Context, Context, Context

I continue to enjoy Roger's sense of humor (yes, theologians can be humorous!) as illustrated in these next couple of articles and thought the latter article would help to clarify the relative term of "evangelical" from Roger's earlier blog of a couple days ago (in this same blog section below).

- skinhead

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(A brief total explanation of American Christianity)
http://www.patheos.com/community/rogereolson/2011/05/26/a-brief-total-explanation-of-american-christianity/

by Roger Olson
May 16, 2011

Totally tongue-in-cheek! Blame it on the mountain air. But I think there’s some truth in it, especially when referring to upwardly mobile religious people:

Pentecostals want to be Baptists,

Baptists want to be Methodists or Presbyterians,
Methodists and Presbyterians want to be Episcopalians,
Episcopalians want to be Roman Catholics,
Roman Catholics want to be Pentecostals.

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Context is everything in understanding people (including me)

http://www.patheos.com/community/rogereolson/2011/05/25/context-is-everything-in-understanding-people-including-me/

by Roger Olson

May 25, 2011

A few comments responding to my post about the label “evangelical” and why I can’t give it up have stimulated me to think about and attempt to explain the importance of understanding people’s contexts.

I’ve often wondered why some people I admire and consider fellow postconservative evangelicals eschew that label and even sometimes criticize me and other postconservatives or progressives among evangelicals. I’m thinking of one person in particular. I won’t name him here. But he is a very well known progressive evangelical president of an evangelical seminary.

I’ve read him and heard him speak and I know his career well. The seminary he heads is noted as a progressive evangelical institution and his writings have demonstrated that he is open to new ways of thinking and often defends progressive evangelical thinkers like Rob Bell.

But he was adamantly opposed to our Word Made Fresh manifesto (about which I blogged recently and posted at my old blog). He wrote a column for Books & Culture saying we should drop the “post-” and just be conservative evangelicals. When we invited him to our first annual meeeting of the Word Made Fresh Forum he refused to sign the statement and criticized Stan Grenz and others of us who were trying to carve out some space for fresh and faithful evangelical theological reflection.

I had a hard time with that. And he’s not the only one. But when I sat back and tried very hard to understand I realized something. He’s a member of a mainline Protestant denomination that is drifting far to the left politically and theologically. As I thought about others who I consider progressive evangelicals who seem ambivalent and ambigous about their commitments I realized every one of them–people I think of as open and progessive among evangelicals but at the same time take very conservative positions publicly–I realized they ALL belong to mainline denominations that are dying out because of their liberalism (read “nominal Christianity”).

On the other hand, I have worked my entire career in contexts where fundamentalism is the main threat–not mainline wishy-washy-ness. I and some of my friends have to look over our shoulders for the heresy hunters who would love nothing better than to ruin our reputations as evangelicals–sometimes by lying about us. (Yes, as I’ve explained before, that has happened to me many times.)

Those other folks, who I think are, for the most part, right where I am theologically but refuse to join any movement to promote openness among evangelicals, are all looking over their shoulders at the ruins of their mainline denominations being destroyed by liberal theology. (By “liberal” here I mean like the mainline Protestant seminary president who I heard give a paper title “God and her survival in a nuclear age” at the end of which she said she didn’t really know anything about God. She was clearly using “God” as a cipher for nature to give a religious sound to her politically-driven agenda.)

I will name one person as an example of what I’m talking about. One of my theological heroes, someone who died recently and to whom I am dedicating a book, was Donald Bloesch. He was my mentor “from afar.” That is, when I was wavering theologically, reading him rescued me. He showed me how to be both evangelical and progressive. However, late in his life and career Bloesch took a turn–not away from his progressive evangelical project but toward outspokenness against radical religious feminism (including inclusive language about God) and panentheism, process theology, etc.

Why? I think because he saw his own denomination, the United Church of Christ, going down the tubes, so to speak, into vapid liberal mushyness. At least that’s how I think he saw it. He wasn’t very concerned about fundamentalism as it was no threat to him. He taught his entire career at a mainline Protestant seminary. Without giving up any of his progressive evangelical openness (e.g., authority of Scripture without inerrancy and a “big tent” view of evangelicalism), his main concern became the danger of liberal theology in mainline denominations. That was his context.

Others of us have found ourselves in total agreement with Bloesch and other progressive evangelical theologians and leaders but having different concerns because of different contexts. I got to know Don Bloesch toward the end of his career and we thought very much alike. But I didn’t share his passion to fight radical feminism because it didn’t exist in my context. And he didn’t share my passion to promote biblical egalitarianism, although he embraced it, because his context was way, way beyond that.

My thesis is that there are very many progressive, even postconservative evangelicals who won’t jump on that bandwagon or get with our program because they are mainly concerned with fighting extreme liberalism and radical theology in their mainline denominations. In other words, THEIR “conservative evangelicalism” is virtually synonymous with my “postconservative evangelicalism” but we are facing opposite directions in terms of the dangers we face.

