Being Human 1

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/05/10/being-human-1-rjs/

by RJS

May 10, 2011

About a year ago I promised (and intended) to read and post on Joel B. Green’s book Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible. Other topics and time constraints interfered and this book was pushed further down the line. This summer, however, provides a good opportunity for digging into the book. Over the course of the next few months, once or twice a week, I will work through the questions raised by Green on the nature of humanity in the context of scripture, theology, and modern neuroscience.

The view that humans are composed of a physical material body and a separate immaterial soul is the default position for most Christians. This dualist view is increasingly difficult to reconcile with improved understanding of biology, biochemistry, and neuroscience. I’ve posted on some of this before. The posts can be found through the Science and Faith Archive on the sidebar – scroll down to the heading Science, Faith, and Being Human. The challenge to the dualist view is not simply scientific though. Study of the context of the old and new testaments suggests that the dualist view of humanity is foreign to the text, coming in large part from the Greek context of early Christians.

Joel B. Green is Professor of New Testament interpretation and Associate Dean for the Center for Advanced Theological Studies at Fuller Theological Seminary. Before that he served on the faculty and administration of Asbury Theological Seminary. When Joel Green became interested in the questions of body and soul he responded by pursuing the topic from biblical, theological, philosophical, and scientific directions. Although trained in New Testament, he began graduate work in neuroscience at the University of Kentucky. While I don’t believe he completed a degree before moving to Fuller, he has a more complete perspective on the topic than many theologians or philosophers. In order to engage the topic fully it is necessary to understand the arguments from a variety of different perspectives.

From the product description:

Exploring what Scripture and theology teach about issues such as being in the divine image, the importance of community, sin, free will, salvation, and the afterlife, Joel Green argues that a dualistic view of the human person is inconsistent with both science and Scripture. This wide-ranging discussion is sure to provoke much thought and debate.

The question here is not does science undermine the Christian understanding of persons? but rather what is the biblical view of persons? This leads to a corollary question: how do we integrate the biblical understanding of persons with the scientific understanding of persons? Dr. Green’s book provides an excellent starting point for this discussion.

What is the biblical view of persons?

Do humans consist of a separable material body and immaterial soul? What does this mean?

The first chapter of Body, Soul, and Human Life lays the ground work for engagement with the questions involving the nature of humanity.

Dr. Green begins with a sketch of recent developments in theological thinking about body and soul, the use of the Greek words soma and psyche in the NT, and traditional theologies of the soul beginning with the early church fathers. In the late second century, ca. 200 AD, there is clear evidence for a theology which separates body and soul. Green gives evidence for the early understanding of the church by citing the The Epistle to Diognetus (late second century) which contains statements like “the soul lives in the body, but it does not belong to the body” and “the soul is imprisoned in the body, but it sustains the body” and Tertullian in his Treatise on the Soul (ca. 203 AD).

On the other hand, it is not clear that this idea of a duality to human substance is present in the New Testament and it seems virtually certain that it is not an Old Testament concept. As a result modern theologians and biblical scholars have been moving away from the traditional dualist position. It is necessary to carefully consider the biblical texts to determine what is taught and what is presumed about the nature of human persons.

Why Science Matters.

Dr. Green then moves into a discussion of the relevance of science to the discussion of body and soul. Some Christians will deny that science has anything to contribute to our understanding of the soul and the nature of persons. If science is opposed to the existence of a soul, then science must simply be wrong. Christian understanding trumps science. Many bristle at the idea that modern science could or should have a place at the table serving as a source for development of a Christian theology of persons (or creation, or anything else). Dr. Green suggests that this results from a poor understanding of the development of Christian thought in the first place. “Science” or more precisely cultural understandings of the nature of persons has always shaped Jewish and Christian thinking about the body and the soul.

The most simple reply is that science already informs exegesis; it is only a question on which science or whose, good science or bad. (p. 21)

And a little later he lays this out quite clearly:

Epistemologically, we cannot bypass the reality that, whether acknowledged or not, natural science is and has always been part of our worldview – recognizing, of course, that “natural science” takes forms and follows protocols today that in many of its particulars would hardly be recognizable to Babylonian, Egyptian, or Greek scientists and natural philosophers. The question is not whether science will influence exegesis (or vice versa) since the two, science and religion, have interacted and continue to interact in a far more organic way than is typically acknowledged. As a consequence, from a historical perspective, it is virtually impossible to extricate one influence from the other, or chronologically to prioritize on vis-à-vis the other. This is true in regard to the science presumed of the biblical writers. It is also true of the science presumed of biblical interpreters and theologians from the second century onward. We have before us a long history of interpreters of biblical texts who have engaged those texts on the basis of "scientific views" of the human person pervasive in the worlds of those interpreters (irrespective of their currency in antiquity or today). (pp. 24-25)

We cannot separate bible from culture.

