A Process-Based Reading of the Living God and His Word

 

A Process-Based Reading of the Living God and His Word

I woke up today still burdened by a subject I'm not sure how to approach. My burden is that I cannot get past the idea of how many in the church, including the church itself, is reading the bible heretically.

Reading the bible plainly (or literally) has caused a lot of unloving words and deeds to be done in the name of the God of Love. Reading the bible spiritually (metaphorically or allegorically) is also unhelpful in that it gets away from the historical nature of God's revelation being communicated to ancient peoples many years ago.

Comparative literary analysis has been a large help when approaching the bible from a historical, grammatical, and contextual point of study. But it also neglects reading the bible from an evolving sociological, psychological, and philosophical point of study (or, paradigms; sic, sociological frames of context).

These last three areas especially have caused theologians and philosophers to question how we are reading the bible today. The question before us then is this:

"Is God's revelation always a product of being in a relationship with the God of the universe? Or did God speak once, and we are left alone with only the bible as God's spokeman?"

The short answer is yes. The bible is not God's only means of revelation, but that God is always present and communicating with us through His Spirit as individuals, communities, and societies.

More so, because of humanity's long histories of societal experience we have been evolving in our generations and civilizations in our attitudes of love, responsibility, and identity of ourselves in relation to each other, the world at large, and to very creation itself.

Is the Bible Relevant?

My first burden is that our 21st century ideas of society will not be found in civilizations thousands of years before us. Yes, smatterings of them, but not in any cohesive, formulated, or directional way. The beauty of process-based cultural history is that each succeeding generation and regional cultural has its own unique beliefs and identities. We learn from one another when we study the past as well as study the present. But we cannot expect to find any one generation or culture to have lived and thought "perfect lives and perfect thoughts". It’s never been done and never will be done. Not even in the bible. That is to say, the bible is a time-dated study of ancient cultural beliefs which have some pertinence today and some not (cultural dress, foods, practices, and idiom for one).

Saying this means that in a process-based world its very nature is one of evolving from one moment to the next. This was true for bible people then and cultures of their time even as it is true for us now in our generations and varied histories. We are always evolving as a creation; always, concrecsing forwards (growing, moving uniquely forwards). It may be two steps forwards and one step backwards; it may be with interation, interruption and discontinuity; it may be with harm and death; but it always forwards on a path of survival, wellbeing, and restorative livelihood.

We live in a processed based world. A world God inhabits and has given His essence too. Not only by His design but created from God's Essence. Which is why creation is always moving forwards restlessly, generatively. And as it moves forward it restores, it creates opportunities for goodness and wellbeing, it seeks for peace, harmony, and balance. Evolution in its essence is a process filled with God Himself. Its nature can be fierce and wonderful, unique and uniquely in motion, resplendent and dangerous, in the exercise of its God-given freedom.

Saying this means for me that those oral transcribers who wrote down the legends of the bible had their own beliefs and societal standards even as the oral histories of the originators had their own beliefs and cultural worldviews. But being time-bound, whether Abraham, Joseph, Moses, the Judges, Kings, and Prophets, or the generations after them writing and re-writing down those stories, none of those historical events and personages could escape their own or, their society's, evolving thoughts and ideas about God, themselves, and their place and purpose in this life.

How Are We to Read the Bible?

Which brings me back to my burden. Is the bible written down perfectly? Or was it meant as a starting point for communication between God and man? If we take the "magic" out of the transmission process where traditional systematics teach that God wrote the bible ONCE AND FOR ALL using men and women to communicate His revealed Word, then we are left with a God using time-bound evolving culture's to communicate an early expressive theology that ended with its expression.

An earlier theology which wasn't intended to be complete nor completed when speaking of an infinitely evolving God amid an evolving, dynamic creation. I say an "evolving" God because of His experience with an evolving creation. God's experience with creation is moment-by-moment just as creation experiences itself. And I like the word infinite in that it speaks more fully of a process-based creation, if not of God Himself as He is in eternal process with creation as its Creator.

Is it correct then to state the bible to be a record of an earlier, ancient theology serving as a means to begin collectively thinking about God and learning to listen to Him through His Spirit? If so, then the bible isn't fully as evolved in its theology as we would like to think of it as. And if not, then we must admit the bible's theology is historically bound by its theologies and philosophies of its earlier cultures.

This seems a radical proposition but perhaps we shouldn't regard the bible as the once-and-for-all definite word of God. When we have its follows have committed some very un-godlike thinking and actions in their day. A processed-based reading of the bible would regard it as a product of its times and a beginning point for discussion re ethics, morality, and even the atonement of God through Jesus.

So then, how are we to be guided by the bible if we cannot be guided by its stories and illustrations? Might I simply suggest we be guided by the Author of the bible Himself? By Jesus and His words and deeds? By the idea of God's love and what it means to be loving?

If so, then when reading of the violence of Israel towards its neighbors in the Old Testament, or the violence at the end of the world as perceived by five hundred years of speculative eschatologists of the time (from the third century BC to the second century AD) may not be what God is intending. Violence is never love. And preaching a God of violence is antithetical to God's essence (nature) as a God of love. But isn't God a God of judgment? Hmmm, let's discuss that next....

Sin and Evil

Holding the belief that God is in control of everything may have been how one thought of God in ancient times but after centuries and centuries of sin and evil one can say in the affirmative that God is not in control of everything. In the Old Testament I read again and again the sentiment by the biblical ancients that if God is God then He is always in control. Thinking through in the New Testament of Jesus' words and His sentiments on this subject of God being in control we Jesus' word to be a bit more nuanced yet those who later wrote down His words in the early church - as well as the apostles' revelations - came back to their own societal beliefs and restrictions claiming a controlling God.

Since the bible is a product of its historical generations I wouldn't expect NOT to see these sentiments. It is exactly what I expect to find - that the OT and NT are fully consistent in speaking of God as a controlling God of historical events and coming futures. This is borne out by the biblical text as by product of its ancient transcribers. And yet, God is not a controlling God. Why is this? Let me suggest a couple of ideas....

Because God gave to man freewill it is implicit that with freewill comes an undetermined future. Each are part-and-parcel of the other being divine gifts granted creation. To say God is in "control" is not necessarily the best word to use then - even though the sentiment wishes to give the God of creation and of its salvation His rightful place of glory and honor. The problem of theodicy - that is of sin and evil - in a free willed world can be stated immediately that by its nature God cannot be in control. We are using the wrong word to express how we think of God's sovereignty.