In the overall scheme of things, meaning in the wider world of so-called “mainline Protestantism” (which should probably really be called “old line Protestantism” as Martin Marty says), I AM VERY CONSERVATIVE! Yes, you heard that right. I’m conservative. But context determines what those labels mean. I’M NOT CONSERVATIVE compared to the neo-fundamentalists in my religious social context. I AM CONSERVATIVE compared to the liberals and radicals so populous in the so-called mainline academy and denominational hierarchies. For God’s sake (I mean that literally)–I believe in the supernatural. I believe in the Trinity. I believe in the deity of Jesus Christ. I believe in the resurrection. I believe in hell! All that makes me a dinosaur among mainline Protestants. But just because I don’t wave the inerrancy banner high and believe in women in ministry I’m a “liberal” or “post-evangelical” among neo-fundamentalists in the Southern Baptist Convention and other conservative evangelical contexts.

So when I say I’m “postconservative” I MEAN among evangelicals who I see as having swung dramatically to the right in recent decades. I DON’T MEAN I’m not conservative at all. In certain professional societies, for example, I stick out like a sore thumb as what many of them would consider a fundamentalist! I mean I can no longer consider myself a conservative within my own religious milieu which is evangelicalism because the center has shifted so dramatically to the right since I was in a centrist evangelical seminary.

For goodness sakes, people! I’m a premillennialist!  

Debating Hell in Evangelic Circles

I may temporarily follow this conversation to see where it goes but I would much rather post a couple good articles about biblical theology pertaining to Hell, Sheol, Hades, etc, than follow two evangelicals debating their positions. That said, forgive me for my curiosity. In the end I may simply delete these pertinent blog articles in favor of the aforementioned. Till then let's follow for awhile and see what comes....

(ps. Mark Galli's CT article says nothing new and rings with the ever true statements that when God speaks to us it seems always "surprising" to our minds and hearts even though tried-and-true doctrines have been known and critiqued. Still, its nice to hear fellow believers lead off with the acknowledgement to "Spirit illumination," for that appeals to my understanding of man's humility to all things "God.")

skinhead

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Mark Galli to Jeff Cook to Francis Chan

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/05/26/mark-galli-to-jeff-cook-to-francis-chan/

 

Scot McKnight

May 26, 2011

 

Mark Galli, senior managing editor at Christianity Today, responds today to Jeff Cook’s post yesterday. Mark has written a book that will be out shortly that responds to Rob Bell with the title God Wins: Heaven, Hell, and Why the Good News Is Better than Love Wins.

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"In the End, We Can Trust"

by Mark Galli, senior managing editor, Christianity Today

In a recent blog post here, Jeff Cook took aim at a video by Francis Chan, the author of a forthcoming response book to Rob Bell’s Love Wins. I took note, naturally, since my response book, God Wins, is coming out in the next month as well. I’ll admit I was self-centeredly looking for “ammunition” that would set my book apart.

But after reading Cook’s critique, I found myself in the awkward position of feeling compelled to defend an author whose book will be in “competition” with mine! But it appears the Chan and I are both partial to one biblical argument.

Let’s begin with the critique.

… it seems to me that those who affirm the traditional view of hell need to do more than say “this is what the Bible says and we’re just repeating it.” Everyone involved in the debate about hell right now is saying “the Bible says”. What those who affirm the traditional view must show is why that view is worthy of devotion.

There is a way of saying, “The Bible says…” to shut off all conversation. I doubt if Chan is saying this, and I certainly don’t say this. Cook is right to critique a Biblicism that would do this sort of thing.

In addition, Cook is on to something when he implies that we need to do more that merely repeat the Bible. We are called by Jesus to preach the Word, not merely read the Word. So that requires explanation of some sort. Some of those explanations will help us understand more deeply biblical teachings that are unpalable in our age. But sometimes we won’t be able to do that because the mystery is so deep.

The problem with the wording of Cook’s conclusion is this: It suggests that our job is to try to justify the ways of God. But of course, it is not our job to show people why God or his truth is “worthy of devotion”–as if there were a reason above and apart from God that would justify his truth to us. Instead, his truth comes to us unbidden, sometimes in the starkest of terms—“and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth.” Who can possibly unravel the mystery, and yes, offense, of this “simple” biblical truth? So the truth often comes to us in terms that defy our ability to grasp it or explain it in ways that shows it worthy of belief, let alone devotion.

While the paradoxes of divine justice make us balk in our age, it has been the paradoxes of the Trinity or the Incarnation or grace that have caused other eras to demand that these shown to be worthy of devotion. But to succumb to this demand is to let our presuppositions run the show, when it is biblical revelation that is in charge of the business of theology. When we succumb to this demand, we invariably end up with an extra-biblical explanation that undermines the faith (tri-theism or modalism, Arianism, etc.)

The truth of the matter is that the faith will always be a stumbling block, for different reasons in different eras. In many instances, all we can say is “The Bible says…” as long as we do not mean the Bible as a magic book but the Bible as the revealed Word of God.

This does not mean we should not ask the toughest of questions. We have that freedom in the grace of God to do so. Many biblical characters are shown doing just this, to the point of insolence sometimes! But note how, in the end, even the Academy award-winning questioner of God, Job, concludes the matter:

“I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted. You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know. (Job 42:2-3)

At the end of the day, the Christian is not called to have answers to the deepest theological perplexities, nor to justify the ways of God to man, but to point to Jesus Christ on the Cross. There we see God as both perfectly just and perfectly merciful. How he solves that which we only see as impossible dilemmas, I do not know, but with a God of pure justice and pure mercy, all things are possible. And after we’ve asked our questions and mightily wrestled with them, we can feel free to leave things we do not understand, things too wonderful for us, in the hands of a good God.