It is not possible to separate extrabiblical and biblical sources for understanding and teaching in the church. These are always intertwined. There is also no reason to assume that God’s revelation, in relationship with his creatures, reflects a more perfect or a less perfect understanding of the material nature of human persons localized at any one ancient point in time. Rather, to return to a framework that came up in our discussion of Denis Lamoureux’s book Evolutionary Creation, many aspects of the cultural context, including the understanding of “natural science”, is incidental to the purpose of the text. We err when we allow a particular scientific rendering of the text, whether that of the original human authors or that of later interpreters, to, as Dr. Green puts it, masquerade as “timeless truth”.

Awareness of the situation of both biblical texts and biblical interpretations in time and place, cultural context, provides an important insight into the message found in the text.

Hermeneutically, then, my point is that deliberately locating our interpretive work in relation to science does not necessitate our reading contemporary science back into the ancient texts in a gross form of anachronism, nor that it subject biblical interpretation to the ebb and flow of scientific discovery. We have no need to imagine that the ancients, even the biblical writers, had it right with respect to the role of cerebral spinal fluid or the ventricular cavities. (They were wrong on both accounts.) Rather, doing exegesis in an age of science increases our awareness of the scientific assumptions of the third or fourth or even eighteenth centuries that have already shaped the history of interpretation – and that have the potential to set artificial parameters for our own reading of the biblical texts. (p. 28)

Dr. Green suggests that reading the text with an eye toward science, particularly in the case relevant to this book the neurosciences, as with reading from other specific perspectives (poverty, injustice, persecution, suffering, calvinism, sovereignty of God, freedom, etc.) can allow questions to surface that would have otherwise remained unasked and unanswered. We must take care not to allow some pet perspective to dictate all we find in scripture, but looking at the text through new eyes, from a different perspective, can be illuminating.

In this context Dr. Green poses the question:

What is the effect of studying biblical anthropology in today’s context of scientific inquiry?

This is a good place to stop and start a conversation.

What do you think? Should science inform our understanding of the nature of human life?

How do we distinguish the role played by presumptions of culture – either ancient near eastern culture or the culture of later interpreters – from the revelation of God in scripture?

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If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net

If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.

The End of Evangelicalism 4

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/05/11/the-end-of-evangelicalism-4/

Scot McKnight

May 11, 2011

What happens, then, to the doctrine of Scripture if David Fitch is right? What happens to what he calls “the Inerrant Bible” model — the model that speaks a polemical and ideological language game as it flows out of the modernist-fundamentalist debate and speaks against the liberal model? In his new book, The End of Evangelicalism? Discerning a New Faithfulness for Mission: Towards an Evangelical Political Theology (Theopolitical Visions), David Fitch proposes a view of Scripture that is both evangelical and missional.

Fitch’s influences on how to comprehend Scripture in the new model, in a model that gets beyond the ideology of evangelicalism and back into the missional model that Bible seeks to create.

His primary influencers are Karl Barth, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Kevin Vanhoozer and Christopher Wright. I can’t summarize all [that] he says with any particularity, but he gets:

• the Trinitarian and Christological emphases from Barth — Scriptures extend the incarnation into the church.
• Balthasar focuses on Scripture as part of Christ himself (135) and our need to embody Scripture.
• Vanhoozer, known for his extension of Balthasar’s “theo-drama” into the Scripture being both revelation and in need of performance as a script in order to be seen and proclaimed.
• And Chris Wright’s emphasis is that Scripture is designed to serve the mission of God in this world.

But this is where Fitch is headed: “These theologians prod us to leave behind the Bible as ‘inerrant according to the original autographs’ to instead understand it as ‘our one and true story of God for the world — infallible in and through Jesus Christ our Lord’” (138).

Here’s the primary model — and this is my idea — of classic evangelicalism: the order is God, revelation, inspiration, inerrancy, authority… and this model of Scripture becomes the epistemic foundation and the first article of theology.

But there is room here to move without denying the value of these concepts to see God as Trinity, God as having a mission, God as revealing God in Christ in definitive and final form, and then Spirit as surrounding all of this and then Church as flowing out of the incarnation and pneumatic guidance and seeing Scripture as the primary — prima scriptura — form of expression. Scripture then is the primary “script” of the mission of God in this world.