Lately, the problem of theodicy is being answered in redirecting the idea of theodicy back upon what a God of love would do when creating a free willed creation. Originally I thought God "chose" to give man freewill but, I've learned since then that creational freewill originated because of God's love. Love is not a choice. In its essence divine love means the ability to choose as well as to live in an open, undetermined future.

ORPT

Thus, the Arminian-based (sic, Wesleyan) idea of an "Open and Relational (Process-based) Theology" has been born to answer the problem of theodicy. ORPT states God is fully sovereign but not in control of creation. Rather, God is a fully-pledge participant with creation in its direction, evolvement, and fulfillment. Though God is not in control of indeterminate, freewill event and future, God is fully imbued within creational structures by gifting creation with His Essence, His Spirit if you will, which flows through all things.

That sin and evil are is because they are the other half of the coin of goodness and love. This defines freewill. The choice between good and evil. Creation is both a product of good and evil even as it struggles against it to find its fulfillment in obedience and submission to its essence. That essence being of course the essence of God. It is no mystery to see this eternal struggle in the evolution not only of creation but in humanity's society evolution to find goodness, beauty, and love in this world. As long as creation exists so too will this titanic struggle continue.

Given this, when re-reading of the bible's ancient cultural dispositions we see that earlier generations really had a difficult time in describing how God is God and yet not in control of everything. the Process philosopher and theologian will say that this is not a problem. God is in control but in a different kind of way. God's control is one which releases creation to become what it was made to become. Who empowers creation to overcome sin and evil? To become that which is kind and loving, good and holy. God doesn't "force" a free willed creation to become this, God "assists" a free willed creation in becoming what it was made for; that is, for unbounded fellowship with itself and with its God.

Again, finding these sentiments in the bible can be found, it’s just that those oral legends and transcribed records believed in theological ideas of a "controlling God". The ancients did not have the many-centuries "backwards" look we have today of wars, revolution, societal experiments, enlightenment, dis-enlightenment, and so forth. Our backwards look gives us the advantage to speak of God in a different way than earlier, evolving generations were able to think of God. But again, in a process world, nothing is static, not even our beliefs.

Conclusion

Is it fully allowable then that God may be perceived as speaking to us through our own generations, commentaries, and preaching? Sure, why not? God is always communication to creation. To the trees, rocks, wind, earth, moon, and stars. Why not then mankind?

How God spoke and was perceived by the ancients is no less different in our generations today. God's bible is in the people who speak for God, who disagree with heretical church sentiments and beliefs, who write, who author, who reflect philosophically on God and consider what our scientific and academic discoveries are telling us about God today.

I would fully expect an "incomprehensible" God to be an evolving story of "comprehensibility." That is, God began with ancient primal man in his thoughts who thought "just maybe, there was a God, perhaps a God beyond all other Gods" (read James A. Michener's book, The Source). From there, the "story of God" has been evolving... even unto this day.

All that can be said of a God of love and salvation can never be said in several generations, not even across many generations. The Story of God is an evolving story of enlargement, beauty, holism, and grandness. I, for one, am not surprised that what I thought I knew about God continues to surprise me. Surprise me in that God continues to become larger than the God I thought I knew and been taught to know by wise and holy men and women.

The bible of common men and women was becoming a collection of narratives of holy-and-unholy men-and-women learning who God is in their lives. (1) This God is always in the state of revealing Himself beyond our imaginations. (2) That the bible is a product of its times, albeit many, many centuries earlier. But (3) when its stories ended its lessons did not. The bible is being written and re-written by the philosophers and theologians of every century. Its lessons are being written upon our heart by the Spirit of God breathing into our imaginations what a God of love means to the generations of today.

This God of the bible is not static. God is a "living, breathing, relational cosmic entity" who wishes to be in a living relationship with us as we face an open future of good and bad.

Our story is God's story even as God's story can be our story. The Spirit presence and relationship we have with the divine is manifold: From a simple walk on the beach to a walk on the moon; from beholding the wonder of our firstborn to the wonder we find in the books of the academics; from sliding into Homeplate without a prayer of a chance of making it, to looking up at the twinkling stars far above.

The Wonder of God is everywhere, and we shouldn't be surprised not to hear His Voice upon the deeps of heavy hearts awashed the sins and evils of the day. A God who speaks against the unfairness and injustice of society being committed towards each other. Who speaks through its newspapers, through podcasts, even through social media, challenging hearts, motives, and purposes. The bible is being rewritten afresh upon the hearts of God's people speaking out against the ill we are doing to God's Self, His love, His salvation, to one another, and to His creation.

The bible is every bit of our experience today even as God was back then in the ancient's lives. We may think of the bible as a one-time revelation - or as a series of one-time revelations - but what if it was marking the "officious" beginning of God speaking to mankind all the time, in every way possible?

What if the bible is not a dead thing but an expanding compendium reaching beyond old, dead-and-gone, cultural thinking of God, to the best of humanity's thoughts, discoveries, and deeds of God? That instead of thinking of the bible in literal ways as a collection of stories time-bound and time-dated in its theologies, that instead we might consider the bible's lessons as the first steps of humanity towards understanding and developing Christ-centered theologies emphasizing God's love and His work of redemption throughout the concourses of humanity's livelihoods?

God has not ceased speaking. God is speaking everywhere and in every way. Through every culture, every generation, and every soul burdened to resist evil and speak for right and truth. Do not think only one agency, the church, may speak for God. When such agencies lose their way, God finds the rocks of this world to speak out His Word like the turbulent winds sent across the treetops. Words of weight and infinite wisdom. 

God raises up babies from carpenter's cradles to challenge the establishment. From raises up the cries of the Church Fathers, the burdens of missionaries, revolutionaries, scientists, novelists, poets, and orators. God raises up the children of the next generation to re-right the lostness of their parent's generations. To stand against unrighteousness and war. To seek revolutionary ways to not lose this earth to the plagues we have unleashed upon it. God's prophets and disciples of this world is the now generation willing to envision a God who is beyond our imaginations. A God whose mystery continues to amaze us as we study His heavens, His creation, one another, and the wisdom of the ages.

Be amazed. God speaks today!

R.E. Slater
October 21, 2020

I wrote a helpful parallel article some months later

which may be pertinent to the discussion here:

Integral Hermeneutics ala

Kurt Godel's Incompleteness Theorems:

The Post-Structuralism of the

Hermeneutics of Belief or Suspicion

Living in the Days of Our Ancestors: Doing the Unpopular Thing

Burning the Witches of Salem

Truly we are living in the days of our ancestors where choosing what is good and right is seldom done. We join with our ancestors when we show indifference, or stand to the side, allowing deceiving popularism to determine self rights over human rights.