Rob Bell Is Not a Litmus Test

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/mayweb-only/robbelllitmustest.html

What one thinks about 'Love Wins' is no test of faith.

Mark Galli
posted 5/05/2011

I've had a number of conversations lately where, not surprisingly, the topic shifts to Rob Bell's Love Wins. That's when a strange dynamic creeps into some conversations. If the person with whom I'm talking has read my review of the book, or knows I had some critical things to say, he's naturally hesitant to openly praise the book. The usual first move at that point is to say, "I don't agree with everything in the book, but …" And what follows is hardly unalloyed enthusiasm. It's usually a qualified, almost worried appreciation for this part or that. It's as if some people feel guilty for liking the book. Perhaps people who really like the book don't even bother to talk to me, but I suspect something else is going on.

That something else is related to what a Christian journalist friend told me: She feels she has to carefully craft anything she writes about Bell, lest she be suspected of really liking him—or disliking him. The atmosphere in some meetings where people are talking about Bell's book, well, it feels like some people have to apologize for reading the book. Or they seem concerned that if they like it, their theology will be questioned.

In short, it's starting to feel like Rob Bell is becoming a litmus test. If you like Bell, your orthodoxy may be suspect. And if you want to proclaim your orthodox [(evangelic)] credentials, you simply have to condemn Love Wins.

As far as this phenomenon is true, it is silly. That it is silly doesn't mean it is not a powerful current. But as far as it is true, it is a current we evangelicals must swim against.

First, Rob Bell loves Jesus. He wants to see lots of people come to believe in Jesus. He wants to see the world transformed in Jesus' name. He really thinks the Bible is a book through which Jesus speaks authoritatively. He believes in miracles. He believes Jesus is coming again. I could go on. The point is that Bell shares a number of values that are dear to evangelicals. He is, in short, a brother in Christ.

Naturally, because he's a brother doesn't mean one has to agree with everything he says. Brothers disagree, sometimes over important things. And sometimes the biggest blowups happen inside families! But they remain family—unless one party says he disowns the rest of the family.

Second, to make Bell's Love Wins a litmus test is a touch hypocritical. At any given time, there are always a few books on Christian bestseller lists that teach something odd, and we don't shriek in panic in the way many have over Love Wins. Probably the most controversial of late has been The Shack. There are a few theologically troubling ideas in that book, no doubt, but for the most part, evangelicals have "forgiven" Paul Young his theology at those points in favor of the book's larger theme of redemption in Christ. We recognize that an author trying to repeat the old, old story in fresh ways will sometimes overstep the bounds of traditional theology. But most of us do not judge another's orthodoxy based on their reaction to The Shack. We recognize that people read and react to The Shack for all types of reasons, and we are charitable about that.

Third, I believe we have no choice in this day but to listen to and respond charitably to ideas we had thought were settled long ago, ideas that make us feel uncomfortable, ideas that seem to threaten our faith. We've entered a new stage in church history, the Internet Age, in which all manner of beliefs are but a mouse click away. We are virtual neighbors to Catholics, Hindus, Muslims, atheists, Arians, Pelagians, Universalists, and so on and so forth. And their websites often present views that in small and large degrees differ from mainstream evangelicalism—and they express those views reasonably and compellingly. We can no longer get away with name calling—"Universalist!" "Arian!"—and think that is enough.

No, we live in a time when we must engage afresh all these permutations of orthodoxy, heterodoxy, heresy, paganism, and apostasy. I for one welcome the opportunity, and want to hear the best cases that can be made against historic Christian faith, and the best cases for alternate views. If the historic Christian faith cannot stand up to such arguments, we should abandon it as soon as we can. But this is hardly likely, because when it comes to doubts about this historic faith and alternatives to it, well, there is really nothing new under the sun. What we have now is a divinely ordained opportunity to clarify again what we believe in the midst of a highly pluralistic world. It isn't as if the church has never been here before: the world of the earliest church was the just as pluralistic as ours, and the church managed very well, thank you.

That means we're going to have to get used to some card carrying evangelicals experimenting with ideas that centrists, like me anyway, consider less than helpful. But if a writer tries to ground his argument in Scripture, and identifies himself as a member of the body of Christ, charity requires me first to humbly listen. Who knows what God might want to say to us in this moment? It also means I should listen not just to the argument, but also to the problem he is trying to solve. Very few people present a new way of conceiving a doctrine unless they are trying to solve a genuine problem in the church.

In Love Wins, Bell reinterprets some biblical themes (e.g., last judgment, atonement) because he believes the way we've traditionally talked about these themes is not faithful to the Bible and pushes people away from Jesus. I think he's right that the way we've talked about substitutionary atonement and hell have hardly been biblical much of the time, and thus these doctrines have caused more problems than they have solved. But as I said in my review, I believe his solution will actually undermine his desire to win people to Jesus. Furthermore, as I will argue in a forthcoming book, the main problem with Love Wins is that the Good News is even better—deeper, richer, more complex—than it lets on. That I champion the historic Christian view on these matters, and that Bell offers a decidedly minority view, doesn't make Bell a heretic, though he may be unbiblical at points. It does mean that the burden of proof rests on his shoulders. And more to the point here, the fact that so many resonate with Bell's concerns about these themes means we need to wrestle with them afresh.

