How Emergent and Evangelical Churches See Themselves in a World of Servitude and Politics

To Kyle's article below I can only applaud his wisdom and humble understanding of what the church of God truly is. Well done!

R.E. Slater
July 9, 2011

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No Power? No Problem: Reflections on Evangelicals and Influence

http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/No-Power-No-Problem-Kyle-Roberts-06-29-2011?offset=0&max=1

by Kyle Roberts

posted June 28, 2011

Is evangelicalism losing influence in the United States? Yes, answer a majority of Global North evangelical leaders surveyed at the recent Lausanne conference on evangelism.

The suggestion is not a shocking one to anyone familiar with the ebb and flow of the movement in its contemporary forms. But the gloomy outlook of evangelical leaders provokes a good bit of reflection (in particular when you compare the pessimism of Northern hemisphere evangelicals to the optimism of their Southern hemisphere counterparts).

A majority of global North evangelicals (54%) believe that in five years the situation for evangelicals will be either worse than now (33%) or about the same as now (21%). By comparison, 71 percent of leaders in the Global South believe the state of evangelicalism will improve. Yet the finding that most fascinates me relates to perceptions of evangelicalism's influence. In the North, only 31 percent of leaders expect to see evangelical influence grow, compared to 66 percent who expect evangelical influence to diminish. In the South, 58 percent expect an increase while 39 percent expect a decrease in influence.

What shall we say to this?

As Samuel Johnson noted, "When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully." A perception of impending doom or coming decline forces those invested in that declining movement to gather their thoughts, re-focus their vision, and change course as necessary.

When the picture is accepted for what it is, rather than explained away as a series of anomalies or misinterpretations of data, then people can begin to shape creative solutions and re-imagine their future.

The question cannot simply be: How can evangelicalism recover its social influence? For one thing, the definition of the term evangelical is no longer stable. What counts as evangelical, on what basis, and who decides? The increasing ethnic diversity of American evangelicalism is complicating the picture. New studies show increasing diversity in how evangelicals, particularly younger ones, approach social issues, with homosexual marriage being the obvious current example. With such diversity underlying the movement, how can its social influence be measured?

But a deeper question remains. Could a decline of evangelical influence be a good thing for the gospel?

What is the task of the followers of Jesus? What is our vocation? Jesus said it is to be "the salt of the earth," the "light of the world," and a "city on a hill" (Mt. 5:13-14). Evangelicals have often brought to these images the assumption that saltiness and brightness = power as a voting block and a lobbying force. But those assumptions misconstrue the nature of the ecclesia, the gathering of disciples that seeks to follow Christ in the world and that understands its calling to suffering on behalf of and for the church (Col. 1:24) for the sake of the world (Mt. 28).

We too often measure the role and influence of the church with the barometers of the modern corporation or political program, barometers that are foreign to Jesus and the gospels. We too often gauge "success" by the extent to which our collective voice reinforces a particular, homogenous vision of life and minimizes our discomfort with difference and otherness. Evangelicals have too often seen ourselves as purveyors of a product or an ideology. Perhaps the better way to conceive of the church's identity and mission is as a diaspora: a scattered faithful remnant who seek to be servants of the gospel through the loving, gracious, non-coercive acts of witness. We are called to live out the implications of the gospel with humility and hospitality, pointing to the source of hope in Jesus.

Perhaps the evangelical church in the United States should embrace a decline of social influence in order to be God's elect who suffer in and for a broken world. When the church as an institution is perceived as powerful, it is often prone to triumphalism, exclusion, and self-preservation. As Karl Barth reminded us, the vocation of Christians and of the church is simply to serve the world by witnessing to the gospel. Since Pentecost, there has always been a historical church (in whatever form) to serve in this way. God uses the Church (including evangelical churches), but he doesn't require it. As Barth put it, "God does not belong to the Church" (The Epistle to the Romans [Oxford 1933, trans. Hoskyns], p. 339).

In the midst of this mainly gloomy picture of the Church lies a hopeful point: it is precisely because of its guilt, its transience, its negative instrumentality that the church plays a central role in God's economy of revelation, salvation, and reconciliation in the world. The way forward is to give obedient witness to the paradoxical reality of God's grace as manifest in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

It is not for us in the North to surmise what Christians in the Global South should make of the optimism of their leaders toward the future of their evangelical movements and their influence in society. But here in the United States, perhaps we should embrace the apparent impending decline in social influence as an opportunity to follow Jesus to the margins of society. Furthermore, perhaps we should embrace an increasing diversity within evangelicalism itself as a fruitful development toward serving a complex, variegated world.

North America sits at the center of a shift from modernism to postmodernism to whatever comes after that (if that hasn't already come). Ours is a world shot through with plurality and difference, fragmentation and fissure, indeterminacy and openness. How can we speak the gospel into a world bereft of unity, stability, meaning, and hope? Only through the posture of witness and "faithful presence," a presence that is self-consciously fragile enough to engage the world without breaking it further. We are pots of clay. We are witnesses to the Gospel of grace. That's all.

The Church is vastly bigger than evangelicalism. And the kingdom of God is bigger than the Church. This means that any decline in evangelicalism's power and influence does not signal the end of God's work. But it may be that through recognition of our declining influence and by the practice of witness we can find God at work in us and through us in greater ways than we could have imagined.