This leads in Fitch’s view to a major shift in preaching: from expository preaching (which he sees as modernity and also as part of the ideology) to proclaiming the mission of God in Christ through the Spirit and inviting others into that mission. Bible reading is not just inductive and personal but corporate and narratival.

continue to -

 

The End of Evangelicalism 2 & 3

 

The End of Evangelicalism 5

 

 

 

 

 

Pluralism, Tolerance and Accommodation: In You, the Kingdom of God Has Come

"I hear today for the first, the river in the tree." - Poet Emily Dickinson

In You, the Kingdom of God Has Come

I am beginning a new section of inquiry which will be titled loosely under the themes of "pluralism, tolerance, and accommodation" and will intentionally cover the intersections of religious belief as it touches upon personal comportment and sociological behaviors and groupings. Usually this experience has resulted in the death, genocide, and enslavement of major minority people-groups as evidenced by ethnic Jews in Europe and Russia, the American Indians in America, the Russians, Chinese and SE Asian peoples under Communistic rule, ethnic African tribes in despotic African governments, the Indian cultures of Central and South America, and sadly, this list may go on and on in historical review. And yet these are the more recent historical occurrences either witnessed in our lifetimes or recently occurring in the near past resulting in dominating sociological cultures that have organized their societies around their own dominant ethics, laws and self-identities.

Curiously, one of the most recent major cultural clashes we are witnessing is that of Western civilizations adjusting and accommodating non-Western Islamic societies in a series of regional wars and conflicts, legal re-positionings and decrees, cultural adoptions and recognition. Each is separately stubborn in their own beliefs, religions, idealisms, goals and duties, while reluctantly recognizing the pluses and minuses of the other's systems and politics, economies and structures, strengths and weaknesses.

Positively, some assimilation and accommodation has begun to occur but not enough, and most probably never will, because the distinctions between both cultures are so wide and deep. Which presents the perplexing paradox to each culture as to how to co-exist one with the other in a non-interfering, "peaceable" stand-off while attempting to recognize the rights and liberties, or non-rights and non-liberties, of each culture's dominant belief systems. One side professes (however poorly) personal democratic liberties and freedoms, will the other professes (from this Westener's viewpoint, I admit) a more rigorous application of enforced religious law upon its masses creating sociological caste systems, poverty and gender-based personal inequalities under a dominating sectarian body administrating strict sectarian rule.

Consequently we have an uneasy tolerance between one culture with the other with the latter being more easily recognized by socialistic governments than by their democratic counterparts except for the alienating religious overtones that separates Islamic governments from usurping communistic regimes. Previously, Christian liberation theologies have been adopted by unempowered, undeserved, neglected, abused and misused, impoverished minorities to address many of the ills of majority rule, whether black vs. white in America and elsewhere, or ruling South American regimes over their less-empowered Catholic masses. But this biblical theme or principal does not apply to the current conversation between Christian and Islamic groups within their separate religious spheres of influence, each being the dominating and empowering people group within their own societies and from differing religious foundations.

Furthermore, religiously tolerant governments that are built upon the ideals of ethnic, cultural and gender equality (to name a few) can only be at best agnostic in their rulings, laws and ethics, and will require of its citizenry an "agnosticism" on their own part, so that, (i) a dissimilar minority group's religious beliefs and ethics are not denied, and, (ii) the majority group learns to welcome and not to alienate competing (or adoptive, or assimilated) newer religious and ethnic groups into their more tolerant and pluralistic forms of society. Usually these more urbane societies are organized around the centralizing themes of equality, liberty, freedom after being severely suppressed and discriminated against themselves and having experienced poverty, enslavement, loss of freedoms, rights, and hopelessness. Which, in the case of America, was true of many of its adoptive citizenry when immigrating from British colonial Europe (Scotland, Ireland, Wales); the Scandinavian countries; then Italy, Australia, Germany, Russia and Eastern Europe (WW1,2); the SE Asian countries of China, Korea, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia under communism; the Mid-East Arabic countries from its turmoil and unrest; the Bosnians fleeing the deadly Serbian massacres of their former country in Yugoslavia; the suppressive and oppressive states of Mexico and Central America; and a plethora of displaced African tribes seeking refuge from gross feudalism and rampant tyranny. Each immigrating people group has brought its own tales of horror and woe, and each hunger for peace and freedom from oppression, violence, disharmony, hate and injustices.

In America we call this form of governmental agnosticism the "separation of Church and State" which is a poor descriptor to employ but a necessary and true conveyance of what must be a factual truth. To use the term "agnosticism" is not to imply the denial of our religious heritage so much as to imply that its citizenry expand their understanding of their religious heritage to cover all forms of faiths and beliefs within our Americanized system of juris prudence. Perhaps a better term can be found, but for the purposes of this document it is a good term to use describing the "neutrality" and "abeyance of suppressing indoctrinations" by a ruling majority people group.

