlatonic and Philo-based worldview that posits Jesus as basically advocating non-Jewish mysticism and world-escapism. Instead, it puts Jesus squarely within the Jewish Scriptures and forces the choices that his disciples would have to make: not "pie-in-the-sky", but rather allegiance in the "here-and-now". Even on an initial ascent up the mountain, one can see that the ending vista is beautiful and even promises glimpses of the Promised Land.
Saturday, August 09, 2008
The Difference Between Desire and Actuality
I want to write.
I want to write about love and hate, freedom and tyranny, theology and everyday life, thoughts I have and thoughts I should have had (and hope aren't copyrighted intellectual property), about education and its enemy schooling, about what makes me tick, about the Church and her Lord and the world it wants--wrongly--to leave behind.
But every time I start, something comes up. A new thought, a twist in the mind that changes how I feel, and the uncomfortable humility needed to express possible wrongness. I need to live under the general impression of rightness, we all do, but wisdom is recognizing the tenuousness of our positions, the need to rethink, to disagree with ourselves a year, ten years, or a few seconds later. But that is hard to do--with writing comes a commanding presence, a sit-up-and-implement to your audience that is difficult to retract. Even though I'm in no realistic position to start riots, revolutions, or rebellions, my words are still heard somewhere, even if it is only in my own head, where I tend to be the most impressionable. And what about my students? I'm not haughty enough to believe that any listen to me a second longer than they have to (many don't listen to me during the seconds required anyway), but what if? The power of the written word is not to be taken lightly, you never know where you are going to be quoted. Teachers have the harsher judgement, so do marketers, the teachers of our age, or at least the ones we actually listen to.
Think about that famous line from Isaiah: "My word shall not return to me void, but accomplish the purpose for which I sent it." The word, the message of God's love for the world so that He would sacrifice His Son, the message made tangible made flesh, the word saying "it is finished" with Isaiah not far in the background.
And yet.
I wrestle, in both my professions, with content-less words. In coffee, since taste is largely (but not totally) subjective, descriptors of coffee, of drinks, is tentative and sometimes plain misleading. The concept of quality has lost almost all meaning due to the collusion of national, lowest-common-denominator chains and poor excuses for independent shops claiming the high ground simply because they are trying to out-Starbucks Starbucks. In religious education, since the Bible has been misused every since the first word was spoken, by charlatans and the righteous alike--injecting meaning in the words to fit a preconceived paradigm inside of seeking the meaning-filling given to the words by the original authors (a process, it must be noted, that never ends, hence our endless obsession with having the words defined once-for-all for us by confessions, creeds, and traditions, themselves a process, woe!). Words thusly treated, whether by "baristas" or "theologians" become meaningless, but still retain power because they can mean whatever the more powerful want them to mean.
And yet.
The meek shall inherit the earth. The haughty, the prideful, the powerful shall be disinherited, not only from the Kingdom of God, but the earth as well, but the world of language as well too. Language is truly powerful when it most closely conforms to the usage of the Kingdom; when the Spirit fills mere human words with power to image the inSpirited Word; when 'yes' means 'yes' and 'no' 'no'.
Language only works for us when we reject the hubris of being God/god/gods and be humans, with all the interpretive difficulties that are part of our created nature. Inheritance implies power, meekness implies the lack of power, but the phrase makes sense since to think of ourselves as the prime meaning-makers of our words brutalizes the speaker and the listener, destroying the power that was sought after; whereas words properly placed edify--construct like the New Jerusalem--speaker and hearer in the presence of God.
I want to write about love and hate, freedom and tyranny, theology and everyday life, thoughts I have and thoughts I should have had (and hope aren't copyrighted intellectual property), about education and its enemy schooling, about what makes me tick, about the Church and her Lord and the world it wants--wrongly--to leave behind.
But every time I start, something comes up. A new thought, a twist in the mind that changes how I feel, and the uncomfortable humility needed to express possible wrongness. I need to live under the general impression of rightness, we all do, but wisdom is recognizing the tenuousness of our positions, the need to rethink, to disagree with ourselves a year, ten years, or a few seconds later. But that is hard to do--with writing comes a commanding presence, a sit-up-and-implement to your audience that is difficult to retract. Even though I'm in no realistic position to start riots, revolutions, or rebellions, my words are still heard somewhere, even if it is only in my own head, where I tend to be the most impressionable. And what about my students? I'm not haughty enough to believe that any listen to me a second longer than they have to (many don't listen to me during the seconds required anyway), but what if? The power of the written word is not to be taken lightly, you never know where you are going to be quoted. Teachers have the harsher judgement, so do marketers, the teachers of our age, or at least the ones we actually listen to.
Think about that famous line from Isaiah: "My word shall not return to me void, but accomplish the purpose for which I sent it." The word, the message of God's love for the world so that He would sacrifice His Son, the message made tangible made flesh, the word saying "it is finished" with Isaiah not far in the background.