Kyle Roberts is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology and Lead Faculty of Christian Thought, Bethel Seminary (St. Paul, MN). He researches and writes on issues related to the intersection of theology, philosophy, and culture. Follow Kyle Roberts' reflections on faith and culture at his blog or via Twitter.

Roberts' column, "Theological Provocations," is published every second Tuesday on the Evangelical portal. Subscribe via email or RSS.

The Presence of the Kingdom of God Now

A Teachable Moment: The Perils of Rapture Theology

http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Teachable-Moment-Perils-of-Rapture-Theology-Roberts-Rao-05-24-2011.html?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4ddc2373fafb04c0%2C0

Christians should certainly question those who "prophesy" a specific date. Yet they should also question the underlying assumptions of rapture theology.

By Kyle Roberts

May 23, 2011

Editorial Note: This piece was co-authored by Patheos columnist Kyle Roberts and Adam Rao, who is Pastor of Teaching and Strategic Leadership at SafeHouse Church in Minneapolis, MN.

In the weeks leading up to May 21, Christians everywhere denounced Harold Camping's prediction that the world was coming to an imminent end. Many did so on the basis of Jesus' words in Mark 13, that "no one knows about that day or hour" except the Father. What remains troubling, however, is that many of those denouncements suggested that Camping was wrong about the date, but not necessarily wrong about the event itself. Maybe it's high time to reconsider the theology behind the very idea of the rapture. For some time, theologians (such as N.T. Wright and Jürgen Moltmann) have been pressing for a de-raptured eschatology to permeate the general Christian consciousness.

Rapture theology has captivated the contemporary public imagination. The most recent iteration was the popular Left Behind material. Prior to that, in 1970, Hal Lindsey's The Late, Great Planet Earth fascinated countless Christians. In contrast, contemporary evangelical theological scholarship found its voice, to some extent, as a counter to the sensationalist eschatologies of dispensational fundamentalism. George Eldon Ladd's influential work on New Testament eschatology moved evangelical theology away from a focus on literal fulfillment of end-times scenarios, especially literalistic readings of Revelation and "rapture" theologies connected to tribulation schemes. Yet within popular evangelicalism, fascination with the rapture continues to pervade preaching and teaching about the "end of the world." This is a problem.

Biblically, rapture theology finds its roots in 1 Thessalonians 4:15-17, with its language of being "caught up . . . in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air." N.T. Wright suggests, however, in Surprised by Hope,

When Paul speaks of "meeting" the Lord "in the air," the point is precisely not—as in the popular rapture theology—that the saved believers would then stay up in the air somewhere, away from earth. The point is that, having gone out to meet their returning Lord, they will escort him royally into his domain, that is, back to the place they have come from. (p. 133)

Moreover, while rapture theology retains the apocalyptic vision of the New Testament, it does so in precisely the opposite direction of the biblical authors (see Moltmann's The Coming of God, p. 159). Rather than seeing the apocalyptic as a reason to resist evil, rapture theology suggests that Christians are meant to escape this world and that the destiny of this world is destruction. In such a view, Christians will be swept off the face of the planet, leaving it to the devices of evil and the horrors of tribulation.

The biblical witness suggests exactly the opposite, that Jesus is already king and that his kingdom has already made inroads into this world, which will one day be ratified and confirmed (at his Second Coming). Tribulation is a past and present reality, and the church is called to endure it on behalf of the world and to stand up against it through the power of the Spirit. Rapture theology, in which Jesus will take his people away and leave the world to the devices and whims of evil, runs counter to the good news that the kingdom of God has already come in Christ (e.g., Mk. 1:14-15).

In contrast to rapture theology, a biblical eschatology:

1) Affirms the inherent value of the earth and motivates care for creation. Rapture theology suggests that we are "just passing through" this temporary dwelling place. Eventually we will escape this world and find our final home in an ethereal realm, a "heaven" filled with mansions and streets of gold. Again N.T. Wright helps to re-frame our expectations. God's plan is for "a new heaven and a new earth" (Rev. 21:1), what Wright calls "life after life after death" (pp. 148ff). Since the goal is the re-creation and redemption of this world, we have motivation to care for and cultivate it now.

2) Offers a compelling vision for resistance against evil, injustice, and all forms of oppression in the present world order. Rapture theology generates an "escapist" mentality whereby our best hope for dealing with injustice, wickedness, and hopelessness is to simply fly off to a perfect spiritual world unhampered by sin and finitude. Most harmfully, rapture theology sees injustice, oppression, and even natural disasters as predictive signs of the end of this life for Christians, rather than as the evil and discord they really are.

3) Redefines Christian mission as anticipation of and participation in the kingdom of God. Salvation, as Wright suggests, enables us to be witnesses to and signs of the ultimate salvation of the cosmos, as well as participants in that salvation (p. 200). That's why the biblical witness says that Christians are to be agents of reconciliation with those who do not yet know God and are to participate in the restoration of the cosmos (2 Cor. 5:20). In contrast, rapture theology suggests a sudden, disruptive end to that project, cutting off hope for reconciliation and renewal.

A de-raptured theology reorients evangelism and the meaning of salvation around the centrality of the kingdom of God. Rapture theology tends to use scare tactics—"Don't get left behind!"—that market individual salvation as an economic transaction rather than a new way of living justice, righteousness, and peace. A de-raptured evangelism is an invitation to embrace the reality of the Kingdom inaugurated by Christ.