And with every reception of a newer people group to the shores of democracy (regardless of country) comes the reciprocating power of dissolution of governance upon that country or fiefdom that is losing its fleeing masses; thus compounding that country's further loss and destabilization of power by want of exodus upon its masses still imprisoned within their own country. This has recently been witnessed in Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. The results can be seen plain enough in formerly Nazi Germany, Italy and Japan which have necessarily "democratized" their cultural institutions and adopted state policies of tolerance, freedom and liberty. And in the overthrows of dictatorships and unrest in countries without governing principles of democracy like Russia, China and the Middle East.

All this has been said to state that it is my conviction that a democracy cannot thoroughly succeed without having an "enjoined" (accepted, wanted, scrutinized) Christian foundation. And though non-Christian democracies may attempt this form of rule by its masses by copying varying forms of capitalism, it will ultimately fail (just as American governance can fail) should its citizenry no longer continue to assimilate and expand their Christian understanding of life, liberty and freedom gained from the Scriptures and through Christ. Consequently, democracies will always be faced with the fact of spiraling towards some form of socialism or towards dissolution and anarchy should they drift from the centralizing cornerstones found in Christianity. But to the degree that they do accomplish this through mass acceptance and inward social re-structuring then will those people groups succeed in the task of re-discovering, promoting and maintaining liberty for all peoples of all faiths, beliefs, cultures and heritages.

The basis for my assumption is that only in Christ, his cross and his resurrection, can be found the spiritual power for love and understanding, peace and tolerance, that can overrule our wicked and sinful hearts so soon to violence and destruction of others human beings rights and prerogatives. Moreover, it is in the hope and reality of God's coming kingdom and through the power of Christ's resurrection that any of this may be true and possible. And it is uniquely for us as Westernized Christians to learn to disseminate the Gospel of Christ to all the realms and nations of the world in a missiology that does not enforce westernization, nor promote westernizing culture, because the gospel belongs to every man, to every woman, and to every culture as much as it has belong to our own personal heritages. It must be discovered and adopted by another's inasmuch as it must be de-linked from our own cultural experiences. In Carl Raschke's words, "Christianity has no culture [to] itself but belongs to all cultures” (see GloboChrist review further below in this same section).

And though I could despair that this task might overwhelm the Christian church in schisms and fear, it is my hope that in this era of postmodernity - as evidenced by the newly arisen branch of "emergent" Christian churches - that it might be accomplished as we release our prejudices and biases, our hatreds and unloving acts and "steel ourselves" to the task of presenting Christ to the nations, his atonement, his love, his kingdom that will reach beyond all of men's kingdoms, to that of God's itself. Whose kingdom may be found enriched by all the historical diversity and pluralism that is found in man's life-and-death histories on this planet we call earth, which will someday be called a "New Earth" located in a "New Heavens" under God's Trinitarian and Holy rule of love and justice. Thus it can be said that the Kingdom of God is trans-formative, trans-national, trans-cultural and trans-temporal, making it an "eternal" kingdom. That, in Christ himself, has come the Savior of the world to live with us - his lost humanity and creation - to be re-claimed and resurrected by his holy personage, will and love.

It is to this rule that we wish to submit and to non-other as we try to interpolate God's will and holy law of love and re-create an equitable earthly rule for all mankind by whatever democratic or non-democratic governance that is operative. For the kingdoms of man must someday bow all knees, heads and hearts to a grander rulership, a more exquisite lordship, to that of our Creator God, our Sovereign, Our Lord and Savior, Jesus. It is to his reign of love that we must embrace and commit ourselves to with a servant's heart of humility, willful obedience and submission in a selfless, sacrificial service that only God's love can demand.

RE Slater

May 10, 2011

What "Love Wins" Tells Us About Christians

by Scott McKnight
Monday, 09 May 2011 



10 things we can learn from one of Christianity's biggest controversies.

Everyone knew in advance that Rob Bell’s next book, Love Wins, would surely raise eyebrows and create some debate. But no one, including the author and his agent, expected what did happen. From the moment Justin Taylor uttered that opening warning and John Piper tweeted “Farewell Rob Bell” until many of us had a week or two to read it, Rob Bell’s book was at the forefront of American Christianity’s sensational tabloids. I’ve never seen anything like it, and it may well be a one-of-a-kind brouhaha for the next generation or two.

But what can we learn from what happened? I want to suggest we can learn 10 lessons.

