Dominion Theology is not God's Theology of the Cross

Dominion Theology is not God's Theology of the Cross

Continuing from the other day's conversation, "What or Whom Do We Choose? The Bible or Jesus?" I would like to press this point home a bit further....

The ideologies of Dominion-based Christianity assumes it must "win" our nation or the world to the church by political and military force. Which is the height of foolishness to think the church should bear arms to "defend her God in the way of righteous living." Did Jesus do this when He came? No.

Firstly then, let us remove the picture from our heads of the God of the Old Testament as a divine warlord come to revenge Himself on all of mankind's evil empires and kingdoms. Or from the apostle John's book of Revelation picturing God as coming again with sword in His hand to judge all sin and evil so that it might be banished from the earth forever.

Did you not know that Jesus has already done this through the Cross of His suffering and sacrifice? That sin and evil has already been defeated? But don't think that guns and bullets, tanks and planes, will banish the false graven images of the God whom we falsely bear upon our hearts, minds, and souls. Nay, the work of the Cross - and the helping works of ministries - is where the final death of sin and evil must occur. Within our very human breasts and nourishing hands of hope and healing. By words that bind wounds and not open them up again.

These are the places where the false images of God must go to die so that when we read of the Old Testament's promises of God's fulfillment, or of John's revelation of Jesus' victory, we see these bourne amongst the kingdoms of men who have bowed themselves to God's glory and honor through humbling their hearts to one another.

Nor has God created this world for us to re-design or destroy in our own fallible image. He gave us His blessings by giving to us very humanity itself as our strength and blessing. As a bond for our solidarity. As a sign of our unity. So that neither by blood nor by death can God's holy creation be improved but by allowing life to simply grow and flourish in its diversity. To teem about the lands and waters by learning to listen, respect, and work with one another. Thus has God's Season of Advent become His Resurrection Song. A poetry that the very elements of the Eucharist itself speaks to through serving one another rather than harming one another.

It is a simple thing actually. This thing we think of as "salvation history" or "kingdom eschatology." There is no dominion in it at all but instead a full working partnership between God and man as man learns to work and live in peace and goodwill with one another. The banners of the Cross shall be the banners of our convicted hearts. The swords we would pick up are to be beaten into implements for food and agriculture. The shields we bear better served as tables of wine and fellowship celebrating life's joys with one another.

How much harder can this kind of creationist eschatology be actually? To think of the book of Revelation as a symbolic war where sin and evil are put to death by the powers of God's Redemption built upon the war tools of love, mercy, compassion, forgiveness, and hope? To see the devils of the air as the very devils of our own hearts and minds refusing the simplicity of the Cross for something so much greater - not realizing that great things have already come and are even now happening.

These may have been the "biblical" pictures of God held back in ancient times but the discerning postmodern church of the 21st century has learned by hard, bitter experience that the way to serve  and worship God is not by taking up arms to "conquer" its sinful neighbors but by reaching out in love and service across the many waters of misunderstanding and betrayal.

That the God who revealed Himself in the New Testament revealed Himself as the God-man Jesus. Him of humble birth and lowly parental origins who was worshipped by angels and by kings at the "night of His birth" to receive the crowns of heaven-and-earth praising Him for the salvation He bore upon His life-breath, body, and soul.

That this Saviour Jesus did not come to simply effect His commands given to Moses on Mt. Sinai to the people of Israel to learn and obey. But to effect God's greater commands of loving your neighbor and enemy as fitting service to obeying God's New Testament commands written in His own blood and by His own death upon a Cross of weakness, defeat, and shame.

But let us not be so foolish to think that this Cross was anything as weak, or defeating, or shameful, because this God was raised from the dead both as sacrificial lamb and as the lion of Judah. He who was the King of David and very God of very God. That in weakness Jesus effected the power of God's salvation to all men everywhere. Whose death was no mere defeat but a victory for all time eternal. Whose only shame is that men should continue in their evil and sin refusing to bow to the mighty work of God required of a sinful people.

From Jesus Himself, as spoken through the apostles and prophets of His Word, speaks the Holy One of "Him Who Is, and Was, and Will Be" declaring to every man present, "Lay down your sword! No more shall ye put your enemy to death! Learn to love, and serve, and respect one another! And by these sacred covenantal elements that were once old but are now made new in Me shall you find your salvation I have promised!"

Essentially, Christian dominion theology had got God's narrative exactly backwards. The way to God and His Kingdom is not through political and military force but by the Cross of weakness, defeat, and shame. That the way of Jesus is through the weak and the foolish things of this world such as peace, love, and unity. And not by our own human means of "lawful living condemning others unlike us so that we continue to strive and fight with one another."

Nay, this is not God's plan. It is our own bad plans brought on by the lies of the devil and by our unholy, prideful hearts. We do not make God's kingdom - it has already been made for us. We are to but simply relax and lie down and learn to rest in the plan God had already set in place before we came along and tore it all apart.

Moreover, to assume that God needs our help is arrogance in the extreme. What God really needs help with is us doing our simple duty of respecting one another and learning to refrain from making rash polarizing statements about "them liberals, those communies, those Muslims!"

When a Christian makes these statements they reveal the short-sightedness of their ideologies which makes God a prisoner of their religious systems rather than recognizing that God is doing just fine in enacting His plan of resurrection into the world.

More rather it is the evil which we continue to commit that is the reason God's plan seems so painfully slow. Should we stop hating one another, going to war with one another, and judging one another, we would get there a lot faster.

As such, God's blessing is found in the diversity and solidarity of humanity and not in our own graven images of what we think His plan is, be it dominion theology, or reconstructionist endeavors, or even churches built everywhere to worship Him. Remember, God's plans look like foolishness to us but it is exactly those foolish plans which will allow God to effect the redemption He has brought to you through His life-force and self-sacrifice. This is our hope and promise of the future.

Peace,

R.E. Slater

December 11, 2015

  

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Wrath and Governing Authorities

http://www.jrdkirk.com/2011/05/30/wrath-and-governing-authorities/

J.R. Daniel Kirk

May 30, 2011

Romans 13 is a tremendously challenging passage.

Sort of.

What makes it so challenging for many New Testament scholars is that it offers so little challenge to the status quo:

• The same Paul who says that the cross is the unmasking of the blindness of the rulers of the world tells people to be subject to governing authorities.
• The same Paul who proclaims Jesus as Lord now invites subjugation to earthly lords.
• The same Paul whose gospel turns the economy of the world on its head–especially with regard to justice and retribution–here affirms the economy of the world as established by God–especially with regard to justice and retribution.

Choice One - Submit to Earthly Powers

People have taken this passage in several ways. Some have suggested that it’s simply as clear as it seems: God established earthly rule for our good, so we should submit.