And not because it's a good idea to dialogue ad infinitum. God forbid! I've been a part of two mainline Protestant denominations much of my life, both of which seem to think that dialogue is an end in itself. On many crucial issues, even after thirty years of dialogue, they are reluctant to let their yes be yes and their no be no. Certainly for individuals, and more so for churches and denominations, there comes a time to clarify and confirm exactly what they believe, for example, about the atonement and hell. But if a book comes out that demonstrates from the reaction to it that tens of thousands of believers are wrestling with these issues, we best first step back, listen hard to the doubts and concerns, and re-engage charitably.

We are wise to nurture an atmosphere in churches, and families, and websites where any question can be asked without fear of judgment, where theological ideas are addressed and not merely dismissed. We sometimes act as if Jesus said, "I might be the way and the truth and the life—unless a better idea comes along." No, we can have complete confidence in the face of any question because we know that whatever is true has its origins in God's truth in Jesus Christ, and that Jesus Christ really is the Truth that sets us free. This will require in many instances some sensitive listening and hard intellectual work. But who said love, even loving God with the mind, would not entail suffering?

We have to become radically Protestant again. At times like these, there arises a longing in Protestant breasts for the magisterium, for an authoritative body to pronounce a final verdict to deal with the troublemakers by edict. But that is not a Protestant theology of the church and the Holy Spirit. We believe that God is sovereign in his church, that the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth, that through discussion and debate, a sifting process allows the truth of God in Christ to deepen and broaden. If Jesus is truly Lord of his church, his truth will make its way into the church's life, one way or another. Our job is to prayerfully read Scripture, talk with one another in the bonds of love, and, yes, when the time comes, make the tough calls. Again, a congregation or a denomination has the perfect right and responsibility to say, "This conversation is over for now. This is what we believe. Let us move forward in mission grounded in this article of faith." There are times to call a spade a spade, and to say clearly that someone is engaging in false teaching and it's damaging the health of the church. All this is part of the sifting process of the Holy Spirit in history. But we are wise not to end some conversations before they've even started, especially when it often seems that the Spirit may be starting the troubling conversation afresh in the first place.

I have enjoyed many conversations with people who have read Love Wins and my review of the book. I look forward to more such conversations. They have reinforced some of my prejudices and forced me to rethink others—there's that sifting process. When entered into freely and without fear, in love and not in judgment, they have been occasions to love God more deeply in the company of brothers and sisters in Christ. There are perhaps more urgent ways to love God and neighbor in a desperately hurting world, but this is certainly not an unimportant one.

Mark Galli is senior managing editor of Christianity Today, and author of the forthcoming Chaos and Grace: Discovering the Liberating Work of the Holy Spirit (Baker).

Welcome to Shelbyville

Watching the PBS special reported by Christianity Today seemed very applicable to two earlier posts mentioned here on this blog. One dealt with "Tolerance, Pluralism and Accomodation" (http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/05/kingdom-of-god-has-come.html) and the other spoke of Christianity's postmodern global re-messaging by Carl Raschke's 2008 book entitile GloboChrist - (http://relevancy22.blogspot.com/2011/03/postmodernism-carl-raschkes-globochrist.html).

More than ever Christianity has gone global due to the internet and social networking and is owned by no culture but by all cultures. This independent film documentary's portrait of a small southern American town  struggling to learn how to welcome America's newest refugees and immigrants succiently emphasizes how prejudices and biases must be banished in order to live together as "one nation under God" (to quote the American motto found on its coinage).  And from this writer's perspective, as one CHRISTIAN nation under God made from ALL the nations of mankind - if you will, a reversal of the ancient concept of Babel. For the kingdom of God has come upon men through Jesus Christ our Lord who will rule and be sovereign over all kings and kingdoms, powers and dominions. There is no nation but Christ's composed of all cultures, all heritages, all peoples from around the world!

- skinhead 

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Uneasy Alliances in the Heart of the Bible Belt

Tennessee town's tolerance tested in "Welcome to Shelbyville," airing on PBS

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/ctentertainment/2011/05/uneasy-alliances-in-the-heart-1.html

by Mark Moring

May 23, 2011

"When a foreigner lives with you in your land, don't take advantage of him. Treat the foreigner the same as a native. Love him like one of your own. Remember that you were once foreigners in Egypt. I am God, your God" (Lev. 19:33-34, The Message).

"For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in" (Matt 25:35, NIV)

These are familiar passages to many in the Bible Belt, including the residents of Shelbyville, Tennessee. But putting such words into practice is much easier said than done. That's the premise of Welcome to Shelbyville, a documentary airing tonight (10/9c) on PBS's Independent Lens.


It's a fascinating look at how a small town grapples with a rapid influx of foreign refugees, including a growing Latino population and, in more recent years, many Muslims from Somalia. Most of the film was shot in the days prior to the 2008 Presidential election, when America was already facing many changes. But for this small Tennessee town, the changes seemed to come faster than many residents were prepared for.