Unfortunately, out of distaste for rapture theology, some Christians have swung the pendulum too far in the other direction. They focus everything on the present, believing that our world is what we make of it and that it is not only futile but even counter-productive to look to an apocalyptic Eschaton. Perhaps biblical eschatology resides not at either end of the spectrum, but somewhere in the middle. Only God can bring about the Kingdom, and Christians rightly await the second, and final, return of Christ (Col. 3:4). We look for his coming and long for the justice it will bring. In this sense, Christian theology should retain the apocalyptic (the hope that God is coming to make things right) without falling prey to fanciful notions of apocalypticism.

America is a nation imbued with eschatological consciousness. It's often how we talk about hope, change, and how we motivate action in the present toward a better future. As such, American Christianity will always be infatuated by and prone to predictions about the coming end. The recent media preoccupation with the doomsday, rapture theology of a well-meaning but deeply mistaken radio broadcaster is just the latest example. Christian leaders have a responsibility to remind people that we cannot know the "day or hour" and that it is counter-productive to speculate about it. They should also emphasize, however, that Christians should not seek to escape the world, but to embrace and engage it instead.

Kyle Roberts is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology and Lead Faculty of Christian Thought, Bethel Seminary (St. Paul, MN). He researches and writes on issues related to the intersection of theology, philosophy, and culture. Follow Kyle Roberts' reflections on faith and culture at his blog or via Twitter.

Roberts' column, "Theological Provocations," is published every second Tuesday on the Evangelical portal. Subscribe via email or RSS.

Matthew Harding - "Let Us Dance!"

Let Us Dance!
by Matt Harding

2008





2012

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.' " (Rev 21.1-4)

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"This is now an older video but it works still, for me, as a powerful visual metaphor for the 'new heavens and new earth,' the biblical notion that this whole earth will be restored and renewed under God’s eschatological loving care.

To be fair, it wasn’t the original intention of the video, which is pretty cool all on its own (apart from the analogical connection to eschatology), but set it alongside the vision of Rev. 21 and you have a picture of: Dancing. Joy. Happiness. Reunion. Health. Solid, beautiful earth. Reconciliation and Peace. The 'coming of God.' The New Jerusalem joining the present world. The coming Kingdom. Of Christ who is all in all. Maranatha! "

by Kyle Roberts, Bethel College

http://kylearoberts.com/wordpress/?p=446

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When I first saw this video I didn't know what to expect and the longer I watched it the more my heart was moved by its incredible vision. It brought tears of joy to my eyes, and my heart just wanted to burst with its beauty, as I thought of God's love for us and this wonderful life made so beautiful when we all join in. Come, let us Dance! Let us Celebrate t-o-g-e-t-h-e-r in this thing called Life!

R.E. Slater
May 15, 2011

The Origin of the World & the New Creation

http://kylearoberts.com/wordpress/?p=423

Creation tells the story of a very good -- and yet incomplete -- world awaiting its redemption in Christ.

Kyle Roberts

April 25, 2011

With Easter just behind us, Christians have turned their attention to the narrative of Christ's resurrection, reflecting on themes of new creation, forgiveness, and redemption. It's worth remembering our original creation stories too, because only in their light can we fully appreciate the significance of Easter. The most prominent "origin" texts in Christian theology are found in Genesis 1-3. While they comprise two distinct perspectives on creation, together they are rich with theological insight into the meaning of creation, our human condition, and the God who brought it all into existence.

Genesis 1 is poetic cosmogony, presenting the 'six days' of creation along with the seventh as the day of God's rest. It is lofty and ethereal, cosmological and ordered, poetic in form. Genesis 2-3, the story of humanity's rise and fall at the central place in creation, is gritty and earthy and set in narrative form. (See William Brown's The Seven Pillars of Creation.)

Both texts assert the significance of human beings in God's creation, though in Genesis 1 they emerge at the end of creation on the sixth day (along with other animals), while in Genesis 2 they arrive first on the scene. Both narratives have profoundly influenced Christian theology and Christian understanding of origins: including the roles of God and the nature of God's interaction with creation. In what follows, I offer a small sampling of theological themes which, emerging from ongoing reflection on these texts, have deeply influenced Christian religious understanding—in particular as they relate to a theology of Easter.

1) Creation is very good, but not perfect.

In Genesis 1-3, creation is neither complete, harmless, nor tame. In creation, God brings order from disorder and beauty from chaos, through his Spirit, word, and wisdom. However, neither pain, suffering, nor danger is excluded from what God calls "good." Douglas John Hall, in God and Human Suffering, suggests the creation narratives make room for constructive forms of suffering: loneliness, limits, temptation, and anxiety. This is because "struggle is necessary to the human glory that is God's intention for us" (62).

The desire to provide an answer to the problem of evil and suffering sometimes tempts Christians to want to read Genesis 1-3 as laying the blame for natural suffering (and death) on original human sin. In so doing, they elevate the role of humanity's burden for what originally happened in the natural world to a height (or depth) the scriptures never accord them; it is worth pointing out, however, that humanity has greatly—and sometimes disastrously—impacted the modern, natural environment. The logic of Genesis 1-3 suggests that natural disasters are part and parcel of a dangerous but beautiful world. The recognition that creation is "very good," but not complete, provides motivation for human involvement in the preservation, cultivation, and ongoing care of the earth.