Choice Two - Be a Blessing

Some have suggested that its force comes, at least in part, from the temporary nature of this age. Paul expected Jesus to return soon, so we can endure self-aggrandizing governments until Christ returns to judge the earth.

Reading through Rom 12-13, I was struck by parallels in language and started to wonder if there might be something subversive about the way Paul frames things.

Romans 12 implores the readers not to repay anyone evil for evil (κακὸν ἀντὶ κακοῦ), a command echoed at the end of ch. 12 with the exhortation not to be overcome by evil (τοῦ κακοῦ) but to overcome the evil by good.

In between these two exhortations? The idea that we don’t take our own revenge, we do the good, because we leave room for God’s wrath, God’s vengeance.

Vengeance is God’s realm. Ours is blessing: feed your hungry enemy; give drink to the thirsty enemy. (Anyone hear echoes of the Sermon on the mount? Going the extra mile, giving cloak in addition to cloak?) This testifies to a confidence in the economy of God–a testimony that may enlighten our enemies about the nature of the God we serve, or that might cause them to incur greater debt in this God’s economy.

Do good. Bless your enemy. And all that to leave room for God’s own wrath.

The Dilemma

Are we to forget all this when we come to ch. 13 and are told to subject ourselves to the governing authorities? Opposition is a cause of fear for us here–not subjection. And, there is fear from authorities only for those who do the evil thing (τῷ κακῷ).

Are we in that same realm of “repaying”? Of acting out against unjust government–with evil? Note that there is a specific kind of response in view (“evil”), and that it’s parallel to what Paul told us to avoid in ch. 12.

Even more, Paul exhorts us to feed the hungry coffers and irrigate the thirsty Imperial treasury: “Render to all what is due them, tax to whom tax is due, custom to whom custom, fear to whom fear, honor to whom honor.”

On the one hand, Paul issues a simple call to submit to those who order the world around us.

But perhaps, not too far below the surface, is an expectation that we can submit to such governing authorities because they themselves are subject to the judgment of God. And if we would see them unseated and repaid for their ill work, the thing to do is “heap burning coals on their heads” by returning blessing for their insults and persecutions.

This opens the door to the idea that Rom 13 is about more than mere submission and honor of the government. It cracks open, perhaps, a view of the cosmos in which such submission might play a larger role in bringing about true justice, justice that cannot be meted out by the hands of kings.

What that might mean for us in our own context either as we endure evil, or as we think about participating in our Republic’s governance, or see evil perpetrated in countries other than our own–this doesn’t answer any of those questions. But it might open up another avenue of reflection on what faithful Christian earthly citizenship might mean, and how it relates to the economy of the Kingdom of God.

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Dominion Theology
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominion_Theology

Dominion Theology is a theocratic ideology that seeks to implement a nation governed by conservative Christians ruling over the rest of society based on their understanding of biblical law. Dominion Theology is related totheonomy, though it does not necessarily advocate Mosaic law as the basis of government.

Prominent adherents of Dominion Theology are otherwise theologically diverse, including the Calvinist Christian Reconstructionism and the charismatic/Pentecostal Kingdom Now theology and New Apostolic Reformation.

The term Dominion Theology is applied primarily among non-mainstream Protestants in the United States. Some elements within the mainstream Christian right have been influenced by Dominion Theology authors. Indeed, some writers have applied the term "Dominionism" more broadly to the mainstream Christian right, implicitly arguing that that movement is founded upon a theology that requires Christians to govern over non-Christians. Mainstream conservatives do not call themselves "Dominionists," and the usage has sparked considerable controversy.

Etymology

The term "Dominion Theology" is derived from the King James Bible's rendering of Genesis 1:28, the passage in which God grants humanity "dominion" over the Earth.

And God blessed [ Adam and Eve ], and God said unto them, "Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth."

In the late 1980s, several prominent evangelical authors used the phrase Dominion Theology (and other terms such as dominionism) to label a loose grouping of theological movements that made direct appeals to this passage in Genesis.[1] Christians typically interpret this passage as meaning that God gave humankind responsibility over the Earth, but the distinctive aspect of Dominion Theology is that it is interpreted as a mandate for Christian stewardship in civil affairs, no less than in other human matters.

Seven Mountains

David Barton has advocated what he calls "seven mountains prophecy" where Christian conservatives should control and dominate "family, religion, education, media, entertainment, business and government.[2]

History

Most of the contemporary movements labeled Dominion Theology or Dominionism arose in the 1970s in religious movements reasserting aspects of Christian nationalism. Ideas for how to accomplish this vary. Very doctrinaire versions of Dominion Theology are sometimes called "Hard Dominionism" or "Theocratic Dominionism," because they seek relatively authoritarian theocratic or theonomic forms of government.

Christian Reconstructionism

Main article: Christian Reconstructionism

An example of Dominionism in reformed theology is Christian Reconstructionism, which originated with the teachings of R. J. Rushdoony in the 1960s and 1970s. Rushdoony's theology focuses on theonomy (the rule of the Law of God), a belief that all of society should be ordered according to the laws that governed the Israelites in the Old Testament. His system is strongly Calvinistic, emphasizing the sovereignty of God over human freedom and action, and denying the operation of charismatic gifts in the present day (cessationism); both of these aspects are in direct opposition to Kingdom Now Theology.

Full adherents to Reconstructionism are few and marginalized among most Christians.[3][4][5] Dave Hunt,[6] Hal Lindsey,[7] and Thomas Ice[8] specifically criticize Christian Reconstructionism from a Christian viewpoint, disagreeing on theological grounds with its theocratic elements as well as its Calvinism and postmillennialism. J. Ligon Duncan,[9] Sherman Isbell,[10] Vern Poythress,[11] Robert Godfrey,[12] and Sinclair Ferguson[13] analyze Reconstructionism as conservative Calvinists, primarily giving a theological critique of its theocratic elements.

Michael J. McVicar has noted that many leading Christian Reconstructionists are also leading writers on libertarian economic theories.[14]

Social scientists have used the word "dominionism" to refer to adherence to Christian Reconstructionism.[15][16][17]

Kingdom Now theology

Kingdom Now theology is a branch of Dominion Theology which has had a following within Pentecostalism. It attracted attention in the late 1980s.[18][19]

Kingdom Now theology states that although Satan has been in control of the world since the Fall, God is looking for people who will help him take back dominion. Those who yield themselves to the authority of God's apostles and prophets will take control of the kingdoms of this world, being defined as all social institutions, the "kingdom" of education, the "kingdom" of science, the "kingdom" of the arts, etc.[20] C. Peter Wagner, the founder of the New Apostolic Reformation, writes: "The practical theology that best builds a foundation under social transformation is dominion theology, sometimes called 'Kingdom Now.' Its history can be traced back through R. J. Rushdoony andAbraham Kuyper to John Calvin."[21]

Kingdom Now theology is influenced by the Latter Rain movement,[22] and critics have connected it to the New Apostolic Reformation,[23] "Spiritual Warfare Christianity",[22] and Fivefold ministry thinking.[24]

Kingdom Now theology should not be confused with Kingdom theology, which is related to inaugurated eschatology.