There are some expected comments from local rednecks and old-timers, mostly borne out of misunderstanding or fear, but there are some encouraging scenes involving local churches who are putting feet to the gospel, trying to roll out the red carpet for their new neighbors. It's a challenge, but it's a challenge they are working hard to meet -- whether through large events, door-to-door visits, or ESL classes. There are some sensitive (and some not so sensitive) insights from pastors and religious leaders.


"The movement of people from one place to another, how we acclimate to other cultures, and the resulting fusion of humanity has always fascinated me," says director Kim Snyder. "During my Masters work in foreign relations at Johns Hopkins, I was most interested in social change as it played out in more personal rather than national or historic narratives. Welcome to Shelbyville evolved out of a deep desire over the past decade to tell stories that would not only raise awareness about complex social problems, but that could go one step beyond to highlight people and communities that were tackling these problems with innovative solutions that might ignite social change.


"Welcome to Shelbyville chronicles a year in the life of one town in the rural South grappling with the challenges of rapid demographic change. With focus on Shelbyville as a microcosm of current day trends in immigration that are landing an increasing number of newcomers in rural locales, my intent was to provide a snapshot of this phenomenon through the voices of ordinary citizens, both U.S. and foreign-born, who are often navigating these challenges without much precedent or guidance." It's worth watching for any community or congregation that is serious about putting feet to the gospel, and reaching out to the strangers among us. Here's the trailer:

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/welcome-to-shelbyville/film.html

About the Film

    

Welcome to Shelbyville is a glimpse of America at a crossroads. In this one small town in the heart of America's Bible Belt, a community grapples with rapidly changing demographics. Just a stone's throw away from Pulaski, Tennessee (the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan), longtime African American and white residents are challenged with how best to integrate with a growing Latino population and the more recent arrival of hundreds of Muslim Somali refugees.

Set on the eve of the 2008 Presidential election, the film captures the interaction between these residents as they navigate new waters against the backdrop of a tumultuous year. The economy is in crisis, factories are closing, and jobs are hard to find. The local Tyson chicken plant is hiring hundreds of new Somali refugees, and when a local reporter initiates a series of articles about the newcomers, a flurry of controversy and debate erupts within the town.

Just as the Latino population grapples with their own immigrant identity, African American residents look back at their segregated past and balance perceived threats to their livelihood and security against the values that they learned through their own long struggle for civil rights. As the newcomers — mostly of Muslim faith — attempt to make new lives for themselves and their children, leaders in this deeply religious community attempt to guide their congregations through this period of unprecedented change. Through the vibrant and colorful characters of Shelbyville, the film explores immigrant integration and the interplay between race, religion, and identity in this dynamic dialogue. The story is an intimate portrayal of a community’s struggle to understand what it means to be American.

http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/welcome-to-shelbyville/film.html

Being Human 4

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/05/24/being-human-4-rjs/

by RJS

posted May 24, 2011

Chapter 2 of Joel B. Green’s book Body, Soul, and Human Life: The Nature of Humanity in the Bible is entitled “What does it mean to be human?” In this chapter he addresses the title question from two directions, scientific and biblical. In the post last Tuesday I considered the scientific evidence for the connection of human life with the rest of animal life including a consideration of the material features that may, or may not, make us distinctly human. In this post I would like to put up for conversation some of the biblical perspective on human uniqueness.

Moving from science to the bible, Dr. Green starts by describing several problems or pitfalls in the consideration of a biblical view of the nature of humanity. He proceeds to consider a few passages of scripture and wraps up with an sketch of what he finds as the biblical basis for human distinctiveness.

The evidence for the nature of humanity found in the bible is implicit not explicit. We are not told “this is the nature of humanity” rather we have texts that assume a view, counter other views though to be errant, or project ideas about the nature of humanity into a discussion of the future new heavens and new earth.

There is a problem of method. There is no simple method, be it appeal to culture, word study, or appeal to the afterlife, which, when applied to the scripture, will permit easy discovery and understanding of the biblical view of the nature of humans.

Most importantly, there is an ever present danger of imposing our current ideas about the human person on the text rather than listening to what the text has to say. This is really the big problem. The approach of substance dualism is something that Dr. Green claims we project into the text rather than extract from the text. Here he looks specifically at the healings by Jesus to provide an example. Physical blemish kept a person from access to God and the community of God’s people. Cleansing a leper restored him to God and to community (Mt 8:1-4). In another example healing is connected with the forgiveness of sin, in fact healing is tantamount to the forgiveness of sin (Mt 9:2-8). Humans are unified wholes.

Here we find no room for segregating the human person into discrete, constitutive “parts,” whether “bodily” or “spiritual” or “communal.” (p. 49)

Is the dualist view of human persons as body and soul something we read from the text or we read into the text?

Humans as individuals vs human in community. The problems that arise from imposing modern assumptions on the text go beyond dualism though. The notion of community and the importance of place in community was more significant in the ancient culture where the bible was shaped and written. We tend to define identity in terms of self-sufficiency, self-determination, self-autonomy, self-legislation, and the individual inner person – taking ideas from Charles Taylor Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. This modern view of human identity is in contrast with the view of human persons implicit in the biblical text.