2) Human beings are significant, but sinful.

Human beings play a prominent role in both creation accounts. The "image of God," presented in Genesis 1, is concretized or grounded in Genesis 2. The adam, or "groundling" (note the play on words: adam springs from the adamah, the earth) is animated by the breath of God. The human being is created through a synthesis of divine breath and dirt. As one of my students recently noted, the creation of human beings from the ground raises a interesting question for anti-evolutionists: is it less dignified to have primitive, "ape-like" creatures as our ancestors or to be made from dirt?

No Pleasure in the Death of the Wicked

http://kylearoberts.com/wordpress/

Kyle Roberts

May 1, 2011

Do I take any pleasure in the death of the wicked? declares the Sovereign LORD. Rather, am I not pleased when they turn from their ways and live? – Ezekiel 18:23

When I heard the announcement of Osama bin Laden’s death and saw the jubilant celebrations, I was reminded of this verse. God is a God of justice and righteousness and so he calls evil and sin what they are and holds people accountable accordingly. But God is also a God of mercy and love, and desires that all people — even the most sinful and wicked among us — repent and “turn from their ways.”

So, when the wicked do not repent and turn, God takes no pleasure when they experience the consequences of their wickedness in death. I am sure that many people who lost friends and loved ones on 9/1 rightfully feel a sense of justice on this day. I wouldn’t deny them that. But there is a difference between feeling a somber sense of justice and celebrating the death of one of God’s creatures — however wicked, sinful and evil they may have may become.

At the heart of the Christian Gospel stands the truth that not one of God’s people deserves salvation – his covenant love and reconciliation – and not one of God’s creatures stands outside of the intentional reach of His love. Paul tells that God desires that everyone be saved and to “come to a knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:3-4). I take “everyone” to mean literally everyone — even the most evil among us — even those who have done us personal, communal or societal harm. There’s no doubt God’s expressed desire for the salvation of everyone in Christ is difficult to accept, especially when confronted with the most radical of possibilities: namely, the salvation of even Osama Bin Laden. But that simply underscores the radicality of God’s grace. No one is outside of the potentiality of reconciliation with God.

What Ezekiel seems to be saying here is that every violent death is a sadness. But when a violent death signifies that a temporal life has reached its end, that dust has returned to dust, in what is very likely a state of unrepentance and of rebellion against God, then our response as Christians should not and cannot be exuberant joy or triumphalism. God takes no pleasure in the death of the wicked; nor does he withhold his justice and righteousness. In the face of evil and unrighteousness, our ultimate hope is in God and God alone. And our response to the “death of the wicked” should be modeled after his as well.

We Believe in the Holy Spirit... Right?

By Kyle Roberts

April 11, 2011

The Holy Spirit is not an amorphous abstraction. He is active and embodied

in our efforts to transform ourselves and transform the world.

This was a long Minnesota winter. My snow-bound friends and I bemoaned the stubborn cold and the elusive thaw. We collectively longed for spring and for the warmth, the growth, and the new life it brings.

The renewal of life associated with spring reminds me of the activity of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is known in scripture and theological tradition as the life-giver, healer, and Perfector of creation. One of the "two hands of God" (Irenaeus), the Spirit draws, awakens, and breathes new life into creation and humanity.

In its original form, the Nicene Creed (325 A.D.) simply asserted, "we believe in the Holy Spirit." In 381 A.D., more was added: the Spirit is "the Lord, the giver of Life, who proceeds from the Father; who with the Father and Son together is worshipped and glorified." The Holy Spirit was understood to be fully divine, an equal "hypostasis" (person) with the Father and to the Son. Why did it take so long for the Church to articulate clearly and emphatically that the Spirit is fully divine and equally worthy of worship, prayer, and praise as the Father and the Son?

The reasons are several. The Father and the Son had "faces" (the Father figuratively, the Son literally in his incarnation), while the Spirit seemed faceless. Amorphous. It blows where it pleases. It refers and defers. It is effective but elusive. Its particularity as a person seemed difficult to grasp. And the biblical witness for the full divinity of the Spirit seemed less clear or emphatic than for the Father and Son. An influential Christian sect, known as the "Pneumatomachoi," or "spirit-fighters," argued just this point in their assertion that the Spirit is not fully God. This position did not carry the day; the prevailing, orthodox position was that the Bible manifests a progression of revelation, and that the Spirit's full divinity and personhood is a burgeoning idea—even in the New Testament. So on what basis were early Christians justified in articulating the Spirit as the third person of the Trinity?

Together with the biblical witness, it was partly the collective experience of the early Christians that fortified the belief in the divinity of the Spirit. The Spirit was experienced as Savior, healer, guide to truth, bringer of new life, restorer of harmony, and facilitator of unity. Wherever Christ and the Father were known in the Church, the Holy Spirit too was there, bringing the love and grace of God to bear on communal, liturgical, and individual life. Converts were consistently baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. Conviction about the Spirit arose from a palpable sense that the Spirit, while instrumental in the creation of the universe and in the original animation of human life, continues to be active in its preservation and redemption. The Spirit brings life and salvation as human beings encounter and participate in the energeia, the divine energies of God.