First, social media is where controversial ideas will be both explored and judged. We no longer read books patiently, type out letters to denominational offices, find common agreements and then summon the Christian leader behind closed doors to ask questions and sort out concerns. It’s all public, it’s all immediate and everyone weighs in because social media is about as radical a form of democracy as exists. To be sure, this means the uninformed heavy-handed can weigh in as easily as the patient, careful, critical and balanced reader. But social media is not going away, so we should realize what we are getting into before we walk into the room.

Second, megachurch pastors are being watched closely. “Who says what” has always mattered. But because of social media, the who-says-what takes on new significance: megachurch pastors—and this applies to Bill Hybels, Rick Warren, John Piper, Mark Driscoll, Andy Stanley and Rob Bell—are being watched, and their critics only need one off-line comment to stir into action. John Piper has been hammered for some of his comments, Bill Hybels has weathered criticism and Rob Bell is in the same world. Robin Parry, a skilled and careful scholar, wrote a book called The Evangelical Universalist. He was an editor at an evangelical publishing house. His book barely drew attention, but when Rob Bell said even less than Parry, Bell was scorched by many.

Third, tribalism pervades the American religious scene. On my blog we went through Love Wins patiently chapter by chapter, and daily I observed both in the comments and in private email exchanges (and telephone interviews) that some thought everything Bell said was wrong while others wouldn’t admit he had said one thing worth worrying over. Call it groupthink or call it tribalism, but such divisions will emerge especially over controversial ideas said by well-known leaders. Tribalism produces imbalanced and fuzzy thinking. I was (probably not) surprised by how few noticed it was an eternity of further chances that really separated Bell from the thinking of others in the history of the Church, and I was also surprised by how few really know what universalism means or what Rob Bell’s commitment to “libertarian free will” means for universalism. If humans can both choose God and not choose God, and if universalism ultimately says God will win over everyone, then it makes little sense to call Bell a universalist—since he’s so committed to that sense of libertarian free will.

Fourth, hell remains a central Christian conviction and concern. There are some topics that are either taboo or almost taboo, and hell is one of those. Defending traditional views that are almost taboo is a game few want to play because the defender senses he or she is about to be called a bigot. Which illustrates why hell is one of those taboo topics that lurks behind many corners and simmers just below the surface of major theological topics. If Bell’s book does anything, it drives the issue of hell to the front of some serious theological topics. Teaching college students for 15 years has shown me time and time again they care about this topic and want to talk about it, but they want some clear-headed thinking and not fuzzy hopes.

Fifth, Christian views of hell are both incomplete and in need of serious examination. The problem for many today can be seen in what Mike Huckabee said about the world’s leading terrorist: “Welcome to hell, bin Laden.” Fair enough, I can’t think of many traditional Christians who think eternity will be paradisal for bin Laden. But then just saying that can both make many feel uncomfortable and ask the question, “Who do you think you are to judge someone?” or, “We really don’t know what he thought in the moments he was dying.” But all of this drives us back to what we think about hell, and what we think about it—and many suppress the thoughts—deserves careful exploration of what the Bible says and what the Church has taught, and we need to do both very carefully and patiently, and we need to present our conclusions both sensitively and faithfully.

Sixth, pressing questions require serious thinking. I said above that Bell’s not a universalist, but I want to nuance this by saying Bell’s prose is not always clear. He thinks he can get off the hook of precise thinking by saying he’s not a theologian but a pastor, and I’ll come right back and say: “You may be, but you wrote about the topic and this topic has generated fierce discussion and fine distinctions for more than 1,700 years. Anyone who enters this discussion needs to know the lay of the land before uttering a published word.” I want to cut to the chase here: universalism and hell are extraordinarily important issues for the Church today, but to write about these topics requires years of Bible study, theological reading and public discussion. Rob Bell’s book left too many questions unanswered about too many topics to carry the discussion forward.

Seventh, missiology remains the center of gospeling in our world. You can talk all you want about eschatology and about atonement theory and about evangelism and about worship, but the moment you cross a line others perceive to be too far in the wrong directions, you will be called out on it. The essential line in Christianity is the Gospel, and all theology is measured by its fidelity to the Gospel or its denial of the Gospel. Why? Because the Church’s message is one about salvation and how we get saved and who gets saved and what one has to do to get saved. The Gospel is more than salvation, but anything that softens salvation or hardens salvation is in for immediate debate. Frankly, Rob Bell’s book called into question the Gospel essence evangelicalism has defended since the Reformation. That is the fundamental reason why this book caused such a storm.