Dominion Theology and the Christian Right
See also: Christian right

In the late 1980s sociologist Sara Diamond[25][26] began writing about the intersection of Dominion Theology with the political activists of the Christian Right. Diamond argued that "the primary importance of the [Christian Reconstructionist] ideology is its role as a catalyst for what is loosely called 'dominion theology.'" According to Diamond, "Largely through the impact of Rushdoony's and North's writings, the concept that Christians are Biblically mandated to 'occupy' all secular institutions has become the central unifying ideology for the Christian Right."[25]:138 (emphasis in original) in the United States.

While acknowledging the small number of actual adherents, authors such as Sara Diamond and Frederick Clarkson have argued that postmillennial Christian Reconstructionism played a major role in pushing the primarily premillennial Christian Right to adopt a more aggressive dominionist stance.[27]

Misztal and Shupe concur that “Reconstructionists have many more sympathizers who fall somewhere within the dominionist framework, but who are not card-carrying members.”[28] According to Diamond, "Reconstructionism is the most intellectually grounded, though esoteric, brand of dominion theology."[27]

Journalist Frederick Clarkson[29][30] defined dominionism as a movement that, while including Dominion Theology and Reconstructionism as subsets, is much broader in scope, extending to much of the Christian Right in the United States.

In his 1992 study of Dominion Theology and its influence on the Christian Right, Bruce Barron writes,

In the context of American evangelical efforts to penetrate and transform public life, the distinguishing mark of a dominionist is a commitment to defining and carrying out an approach to building society that is self-consciously defined as exclusively Christian, and dependent specifically on the work of Christians, rather than based on a broader consensus.[31]

In 1995, Diamond called the influence of Dominion Theology "prevalent on the Christian Right".[32]

Journalist Chip Berlet added in 1998 that, although they represent different theological and political ideas, dominionists assert a Christian duty to take "control of a sinful secular society."[33]

In 2005, Clarkson enumerated the following characteristics shared by all forms of dominionism:[34]

• Dominionists celebrate Christian nationalism, in that they believe that the United States once was, and should once again be, a Christian nation. In this way, they deny the Enlightenment roots of American democracy.

• Dominionists promote religious supremacy, insofar as they generally do not respect the equality of other religions, or even other versions of Christianity.

• Dominionists endorse theocratic visions, insofar as they believe that the Ten Commandments, or "biblical law," should be the foundation of American law, and that the U.S. Constitution should be seen as a vehicle for implementing Biblical principles.[34]

Essayist Katherine Yurica began using the term dominionism in her articles in 2004, beginning with "The Despoiling of America", (February 11, 2004),[35][36][37] Authors who also use the term dominionism in the broader sense include journalist Chris Hedges [38][39][40] Marion Maddox,[41] James Rudin,[42] Michelle Goldberg,[43][44] Kevin Phillips,[45] Sam Harris,[46] Ryan Lizza,[47] Frank Schaeffer,[48] and the group TheocracyWatch.[49] Some authors have applied the term to a broader spectrum of people than have Diamond, Clarkson, and Berlet.

Sarah Posner in Salon argues that there are various "iterations of dominionism that call on Christians to enter...government, law, media and so fort...so that they are controlled by Christians." According to Posner, "Christian right figures promoted dominionism...and the GOP courted...religious leaders for the votes of their followers." She added: "If people really understood dominionism, they’d worry about it between election cycles."[50]

Michelle Goldberg notes[51] that George Grant, wrote in his 1987 book The Changing of the Guard: Biblical Principles for Political Action:“Christians have an obligation, a mandate, a commission, a holy responsibility to reclaim the land for Jesus Christ — to have dominion in civil structures, just as in every other aspect of life and godliness.....But it is dominion we are after. Not just a voice.... Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land — of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ.”
A spectrum of dominionism

Writers including Chip Berlet[52] and Frederick Clarkson[34] distinguish between what they term "hard" and "soft" dominionism. Such commentators define "soft" dominionism as the belief that "America is a Christian nation" and opposition to separation of church and state, while "hard" dominionism refers to dominion theology and Christian Reconstructionism.

Michelle Goldberg uses the terms "Christian Nationalism" and "Dominionism" for the former view.[43] According to Goldberg:

In many ways, Dominionism is more a political phenomenon than a theological one. It cuts across Christian denominations, from stern, austere sects to the signs-and-wonders culture of modern megachurches. Think of it like political Islamism, which shapes the activism of a number of antagonistic fundamentalist movements, from Sunni Wahabis in the Arab world to Shiite fundamentalists in Iran.[53]

Berlet and Clarkson have agreed that "[s]oft Dominionists are Christian nationalists."[52] Unlike "dominionism", the phrase "Christian nation" occurs commonly in the writings of leaders of the Christian Right. Proponents of this idea (such as David Barton and D. James Kennedy) argue that the Founding Fathers of the United States were overwhelmingly Christian, that founding documents such as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitutionare based on Christian principles, and that a Christian character is fundamental to American culture.[54][55][56] They cite, for example, the U.S. Supreme Court's comment in 1892 that "this [the United States] is a Christian nation,"[57] after citing numerous historical and legal arguments in support of that statement.[58][59]

Criticism of the usage of the term "dominionism"

Those labeled dominionists rarely use the terms "dominionist" and "dominionism" for self-description, and some people have attacked the use of such words.[1] Journalist Anthony Williams charged that such usage aims "to smear the Republican Party as the party of domestic Theocracy, facts be damned".[60] Journalist Stanley Kurtz labeled it "conspiratorial nonsense", "political paranoia", and "guilt by association",[61] and decried Hedges' "vague characterizations" that allow him to "paint a highly questionable picture of a virtually faceless and nameless 'Dominionist' Christian mass".[62] Kurtz also complained about a perceived link between average Christian evangelicals and extremism such as Christian Reconstructionism:

The notion that conservative Christians want to reinstitute slavery and rule by genocide is not just crazy, it's downright dangerous. The most disturbing part of the Harper's cover story (the one by Chris Hedges) was the attempt to link Christian conservatives with Hitler and fascism. Once we acknowledge the similarity between conservative Christians and fascists, Hedges appears to suggest, we can confront Christian evil by setting aside 'the old polite rules of democracy'. So wild conspiracy theories and visions of genocide are really excuses for the Left to disregard the rules of democracy and defeat conservative Christians — by any means necessary.[61]