The point is that constructions of personal identity that pervade the world of the interpreter are easily read back into the texts under scrutiny, and yet, in the case of the human self discerned by Taylor, can stand at odds with biblical anthropology at almost every turn. … These include such emphases as the construction of the self as deeply embedded in social relationships and thus the importance of dependence/interdependence for human identity; a premium on the integrity of the community and thus the contribution of individuals to that integrity; the assumption that a person is one’s behavior – that is, that one’s dispositions are on display in one’s practices; an emphasis on external authority – that is the call to holiness is a call to human vocation drawn from a vision of Yahweh’s “difference”; and the reality of dualism vis-a-vis good/evil, resident in and manifest both outside and inside a person. (p. 50)

So what is found in scripture? Dr. Green looks specifically at Genesis 1-2 and concludes that humans are fundamentally relational – with God, with each other, and with the world. To bear the divine image is to have a distinct role and vocation in creation. The vocation is part of the covenantal relationship with God.

What is this quality that distinguishes humanity? God’s words affirm the creation of the human family in its relation to himself, as his counterpart, so that the nature of humanity derives from the human family’s relatedness to God. The concept of the imago Dei, then, is fundamentally relational, or covenantal, and takes as its ground and focus the graciousness of God’s own covenantal relations with humanity and the rest of creation. The distinguishing mark of human existence when compared with other creatures is thus the whole of human existence (and not some part of the individual). (p. 63)

Turning to the Psalms and then New Testament Dr. Green finds the same theme of covenant, relationship, and vocation in community as the defining nature of the human person. After looking at the terms image and glory, especially in relationship to the place of Christ as the image of God, and a brief comment on the nature of salvation (more of that in a later chapter), he concludes that both science and scripture paint a view of human persons as characterized by embodiedness and relationality. But the bible gives us a more complete view in two ways:

First, In presenting the physical embeddedness of the human family, they [the biblical materials] highlight the vocation of humanity in relation to the created order – not only in relation to other humans, but also in relation to the cosmos. Second, the biblical materials urge the view that a biblical theology of humanity must have as its primary point of beginning and orientation the human in a partnering relationship with God. (p. 71)

The biblical view of human persons, according to Dr. Green, is centered on community and relationship, not on individuals. The question of body, soul, and personal identity from a modern perspective distorts our understanding of scripture, our appreciation for the story of Israel in the Old Testament (including the issues raised in the posts on God Behaving Badly), and our understanding of salvation in the New Testament.

What do you think? Is the nature of humanity in the Bible primarily relational, covenantal, and vocational?

Do we over value the nature of humanity as individual identity?

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.

Why I can't give up the label "Evangelical"

http://www.patheos.com/community/rogereolson/2011/05/23/why-i-cant-give-up-the-label-evangelical/

by Roger Olson

posted May 23, 2011

Friends and acquaintances on both the right and the left and nowhere on the theological spectrum (I don’t insist that everyone be somewhere on that spectrum) have asked me why I continue to call myself “evangelical”–given all the problems with that term today.

Well, I respond, what else would I call myself? Just Christian? That label has just as many problems and always gets the response “What kind of Christian?” Protestant? Again, too vague and inclusive. I am both of those, but if I use them alone or in tandem to identify my theological orientation people rightly ask “What kind of Christian and what kind of Protestant?’

All my life I’ve called myself an “evangelical Christian” or, when I was very young but old enough to be aware of these things, knew I was part of a wider Christian community called “evangelical.” To us, evangelical was synonymous with “authentically Christian” as opposed to “nominally Christian.” When I was a teenager deeply involved in Youth for Christ, for example, I knew which churches in our midwest city of about 100,000 people were evangelical in that sense and which were just (in our eyes, anyway) religious clubs. And we knew that some good Christians stayed in their nominally Christian churches which did not make their churches evangelical or them less than fully and authentically Christian. So, it was complicated, but not too complicated.

When did “evangelical” become a problem for me and many others who proudly wore that label for decades? First, when Jerry Falwell began calling himself an evangelical and, second, when the mass media began depicting Falwell and Pat Robertson and people associated with the Religious Right as “the” evangelical–i.e., as the leading spokesmen for the movement.

Again, as with the scandal about the “end of the world,” I blame the media for the good label “evangelical” becoming problematic. I talk to media people fairly often. Just last week, in the run up to the “end of the world” day (May 21) I was interviewed by a local reporter. I mentioned to her the Luther quote about planting a tree today (if he knew the world would end or Christ would return tomorrow). She thought Luther was sometime in the 1800s!

Most stories I see and hear in the media about “evangelicals” are so distorted and uninformed that I can hardly stand to watch them or read them. Most journalists (with a few notable exceptions) have come to use the term for anyone or group they consider religiously fanatical or theocratic.

So, I understand why some of my friends and acquaintances want me to give up the label.

However, I’m stubborn and don’t want to give the media (and fundamentalists) the privilege and power to define good religious labels wrongly. I also don’t know what label I would turn to to begin to define my particular kind of Christianity. Whatever label I use will need some explaining. And it’s just naive to think we can get away from all labeling.

Call me Don Quixote, but I think rescuing “evangelical” from the media and the fundamentalists is worth the attempt.