Eighth, low church, non-denominational evangelicalism, of which Rob Bell is an exceptional representative, carries its own dangers. As I was reading Love Wins the first time, one thought kept coming back to me: This book could not have been written by a traditional Presbyterian or Methodist or Lutheran or Southern Baptist … or by anyone who is accountable to a stable and long-standing theological tradition. Rob Bell is a stand-alone pastor, and Mars Hill is a stand-alone church. While it may have some responsibility to its mother church, it is more or less on its own. When pastors are celebrity and charismatic and competent communicators, as Rob Bell clearly is, they can take risks (and I applaud that at times) and they can also easily wander from the great tradition of the Church. This book makes me rethink what mechanisms need to be put in place to manage the potential zaniness that stand-alone pastors in stand-alone churches can produce. Some publishers will put the stop to some ideas, but others won’t. We need to think about this.

Ninth, we are still asking a big question: What is the Gospel? Time and time again Bell mentions the Gospel, and it appears to me that Bell defines the Gospel as God’s utter love for us. How odd, I muse at times, that so many claim “gospel” for what they think but at the same time don’t recognize that the word “gospel” seems to be a contested term and category that demands careful words and definitions. I believe reducing Gospel to God’s utter love for us is inadequate, however true. One group wants to define Gospel through the lens of a kind of Reformed theology, another group wants to define it through the lens of the term "kingdom," while yet another—Rob Bell included—through the gracious, unstoppable love of God for us. Well, which is it?

Tenth, what is evangelicalism and what is orthodoxy? I heard Rob Bell say in an interview that he is evangelical and orthodox to the bone. What do these terms mean? I have a stake in both terms because I’m a professor and I’ve studied these terms, and think the former [term] refers to a group that emerges from the Reformation through the American revivals and is now connected to the historic reshaping of American religious life in the career of Billy Graham. Essentially, evangelicalism is a movement that believes in the necessity of personal salvation and personal conversion now in order to inherit eternal life after death. Rob Bell, to put it mildly, shows little tolerance for that way of framing salvation and one has to ask what he means by the term “evangelical” and whether he fits the term as defined by the best thinking on this term in our world. And what does “orthodoxy” mean? Ask the best church historians and theologians and they will point you to the classic creeds, from Nicea on, and that means orthodoxy defines and articulates the Trinity. An orthodox person is someone who believes those creedal formulations. But I’m encountering a generation of young thinkers who really don’t care what these terms mean.

What we have learned from the heated debates and conversation about Love Wins should not be ignored. The vitality of our movement and the need for goodwill are at stake in these sorts of debates. When the next controversial book comes out, I hope we pause long enough to read the book, ask the author for clarifications and only then go public with our concerns and criticisms. What we can learn to do is model how to listen, how to disagree and how to express dismay with one another—before the watching world. If we choose to repeat what happened with Love Wins, we will [continue to] damage the Body of Christ.

Scot McKnight is the Karl A. Olsson Professor in Religious Studies at North Park University and author of One.Life: Jesus Calls, We Follow.

Mars Hill: Water: 20 Liters Campaign

Water is elemental. A part of us.

Without it. We would not survive.

In the United States, however, the need for clean water is something we rarely think about. We turn on the faucet, and it comes out. Yet around the world, there are one billion people without access to clean water. That’s seventeen percent of the world’s population.

That is not right.

Over the past ten years, Mars Hill has developed a partnership with World Relief Rwanda, to meet the needs of our brothers and sisters there. Through engaging village counsels, we have learned that their biggest need is simply clean water.

Whether it’s participating in water awareness activities and fundraisers, becoming a vocal advocate, or reaching into your pocket to help purchase and install more filters and cisterns—there is a place for you in this work.

Visit our partner, 20 Liters, to hear stories, watch videos, and learn more about how you can engage with this issue, and make a change for good.

If you have further questions, access our FAQs for more information.

http://marshill.org/serving/water/

Let's Continue to March for Dis-Unity

Here's a little bit of tongue-in-cheek cynism that I hope drives home the point that the house of God, the family of Jesus, his Church and Bridegroom, should show love and unity to one another over everything else that would get in the way. Many thanks to Rachel Held Evans and the many others who have participated in this campaign of "LOVE WINS". Who have taken a stand over the ridiculousness we can get ourselves into when "fighting for the faith" rather than "loving one another" as we dialogue about our faith. Who strive to live the Jesus-life before a lost world as a loving community of God's children seeking to serve and to share God's love.

skinhead

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http://rachelheldevans.com/rally-to-restore-unity-day-5

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.