Eventually, and with consensus, the Church determined that the Spirit, too, is a divine person (hypostasis). The Spirit brings new birth (Jn. 3:3-8); the Spirit empowers us to witness (Acts 1:8); the Spirit intercedes for us in prayer (Rom. 8:26); the Spirit can be grieved (Eph. 4:30); the Spirit guides us into truth (Jn. 16:13); and the Spirit will bring righteousness and justice to the "needy" and "poor of the earth" (Is. 11:4). Gregory of Nazianzus asserts, "it is the Spirit in whom we worship and in whom we pray." Our experience of the Spirit is our experience of God: Father, Son, and Spirit in economic union.

Although interest in the Holy Spirit has revived recently in churches and in academic theology, it may still be true that the Holy Spirit is the most neglected of the three persons of Trinity. This has been my experience in the evangelical Baptist tradition. Just as it took the early generations of the church some time to acknowledge the full divinity of the Spirit, so today there is a gap in our appreciation for and acknowledgement of the Spirit and its significance for Christian communities and individuals. This is not because we are not experiencing the Spirit. It's because, when it comes to the working of the Spirit, we may not know what to look for or how to recognize it. When we assume a dichotomy between the workings of the Spirit and the embodiment of concrete practices, we end up looking for the Spirit in all the wrong places.

For the most part, the early Christians' experience of the Spirit was a concrete, embodied experience that coincided with practices of the church and discipleship. Experience of the Spirit was eminently bodily, practical, and not only life-transforming but world-transforming as well. As David H. Jenson writes, the Spirit "claims our bodies and our prayers and makes them participants in the life given for the world" (The Lord and Giver of Life, pg 11). The Spirit grounds and renews concrete visions of hope in and among embodied life and in broken communities. The Spirit proclaimed by the prophets and encountered at Pentecost calls forth justice for the oppressed, salvation for the hopeless, and unity in the Church.

If the activity of the Spirit is not "spiritual" (in the Gnostic sense of invisible, immaterial, and disembodied), then we are experiencing the Spirit whenever we are working along with God and seeking his Kingdom and righteousness. The work of the Spirit is everywhere present: in soup kitchens, hospitals, schools, community centers, mission and social work and, of course, in the Church itself.

The Spirit creates a unity in diversity, a presence of the new and different, a transformation of our selves in community, a re-direction of mission and conviction. The fruits of the Spirit include love, joy, peace, and faithfulness, but they also result in communities of people and coalitions of churches who are satisfied with nothing less than righteousness and justice and who prophetically advocate for the oppressed and for the "least of these." In short, the work of the Spirit leads to God-intoxicated, kingdom-inspired people.

Trinitarian theology tells us that where any one of the three persons is working, they all are. So where the Spirit is, there is Jesus, and where Jesus is, there is the Father. There are good reasons to enrich our God-language and to long for, in a focused way, the purifying, healing, and reconciling power of the Holy Spirit in our lives, our churches, and our work on behalf of the world. If we are not experiencing the Spirit in manifest and transformational ways, neither are we are experiencing the transforming presence of Jesus, the Father, or of that which Jesus called the Kingdom of God.

Winter is over. Spring has come. May we also, and with far greater significance, witness a fresh work of the Holy Spirit in our midst.

We proclaim in our creed, "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life . . ." And we should ask ourselves: Do we really?

Kyle Roberts is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology and Lead Faculty of Christian Thought, Bethel Seminary (St. Paul, MN). He researches and writes on issues related to the intersection of theology, philosophy, and culture.

The New Apologetics

By Kyle Roberts
February 08, 2011

A "new apologetics" for a post-modern, post-Christian society will focus less on

winning arguments than witnessing to the redemptive power of Christ.

Is the place of apologetics in contemporary Christian theology and ministry changing?

Apologetics, within the modern evangelical framework, is understood as a reasoned defense of the coherence and intellectual validity of Christian faith and belief. It tends to draw upon "worldview" language and usually involves an active comparison of religious, philosophical, and ethical frameworks. Apologetics is usually considered an evangelistic enterprise, though one characterized by cerebral discussions. The "target" of apologetic practice is normally an intellectually sophisticated non-Christian, agnostic or atheist.

When talking about apologetics, the question usually arises regarding how many non-Christians are "converted" to Christianity through an apologetic dialogue. A common concession one hears is that apologetics often ends up being more about strengthening and encouraging the faith of Christian believers than winning and converting new ones. In either case, whether it is for the evangelism of unbelievers or for the discipleship of the converted, apologetics—even as traditionally practiced—can be fruitful and positive.

However, it is worth considering, in our evolving cultural context, whether a fresh paradigm for apologetics might render new energy and vitality to a time-tested practice. Theologians over the centuries have always reexamined the right way to engage with unbelief. For followers of Aquinas, for instance, apologetics includes "natural theology" (reflecting on the qualities of God made manifest in nature) and takes an optimistic outlook on the place of general human knowledge in articulating Christian belief. For followers of Karl Barth, on the other hand, apologetics, when it bases its argument on propositions independent of Christian revelation and practice, is regarded with deep skepticism. Both perspectives are still found in the dialogue today. Yet the Thomistic and Barthian concerns might find some common ground in a "new apologetic" for the 21st century that would be 1) evangelistic, 2) integrative, 3) holistic, 4) communal, and 5) contextual.

Evangelistic: We still need to practice apologetics today, because evangelism is no less important today than it was in the first century. Christ is still Lord and redeemer, but many still have not personally experienced his Lordship and redemption. Apologetics, as I see it, is simply what happens when theology (and philosophy, science, history, and sociology—but more about that later) is utilized in an evangelistic dialogue.