So then, the question of all questions we must ask ourselves as bible believing Christians is this - "Why is it we always pretend we're Able, and not Cain? The Prophet, and not the one stoning them? Jesus, rather than the Pharisee?"

Very seldom are we the former and usually we are the latter. The scoundrel, the rogue, the charlatan, the thief, the wicked, and false follower of the way, the truth, and the light.

In point of fact, we would have killed the witches of Salem, drowned the baptizing Baptists with their families, stood actively against Black Civil Rights, and participated in the genocide of America's aboriginal tribes.

So why is it when we look at our narrative we always tell ourselves we are the good guys in the story of God's renewal rather than the bad guys which is more likely the case?

Simply, because we always think of ourselves as heroic when the opposite is true.

It is hard to stand up against popularism and speak out. Because it is hard to be courageous though the way of God's love demands it. To embrace the undesirable, be the voice of the oppressed, the giver to the unwanted, the compassionate to the despised.

It takes a rare courage to do what's right and act out love - but no courage at all to stand indifferently to the sidelines actively spectating against the right and the good, the wise and the beautiful.

The bible tells us we are always the Abel, the stoners, the Pharisee, and never the good guy unless we show ourselves to be courageously willing to stand up against fickled popular opinion.

Thus is the way of life to which the bible speaks, Jesus preached, and God's heroes lived and died.

R.E. Slater

February 9, 2017

"What Jesus seems to be suggesting here is that we find ourselves repeating the sins of our ancestors because we have deluded ourselves into imagining that we’re better than them and that “we would not have taken part with them.” Once we convince ourselves that “if we had lived in the days of our ancestors” we would have done better, we make ourselves extremely susceptible to doing exactly as they had done, behaving exactly as they behaved, choosing exactly as they chose." - Fred Clark, The Slacktivist

Matthew 23:29-36

New Revised Standard Version (NRSV)

29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous, 30 and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 Thus you testify against yourselves that you are descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your ancestors. 33 You snakes, you brood of vipers! How can you escape being sentenced to hell?[a] 34 Therefore I send you prophets, sages, and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, 35 so that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. 36 Truly I tell you, all this will come upon this generation.

A Christian Message to the Violent Reading of the Bible

The problem is that instead of following Jesus, people follow the Bible. The Bible

is good if you see it as a progressive, incremental revelation of God finding it’s

fullness in Jesus (meaning that all revelation before him was inferior). Jesus IS the

point. He IS God incarnate. If there is something in the Old Testament that seems

to contradict Jesus, always go with Jesus. - Jacob Wright, 12.19.15

Three cheers and a hearty welcome to Jacob Wright's thoughtfully produced vision of why we should read the bible with a Jesus-lens and not proceed with our own religious group's boundary thinking version of God.

Violence in the OT is one of the ways we can see this type of "outcome theology" which produces "outcome politics" as we stated in a recent article. If a bible reader comes to the bible treating all parts of it with equal authority-and-force than this is what is known as a "flat reading or projection of its parts across its breadth." A flat reading does not distinguish societal era, cultural event, or humanitarian movement under this kind of interpretive microscope. Rather, it equally weights biblical teachings about God from a society's "outcome-based" theological perspective preferring one's own interpretation of God and the world over other interpretive frameworks.

Importantly, the bible is not only a "book about God" (theology) but it is also a "book about people" (anthropology). It tells us of our motives, our struggles, our sin and our self-righteousness by projecting our actions upon a God whom we define through the lenses of ourselves. When Jesus came to humanity in the NT He declared to His people that the only lens of God you will ever need is Jesus' own interpretation of God by His gospel teachings and examples of sacrificial ministries to others. This is a very important observation to make. It should stop us cold in our minds and hearts demanding of us to hear Jesus and do this very thing.

As a result, Jesus is the new standard bearer for interpreting the Old and New Testaments. For example, how might we read the Book of Revelation? If from a flat, literalistic perspective we might read it as a violent apocalyptic led by a bloody Jesus forcifully imposing His rule upon an unwilling mankind. But if from a Jesus-centric reading we might rather think of God's Lamb as warring upon the sin and ruin bourne within our souls in a metaphorical sense. Which thus asks the further question as to what kind of freedom might God allow? Is God ultimately in the business of meticulously controlling us or, if not, than what kind of freedom does God allow for a divine-human cooperative to exist?*

If we read the bible through a Jesus-lens then we must allow this understanding to challenge our doctrines and dogmas of God, the church, and even mankind itself by asking the following questions... "Did God really proclaim the things we read of Him in the OT or were they re-interpreted by His people as something else? Or, "did Yahweh's eager followers mis-proclaim Yahweh's divine love for divine violence upon their neighbors?" More so, the OT shows us the progression of God's people from an ancient society built on violence to a more conscientious society seeking the social graces of peace and mercy upon all. Or, if not, of failing altogether in this task, even as we in the church of Jesus Christ do today - both now, as well as in ages past of the historical church.

Much like the rainbow in Noah's sky promising "never again," Jesus has become the cleft-in-the-rock-of-mankind whom we must now see God through (sic, even as God protected Moses from His glory by placing him "in a cleft in the rock" so God protects us through Jesus). Effectively, even in the task of God revealing Himself to Israel in the OT they still comprehended one thing for another thing. As counterweight to this fallen/sinful comprehension, the very God Himself came by flesh and by bone to reveal Himself once again as clearly as He could to a people dull of hearing and readily blind of mind and purpose. A dullness and blindness of mind and heart portrayed in Israel's theologic scholars of their day as they proclaimed Jesus as Satan's false devil to then later unjustly/mercilessly crucify Him with the criminals of His day.

Without Jesus as our guide and interpreter we are left with the many assorted versions of the God of heaven which we read of in the OT. Hence, for myself, as for many, when interpreting the bible we must now remember to read it anthropologically and existentially. If so, we will begin to ask questions like, "Why was the bible written in this way? What does it reveal to us about God's followers back then and their comprehension of God in their ancient times? In what way is this picture of God helpful (or unhelpful) to Israel's pursuit of the living God?" Or even, "How does this new understanding of God change my doctrines and dogmas I've held so dear over the years?" and so forth.