The End of Evangelicalism 2 & 3

The End of Evangelicalism? 2

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/04/27/the-end-of-evangelicalism-2/

by Scot McKnight

April 27, 2011

David Fitch, in his new book, The End of Evangelicalism? Discerning a New Faithfulness for Mission: Towards an Evangelical Political Theology (Theopolitical Visions), thinks evangelicalism’s influence is more or less over, that it needs to reexamine itself, and that it needs to rediscover what it could be in our world.

Here are the problems for evangelicalism today according to David Fitch:

1. Its presence in American politics has declined precipitously.
2. It’s cultural influence has fallen on hard times.
3. Popular perception of evangelicals has turned for the worse.
4. There is lots of internal criticism of itself.

What are evangelicals trying to do in response? Some say return to a purer form; others propose getting beyond it into post-evangelicalism; others push for a more socially just evangelicalism; others draw up manifestos; some call us back to the ancient faith.

David Fitch proposes we examine evangelicalism as an ideology: “a set of beliefs and practices that bind a people together into a functioning community” (8). We need to ask what kind of people this kind of evangelicalism is producing, and ask if the people it is producing is faithful to its beliefs.

His theory is that its major three ideas (inerrant Bible, decision for Christ, and Christian Nation) were changed into de-personalized concepts, reified, and became a matter of political alliance that no longer spoke into a changing culture.

Each of these ideas was fashioned during modernity to respond to issues in modernity. Inerrancy out of the modernist fundamentalist debate; evangelism in the missionary movement; and activist stance as a response to the social gospel.

Here’s his view:

“evangelicalism, in reaction to the modernist-fundamentalist controversies, pursued a strategy for survival via a defense based in the autonomous structures of modern reason and politics. In the process, we gave up the true core of our Christian politics — the person and work of Jesus Christ – and set ourselves up for a fall in essence becoming a form of ‘religious ideology’” (17).

*****

The End of Evangelicalism? 3

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/05/04/the-end-of-evangelicalism-3/

by Scot McKnight
May 4, 2011

David Fitch, in his new book, The End of Evangelicalism? Discerning a New Faithfulness for Mission: Towards an Evangelical Political Theology (Theopolitical Visions), thinks evangelicalism’s influence is more or less over, that it needs to reexamine itself, and that it needs to rediscover what it could be in our world.

At the core of David’s project is the philosopher Slavoj Zizek’s analysis of “ideology.” I will do my best to sketch in brief terms David’s own sketch and use of Zizek.

Before I do that [let me first make a small remark].... I’m involved at times with groups that want to coordinate and to cooperate, but what I find almost every time is argument about theological foundations. Everyone wants their pet idea represented — it reminds me of the Democrats in the Reagan years. Everyone seemed to think their idea had to be on the platform. Monday I posted the first in a series on The Cape Town Commitment. I can cooperate with anyone who wants to settle on that statement, and I can think of a number of others similar statements on which meaningful center-set (and even boundary-lined) articulations can be the agreed basis for unity and mission. But evangelicals are nearly incapable of agreeing across lines, and that is why evangelicalism is both too often an empty politic (Fitch’s category) and fragmenting. It can’t seem to let historic church markers be what they are. Evangelicals have an incurable need to make sure “they” gets set over against “them.”

{now] to Fitch’s book... which means [reviewing] Zizek. At the core of ideologies - and Fitch will examine evangelicalism as an ideology - is social conflict and "ideology" is the way of coping or managing or controlling with [that] conflict. It establishes how “we” are framed over against “them.”

Here are Zizek’s big categories:Master-signifiers: a conceptual object [idea, belief, etc] around which a group forms. For Zizek these are often fantasies that more often than not give people the sense they are committed to them but really are not. At the core of master signifiers is antagonism that enables a person to find an idea that forms an “us” vs. “them.”

Irruptions of the Real: occasional and glaring events, etc, reveal, however, that what is at stake is not so much the idea/master signifier but antagonism and group allegiance. These irruptions deconstruct the master signifier as a cloak of the antagonism. Irruptions are obvious in over-identification: when someone is so committed to the master signifier that it looks like a farce. The fanatic is the over identifier. Jouissance, a French term for enjoyment, which is as often perverse as it is good, is the feeling people get when they sense their master signifier is the true one — jouissance then can be triumphalism.

There’s the basic theory. Evangelicalism has three master signifiers: The Inerrant Bible, Decision for Christ, and the Christian Nation. Each of these was formed in an antagonistic context (modernist vs. fundamentalism and the fear of cultural collapse vs. holding true to Christian ideals/morals). At times irruptions manifest fanaticism and jouissance, revealing that what is at stake is more than the idea — what is at stake is lining up with the right people in the antagonism of culture. The master signifiers are inherently elusive in meaning and that elusiveness permits different people to import different meanings, enabling a belief in commitment to a common master signifier but which is inherently so undefined they are often not committed to the same idea.