And yet.
I wrestle, in both my professions, with content-less words. In coffee, since taste is largely (but not totally) subjective, descriptors of coffee, of drinks, is tentative and sometimes plain misleading. The concept of quality has lost almost all meaning due to the collusion of national, lowest-common-denominator chains and poor excuses for independent shops claiming the high ground simply because they are trying to out-Starbucks Starbucks. In religious education, since the Bible has been misused every since the first word was spoken, by charlatans and the righteous alike--injecting meaning in the words to fit a preconceived paradigm inside of seeking the meaning-filling given to the words by the original authors (a process, it must be noted, that never ends, hence our endless obsession with having the words defined once-for-all for us by confessions, creeds, and traditions, themselves a process, woe!). Words thusly treated, whether by "baristas" or "theologians" become meaningless, but still retain power because they can mean whatever the more powerful want them to mean.
And yet.
The meek shall inherit the earth. The haughty, the prideful, the powerful shall be disinherited, not only from the Kingdom of God, but the earth as well, but the world of language as well too. Language is truly powerful when it most closely conforms to the usage of the Kingdom; when the Spirit fills mere human words with power to image the inSpirited Word; when 'yes' means 'yes' and 'no' 'no'.
Language only works for us when we reject the hubris of being God/god/gods and be humans, with all the interpretive difficulties that are part of our created nature. Inheritance implies power, meekness implies the lack of power, but the phrase makes sense since to think of ourselves as the prime meaning-makers of our words brutalizes the speaker and the listener, destroying the power that was sought after; whereas words properly placed edify--construct like the New Jerusalem--speaker and hearer in the presence of God.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
The Beaver Falls Manifesto: Part Two
In part one of the BFM, I said this:
"God has called his people, the Church, to be leaders is restoring this world (and all its parts) to their original created purpose and glory." Part two, I hope, will help to unpack this statement in a practical way. If you are any sort of a regular reader of this blog, then you will know that my idea of what the Church is and is supposed to be about has changed over the years. I am much more "high" Church than before, yet hold tenaciously to the "democratic" impulse behind Ephesians 4. My individualism has in many respects broadened to be cognizant of community, especially that of the Church. Individualism becomes idolatry if it is not subservient to God's sovereignty, which commands and commends care and love towards the Church, the community of God's people in this world. The difficulty with doing this, though, is that it is too abstract. Oftentimes, loving the saints means inaction and sentiment. If the Church is placed, though, is neighborhooded, then that love can take great form and can overflow into the mission of the Church--the healing of the world, starting with the neighborhoods and cities we are in here and now. With that said, here now are some propositions for the second part of the Beaver Falls Manifesto. As always, these are incomplete thoughts to be refined and expanded in community dialogue and action.
I. If the Church is to lead the way in the God-ordained restoration of Creation here in Beaver Falls, it must become both more unified and more diversified. More unified in that individual churches must recognize their unity in Christ, based on his historical work of redemption. Regardless of what we think about the fineries of theology or the subtleties of practice, what we are and what our mission is is based on the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. More diversified in the sense that our churches must become more neighborhooded as their primary concern. The old parish model, long abandoned in this area (and in Protestantism generally), has much merit to commend it. Churches, as much as possible, should serve the needs of the neighborhoods immediately surrounding them, not the needs of far-off places. As much as possible, our membership rolls should reflect the local demographic and be filled with local addresses. This is not to say that outside members should not be accepted (such would be foolish), but that those from outside the walkable area around the church should be trained and equipped to set up a community church from their area, or given the tools to reform wayward churches that are already there.
II. The Church must expand its concept of its mission to be more in line with that of Romans 8 and similar passages. The Church's job, its God-given mission, is not "saving of souls" in a dualistic sense, that is, of "getting people to heaven." The Church's mission, as always, is to be the agent through which "Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Jesus has already done the great eschatological act of inaugurating the kingdom through his death, resurrection, and enthronement; our job is to continue, by his Spirit, the work of restoration through the proclamation of the gospel. The gospel comes with power, the power to see things changed, not to try and escape. The goal is not to escape to heaven, but to bring the order, the shalom, of heaven into the earth in anticipation of the Day when both heaven and earth shall be renewed.
III. The Church, as a neighborhooded people, has claims that it may rightly make on its covenanted members. (Here I must be careful, as I do not believe that the unwieldy and bloated bureaucracy of much of the "Church" is a true representation of what the Church really is). The work of the Church, the rebuilding and restoration of its local areas through its neighborhood churches (note the capitalization distinction), is more important than school or athletics or business. In the life of the people of God (what I mean by Church) all of these loyalties find their true expression in Christ--the ultimate loyalty lies in Christ alone. However, in this loyalty to Christ alone, we see Scripturally the place of the Church by his side. This is where the distinction between Church and church becomes vitally important. The Church is the life of the people of God, that collection of all God's saints, the ones who are called by Him to do His will on earth. The church is the local body of believers, whether in a neighborhood, a presbytery, a denomination, or a sect (Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, what have you). The church is the institution; the Church is the people. In that sense, the specific action of the church (corporate worship) must not claim superiority over the total lives of the Church. A fine distinction, but an important one nonetheless.
