The Mutable Immutable God of Creation

The God who Moves and Responds and Acts 

http://www.jrdkirk.com/2012/05/04/the-god-who-moves-and-responds-and-acts/

by J.R.D. Kirk

May 4, 2012

One of the most significant ramifications of working out one’s theology from the starting point of Jesus Christ is that the actual involvement of God in the world curtails pious-sounding abstractions that, if true, would make God so distant and other as to be of no earthly good.

Because, let’s face it friends, on the day that we learn of the death of the great MCA of the Beastie Boys, we need to know that our God is not a pious abstraction, but a God who can and will and does act. (Can I get an amen?)

Barth's God Immutably Loves Mozart

God’s constancy is not a constancy of one who is unmoved or unmoving. God’s life is “difference, movement, will, decision, action, degeneration, and rejuvenation” (Barth, Church Dogmatics §31.2).

With this litany of divine attributes, signaling what, exactly, God’s constancy looks like, Barth launches into one of the best discussions of divine identity and attributes I’ve ever read.

In the [popular/modernistic] world of theological abstraction, God’s “immutability” becomes “immobility.” But in the [biblical] theology developed from the self-revelation of God in Christ, “immutability” becomes, instead, God’s constancy of action, as God chooses to act, in accordance with God’s desire to be in relationship with the world God created.

God is life.

"We have also to understand it as a proof and a manifestation of God’s constant vitality that God has a real history in and with the world created by Him. This is the history of the reconciliation and revelation accomplished by Him, by which He leads the world to a future redemption."

God has tied himself to a history, bound himself to a story.

We know all this because as Christians we don’t start with abstractions about the identity of God and attempt to figure out how such abstractions make sense within our story. We begin with God’s actual revelation in Jesus and Christ and learn from there who this God is who is at work.

Two highlights from later in the chapter include small print sections on prayer and on the Philippians Christ-hymn.

An immutable God might lead one to believe that prayer can have no effect on the divine. “It’s all about changing us, not getting God to act.”

Wrong.

…the prayers of those who can and will believe are heard; …God is and wills to be known as the One who will and does listen to the prayers of faith… So real is the communication that where it occurs God positively wills that man should call upon Him in this way, in order that He may be his God and Helper.

The living and genuinely immutable God is not an irresistible fate/force before which man can only keep silence, passively awaiting and accepting the benefits or blows which it ordains. There is no such thing as a Christian resignation in which we either have to submit to a fate of this kind or to come to terms with it.

God acts. God acts in love. This is what we learn of the immutability of God as God is revealed in Jesus Christ. The God of love acts on behalf of God’s people. More specifically:

It is because God was in this way one with the creature in Jesus Christ, that there was and is fellowship between God and the creature.

No, the God of all did not need to bind Himself to humanity. But he did. In God’s freedom, God has bound himself to all humanity in Jesus Christ.

So when God is immutable and constant, that changelessness will be for us as our salvation, for the maintenance of the relationship God has created anew. [And when God is mutable and changeable it is for us the result of our relationship with a living God in relation with us. - res]

The surprise in this is that it is in self-giving, self-humbling love that “Christ is Christ and God is God.”

The upshot for us, of course, is that only in such self-giving, self-humbling love and “In it alone can Christians be Christians” (p. 518).

The Wounding of the Body of Christ

Jesus Beyond Jesus

http://www.jrdkirk.com/2012/05/05/jesus-beyond-jesus/

by J.R.D. Kird

May 5, 2012

One thing evangelicals do well is our incessant hammering on the need for each of us to continually respond in faith to the God who is reaching out to us in Christ. We insist on personal accountability before God.

But if the down side to this has been that we’re slow to realize the fully communal implications of our faith.

As I’ve said before, I used to shrug off the old hymn, “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” Because, NEWS FLASH!, I wasn’t! I was a couple thousand years too late for that one.

But then I started to realize that the body of Christ is all around me every time I gather with God’s people. And I began to realize that these were people I had wounded, people whom I had judged and rejected and injured. I had become an instrument in the wounding of the body of Christ.

So yes, I was there. And I am there. I participate in the crucifixion when I judge and reject and injure those who are, themselves, members of Christ’s body.