Joe Carter of First Things writes:

[T]here is no “school of thought” known as “dominionism”. The term was coined in the 1980s by Diamond and is never used outside liberal blogs and websites. No reputable scholars use the term for it is a meaningless neologism that Diamond concocted for her dissertation.[63]

Diamond has denied that she coined the broader use of the term "dominionism,"[64] which appears in her dissertation and in Roads to Dominion solely to describe Dominion Theology. Nevertheless, Diamond did originate the idea that Dominion Theology is the "central unifying ideology for the Christian Right."[25]:138

Jeremy Pierce of First Things coined the word "dominionismist" to describe those who promote the idea that there is a dominionist conspiracy, writing:

It strikes me as irresponsible to lump [Rushdoony] together with Francis Schaeffer and those influenced by him, especially given Schaeffer’s many recorded instances of resisting exactly the kinds of views Rushdoony developed. Indeed, it strikes me as an error of the magnitude of some of Rushdoony’s own historical nonsense to consider there to be such a view called Dominionism [sic] that Rushdoony, Schaeffer, James Dobson, and all the other people in the list somehow share and that it seeks to get Christians and only Christians into all the influential positions in secular society.[65]

Lisa Miller of Newsweek writes that "'dominionism' is the paranoid mot du jour" (referring to the French for "word of the day") and that "certain journalists use 'dominionist' the way some folks on Fox News use the word "sharia" [for Islamic law]. Its strangeness scares people. Without history or context, the word creates a siege mentality in which 'we' need to guard against 'them'."[66] Ross Douthat of The New York Times noted that "many of the people that writers like Diamond and others describe as 'dominionists' would disavow the label, many definitions of dominionism conflate several very different Christian political theologies, and there’s a lively debate about whether the term is even useful at all."[67]

Other criticism has focused on the proper use of the term. Berlet wrote that "just because some critics of the Christian Right have stretched the term dominionism past its breaking point does not mean we should abandon the term",[68] and argued that, rather than labeling conservatives as extremists, it would be better to "talk to these people" and "engage them."[69] Sara Diamond wrote that "[l]iberals' writing about the Christian Right's take-over plans has generally taken the form of conspiracy theory", and argued that instead one should "analyze the subtle ways" that ideas like Dominionism "take hold within movements and why".[32]

What or Whom Do We Choose? The Bible or Jesus?

For a Post-Christian Church What, or Who, Does It Choose? The Bible or Jesus or Both?

The Tale of Two Scriptures

I am submitting three articles for review below. One from a progressive Christian who has grown tired of conservative evangelical Christianity's harsh language and unloving posturing to the masses. It is deeply disgusted by the lack of gospel-sensibilities heard and seen by the Christian church at large. Many from this group may be described as progressive Christians who daily listen to the cluttered airwaves reflecting principles of an unwanted form of Christianity. A form that is deeply critical, sharp, cantankerous, and basically an abandonment from any form of loving "biblical" messaging of the Christian faith not reflective of a "Christ-like" response. We'll call this the "Jesus loving crowd" who would freely jettison the bible of any of its un-Jesus-like responses. As such, they would prefer to lead out with God's grace, mercy, forgiveness, unity, and unconditional acceptance to all mankind, including their enemies. Moreover, one suspects that many in this group will easily identify with a form of Arminianism (free will) that places the onus of missions squarely upon the shoulders of the church rather than waiting around for God to come out of His heavens to do something. It is a  muscular, or vigorous, vision of the Kingdom of God come amongst men and women into a post-millennial world of postmodernism.

The Tale of Two Churches

The second article submitted speaks to the larger audience of moderate/conservative Christians who tolerate (neo-) fundamentalists claims of Scripture but fear to confront it even while cringing at the rancor it is causing. The fear comes from being seen as a "liberal" Christian should they speak out against it, though some do, while somehow managing to control their message to reflect that they haven't left the mainstream of evangelical ranks. We'll call this "the bible-loving crowd" who put their Christian dogmas (or religious views of the bible) ahead of Jesus' commands to love and to serve both neighbor and enemy. This group prefers to lead out with divine control and ordained judgment to come; certainty of sin and moral lapse; various iterations of divine vengeance or inscripturated violence; and cling to various forms of biblical literalism built upon commonly accepted traditional grammatical-historic interpretations (sic, "hermeneutics") of the bible. Many in this group would identify with a form of Calvinism (sic, replacing "free will" with "divine determination").

The Tale of Christian Messaging

The final article submitted bookends the first article by declaring that "biblical" or traditional Christianity must declare a choice for divine spiritual power and authority. An authority that portrays itself in weakness while allowing for mankind generally (irregardless of the distinction between church and non-church) to respond to God's message of peace, love, and unity. A power which comes crucified upon a Cross of sin and shame declared authoritative by God the Father to rule over all sinful men's hearts when resurrected upon its death to self and empowerment to love. This Jesus was sanctified as the God-man come to serve and to rule as God's renewed power over sin's dark reign. Who is the very God who dies to the creation He has created in order to powerfully release it into fellowship back to Himself in new and wondrous ways. And it is this principle here that is declared by this last article asking to choose the Servant-King Jesus over any extant biblical dogmas.

A Tale Both Old and New

Of course, my one reaction is (as it always has been) how does one "renew" the pages of Scripture in order to presage the best of God's heart and sovereign plan from the dark narratives of Israel's violence committed towards the ancient nations and neighbors it lived amongst. In past writings and articles we have here jettisoned any need for an inerrant bible in favor of a more intelligent approach for an errant bible built upon a sophisticated stream of biblical interpretation and theology. A theology that ultimately is open and not closed based upon a bible that is open and not closed to today's academic discoveries and perturbations. So that in some sense, the Christian church must learn how to re-interpret the bible so that its Author is more clearly seen throughout its pages without relenting of the bible altogether in favor of some moralised version of the scriptures (or even the gospel of Jesus). For myself, as for many other, an errant bible is the only way to proceed in these dark times of literal biblical interpretation. And though errant, its message is one that is authoritative and Spirit-endowed. Thus the paradox, the mystery, the riddle that is the Scriptures themselves. But nonetheless, Christianity is deeply disserved when Christ's message is neglected against more preferential interpretations of theologies that are unChristlike. Remove the author from His Work and you'll get a man-centered gospel built upon vengeance and judgment. Keep Christ in His Work and you'll draw the rancor of the "religiously-Christian" rank-and-file unskilled in biblical interpretation and ready to acreed serpents and vipers into the pulpits of the church. Let us be wise and chose love, chose Jesus, even choosing death to our dark ways, for the uplifting of the Cross of Jesus which draws all vipers to itself to die so that the camp of the Living God's children may be cleansed and live.