More to Come...
"God has called his people, the Church, to be leaders is restoring this world (and all its parts) to their original created purpose and glory." Part two, I hope, will help to unpack this statement in a practical way. If you are any sort of a regular reader of this blog, then you will know that my idea of what the Church is and is supposed to be about has changed over the years. I am much more "high" Church than before, yet hold tenaciously to the "democratic" impulse behind Ephesians 4. My individualism has in many respects broadened to be cognizant of community, especially that of the Church. Individualism becomes idolatry if it is not subservient to God's sovereignty, which commands and commends care and love towards the Church, the community of God's people in this world. The difficulty with doing this, though, is that it is too abstract. Oftentimes, loving the saints means inaction and sentiment. If the Church is placed, though, is neighborhooded, then that love can take great form and can overflow into the mission of the Church--the healing of the world, starting with the neighborhoods and cities we are in here and now. With that said, here now are some propositions for the second part of the Beaver Falls Manifesto. As always, these are incomplete thoughts to be refined and expanded in community dialogue and action.
I. If the Church is to lead the way in the God-ordained restoration of Creation here in Beaver Falls, it must become both more unified and more diversified. More unified in that individual churches must recognize their unity in Christ, based on his historical work of redemption. Regardless of what we think about the fineries of theology or the subtleties of practice, what we are and what our mission is is based on the death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth. More diversified in the sense that our churches must become more neighborhooded as their primary concern. The old parish model, long abandoned in this area (and in Protestantism generally), has much merit to commend it. Churches, as much as possible, should serve the needs of the neighborhoods immediately surrounding them, not the needs of far-off places. As much as possible, our membership rolls should reflect the local demographic and be filled with local addresses. This is not to say that outside members should not be accepted (such would be foolish), but that those from outside the walkable area around the church should be trained and equipped to set up a community church from their area, or given the tools to reform wayward churches that are already there.
II. The Church must expand its concept of its mission to be more in line with that of Romans 8 and similar passages. The Church's job, its God-given mission, is not "saving of souls" in a dualistic sense, that is, of "getting people to heaven." The Church's mission, as always, is to be the agent through which "Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." Jesus has already done the great eschatological act of inaugurating the kingdom through his death, resurrection, and enthronement; our job is to continue, by his Spirit, the work of restoration through the proclamation of the gospel. The gospel comes with power, the power to see things changed, not to try and escape. The goal is not to escape to heaven, but to bring the order, the shalom, of heaven into the earth in anticipation of the Day when both heaven and earth shall be renewed.
III. The Church, as a neighborhooded people, has claims that it may rightly make on its covenanted members. (Here I must be careful, as I do not believe that the unwieldy and bloated bureaucracy of much of the "Church" is a true representation of what the Church really is). The work of the Church, the rebuilding and restoration of its local areas through its neighborhood churches (note the capitalization distinction), is more important than school or athletics or business. In the life of the people of God (what I mean by Church) all of these loyalties find their true expression in Christ--the ultimate loyalty lies in Christ alone. However, in this loyalty to Christ alone, we see Scripturally the place of the Church by his side. This is where the distinction between Church and church becomes vitally important. The Church is the life of the people of God, that collection of all God's saints, the ones who are called by Him to do His will on earth. The church is the local body of believers, whether in a neighborhood, a presbytery, a denomination, or a sect (Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, what have you). The church is the institution; the Church is the people. In that sense, the specific action of the church (corporate worship) must not claim superiority over the total lives of the Church. A fine distinction, but an important one nonetheless.
More to Come...
Sunday, July 06, 2008
Science V. Faith
The old division of science against faith doesn't work. "Faith," properly understood, is just another term for allegiance, for loyalty. The modern scientific worldview itself calls out for loyalty, not unlike the various Christian scientific perspectives. As Dooyeweerd or Clouser or Seerveld might suggest, all knowledge comes out of a faith commitment--an allegiance--to some god or God or gods. The question, rather, is "hubris v. mystery" of which both science--the human study of the Creation, and religion--the human expression of Creator worship, can partake. In the public debate about evolution and creationism, religion is seen by many as the embattled, somewhat quaint, needs-to-be-defended part against the ruthless, "atheistic" science. However, it wasn't that long ago that various "religious" faiths battled all over Europe for the domination of regular people trying to live their lives. France, as I've heard from missionaries, still carries the scars. Religious hubris, whether "Christian" or "scientific", is still a plague.
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