It removes a flat reading of a literal bible methodology by moving it up the evolutionary scale of societal examination socially, spiritually, and personally by using not only context, grammatical, and historical tools, but also anthropologic and existential tools of societal/biblical examination. It is but one more layer to God Himself and why our misunderstanding of His will-and-ways seem so incomprehensible to the simpler tools of literal interpretation when not applied. Outcome theology, like outcome politics, is all in the eye of the beholder. Let us then be the more humble before God refusing to declare what is untrue of Him by our own wisdoms and worldliness when seeing the truth in Christ so plainly revealed in the NT.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

December 21, 2015
edited December 22, 2015

*Regarding "God's Sovereinty"... we've asked these questions before under the topics of "divine determination" vs. "divine insistence." This latter speaks to God's oneness/presence with(in) a fallen creation in process to congruency with His personage, will, and decrees. In essence, God has granted to His creation (us) "maximal freedom" based upon who He is, which would necessarily include both the weak and strong anthropic principles (go to these links here, here, and here) - both scientifically (WAP) as well as philosophically (SAP). We've also argued this position from a "weak theological" perspective using Arminianism (Wesleyan theology) as versus the "strong theological" perspective of Calvinism (Reformed theology) using Relational-Process Theology and Radical Theology (both the anti-Christian and post-Christian variants which argue for a religionless Christianity centralized in Jesus as the gatekeeper to any faith) as divine "maximal-freedom" conveyance systems. Obviously this discussion of biblical interpretation can become both ontologically and metaphysically technical so I have deferred it to this subsection here.

Jesus Is The Antidote To Our Delusions Of A Violent God, Made In Our Own Violent Image

http://brazenchurch.com/jesus-violence-old-testament/

by Jacob Wright

December 19, 2015

Comments

Since the beginnings of Christian theology, people have recognized the tension between some of the violent portraits of God in the Old Testament versus the revelation of God in Christ.

We like to pretend that these views are not contradictory. We’ve created a dance of fancy theological footwork to merge the image of violence with the image of peace. We try to say it’s not “contradiction”, and use words like “paradox” and “mystery” instead. We say things like “God’s ways are higher than our ways.”

All the while, we know it doesn’t add up. The reality is that we see two opposing portraits of God in the scriptures: a violent God of wrath slaughtering his enemies and commanding his people to do the same, and Jesus… saying his Father is kind to the ungrateful and wicked, saying he loves his enemies and commanding us to do the same.

While I can’t claim to perfectly resolve this dilemma, my goal today is to provide a compelling case for why Jesus is, as Paul describes, “the image of the invisible God,” and THE standard by which all other images of God must be held accountable.

A God Made In Our Image

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.” – 1 John 4:181

For a while now, I’ve been trying to sift my way out of all the confusion that comes from a flat reading of the Bible, where everything every biblical author over thousands of years says about God is equally true.

With such a conglomeration of opposing divine portraits, I had no peace of mind. I never knew how God felt about me. He loves me infinitely but also plans to destroy me if I don’t live right? This view held me in fear my whole life. In fact, the majority of people I see holding this view are also enslaved by fear, incapable of thinking reasonably about the nature of God or love.

“God’s love is a different kind of love then ours” is confusing and just another way of saying God isn’t loving. If we remove divine love from what we relate to as love, then it becomes something else and there is no use in calling it love. Such “love” has no power to cast out fear.

Today and through history, I see the this dichotomous view of God breeding self-righteousness and fear. I see people using whatever portrait of God they can find on the biblical smorgasbord of divine portraits to excuse whatever kind of violent and unloving attitude they have against people they hate or disagree with. I see condemnation of others who have different views as “heretics” and no general consensus on the truth of God’s nature.

The Bible has been used throughout history to excuse slavery, war, genocide, torture, vengeance, capital punishment, and the superiority complex of the “chosen”. The reality is that all of this can be found in the Bible. And yet, these things are the opposite of Jesus.

This is not an exclusively religious problem, nor is it a reason to think low of the Bible. Atheists are good at pointing out the violence in the Old Testament and making the Bible into an immoral, unethical book. However, the violence of the Bible is a human problem, a case study in primitive ethics and human violence which were projected onto “the gods” throughout history, our God included among them.

The Bible reveals anthropology just as much as it reveals theology

The Bible shows the Spirit at work within our messy societal evolution, as he progressively leads us out of our delusion and into the revelation of Christ. I believe the Bible reveals that God’s love is big enough to allow humanity’s violent projections, as he works with us where we are at to bring us into a higher revelation of truth and love. After all, the Bible also inspires the most powerful visions of compassion, social justice, kindness, peacemaking, and love of enemies.

So I’ve had to wrestle into a new understanding of God, where the higher way revealed by Jesus trumps the violent projections of mankind onto the God of their forefathers. I have resolved to simply focus on Jesus, since I believe he is the highest revelation of God – a God who gives me peace and hope and yet never lets me be comfortable in sin or apathy. A God who demonstrates reckless, furious, self-giving love and pro-active empathy for humanity and is dedicated to justice for the oppressed and victimized. A God who is with us and for us. A God like Jesus.

There are several ways that we can make a God of our own liking instead of the one found in the gospels. Many accuse those who believe in a nonviolent God of making a God in their own image, but those who believe in a nonviolent God are getting their views first and foremost from Jesus, who as Paul describes, is the perfect “image of the invisible God.” Since their faith is based first and foremost in Christ rather than the Bible – since they are called “Christians” rather than “Biblians”, this is commendable.

Yes, we get Jesus from the Bible, but on this matter Brennan Manning hit the nail on the head:

"I am deeply distressed by what I can only call in our Christian culture the idolatry of the Scriptures. For many Christians, the Bible is not a pointer to God but God himself. In a word – bibliolatry. God cannot be confined to a leather-bound book. I develop a nasty rash around people who speak as if mere scrutiny of its pages will reveal precisely how God thinks and precisely what God wants.

"The four Gospels are the key to knowing Jesus. But conversely, Jesus is the key to knowing the meaning of the gospel – and of the Bible as a whole. Instead of remaining content with the bare letter, we should pass on to the more profound mysteries that are available only through intimate and heartfelt knowledge of Jesus."

– Brennan Manning, The Signature of Jesus, 1996, p. 174-175

It is never okay to quote the Old Testament to endorse something that Jesus clearly forbids

Those who easily dismiss and rationalize away the radical, counter-cultural teachings of Christ by quoting random Old Testament scriptures are not followers of Jesus; they are followers of whatever they happen to get from the myriad of conflicting images they can find in the Bible.

If someone cuts them off in traffic, maybe they can follow the “love your enemy” verse, but if someone physically threatens them, it’s time to take their pick from the smorgasbord of examples of retribution in the Old Testament (or at least the apocalyptic symbolism of the book of Revelation!). By doing this, they are able to create a God exactly in their own image by choosing whatever image of God fits what they need in the moment.