In the meantime, however, I do have to qualify my particular brand of evangelicalism. So I have used the qualifier “postconservative.” Occasionally, if I know I don’t have time to explain that (!), I’ll just use “progressive.”

All labels have their problems and, to be sure “evangelical” is fraught with them. But I am not giving it up. Instead, I will fight for it. To me, it is virtually synonymous with “God-fearing, Bible-believing, Jesus-loving” Christianity. Of course, that needs unpacking also.

One thing I find helpful when talking to someone or a group with time to listen is to distinguish between the evangelical ethos and the evangelical movement. I see myself as participating in both, but I am more comfortable claiming the evangelical ethos than I am identifying with the evangelical movement– at least as it is viewed by most people.

So, most of the time, when I say I am evangelical I mean I am a Protestant Christian who believes authentic Christianity requires a conversion experience of regeneration and that faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and repentance for sin are necessarily included in that. It cannot be merely an “enlightenment,” so to speak–a new way of thinking.

Of course, much more could be said about the true meaning of evangelical, but my point here is simply that, for me, it is still a good and useful label, but it needs qualifying–just like all one word labels do.

**********

As an aside, I have lately written to Roger Olson and asked how he would understand the term "emergent Christian" or "emerging Christian" to which his reply is that of a "progressive or post-conservative" evangelical Christian, that is, and evangelical Christian who sees the need to update his church and faith and fellowship in line with the postmodernistic times that Christianity has entered into. As with any label, whether "progressive," "post-conservative," "emerging," or "emergent" we should balance those descriptors off with the writer, author, movement, church, association, etc that is utilizing (or abusing) it. Curiously, this can be as applicable to a movement's founder as to his (or her) critics.

For example, I like Rob Bell, but not all things Rob says are things I would be in agreement with. Perhaps I feel he strays a bit from an orthodoxy that doesn't support his statements biblically. Still, I find him very useful in enlightening myself and many others with the shortcomings of "evangelicalism" as much as the "benefits" of an emerging Christianity as he re-interprets the gospel of Jesus within a framework I deem to call "Inauguration Eschatology."

But like Roger says, too often we simply don't understand the content of the terms we freely banter about, and more-often-than-not, we usually misrepresent them. So it is necessary to study and discuss, dialogue and interact with each other over as many issues as is necessary to proper convey Jesus to a lost and sinful world, as much as to ourselves, lost in a wilderness of follies and ideas.

Thus this blog I've created on all things "emergent" (or emerging, or progressive, or post-conservative) as I try to sort things through the various postings I've read and have found helpful to the teaching and illumination of Scriptures. And not just from an "emergent vein," but in the faithful use of an historical orthodoxy from all church ages past, all church leaders, teachers, and preachers past, in the discernment of God's Word. In a word, I wish to "update" our foundational orthodoxy into this present age of man with all of its upheavals, discontents, disappointments, misunderstandings and shortsightedness.

And with that said, I pray that we continue to use our "good senses" praying for Spirit-filled illumination and discernment in the task of following Jesus as best as we can. For ultimately, it takes a fellowship of like-minded, good-hearted, discerning Christians to do this task together, as we examine and expound the truths of God's Word as best as we can understand it, apply it, live it, breath it, believe it, practice it, teach it, share it, testify of it, and be at peace with it in our heart-of-hearts.

- skinhead

The End of Evangelicalism 7

As with any movement or name it is always best to understand both the pros as well as the cons of any position or ideology. Rollins, McLaren, and Hirsch have all been quoted on this blog regarding their very helpful and positive directional material to Christianity. So with that said, here is David Fitch and Scot McKnight's additional rejoinders of both the positives and negatives of each man's ministry. And I would suppose that even with ourselves, our friends or non-friends, each may say as much about our own personal doctrines, "-isms," and leanings. But so often it is hard to maintain a "balanced view" of things when in the thick of transformative events, and yet, a well-informed moderation is always helpful (if possible) in reporting current events within and outside of Christianity.

- skinhead

* * * * * * * * *
 

http://www.patheos.com/community/jesuscreed/2011/05/23/the-end-of-evangelicalism-7/

by Scot McKnight

posted May 23, 2011

My friend David Fitch, in The End of Evangelicalism? Discerning a New Faithfulness for Mission: Towards an Evangelical Political Theology (Theopolitical Visions) , observes that the new forms of evangelicalism are a witness to some form of discontent. He includes the emerging church, the missional church, neo-monasticism and the organic house-church movement. These, Fitch contends, are the “contours of the post-evangelical landscape” (179).

The questions we need to face are these: What forms of evangelicalism do you think will be most vibrant in the next twenty years or so? Is evangelicalism itself changing, or are these splinter groups with only a few years to survive? Do you think the NeoReformed/NeoPuritan movement is another witness to discontent?

David Fitch focuses on three groups in this time of discontent who are providing plausible, yet inadequate, visions for the “birthing of a renewed Christian political presence for our time” (179).

He takes up his three themes again (Inerrant Bible, Salvation, Christian Nation) and sketches how seminal, young, post-evangelicals are proposing ideas: Peter Rollins, Brian McLaren, and Alan Hirsch with Michael Frost. By the way, Fitch thinks James Davison Hunter’s proposal of “faithful presence” is a form of NeoAnabaptism, and I completely agree.