R.E. Slater

December 6, 2015
edited December 7, 2015

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"So what does a DONE and a NONE look like?

They wish to look and act and be like Jesus...."

                      - r.e. slater, 12.2.15

My Emancipation From American Christianity

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-pavlovitz/my-emancipation-from-american-christianity_b_8718400.html

by John Pavlovitz, Pastor and Writer

Posted: 12/04/2015 9:33 am EST Updated: 12/04/2015 9:59 am EST

I used to think that it was just me, that it was my problem, my deficiency, my moral defect.

It had to be.

All those times when I felt like an outsider in this American Jesus thing; the ever-more frequent moments when my throat constricted and my heart raced and my stomach turned.

Maybe it came in the middle of a crowded worship service or during a small group conversation. Maybe while watching the news or when scanning a blog post, or while resting in a silent, solitary moment of prayer. Maybe it was all of these times and more, when something rose up from the deepest places within me and shouted, "I can't do this anymore! I can't be part of this!"

These moments once overwhelmed me with panic and filled me with guilt, but lately I am stepping mercifully clear of such things.

What I've come to realize is that it certainly is me, but not in the way I used to believe.

I am not losing my mind.

I'm not losing my faith.

I'm not failing or falling or backsliding.

I have simply outgrown American Christianity.

• I've outgrown the furrowed-browed warnings of a sky that is perpetually falling.

• I've outgrown the snarling brimstone preaching that brokers in damnation.

• I've outgrown the vile war rhetoric that continually demands an encroaching enemy.

• I've outgrown the expectation that my faith is the sole property of a political party.

• I've outgrown violent bigotry and xenophobia disguised as Biblical obedience.

• I've outgrown God wrapped in a flag and soaked in rabid nationalism.

• I've outgrown the incessant attacks on the Gay, Muslim and Atheist communities.

• I've outgrown theology as a hammer always looking for a nail.

• I've outgrown the cramped, creaky, rusting box that God never belonged in anyway.

• Most of all though, I've outgrown something that simply no longer feels like love, something I no longer see much of Jesus in.

If religion it is to be worth holding on to, it should be the place were the marginalized feel the most visible, where the hurting receive the most tender care, where the outsiders find the safest refuge.

It should be the place where diversity is fiercely pursued and equality loudly championed; where all of humanity finds a permanent home and where justice runs the show.

"I am a Christian and an American, but I refuse to settle for this American Christianity any longer or be defined by it."

That is not what this thing is. This is FoxNews and red cup protests and persecution complexes. It's opulent, big box megachurches and coddled, untouchable celebrity pastors. It's pop culture boycotts and manufactured outrage. It's just wars and justified shootings. It's all manner of bullying and intolerance in the name of Jesus.

Feeling estrangement from these things is a good thing.

For the past two decades I've lived within the tension of trying to be in the thing and not be altered by the thing, but that tension has become too great. Ultimately it's a spiritual compatibility issue.

It's getting harder and harder to love all people and still fit into what has become American Christianity, so rather than becoming less loving and staying -- I'm leaving.

I'm breaking free from religion for the sake of my soul.

I'm not sure practically what that looks like, but I can feel myself consciously and forcefully pulling away; creating distance between me and a system that can no longer accommodate the scale of my God and the scope of my aspirations.

Jesus said that the Spirit moves where it pleases, and with it go those in its glorious grip. In my heart and in the hearts of so many like me, that Spirit is boldly declaring its emancipation from the small, heavily guarded space that wants to contain it, and taking us out into the wide, breathtaking expanses of unfettered faith.

Every day people tell me that this great releasing is happening within them too; that they are finding freedom beyond the building and the box, and rediscovering a God right sized.

I am a Christian and an American, but I refuse to settle for this American Christianity any longer or be defined by it.

I know that there is something much greater beyond it worth heading toward; something that looks more like God and feels more like love.

Maybe you see it in the distance too. Maybe we can go there together.

Fear is in the rear view, freedom in the windshield.

This post originally appeared on JohnPavlovitz.com.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

A Call for American Evangelical Leaders to Confront Evangelicalism’s Lunatic Fringe

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2015/12/a-call-for-american-evangelical-leaders-to-confront-evangelicalisms-lunatic-fringe/

Roger Olson

December 3, 2015

Every religious movement that grows sufficiently large has a lunatic fringe; extremists attach themselves to religious (and other) movements to gain respectability and a “voice”—to influence the movement and others through it. Then, inevitably, critics of the movement accuse it of fostering lunatics and identify the latter with the center of the movement itself.

This is self-evident to anyone who studies religious (and other) movements. It’s relatively easy to notice and identify the lunatics, the extremists, attempting to attach themselves to movements—especially insofar as those movements gain a certain momentum socially and culturally.

A “movement” is different from an “organization.” An organization has a center and boundaries; a movement has a center without boundaries. American evangelicalism is a distinct movement with a relatively identifiable center. I have argued here and elsewhere that it is fracturing; the center is not holding. Still, it remains real in perception (especially to the pseudo-journalists of the mass media and its critics) which gives it a kind of reality.

Gradually, over the past thirty to forty years, “the public mind” has come to identify American evangelicalism with the movement’s extremists, its lunatic fringe, who have pushed themselves forward as self-appointed spokespersons for “evangelicals” in general. Television talk show hosts, popular (uninformed) journalists, critics of Christianity with platforms (blogging, writing, speaking) have tended to identify American evangelicalism with one particular wing of the movement—what I call neo-fundamentalists (because their real religious ethos is more akin to the fundamentalist movement that arose in the first half of the 20th century than to the postfundamentalist evangelical movement that coalesced around Billy Graham in the second half of the century). Many of these neo-fundamentalists, who call themselves “conservative evangelicals,” have adopted a triumphalist political agenda of using the power of politics to enforce their vision of Christianity on a pluralistic public.

Among these neo-fundamentalist evangelicals are some out-and-out lunatics. I don’t use that word in a technical sense—if it has one. I use it in the popular sense, the one most people think of now, of extremists who would be dangerous if their beliefs were to gain traction, momentum, real influence in the social realm—including especially politics. I do not mean they are literally insane in any DSM-5 sense. They may be religiously and politically delusional, but they are not literally mentally ill (so their extremism cannot be dismissed that way).

Even most American Christians, especially relatively educated and enlightened ones, those whose main “compass” is driven by Jesus and the New Testament and who are reasonable people even if others strongly disagree with their beliefs, reject the ideologically-driven proposals of these “evangelical lunatics” on the movement’s extremist fringe.