We have done this all throughout history. As Brian Zahnd so aptly put:

"Even if we restrict our inquiry into the nature of God to the Bible, we are likely to find just the kind of God that we want to find. If we want a God of peace, he’s there. If we want a God of war, he’s there. If we want a compassionate God, he’s there. If we want a vindictive God, he’s there. If we want an egalitarian God, he’s there. If we want an ethnocentric God, he’s there. If we want a God demanding blood sacrifice, he’s there. If we want a God abolishing blood sacrifice, he’s there. Sometimes the Bible is like a Rorschach test — it reveals more about the reader than the eternal I AM.

– Brian Zahnd, from his forward to A More Christlike God by Brad Jersak

A nonviolent God is really hard to make in your own image, particularly because all humans naturally see violence as an acceptable or even glorious means of shaping the world. Violence is the foundation of civilization and comes instinctively to us. This is what is so ironic about the accusation that believing in a nonviolent God is making a God in our own image.

If we want a God in our own image, a nonviolent God is NOT the way to go.

Jesus says God loves his enemies, and that we are to emulate him in this. If that does not rule out God killing and torturing his enemies, then there is no reasonable thing we can conclude from Jesus telling us that God loves his enemies, nor is there any example we can follow as to what loving one’s enemies might actually look like.

Jesus tells us to be like our Heavenly Father who is “kind to the ungrateful and wicked”, and THEN we will be his true children.

Old Testament Portraits Vs. Christ

“Kill them all. Men, women, children, and babies. Show them no mercy.”

– God in Deuteronomy 7 and1 Samuel 15

“Love your enemies. In so doing, you will be like your Father, who is kind to the

wicked. Be merciful as your Heavenly Father is merciful.” – Jesus in Luke 6

Here we have juxtaposed two images of God. One is an image of God in the Bible from thousands of years before Christ and one is the words of Christ himself who is “the image of the invisible God” and the “exact representation of God’s being.” Like it or not, this demonstrates a black and white contradiction.

The answer is not to throw out the Old Testament, as Marcion did in the 2nd century. Because the Old Testament has the second voice too: an ever progressing understanding of Gods unconditional love – how he pleads the cause of the victim and hates violence.

Rather, the answer is to acknowledge the obvious problem and recognize two views of God wrestling with each other in the people of God and the writers of scripture, culminating in the higher way revealed in Christ.

The Son, not the Bible, is the perfect representation of the Father. You cannot overemphasize Jesus. You cannot believe in Jesus too much. Don’t try to “balance” Jesus with other stuff. Believe in him. This is the Son, with whom God is well pleased. Listen to him!

The writings of numerous authors over the changes of thousands of years within one religious tradition which we call “the law and the prophets” or “the Old Testament” by no means presents a univocal view of God. There is a conversation going on [in the OT] – a progressive, evolving understanding of the divine. Later writings sometimes critique earlier writings, and later prophets critique earlier prophets.

Just as we see the progression and evolution of ideas and awareness throughout human history, so too do we see a progression in the Jewish people’s revelation of God

When the time was right, the Messiah came forth into history, and while many prophecies foretold him, he represented the fullness of truth in a way that went far beyond the limited, immature framework Israel had received and processed revelation through. Christ respected the law and the prophets because he recognized and affirmed the progressive revelation of God, and they, through the limited framework they knew, were inspired by the Spirit to come into agreement with the righteousness and truth of God being established on the earth.

Jesus was the fulfillment of this progressive revelation. This is why he said in Matthew 5:18, “For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.”

In Christ, the Law was fulfilled. And in Christ, the prophets’ framework of righteousness and truth being established through violence became an allegory for the “violent” aggression of God’s inescapable love.

The law of Moses helped humanity progress out of the law of the jungle – the primal, survivalist humanity bent on conquest, where the powerful subjugated the weak. A more primitive humanity which followed the survival instincts of conquest needed a strict code of conduct, with the threat of punishment, in order to progress. It was their paradigm. It’s what they understood.

This is the beginning of bringing humanity out of a reality where violence was the foundation. The law was a product of its time, and therefore reflects that time. Its values were actually quite progressive for the day they were written. It served as a stepping stone. It sent them on a trajectory towards a societal order that valued justice for all instead of survival of the fittest.

As Israel progressed, we see the prophets giving an increasing voice to the oppressed. We see mercy and justice becoming the greater focus. We see the vision of a tribal God who demands sacrifice fading and becoming the God who “desires mercy and not sacrifice” (a phrase Jesus quoted twice) – a God who loves the nations and desires to be a father to all peoples, just as Abraham had envisioned in the beginning.

While the law put us on a progressive trajectory, it was ultimately unable to usher in the true image of God. Only love could do that. Only love incarnate could show us that

The law therefore set us on a trajectory towards societal order and justice, finally concluding in the revelation of our need for the rebirth experience through Christ. The law is therefore perfected in love. The law is fulfilled by the indwelling Christ who through us shapes a new humanity – the kingdom of God. Those who are led by the Spirit of grace are revealed as the children of God.

As Peter Enns says:

"The New Testament leaves behind the violent, tribal, insider-outsider, rhetoric of a significant portion of the Old Testament. Instead, the character of the people of God–now made up of Jew and Gentile–is dominated by such behaviors as faith in Christ working itself out in love, self-sacrifice, praying for one’s enemies and persecutors."

Having a “biblical” defense for anything is easy. You can have a solid biblical defense for slavery, genocide, war, polygamy, nationalism, sexism, and racism. But when we hold these things accountable to the image of God revealed in Christ, we find them to fall short.

When people hold the nonviolent teachings of Jesus to be the truest image of God, it doesn’t make sense to say, “You’re trying to make God into your own image! His ways are higher than ours!” In truth, these short-tempered, violent, demanding portraits of God look strikingly similar to you and me, or at least, how we would be without Jesus.

[Facetiously,] it seems that the God many of us believe in needs to ask Jesus into his heart!

God’s Ways Are Higher

Violence is not a way that is higher than man. Violence is exactly like us. It is perfect altruism that is so much higher than our ways and our thoughts.

A God who slays his enemies, we can relate to, but a God who dies for his enemies… that is incomprehensible.

And a God that commands us to do the same? This is where it starts getting uncomfortable for us.

Jesus is the way of God that is so much higher than sinful man. In fact, in Isaiah, when God declares that his ways are higher than ours, it is in the context his lovingkindness and mercy, which is so unlike our human ways.

“’Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,’ declares the Lord. ‘As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:7-8

The chapter literally goes on and on in extravagantly describing the outlandish lovingkindness that God has for us, detailing the overflowing peace and joy we’ll have – for the mountains will burst forth in joy before us and the trees will clap their hands for us – when we turn back to him.

So how are God’s way higher than ours? He has outrageous mercy and he freely pardons.