With each of these young theologians, Fitch sees both promise and problems. So, Peter Rollins: while Rollins clearly points us to the capturing of God in Bible and while he pushes us into apophatic theology to remind us that the infinite God cannot be contained by human words, and while he wants us to focus not so much on believing the right things but believing in the right way, Fitch says Rollins is in danger of de-incarnationalizing the Word of God. The Christian is called both to affirm the centrality of Scripture as the place where God has spoken and to land in particular ways in particular settings. For Rollins Scripture can become another Master-Signifier without content. He also thinks his liturgies run the same risk.

Brian McLaren points out the problem of a too other-worldly salvation and of a decisionism that does not lead to transformation and the need to focus God’s mission in kingdom theology and to do all of this in the now, but he thinks McLaren is in danger of de-eschatologizing the kingdom by separating it too much for a robust christology or ecclesiology and a future eschatology. He thinks Brian is too close to seeing Jesus too much as guide and exemplar away from the ruling Lord and Christ. Kingdom too easily can become another nebulous Master-Signifier where advocacy for justice loses its trinitarian and eschatological bearings.

And he sees much of value in Hirsch and Frost in their pushing against the consumerist and attractional church, and their advocacy for organic missional work, and for a dispersed church but they run the risk of de-ecclesiologizing the church’s relationship to society. (Too much missional claims do this.) The practices of the church are too separated from the mission of the church. Which practices? eucharist, baptism, preaching, fellowship, gifts, etc.. Their claim that the proper order is christology, mission and then ecclesiology runs the risk of a Christ too separated from the church and its practices, and can suggest too individualistic of a soteriology and mission.

Thanks David. Good job. Much to think on here.

continue to -

 

The End of Evangelicalism 6

 

The End of Evangelicalism 1

 

 

Heaven Has A Name and It's Called Sidney

Resurrection | in memory of Sidyney

http://newwaystheology.blogspot.com/2011/05/resurrection-in-memory-of-sydney.html

by Mason Slater

posted on May 19, 2011

A week and a half ago our cousin, Sydney Potjer, passed away due to complications from Spinal Muscular Atrophy (SMA).

She was six years old.

Losing someone so young has been devastating, but that we had even six years with Sydney was a miracle. When diagnosed at one year old with SMA she was not expected to live past two. Yet due to her parents incredible 24-hour a day care for her, and her determination to keep fighting, she was able to be part of our lives for far longer.

In those six years Sydney touched many people, with her ready smile, infectious personality, and desire to see the best for everyone around her. This was evident at her funeral last week, when her entire class from school gathered to sing songs in her memory, and over 400 people attended the service.

Our local paper, the Grand Rapids Press, did an article on Sydney’s life which you can read here.

In it her mother, Kami, recounts a conversation she had with Syd “She was excited about going to heaven and seeing Jesus. She said, ‘I want to go there. I want to see Jesus.’ Of course, she wanted to come back home afterward.”

That story was told a number of times over the week, and on the second or third telling it struck me. Yes, it’s cute, and sweet, and touching,

but it’s also spot on.

Sydney, unbeknownst to the reporter or most of those gathered to honor her memory, had summarized the Biblical hope far better than we often hear it from pulpits and professionals.

When God’s people die they do indeed go into his presence, protected and comforted by our Lord, but then, later, we do “come back home”.

And Jesus will be coming with us, to restore this place and set all things to rights.

This hope, of not just disembodied bliss in heaven but real grounded resurrection hope for new life and new creation, has been especially poignant over the past couple weeks.

It’s easy to intellectualize our theology, but right now resurrection has a face to it for me, Sydney’s. A girl who, because of her SMA, was bound to a power chair, and in the resurrection will be able to experience this place as she never was able to before.

I have no doubt that Sydney is free already of her illness, but someday she will be able to walk the fields of Byron Center, play a softball game without any help, even ride a horse.

And all of it will be free from the effects of sin, and death, and pain because, in his resurrection, Jesus was victorious over all that takes life from his people, and in his life we see the promise of the life to come.

Grace and peace.

*Images from the book Art that Tells the Story*

1984 vs. Brave New World | Our own Distopia

http://newwaystheology.blogspot.com/2011/05/1984-vs-brave-new-world-which-dystopia.html

by Mason Slater

posted on May 20, 2011

I have an inexplicable love for all things distopian, so I was intrigued when I came across this comparison of two of my favorites in that genre, 1984 and Brave New World.

Though 1984 was, in my opinion, the better read, this comparison argues that Brave New World might be a more accurate critique of contemporary culture. That rings quite true to me, and in fact I've had this very conversation with friends before.

Like Fahrenheit 451, Huxley's Brave New World features a society who, for the most part, can be relied on to oppress themselves with little outside help. Sure, both books feature powerful enforcers, but the majority of the work is left to the people.

People who volunteer to ban books because they are seen as dangerous, and because they are entranced by more immediate forms of media. People who are kept in line not through force, but through entertainment. People who don't challenge the status-quo not because of fear of retaliation (though that comes as well), but out of fear of losing a privileged position.

We worry about 1984, but it may actually be a Brave New World that we are on the path towards.

The illustration is based on Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, and was recently featured at Theology and Culture.

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