In my considered and hopefully informed opinion, for whatever it’s worth, I identify two main groups gaining real traction and influence by manipulating their claim to be “evangelical Christians”—even if that claim amounts primarily to allowing the media to so label them and then build on that bestowed identity.

The first I have written about here several times and include its ideology and spiritual-theological program in my book Counterfeit Christianity (Abingdon, 2015): the so-called “Word Faith” “Prosperity Gospel” of “Health and Wealth” that turns Christianity into a get-rich through prayer scheme.

The second I have not written about as much; it is variously called “Christian Reconstructionism” and “Dominion Theology.” (Yes, I realize these are not exactly the same thing, but for my purposes here their similarities are strong enough to lump them together.)

Some, perhaps most, Christian Reconstructionists and promoters of Dominion Theology teach it is the duty of Christians, inspired and led by God, to “take back America for God” in a legal sense of enforcing even Old Testament commandments and especially traditional Christian ethical norms (as they interpret them) on America through political (broadly defined) power. Some go so far as to believe and preach that the Kingdom of God itself could appear on American soil if enough Christians rallied to their cause. Some go so far as to advocate executions of homosexuals—based on a very selective reading of the Old Testament. (They rarely if ever advocate the execution of everyone God allegedly commanded the Hebrew people to execute!)

Rarely do advocates of this theology name themselves by these labels (viz., “Christian Reconstructionists” or “believers in Dominion Theology”). Sometimes they wrongly call themselves “Theonomists”—a less objectionable term that can mean many other things. (Liberal theologian Paul Tillich, for example, promoted “cultural theonomy” without ever hinting at establishment of a theocracy.)

There are many degrees of Christian Reconstructionism and Dominion Theology. These ideologies and political visions can be detected, though, in the subtleties of some preachers’ (and others’) visions for the future of America. “Take back America for God” is an imperative I always suspect of being inspired by some kind of Christian Reconstructionism or Dominion Theology—even where the people making it are not directly influenced by the ideology’s books, blogs and sermons.

This lunatic fringe of American evangelical Christianity is often popularly identified, especially by Christianity’s critics, as a natural extension of evangelicalism itself. And, unfortunately, many evangelical Christians I know (some of them are relatives!), express strong sympathies with it—even if they do not identify themselves with any of its many organizational expressions. Many of the latter tend to think that being an “American evangelical” would naturally lead a person to their theocratic vision for future America.

Most unfortunately, in my opinion, some American evangelical pastors, even some who stand in the pulpits of denominations associated with the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE), are worming their way into the political process by holding innocent-sounding “rallies” and “banquets” and other kinds of events to whom they invite candidates for public office. I suspect most of the candidates who attend these events know little to nothing about the Reconstructionist/Dominionist theologies of these pastors. They are just glad to get a forum for promoting their candidacies. However, should one such candidate gain political power through the organizers’ help they will be called upon to move the American legal system in their direction.

What should be done about these evangelical extremists? First, evangelical “movers and shakers” need to publically distance themselves from them, even reject them as what Luther called “false brethren.” They are not “us.” They are hangers on of evangelicalism whose motives and goals are different from authentic evangelical Christianity. Second, if they belong to a denomination, their denominational leaders need to use whatever means are available to expel them. Third, when one of them holds an event (such as a recent one in the city where I was born in the Upper Midwest and where some of the first presidential caucuses will be held in the nominating process), evangelical pastors in that areas need to come together publicly to denounce their ideology. (I hesitate to call it a “theology” as it seems more driven by power motives than by true interest in God.) Fourth, evangelical Christian opinion-shapers need to use their platforms to proclaim to America and to the world that “they are not us.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

"Try this for a game changer, because this is where the church is at in a post-Christian world

questioning why Jesus' words and life example is being "thrown under the bus" for good old

fashion OT vengeance and hate by Christian groups. When the bible is lifted up over Jesus

we have a problem. Say what? Yup, its a problem for church groups trying to figure out who

they will follow... their dogmatic party lines or the Way of grace and truth. Get this latter
straightened out and you get the Spirit of God's movement among men and women figured
out. Refuse it and we get another 2000 years of acrimony, division, and eschatologic woe."
                                                                                        - r.e. slater, 12.2.15

Jesus is Ultimate

http://www.jrdkirk.com/2015/12/02/jesus-is-ultimate/

by J.R. Daniel Kirk

December 2, 2015

Bible As Final Authority?

“Christians don’t believe in the Bible. Christians believe in Jesus.”

I still remember when Ralph Wood dropped that bomb on a room of starry eyed freshmen and sophomores at Wake Forest University. I remember the vigorous conversations that ensued. How uncomfortable it made me.

I think that the story of my life for the past fifteen years has been discovering how deeply right he was. But before that, I resisted.

When I was preparing to go to seminary I tried to engage my grandparents on my choice of schools. So I sent some info on the conservative Reformed seminary I had chosen to those former Baptist missionaries. Grandfather picked out the opening line about scripture as the final authority and wrote in the margins for my perusal: “What about Christ?”

I thought he was naïve. How can you know about Jesus except through scripture, after all?

I think that the story of my life for the past fifteen years has been discovering how deeply right he was.

Jesus is Ultimate, Scripture Isn’t

Actually, there is a paradox here. The paradox is that the scriptures themselves paint a picture of Jesus who is more ultimate than those texts that attest to him, a Jesus who is more ultimate and the work and words of God that preceded him. That means that when we make scripture ultimate we should hear in its own voice the demand that it be given second place, that it retreat to the penultimate position, leaving Jesus (rather than scripture itself) as the final word.

You can find this claim across the New Testament.

There’s this moment in Matthew’s Gospel when the primacy seems like it is going to be left in the hands of scripture itself: “Do not think that I came to abolish the Law and the prophets, I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill.” But then follows a beautiful engagement with the Law that shows us that “fulfillment” places Jesus, the one who fulfills, above the Law itself.

When he engages the people by saying, “You have heard it said… but I say to you…” we learn that scripture is not ultimate. Neither the Torah itself nor its interpreters have the final word. Jesus claims that for himself.

In John’s Gospel a running theme is that all would-be divine spokespersons derive their value from the faithfulness with which they witness to Jesus. This includes scripture.

“You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have life. But it is these that testify about me.” Scripture isn’t ultimate. Jesus is.

In Romans Paul insists that saving righteousness comes apart from the Law and the prophets–but that they testify to it. He later says that Christ is the end or goal of the Law. Law is not ultimate, final. Christ is. And, Law and prophets are only rightly read when read as a witness to this coming Christ.

In the famous passage about scripture as God-breathed in 2 Timothy 3, we often skip the Christological purpose: “From childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus.”