In fact, when Jesus finishes teaching us to love and do good to our enemies, he then says, “Then you will be children of the MOST HIGH who is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” This is the only place Jesus calls God the “Most High”. In other words, you can’t get any higher above human thought than this, and it is against all natural violent human instincts of selfishness and survivalism and revenge.

This reveals, without question, God’s core essence of love: the Most High is kind to his enemies. If someone were to strike God on the cheek, God would turn to them the other cheek. If someone were to kill God, God would not fight back. He would submit. And his submission would be his triumph over all powers. This is Jesus. This is the way of the cross. This is the high way of God.

Allow me to suggest that God never deviates from this highest way. God never deviates from being like Jesus. God is the high way. God is like Jesus.

The title “Most High” is used in the Old Testament to speak of God’s power, particularly his power over the nations as well as over all other powers and “gods”. Jesus usually spoke of God in terms of his Abba, Father, but when Jesus speaks of God in terms of his power as the “Most High”, he does so in terms of loving enemies and being kind to the ungrateful and wicked. This is typical of Jesus – subverting our ideas about God and about power.

“But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked.” – Luke 6:35

This is how God is the Most High. This is how God has power over the nations and above all spiritual powers: God loves his enemies and is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. In the way of the world, power is who has the biggest muscles, the biggest bombs, the most resources that can do the most destruction, who has the most skill, etc.

But as 1 Corinthians 1 says, it is the cross that is the power and wisdom of God.

God’s power is greater than the power of the world, not because he operates in the same manner only with bigger muscles, but because he operates in the opposite manner: humility, servanthood, kindness, forgiveness.

This is the tenacity and strength of the truth. This is Jesus. This is the cross. This is how the kingdom comes.

Children Of The Most High

But Jesus not only says that is how God is the “Most High”, but that is how we are children of the Most High. In other words, we are participants in this power. When we love our enemies, we become examples of the Most High’s nature.

Scripture even goes as far as to describe us as “gods” in this sense. Yes, when Jesus used the phrase “children of the Most High”, there is one other place that phrase is used, “You are gods; you are all children of the Most High.” – Psalm 82:6

When we learn the way of love and the Christ-heart takes form within us, it causes us to become peacemakers in a world of hostility – to reject tribalism, enmity, and retaliation – to have such an empathy for humanity as to seek the best for even our enemies. This is when we become like “like gods”. We become images of our Maker – children of the Most High.

There is a theme in Jesus’ thinking concerning this idea of being “children of God” or “sons of God.” (The phrase “children of God” and “sons of God” is interchangeable. Some use “children” instead of “sons” to be gender inclusive).

First, Jesus says if we love our enemies then we are children of the Most High. And again, in theSermon on the Mount, Jesus makes the connection: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God.”

Sonship is not just a small part of the gospel. It IS the gospel

John says that “To all that received him, he gave the power to BE CALLED SONS OF GOD.” Where else did we hear that phrase? Who will “be called sons of God”? Peacemakers.

So here we have receiving Christ made synonymous with becoming a peacemaker. The gospel, after all, is the gospel of peace and the good news of the kingdom of God, of “peace on earth and good will toward men”. Christ is the Prince of Peace. Jesus says the most prominent feature of the sons of God is peacemaking. To all that received the Son, he gave the power to be called sons of God – to be peacemakers – to usher in the kingdom of God.

Paul also uses this phrase “sons of God” in Romans 8, when he says all of creation is eagerly anticipating the revealing of the sons of God, for within this revelation creation will be liberated into glory. The renunciation of hostility towards our fellow man and the fostering of the Spirit of God within, of such great love, humility, and compassion, that we become peacemakers: creating family, destroying hostility, standing against the powers of injustice in the power of the Spirit, laying our lives down, shaping a new world, liberating this creation into the Fathers kingdom.

Peacemakers. This is when the righteous shine like stars in the kingdom of our Father.

Regarding peacemaking, why don’t we as Christians take this seriously, when Christ emphasized it over and over? Why do we not seek to live out the commands of Jesus, who we profess to be our Lord. “Why do you call me Lord and not do what I say?” – Luke 6:46

Good question, Jesus, let me think about that.

Violence is easy, instinctual, and natural. It’s all of our default. It takes but a quick glance at the world to know this is true. But as Jesus said, loving our enemies and bringing peace is what makes us true children of God.

Being a peacemaker is challenging. It takes far more creativity, imagination, and sacrifice than violence ever required.

And yet I love how Jesus gives us zero outs on this. Nowhere does he endorse or demonstrate violence. The best people can come up with is the temple episode, where we see Jesus at his most intense, but nowhere does it say he inflicted injury on anyone’s person.

So then it’s back to the Old Testament to vindicate our violence. Or at least the extreme apocalyptic imagery of Revelation! Yes, we can use that metaphorical apocalyptic imagery to vindicate our not taking Jesus seriously! John the Revelator to the rescue! Whew.. Almost put us in a bind there, Jesus. (For a better way to read the book of Revelation, click here)

Even with zero “outs” from Jesus, we are fishing, fishing, fishing, for some way… ANY way… to excuse our violence. We have a western world full of professed followers of Jesus, 99% of whom completely ignore his blatant command to love one’s enemies and renounce violence – who see peacemaking as weak and “not pragmatic”.

In this way, our “Christianity” has become like the Pharisees Jesus spoke so forcefully against, who “look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead.”

The Sword Jesus Came To Bring

“Do not think that I came to bring peace on the earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword.” –Matthew 10:34

Many people seem to think this verse throws a giant monkey wrench in the idea of a peaceful Jesus. Only in a world of one-line, out-of-context verse quoting is this the case.

In this verse, Jesus is not suddenly contradicting his ENTIRE message. Obviously! He is not discussing a literal sword, but rather, the sword of his mouth, just as the book of Revelation portrays.

This sword is his message of the kingdom of God, that wages war on the principalities and powers, the mindsets and ideological strongholds in people and cultures which individually and collectively form strongholds of oppression over humanity. As the apostle Paul said,

“We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” –Ephesians 6:12

The message of God’s humanity in Christ and his solidarity with the marginalized and victimized is a seed that begins to grow and infiltrate the thinking of this world, deconstructing ideologies of violence and injustice, and bringing into reality the angelic announcement that came with Christ’s arrival into the world, “Peace on earth and goodwill towards men.”

Christ’s command to peacefully love our enemies forces us to see common humanity in our rivals. It overturns tribal scapegoating, condemns the oppressive hoarding of wealth, and teaches us to care for the poor. Jesus demonstrated purity of heart, union with Abba, reconciliatory cosuffering, the ethics of peacemaking, and what it means to lay down one’s life.