David isn’t a cynic, and he’s not arguing that these ideas are bad, or that these ideas have to be jettisoned. From what I can tell he affirms the theological legitimacy of each but argues that how each is used today in evangelicalism as master signifiers opens the lid on an antagonism that is passing away. These master signifiers then belong to a culture war and not just to theology. I think David Fitch in this book is peeling away some skins that reveal a serious issue at work in evangelicalism.

Example 1: Inerrancy, if you follow the discussion, applies only to the “original autographs,” which we don’t have and won’t have and it applies only to “authorial intent,” on which we often can’t agree — and have you seen the variety of groups that affirm inerrancy? … so … what have we got? Fitch suggests we might just have an empty and elusive signifier around which we can rally over against the liberals who don’t believe in inerrancy. Irruptions occur in the lack of fidelity to clear teachings in the Bible for instance. Over idenitifiers — he points to Hal Lindsey and Al Mohler (on creationism) and Jack Hyles [and David Otis Fuller] (on King James) and to Bart Ehrman’s biography of abandoning orthodoxy. And the jouissance (triumphalism) occurs every time someone finds something in archaeology that we think upholds the inerrantist claim. (Does this really change how we live or is this antagonism’s revelation?)

Exmple 2... I won’t examine each, but it is not hard to see how the evangelical demand for personal decision is a master signifier that reveals often enough that evangelicals have made the “decision” but have not necessarily changed because of it (do we care to admit the recidivism rates?), that they are charged up every time someone (famous) publicly says they have made a decision, and over identification is so obvious when folks are willing to say the decision is all you really need, etc..

Example 3... and on the [topic of] "Christian Nation" — think Falwell, Kennedy, Greg Boyd, Jim Wallis and what this might mean and how clear the antagonisms are – there is a very similar set of Zizekian observations.

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The End of Evangelicalism 1

 

The End of Evangelicalism 4

 

 

 

 

 

Calvinism and TULIP

Here is a short synopsis stating what is no longer obvious. That Calvinism is larger than its flawed TULIP system and why it should not be thought of by this popular, but faded, flower's analogy.

You may reference some of these discussions in previous postings but the larger picture of Calvinism goes back to its epistemologic hermenuetic, its covenant theology, and its rich heritage firmly planted in the Protestant Reformation, to name a few.

skinhead
May 4, 2011

* * * * * * * * *

Calvinism’s TULIP

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/05/04/calvinisms-tulip/

by Scot McKnight

May 4, 2011

 

Many of us, and I would include myself in this number, were taught that Calvinism’s theology is TULIP theology. That is, Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance of the saints. Ken Stewart’s new book, Ten Myths About Calvinism: Recovering the Breadth of the Reformed Tradition, shows why this way of framing Calvinism is neither the most accurate way and is, in fact, a late comer in how to frame Calvinism. In fact, he goes further: he suggests that this way of framing Calvinism belongs to the margins of Calvinism.

Here’s how his approach works:

First, Loraine Boettner, in 1932, used TULIP but evidently his use was putting into a print a common acronym. His book began the common approach to Calvinism as TULIP theology.

The earliest known usage, from 1913, reveals that at that time this was not at all the standard way of framing Calvinism. But from 1932 on this became one standard way of framing Calvinism’s theology. TULIP then is a 20th Century development.

Questions: I’d like to hear how Calvinists “frame” Calvinism? How do you summarize it for someone who asks “What is Calvinism?”

And another one: If it could be demonstrated from Scripture that a believer could “lose” (forfeit, walk away from) salvation, would Calvinism be disproven? [Are central ideas so interwoven that this would unwind the whole?]

Second, Stewart sees two kinds of Calvinism in the resurgence groups, a “sovereign grace” approach that champions God’s purposing an omnipotent electing grace — and TULIP is sacrosanct (Steele-Thomas, Seaton, Custance), and an “apologetic” approach that focuses on sharper understandings of TULIP ideas (Palmer, DeWitt, Sproul, Nicole, Mouw, George).

Third, these two groups are both wedded somehow to the appropriateness of TULIP as the way to frame Calvinism. Stewart says this is “unwarranted” — and that the Canons of Dordt are better framed than with TULIP.

Fourth, loyalty to TULIP is based on misunderstanding; fixation on TULIP enshrines emphases that are “off”; use of TULIP fragments [divides] when we should aim at inclusion.

Finally, Calvinism needs to engage the Canons of Dordt to frame its theology most accurately.

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Index to past articles on "Calvinism v. Arminianism"