When a Christian is engaged in conversation with non-believers or skeptics, questions invariably arise: Why do you trust the Bible as your primary source of divine revelation? Why is there so much evil and suffering in the world? Why should I accept the uniqueness of Christ in an age of many putative gods or potential saviors? Apologetics simply is the attempt to address these questions with pastoral sensitivity, communal embodiment, and intellectual viability.

A caveat: While Christians ought to continue to practice evangelism, we need to maintain a poignant—though painful—recognition of our past and present failures to respect the other and to distinguish between Jesus-styled evangelism and triumphalism. We need to be aware that colonialism and imperialism have often masked themselves as evangelism and mission. But this awareness should not keep Christians from sharing the Lordship of Jesus and from answering probing questions about their faith and theological convictions. With that caveat in mind, the "new apologetics" should be:

Integrative: "All truth is God's truth." If something is true, it counts—no matter whether it comes from scripture or from science, from "the book of God" or the "book of nature." Apologetics should take an explicitly and intentionally integrative stance and methodology. Science can show us how nature works, introduce us to the outer reaches of the cosmos and explore the inner workings of the quantum world, and detail the origins of the universe and the remarkable development of biological life. Apologetics ought to embrace the discoveries of science, while recognizing that contemporary scientific consensus does not have the final word (as any responsible scientist would acknowledge). Prevailing scientific explanations will eventually be outstripped and outdated by new discoveries. This does not give us continual license, however, to pit interpretations of the Bible against science while closing our eyes to evidence. Models of integration between science and theology can be found in the work of people like Alister McGrath, John Polkinghorne, Nancey Murphy, and Francis Collins. While these figures are not often labeled as apologists, they offer resources for communicating the reasonableness of the Christian faith in positive, integrative ways. If apologetics is intentionally integrative, then it need not worry so much about "defending the corners" (per Daniel Harrell's phrase) as about exploring the intersections.

Holistic: Apologetics has often been characterized and practiced as a "lone ranger" discipline. The "brave Christian apologist" (usually a white male) takes his stand against the secularist, atheist, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, etc., attempts to poke holes in the armor of his opponent, and to persuasively defend his faith against all comers. While we could locate, perhaps, examples of early Christians in the New Testament articulating their faith and defending their convictions in the public marketplace (Paul and Peter come to mind), it seems that early Christian witness, on the whole, was a communal and holistic enterprise. Christians cared for the sick, fed the hungry, and clothed the naked—just like their master taught them—and in so doing they proclaimed the Lordship and salvation of Christ. Perhaps apologetics ought to work at integrating not just other disciplines, but also the practices of Christian life and discipleship into and along with intellectual discourse.

Communal: The most influential book I have read on the topic of the "new apologetics" (and the book isn't all that new!) is Brad Kallenberg's Live to Tell: Evangelism in a Postmodern Age. Kallenberg points out that people learn a new language best by immersion in a culture and community. In the 1950s, Christians could pretty well assume an in-depth familiarity with the Christian language. Americans in general knew what sin, grace, and forgiveness meant. They had at least a rudimentary familiarity with the doctrine of the Trinity and the two natures of Christ. They had heard the "old, old story" many times. But in our post-modern, post-Christian, increasingly secular age, these words and concepts can be as foreign as German or Spanish words to an English-only speaker. In order to learn a new language well, one must observe the meanings of words in a lived context. Those words need to be embodied and enacted in a community of people committed to living them out with authenticity. Apologetics, then, is not merely a defense of certain truths; it is an invitation into a community that seeks to live out those truths deeply and daily.

Contextual: The narrative of the history of the modern Western Christian missions movement contains much that is positive and good. However, as renowned missiologist Paul Hiebert pointed out masterfully in his formative essay, "Critical Contextualization," it also contains a good bit that is deserving of critique, repentance and sadness. Too often Western missions became about transmitting American culture rather than biblical truth. The exporting of "Christianity" wasn't always about the Lordship and Redemption of Christ. Too often, perhaps, the discipline of apologetics has fallen into the same trap. Winning intellectual arguments may come not only at the expense of relationships, but also at the expense of authentic contextualization. When non-Christians engage the message of Christ and the hope of the Gospel, there needs to be a range of freedom to appropriate that message in ways that are authentic to that person's (or that community's) context. The earnestness of the apologist (and his or her conviction about "the truth") may at times preclude a genuine contextualization of truth.

For some, the term "apologetics" has taken on too many negative connotations to continue to be useful. They believe it is time to dispense with the term altogether. I am not convinced. Saving the term, however, is less important than revitalizing and re-contextualizing the concept. Christians need to continue to talk about the best way to communicate the heart of the gospel and the saving message of Christ in compelling and coherent ways. To that end, apologetics (or whatever one may call it) should be evangelistic, integrative, holistic, communal, and contextual.

Kyle Roberts is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology and Lead Faculty of Christian Thought, Bethel Seminary (St. Paul, MN). He researches and writes on issues related to the intersection of theology, philosophy, and culture.