When we enter into the message of Jesus, it begins a radical transformation within us and becomes a prophetic announcement of the kingdom of God in this world. In births in us a new way of being human… truly human. Human as Christ is human, as sons and images of Abba, who do what they see the Father doing.

This is how the lamb and his community of followers “wage war” and triumph over the beastly systems of this age, by the peacemaking blood of the lamb, by the testimony of those who have become like the lamb, and by those who have embraced the sacrificial, nonviolent love of the lamb, even if it means their own deaths.

The image of God on the cross deconstructs all images of a violent God. The Crucified God simply hangs lifeless, bloody and marred, as a symbol to humanity, drawing out empathy, exposing victimization, condemning violence, demonstrating forgiveness, making peace, deconstructing false images of God, casting down powers, and creating a new humanity with resurrection life.

Summary

Nothing makes me desire to be merciful more than knowing my Father is like that. My desire is to emulate him. Like Jesus, I want to do what I see my Father doing.

If my Father smites his enemies and pours retribution upon them, I will view my own enemies through that lens. Rather than responding with Jesus’ radical compassion and mercy, I’ll gleefully think about how those I dislike will be destroyed or tortured eternally.

But if, as Jesus said, my Father loves his enemies, is kind to the wicked, and gives to them without expecting anything back, then I will find myself hoping the best for my enemies, looking for the gold within them, keeping no record of wrongs, and seeking redemption in their lives.

In an odd twist to the “imago dei”, we become made in the image of the God we worship. The God you worship will be the God you become like.

A violent god is not the God we see in Christ. It’s a god fashioned in our own image. A nonviolent God is so very unlike us – so much higher – calling us into our true image.

Our violent God does not exist. But neither does our easy-going Jesus exist. His love is both tender and furious. It comes to level the mountains and raise up the valleys. It comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable. It continuously shakes us out of our delusions to expand our awareness of the cross’ divine wisdom – kenosis (self-emptying of one's wisdom for another's) and theosis (coming into union with God) – self-emptying love and partaking in the divine nature. It lures and pushes us forward to become peacemakers and lay down our lives for one another – to grow into the true image of God – children of our Father. This is the kingdom come. This is peace on earth, good will toward men.

A violent and retributive God makes followers who don’t take radical forgiveness and peacemaking very seriously. Jesus is not that God. Jesus lays down his life for his enemies.

So what’s the problem?

The problem is that instead of following Jesus, people follow the Bible. The Bible is good if you see it as a progressive, incremental revelation of God finding it’s fullness in Jesus (meaning that all revelation before him was inferior).

Jesus IS the point. He IS God incarnate. If there is something in the Old Testament that seems to contradict Jesus, always go with Jesus.

Apocalyptic Theology, the Gnostic Community, and the Spirit of God

"The sad fact is, we as human beings, are sinful and given to sinful wrath and not solidarity
with one another. The solidarity of God rests with the solidarity of humanity where Jesus
is the great binder to all divisions, enmities, and hatreds. Without Jesus as Christianity's
center - or any religion's center - there can be no peace. No goodwill. No fellowship."
                                                     - r.e. slater, 12.8.15

Friend and theologian Scot McKnight has been observing the misapplication of "apocalyptically-informed hermeneutics (bible interpretation based upon a gnostic spirit of divine illumination) against the narratival and historical approach of NT Wright's "new perspective of Pauline theology" which projects God's self revelation through His people into the New Testament.

For Wright, to understand the Apostle Paul aright is to better understand Jewish theology as versus a Christianity that has developed its church doctrines (Reformed, Lutheran Catholic) apart from this perspective. Hence, Wright proposes a Jewish approach to Paul's teachings as versus a Protestant or Catholic approach to Paul. One is more natural while the other is more contrived.

Now comes yet another perspective of Paul (and of Jesus) more related to the gnostic communities of Jesus and Paul's day found between the intertestamental period of the Old and New Testaments and within the pagan/Christian communities which arise after Jesus' death and resurrection. These communities rely on a kind of "Spirit knowledge" obtained from God than on the historical narratives of either Testament of the bible. As such, their knowledge is privileged, or secret, to themselves alone without opportunity to be questioned or known except through themselves. To Christian theologians these communities of "specialized revelatory knowledge" are deemed "gnostic communities" of marginally Christian believers adding to, or subtracting from, the revelation of God more broadly (or publicly) given to His people through the Old and New Testaments.

Moreover, gnostic theology is guilty of personal motives - or subjective trajectories - of a community's more basic "wants and needs" than it is of God's "specialized secret knowledge" and missional outreach of salvation. To be a gnostic believer then is to be a believer who is more-or-less a Christian (or, more-or-less pagan, and therefore less Christian) in their theologic and missional views of Jesus. The hallmark of a non-gnostic Christian is a Jesus-led community of believers who ceaselessly examine, question, or even doubt themselves and their theologies, so that Jesus is more clearly seen rather than one's own subjective beliefs and dispositions.

Thus, church doctrine and tradition matters to a Jesus-community of believers who rely on examining the Scriptures to inform their faith as well as examining past theologians from previous historic eras set within their own philosophical paradigms and constructs. As such, this "objective" method of study must always be under examination so that a theologian (or church fellowship) uses all methods of self-assessment (including its own contemporary era) which may be helpful in ridding the church of any pagan doctrines or dogmas which are misleading to the gospel of Christ.

For some church denominations and fellowships, this study has been regulated to only acceptable church traditions (or religious folklores) which carry forward their own unique brand of Christian belief (whether Reformed, Lutheran, Catholic, or some admixture of these beliefs). This would also include the unconscious  (or subconscious) interpretation of Scripture based upon past philosophic eras a church fellowship may have developed them within. Eras such as New Testament Hellenism in Paul's day, or later Medieval Scholasticism before the Renaissance, or pre-Reformational Enlightenment, or last century's Secular Modernism, or even today's millennial Postmodern, Post-Christian examinations of Scriptures and theology.

"If you must have blind faith, center it in the Crucified

and be faithful to who He is, and what He says.

But question everything else."

- Jeff Robinson (friend of Michael Hardin), 12.6.15

More simplistically, a gnostic theology would discount all previous church histories, doctrines, or theologies in favor of its "more-enlightened" view of inscripturated knowledge. A knowledge which is more secret, more subjective to its needs, more forced by its community to be believed, than what is commonly perceived amongst other Christian communities. But rather than being simply a "movement of theological perspectives" within a church community - however pagan or spiritual - these gnostic communities will claim a divine guidance that replaces all previous divine revelations in favor of their own special brand of beliefs.