And then there’s Hebrews. From front to back the point is that there were the former days and diverse manners of speaking, but in the last, the ultimate, days God has spoken through a son. A son who is greater.

From Sign to Substance

Jesus is the thing. Scripture is the sign that points toward the thing. Scripture provides a series of portraits so that we will know the real thing when we see it.

The difference between scripture and Christ is the difference between the menu and the food. The one describes the reality of the life-giving substance, the other is that life-giving substance.

Or, if you prefer the analogy of Colossians, scripture is like a shadow cast by Christ’s body. It shows us that there is someone there, but it is not the person himself.

One thing that I have become increasingly aware of is that this ultimacy of Christ, and its role in setting scripture back to a penultimate position, changes everything. And our awareness of it has the capacity to change how we view just about everything.

It shapes our understanding of God, of the world as it is, of the world as it will be, and of how we are to act here and now in order to embody the image of the God in which we have been (re)fashioned.

And, of course, it changes how we read the Bible.

Looks like that’s where we need to head over the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned for discussion about how Jesus changes everything. After all, isn’t that what Advent is all about?

J.R. Daniel Kirk: "Does Paul’s Christ Require a Historical Adam?"

http://cms.fuller.edu/TNN/Issues/Spring_2013/Does_Paul_s_Christ_Require_a_Historical_Adam/

by J.R. Daniel Kirk

Spring 2013

 

The Christian tradition has made much of Adam. We in the Western church speak regularly of the Fall of humanity that took place in Adam’s primal disobedience. Theologically, we speak of inherited sin and guilt—an original sin that renders us all complicit. We are guilty of humanity’s first great act of disobedience and enslaved to sin’s power.

 

Such theological claims derive more from our reading of Paul’s reflections on Adam than from the Genesis story itself. For many, the most significant theological reasons for affirming a historical Adam have to do not with what Genesis 1–3 may or may not teach about human origins, but with the theology of Adam that Paul articulates in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15. In short, if there is no historical Adam with whom we are enmeshed in the guilt and power of sin, how can we affirm that in Christ we participate in the justification and freedom of grace?

 

The levels of freedom (or lack thereof) that many of us experience with regard to the question of Adam as a historical person is inseparable from the theology that we see bound up with him. For some, to reject Adam as a historical person is to reject the authority of Scripture and trustworthiness of the very passages within which we learn of justification and resurrection.¹ Others are concerned that to deny a historical Adam is to deny the narrative of a good world gone wrong that serves as the very basis for the good news of Jesus Christ. In short, if there is no Fall, there can be no salvation from it and restoration to what was and/or might have been.² Even more expansively, Douglas Farrow concludes that “there is very little of importance in Christian theology, hence also in doxology and practice, that is not at stake in the question of whether or not we allow a historical dimension to the Fall.”³

 

High stakes, indeed. But I want to suggest that things might not be so dire. Specifically, I want to open up the conversation to the possibility that the gospel does not, in fact, depend on a historical Adam or historical Fall in large part because what Paul says about Adam stems from his prior conviction about the saving work of Christ. The theological points Paul wishes to make concern the saving work of the resurrected Christ and the means by which he makes them is the shared cultural and religious framework of his first-century Jewish context.

 

CHRIST AND ADAM

 

Paul has an important story to tell. It is the story of God’s new creation breaking into the world through the surprising mechanism of a crucified and resurrected Christ. This conviction about the new creation being brought about by Christ provides Paul with the ground to stand on as he draws Adam into the conversation in Romans 5 and 1 Corinthians 15.

 

One crucial dynamic of Paul’s Adam Christology is representation. Christ does, is, and becomes what we need to participate in, be, and become in order to be God’s eternal family. For this reason, Paul takes hold of the “image of God” language with which we are so familiar from Genesis 1, and uses it to describe Jesus as he stands in relation to us: “he decided in advance that they would be conformed to the image of his Son.”⁴ Christ represents who we are, and who we are becoming, as members of God’s new-creation family.

 

This representation is focused on two particular aspects of Christ’s saving work: his death on the cross and his resurrection from the dead. Romans 5 develops Paul’s Adam Christology around Christ’s death. Throughout the latter half of Romans 5, Paul outlines how Christ’s act entails benefits for many: it brings about God’s gracious gift in a manner that more than undoes the work of Adam, even reclaiming humanity’s privilege of ruling the world for God (5:15–17; cf. Genesis 1:26).

 

Similar dynamics unfurl in 1 Corinthians 15, where Adam is viewed as the progenitor of death in contrast to Christ who, as God’s new representative human being, anticipates humanity’s coming resurrection life (15:21–22). A new humanity has been inaugurated by the resurrected Christ.

 

This theological framework positions us to step into Paul’s statements about Adam. Paul is working with the stories of Israel, as told in the Old Testament, but from the perspective of someone who knows, now, that God’s great act of salvation has come in Christ.

 

CHRIST, THE LAW, AND HISTORY

 

This brings us to our central question: To what extent do we need to affirm a historical Adam in order also to affirm the saving dynamics of Paul’s Adam Christology?

 

Romans 5 presents us with what are arguably the most pressing reasons to affirm a historical Adam. There we find these striking words from Paul: 

• Sin entered the world through one person (5:12).
• Many people died through what one person did wrong (5:15).
• The judgment that came through one person’s sin led to punishment (5:16).
• Death ruled because of one person’s failure (5:17).
• Judgment fell on everyone through the failure of one person (5:18).
• Many people were made sinners through the disobedience of one person (5:19).

 

Paul is clearly appealing to both the common experience of enslavement to sin and death and the normative narratives of Israel regarding Adam to explain the reality that Christ overcomes. Moreover, the consistent point of comparison is that one person, Adam, represents the rest of humanity in coming under the guilt, the power, or the condemnation of sin.

 

One of the first questions worth confronting is whether this passage allows for various understandings of how Adam might represent humanity. Thus, for example, might there be room here, not for a physical, natural progenitor of all subsequent human beings, but for a person who was chosen by God from a developing or, at any rate, numerically numerous, human race to play the role of representative in obedience and disobedience?

 

But the question that will clamor for the attention of many is whether such a moment in which sin’s guilt and power are unleashed as the lords of humanity is required at all. There seems to have been death in this world millions of years before human beings came on the scene. Is it possible to affirm the point Paul wishes to make—that God’s grace, righteousness, and life abound to the many because of Christ—without simultaneously affirming the assumptions with which he illustrated these things to be true?