Roberts' column, "Theological Provocations," is published every second Tuesday on the Evangelical portal. Subscribe via email or RSS. http://kylearoberts.com/wordpress/

Theology of Suffering and Evil

Course Outline
http://kylearoberts.com/wordpress/?p=401

by Kyle Roberts
Posted on March 4, 2011 by admin

Course outline for my 2011 summer doctor of ministry seminar on “theology of evil and suffering”:

Topical Course Outline and Schedule

Introducing the Challenge of Evil and Suffering (Monday AM)•

Major Theological Perspectives on Evil and Suffering (Monday AM and PM)

1.Calvinism
2.Arminianism
3.Open Theism
4.Eschatological Theism
5.Liberation and Contextual TheologiesBiblical Interpretation and Evil and Suffering (Tuesday)

Old Testament Issues (Tuesday AM)

1.Is God a “Moral Monster”? and “Disturbing Divine Behavior”
2.War and Violence in the OT
3.The “Untamed Creation”: Earthquakes and Tsunamis

New Testament Issues (Tuesday PM)

1.Suffering and Christian Discipleship
2.Jesus and the Cross
3.Did/does God Suffer? Is God impassible?

Assessing Prominent Theodicies (Wednesday)

1.Free Will / Free Process Defense
2.Best of All Possible Worlds/Greater Good
3.Soul-Making
4.Eschatological Theodicy
5.Issues in Theodicy and Science

Toward a Theology of the Cross and a Vision of Hope (Thursday AM)

Forms of Suffering and Pastoral Reponses (Thursday AM and PM)
1.Depression and Suicide
2.“Senseless” Tragedy and Trauma
3.Physical and Mental Disability 4.Personal and Local Poverty

The Dark Night of the Soul and Pastoral Care (Friday AM)

1.Creating Alternative “Future Stories”
2.Facilitating Communities of Empathy, Care and Justice

Texts
Boyd, Gregory. Is God to Blame? Moving Beyond Pat Answers to the Problem of Suffering. InterVarsity Press, 2003. ISBN 0830823948 (211 pages)

Fretheim, Terrance. Creation Untamed: The Bible, God and Natural Disasters. Baker Academic. ISBN 0801038936 (160 pages)

Greene-McCreight, Kathryn. Darkness is My Only Companion: A Christian Response to Mental Illness. Brazos Press, 2006. (176 pages)

Hall, Douglas J. God and Human Suffering. 03, Augsburg. ISBN 0806623144 (224)
 Hasker, William Triumph of God over Evil: Theodicy for a World of Suffering. 08, InterVarsity. ISBN 0830828044 (228)

Kelleman, Robert W. and Karole A. Edwards. Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African-American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction. Baker Books, 2007. ISBN: 0801068061. (250 pages)

Lewis, C. S. (2001). The Problem of Pain. HarperOne, 2001. ISBN 0060652969 (176 pages)

Sobrino, Jon. Where is God? Earthquake, Terrorism, Barbarism and Hope. 04, Orbis. ISBN 1570755663 (156 pages)

Other Required Readings (Instructor will make these available)
Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion (excerpt: Book 1, chapter 17, pp. 210-237).

Copeland, Shawn. “Wading Through Many Sorrows,” in A Troubling in My Soul: Womanist Perspectives on Suffering, pp. 109-129 (20 pages)

Piper, John. “Suffering and the Sovereignty of God: Ten Aspects of God’s Sovereignty Over Suffering and Satan’s Hand in it,” in Suffering and the Sovereignty of God, eds. John Piper and Justin Taylor Crossway Books, 2006. (15 pages).

Tsunamis: Or, Why I'm No Longer a Calvinist (Nor an Open Theist)

Tsunamis: Or, Why I'm No Longer a Calvinist
http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Tsunamis-Or-Why-Im-No-Longer-a-Calvinist-Kyle-Roberts-03-22-2011.html

Are tsunamis ordained by God?

Or is there a better way to think of natural suffering?

The answer lies in the freedom given to creation and the natural world.

By Kyle Roberts
March 22, 2011

I used to be a Calvinist.

Yet there were things about Calvinism as a theological system that never sat right with me. I had difficulty accepting "meticulous providence," the idea that God intends everything that happens to happen in the specific way it happens. A common analogy for this view of God's sovereignty over history is "God as novelist." God writes the story of creational history. Every event, great or small, happy or horrific, is included in that story for a specific purpose—all of which serves the glory of God and the good of the elect.

But herein lies the problem: I cannot subscribe to a theology which insists that tsunamis and other disasters were intentionally, specifically, intended by God to happen, just as they happen, for some individual, particular reason.

Many Calvinists find comfort in the conviction that God has absolute control over every aspect of life. Some argue that if God isn't scrupulously directing the tough times, including national tragedies and global catastrophes, why should we expect him to direct the good times? This is a fair point. If God wasn't "in control" of the tsunami, why should we suppose him to be in control over the precariousness of a child's birth or an arduous, frustrating job search? It's all or nothing. Right?

Is it really? Does providence only count if God is a micro-manager? Can God be a macro-manager and still be sovereign over the present and the future? Can God be in charge of the whole but not in control of every single detail? I think so. And I think this is the general thrust of the scriptural witness.

There is a meaningful difference between God's permissive will (that which he allows to occur even though he does not want or intend it actively) and God's ordaining will (that which he actively wills, thereby ensuring that it happens just as it happened for a specific reason). This line divides the Arminian from the Calvinist—at least on the issue of providence. David Bentley Hart, in The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami?, suggests that this distinction allows for the reality of inexplicable suffering, the kind that is neither divinely intended nor purposeful. Seemingly pointless suffering may actually be pointless; that is, it may have no direct reference to any specific, immediate divine purpose or explanation that makes it worth the pain.