Consequently, Christians who purport a kind of "secret knowledge" of God's revelatory plan today are more dependent upon their own informed sense of God's movement than they are upon God's historical portrayal of Himself through Scripture and especially through the Christ event of the New Testament or even of church history. They perceive themselves as a "cut above" other Christian communities and so, their belief structure is selectively more special than any other acclaimed doctrinnaire as well.

Hence, a gnostic apocalyptic theology is a different kind of apocalyptic theology than the standard Christian one. It pretends to inform that group of believers of God's intentions and motives according to its more selective knowledge given to it from the Spirit of God. Though one would wonder if it was from God's spirit or from their own spirit of sinful man. Nonetheless, from this basis a gnostic community would then re-interpret the Scriptures to selectively bear out its own aims and objectives becoming a "revelation" to themselves as kept from God's broader revelation in Christ to the world. A revelation which was more truly apocalyptic in its nature than these secret communes of believers would have us believe.

"Verily then, it becomes the old game of 'misdirect and subtle evasion.'

If you don't like something you're hearing, than chose to ignore it by

making your approach  more approved by God."

                                                     - r.e. slater, 12.8.15

So then, back to McKnight's observations. There is gnostic kind of perspective being applied to the Gospels and Pauline theology purporting itself as an interpretive tool, or hermeneutic, for Scriptural reading and study. The error here is not in reading of the Christ event as an apolcalyptic event to subsume all other apocalyptic trajectories/theologies of the bible unto itself. But to take that event and claim a special "gnostic insight of reading the bible" which would inform one of God's movement amongst men today. Basically, its the idea of who is more informed to read the bible - the studied student or theologian of the bible or, the Spirit-led mystic, who claims to see more broadly then his brothers and sisters.

Though there is an element of truth here related to the necessary leading of the Holy Spirit into the illumination of Scripture, it really is a misapplication of this truth using a more charismatic spirit of division and illumination. As an example, the church today is beset by religious conservative politics - should it exclude gays, women, minorities, and unbelievers from God's commands to embrace, love, welcome, and reach out to all? If so, how can this be done if past theological dogmas are being shown as artificially constructed in today's more-enlightened postmodern approach to Scripture? Perhaps by using the "apocalyptic method of interpretation" these sinful discriminations might be upheld and purported as righteous rather than self-righteous?

Verily then, it becomes the old game of "misdirect and subtle evasion." If you don't like something you're hearing, than chose to ignore it by making your approach more approved by God. Create a new way of interpreting the Scriptures more to your liking and thus, ignoring the very Spirit of God who you are claiming is leading you in your spirit of division and alienation. How many times has the church done this through history? Many! It doesn't take a gnostic community of believers to do this, even the people of God will do this when it favors their prejudices and bigotries.

The sad fact is, we as human beings, are sinful and given to sinful wrath and not solidarity with one another. The solidarity of God rests with the solidarity of humanity where Jesus is the great binder to all divisions, enmities, and hatreds. Without Jesus as Christianity's center - or any religion's center - there can be no peace. No goodwill. No fellowship. Only darkness, bitterness, and cold.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

December 8, 2015

* * * * * * * * * *

Search Results for: apocalyptic theology

NT Wright vs. Apocalyptic Theology: How Adams Goes Wrong about Wright

Dec 7, 2015 @ 5:04 by Scot McKnight Leave a Comment

The showdown in Pauline scholarship today is between the new perspective, in particular as articulated in the narratival theology of NT Wright, and apocalyptic theology as articulated by J. Louis Martyn and those who follow him (e.g., M. de Boer, B. Gaventa, D. Campbell). Samuel Adams, in his new book The Reality of God and Historical [Read More...]

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The Apocalyptic Challenge to NT Wright: Method

Dec 1, 2015 @ 0:05 by Scot McKnight Leave a Comment

This blog has given plenty of attention to the works of NT Wright, in part because his books are valued by our readers and in part because his books are accessible for the blog and in part because he’s in “my camp” (the new perspective on Paul). But with that comes challenges to NT Wright [Read More...]

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N.T. Wright Responds to the Apocalyptic Paul School

Nov 16, 2015 @ 4:58 by Scot McKnight Leave a Comment

The major debate about the apostle Paul shifted in the 21st Century from a debate between the “old” and the “new” perspective of Paul to the new perspective vs. the apocalyptic Paul. In saying that, the tussle ends up being between NT Wright (a version of the NPP) and Lou Martyn and his followers (e.g., [Read More...]

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The Apocalyptic Paul — His Biography

Mar 17, 2015 @ 0:06 by Scot McKnight Leave a Comment

Douglas Campbell has become a major player in the world of Pauline studies with his last two books in this sense: he has not only proven his competence in exegesis, theology and history but has proposed a re-centering of Pauline theology around the theme of apocalyptic. (Some have said Barth’s had his share of influence, [Read More...]

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Challenging NT Wright: Knowing God

Dec 3, 2015 @ 0:06 by Scot McKnight Leave a Comment

NT Wright is committed to “critical realism” and Samuel Adams — and his book The Reality of God and Historical Method is endorsed by Douglas Campbell, Douglas Harink, Bev Gaventa and Alan J. Torrance — thinks critical realism is insufficient to the task of theology. History, it is being argued, can only go so far. [Read More...]

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Is the “Old” Better? NT Wright Responds

Nov 12, 2015 @ 0:04 by Scot McKnight Leave a Comment

It may simplify but this formula may explain a major difference between at least the most widely-read version of the “new” perspective and the standard “old” perspective: Old Perspective scholars are soteriologians while the NT Wright version of the New Perspective makes him an eschatologian. I am re-reading NT Wright’s Paul and His Recent Interpreters and the chapter [Read More...]

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The New Perspective(s) on Paul Begin with EP Sanders

Nov 6, 2015 @ 0:03 by Scot McKnight Leave a Comment

In the mid to late 90s I began to hear traditional, mostly the Reformed with hints of Lutheranism Christian leaders begin to accuse the “new perspective” of weaknesses and in the criticism I was hearing descriptions of what “new perspective on Pau” (NPP) theologians believed — as if the NPP had a systematic theology worked [Read More...]

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NT Wright, Paul and His Interpreters, the Cover

Oct 28, 2015 @ 0:05 by Scot McKnight Leave a Comment

The cover of N.T. Wright’s new Paul and His Recent Interpreters, in the English edition (sadly not the USA edition), goes to the heart of the book. Some might not notice that the cover of the book is Rembrandt’s self portrait as the apostle Paul. (Image credit) Rembrandt painting himself as the apostle Paul, think of [Read More...]