 

Writing to the Romans, Paul wished to argue that God’s people are found in Christ, and thereby cut off other possible ways of construing idealized human identity and what salvation and the people of God might look like. In claiming that Christ is (un)like Adam, Paul was simultaneously taking other options off the table. What difference might it make to our discussions about a historical Adam that Paul was claiming, “Christ, is (un)like Adam, therefore God’s people are not demarcated by Torah”? This latter statement is, in fact, the point of Paul’s argument in Romans 5 (cf. 5:12–14, 20–21). Paul’s Adam theology is an avenue toward affirming that God has one worldwide people; therefore, the specially blessed people are not defined by the story of circumcision. But he does not ask the question of whether an evolutionary account of human origins might stand within the story of God’s new creation work in Christ, and his argument is not aimed at denying such an explanation of where we came from.

 

RETELLING THE STORY OF ORIGINS

 

When the ancients told stories of human origins, it was never simply to tell people “what happened.” Instead, such narratives indicate why their particular people and their particular god played the roles of sovereigns of the world. Genesis 1 is an introduction to the covenant story of Israel, in which God promises to make fruitful Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and also multiply them (17:6; 28:3; 35:11; 47:27; 48:4). The story of Adam in Genesis is written with the latter story of Israel in mind, so that the reader can see that Israel is destined to fulfill God’s primordial promise of not only filling the Earth but also ruling over it (cf. 17:6).

 

Similarly, Paul employs the story of Adam based on his new understanding that Christ is the man through whom God has chosen to rule the world and that the churches are the people who are the fulfillment of the promise of numerous descendants. For neither Paul nor the writer of Genesis does the story of Adam exist as a standalone narrative to which later history must correspond. Instead, the convictions about what God has done at a later point in history determine how the Adam story is read.

 

New Testament scholarship over the past half century has developed the insight that the first data point in Paul’s Christian theologizing was his understanding that the cross and resurrection formed the saving act of God. In the 1960s, Herman Ridderbos argued that this fundamental conviction becomes the great act of God by which all other acts and ideas are understood.⁵ The significance of this focus on Christ is that it ripples out in all directions: not only does Paul rethink the future in light of Jesus’ death and resurrection, but he also reinterprets what came before. Thus, Ridderbos concludes that “Paul’s whole doctrine of the world-and-man in sin . . . is only to be perceived in the light of his insight into the all-important redemptive event in Christ.”⁶ A decade later E. P. Sanders concurred, claiming that Paul reasons “from solution to plight.”⁷ Because Paul knows that God has provided the solution to the problem of human sin in the crucified and risen Christ, he therefore reassesses the place of the Law, in particular, in God’s saving story. Romans 5 is one particular outworking of this.

 

Both Ridderbos and Sanders have come to the same conclusion: what is a “given” for Paul is the saving event of Jesus’ death and resurrection. The other things he says, especially about sin, the Law, and eschatology, are reinterpretations that grow from the fundamental reality of the Christ event. Recognizing this relieves the pressure that sometimes builds up around a historical Adam. Contrary to the fears expressed by Douglas Farrow, we can now recognize that Adam is not the foundation on which the system of Christian faith and life is built, such that removing him means that the whole edifice comes crashing down. Instead, the Adam of the past is one spire in a large edifice whose foundation is Christ. The gospel need not be compromised if we find ourselves having to part ways with Paul’s [perceived] assumption that there is a historical Adam, because we share Paul’s fundamental conviction that the crucified Messiah is the resurrected Lord over all.

 

Where, then, are we left, if the pressures of scientific inquiry lead us to take down the spire of a literal, historical Adam? What might it look like for us to faithfully receive Paul’s testimony not merely by saying what he said, but by doing what he did? Might it be possible that we could retell the stories of both Adam and evolutionary sciences such that they continued to reflect our conviction that the endpoint of God’s great story is nothing else than new creation in the crucified and risen [historical] Christ? For many, the cognitive dissonance between the sciences and a historical Adam has already become too great to continue holding both.⁸ We therefore have to carefully determine whether the cause of Christ, and of truth, is better served by indicating that a choice must be made between the two, or by retelling the narrative about the origins of humanity as we now understand it in light of the death and resurrection of Christ.

 

The task of reimagining a Christian story of origins for our modern era has already begun.⁹ As it continues, faithful articulation of our story will have to attempt to hold together for our day what Paul’s articulation held together so beautifully for his own: humanity as a whole, not one particular race or ethnicity or nationality of people, is the purview of God’s saving work in Christ; humanity’s final destiny has been determined by the advent of the new creation in Christ’s resurrection; and this solution in Christ indicates that the problem to be solved entails not only personal estrangement from God, but a whole world that fails to live up to the harmony, peace, fruitfulness, life, and eternality of the God who created it. Perhaps most importantly, we must not allow biology or physics or chemistry to have the last word about the destiny of humanity. The reality of our lives as creatures limited by death and decay must stand in subordinate relationship to the eschatological reality of new creation that God has granted us in Christ.

 

To accompany Paul on the task of telling the story of the beginning in light of Christ, while parting ways with his first-century understanding of science and history, is not to abandon the Christian faith in favor of science. Instead, it demands a fresh act of faith in which we continue to hold fast to the truth that has always defined Christianity: the crucified Messiah is the resurrected Lord over all. Belief in Christ’s resurrection was a stumbling block for the ancients, and it is a stumbling block for us moderns as well—and increasingly so as we learn more about our human story and the biological processes entailed in life on this Earth. We do not give up on the central article of Christian faith when we use it to tell a renewed story of where we came from. On the contrary, we thereby give it the honor which is its due.

 

 

ENDNOTES

1. E.g., A. B. Caneday, “The Language of God and Adam’s Genesis and Historicity in Paul’s Gospel,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 15 (2011): 26–59.
2. E.g., C. John Collins, Did Adam and Eve Really Exist? Who They Were and Why You Should Care (Wheaton: Crossway, 2011), 133–35; John W. Mahoney, “Why an Historical Adam Matters for the Doctrine of Original Sin,” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 15 (2011): 60–78; Stephen J. Wellum, “Editorial: Debating the Historicity of Adam: Does It Matter?” Southern Baptist Journal of Theology 15 (2011): 2–3.
3. Douglas Farrow, “Fall,” in The Oxford Companion to Christian Thought (ed. A. Hastings, A. Mason, and H. S. Pyper; New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 233–34.
4. All scriptural citations are from the Common English Bible unless otherwise indicated.
5. Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of His Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975), 44–90.
6. Ridderbos, Paul, 137.
7. E. P. Sanders, Paul and Palestinian Judaism (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1977), 474–508.
8. See, e.g., John R. Schneider, “Recent Genetic Science and Christian Theology on Human Origins: An ‘Aesthetic Superlapsarianism,’” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 62 (2010): 196–213.
9. E.g., Daniel C. Harlow, “After Adam: Reading Adam in an Age of Evolutionary Science,” Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith 62 (2010): 179–95.