But can more be said about natural disasters than that they are not divinely intended for specific purposes?

Terence Fretheim, in Creation Untamed: The Bible, God and Natural Disasters, suggests that a proper explanation of natural disasters and the suffering they cause can be found in an adequate biblical theology of creation. Genesis tells us that God created the world good -- not perfect or completed. The elements of creation bore within themselves the freedom and responsibility to continue the creation process—though not apart from God's continual, providential involvement. Freedom, chaos, and even natural disasters are imbedded in the very fabric of life. With life comes death. With joy comes pain. The earth rotates, tectonic plates shift, and the history of the world marches on. Along with the beauty, majesty, and mystery of life, there is pain, death, and tragedy. In the midst of it, God is not distant, removed, or dispassionate, but involved, interested, and empathic. In fact, he entered into it himself, uniting to creation itself through the incarnation of the Son and the ongoing presence of the Spirit.

Upon God's initial act of creation, theologically described in Genesis 1-2, he continues to create through "the creative capacities of that which is not God" (19). He instills freedom within the processes of life for created beings to continue the process of creation, though under God's ultimate supervision. Nature is not a finished product but a dynamic process, "characterized by a remarkable open-endedness" (17) in which even earth and water are involved as both subject and object in this ongoing creation.

Along similar lines, theologian and scientist John Polkinghorne has argued for a "free process" view of God's providence. Just as humans are free to choose their actions, so God imbedded freedom within the very fabric of creation. Quantum physics corroborates a kind of indeterminacy, openness, and possibility at the very fundamental level of natural reality. This all implies that chaos and danger necessarily accompany the order and beauty of the natural world as it unfolds through history.

The result of this dynamic, inter-dependent ongoing creation is an often unpredictable, messy world, vulnerable to the reality of suffering and death. "Natural" (or morally neutral) suffering, such as that caused by tsunamis, tornadoes, and earthquakes, is regularly intensified through the interplay and dynamics of human, moral evil. When societies show little or no concern for the poor who live—often en masse—in poorly engineered and inadequately structured shelters, a natural disaster such as a earthquake or tsunami can have tragically devastating effects. (For a compelling exposition of this point, see Jon Sobrino's Where is God? Earthquake, Terrorism, Barbarity and Hope.)

Economic disparity may help explain the difference in the scope of devastation and loss of life between natural disasters in majority-world (or developing world) contexts and those in industrialized, first-world societies. Countless people are vulnerable to disasters of unfathomably tragic proportions simply because they are poor. Of course, prosperity and technology does not rule out immeasurably tragic suffering, either. For this we need only witness the potential of widespread, devastating consequences due to Japan's potential nuclear disaster.

There is an important theological consideration here that should be made explicit. Many Arminian-leaning theologians who have been existentially and theologically disturbed by the problem of evil and suffering have felt it necessary to deny God's foreknowledge of future events in order to maintain genuine freedom and to absolve God of responsibility for the world's suffering. Both Fretheim and Polkinghorne, for example, are "open theists" who hold that a truly open future implies that there can be (logically speaking) no prior knowledge of it—even by God.

But it's not necessary to take this route. A classical Arminian can counter that God's foreknowledge of the future doesn't imply causality of it. Just because God may have known what is going to happen doesn't necessitate that he caused, determined, or ordained it. There is no necessary causal link between foreknowledge of an event and the event itself. Of course, one can still ask why, if God knew, didn't he intervene? Assuming God knew that Japan was going to be [horribly] engulfed [sic, in a Tsunami in 2011], couldn't he have intervened? Why then didn't he? Or on a grander scale, if God knew that the world he would create would contain tsunamis and earthquakes, why didn't he take a different approach? Why not put limits on natural suffering more than he apparently has?

Surely at one level we can grant that God could have intervened. Indeed, who knows how often—and in what manner—God does intervene? Perhaps he could have miraculously prevented the earthquake in the first place or suppressed the waters afterward. But would he do this every time? If so, why? On what basis would we expect these judgments to be made? By what criterion? That God would never allow us to experience difficulty and tragedy and death? That would certainly be a very different world than the one we currently inhabit. Our hope lies in God's promise to restore, renew, or altogether recreate this world when he brings about the next. But it is reasonable to suppose that our present world, with its embedded freedom, mystery, and tragedy, provides occasions for faith in God, hope in his promises, and love for those he has created.

It is prudent to acknowledge the fact that the world we live in is at once dangerous and mysterious, beautiful and tragic. But we don't have to suppose, even in principle—and even if we are careful about not supplying divine motivations or intentions—that there is a particular, "meticulous" divine purpose for each and every tragedy. They are part of the world we live in. It's a beautiful world, but it's also a broken and fallen world, one that awaits its final liberation.

Kyle Roberts is Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology and Lead Faculty of Christian Thought, Bethel Seminary (St. Paul, MN). He researches and writes on issues related to the intersection of theology, philosophy, and culture. Follow Kyle Roberts' reflections on faith and culture at his blog or via Twitter.

Roberts' column, "Theological Provocations," is published every second Tuesday on the Evangelical portal. Subscribe via email or RSS.