When Jesus places His name on someone in baptism, he takes this identification with them with utmost seriousness. It’s not just that the person is bound to the story of Christ (something else we need to learn more deeply than we have) but that Christ is bound to the person of this story.

And so Jesus tells his disciples:

Whoever welcomes one of these children in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me isn’t actually welcoming me but rather the one who sent me. (Mark 9:37, CEB)

The disciples weren’t too sure about this whole, “name of Jesus” thing. So they pressed back a bit:

We saw someone throwing demons out in your name, and we tried to stop him because he wasn’t following us. (Mark 9:38, CEB)

Wrong answer.

Everyone who’s not against us is for us. In fact,

I assure you that whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you belong to Christ will certainly be rewarded. (Mark 9:41, CEB).

We too often fall into the trap of thinking that our relationship with God is one thing, and our relationship with people is something else. Sometimes we’ll acknowledge the connection by saying something like, “When my relationship with God is askew, it messes with my relationships with people, too.”

There’s truth in that.

But there’s a more profound truth that such statements skirt; namely, our relationship with other people in the body is, itself, our relationship with the Christ whose name is upon them.

Before us is Jesus beyond Jesus.

God has determined to renew each of us after the image of the firstborn Son.

And so, what we do to them, those who bear the son’s image, is done to the son whose image they bear. When we engage the one who is Christ’s, for blessing or for curse, we bless or curse the Christ to whom they belong.

Placing Value on the Theologians Amongst Us

A “Favorite” Pet Peeve: “Asking Oprah (or Dear Abby)…”

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2012/05/a-favorite-pet-peeve-asking-oprah-or-dear-abby/

by Roger Olson

May 3, 2012

Comments

In a recent column a Christian woman asked “Dear Abby” (Pauline Phillips) about God and homosexuality. Her son came out to her and she was afraid to ask her pastor about God’s attitude toward gay people because she was afraid of what he would say. So she wrote to “Abby” asking her how God views homosexuality. Abby’s response was predictable–that science had shown the Bible to be unreliable on this subject and that entrance to heaven depends on a person’s character only.

This illustrates a pattern I see among Americans including many American Christians. The Christian band “Casting Crowns” has a phrase in one song urging Christians to “stop asking Oprah what to do.” Amen to that! And I add (for Christians, at least) ”stop asking Dear Abby or any other advice columnist or TV talk show host (etc.) what to do!”

Why do people, including some Christians, think that a person can give competent theological advice just because he or she writes a nationally syndicated column or hosts a television talk show? That simply baffles me. It baffles me so much it leaves me bewildered.

A few years ago someone wrote to ask a nationally syndicated columnist what makes a life worth living. Her answer was (paraphrasing) that a life is worth living so long as it produces more than it consumes. Didn’t anybody else notice that that was the very belief that led to the Nazi program of killing thousands of people in German hospitals during the 1930s just because they were deemed incapable of contributing to society?

Also, did nobody else notice that her (the columnist’s) answer is right if there is no God? And that only someone who does not believe in God could say such a thing?

I have been a Christian theologian for almost 30 years. I think I have a reputation for making theology relatively simple to understand. And yet, throughout those years of teaching in church-related institutions and churches I have rarely been asked a theological question by anyone except students in my classes (or former students).

And I know that’s not only my experience. Most theologians I have talked to relate the same experience of rarely being asked for theological advice or insight or even guidance (to finding answers).

Once a church I belonged to appointed an ad hoc committee to consider a major change in membership requirements. I volunteered to serve on the committee but was excluded (twice). When I asked several people associated with the process why no theologian was on the committee I was informed it wasn’t a theological issue. Huh?

Now, maybe in my case it’s just me. That is, maybe I’m just not the kind of person lay people or pastors feel comfortable approaching for advice. I don’t think so, but it’s possible. But this isn’t just about me. I notice that many Christians (to say nothing of non-Christians!) ask theological questions of people who have no theological training at all.

I would venture to say that America’s leading theoogians are people like Joel Osteen (I’m not aware of any formal theological training on his part), Oprah Winfrey, and Dear Abby. “Christian” bookstores’ shelves are full of books on theological subjects by people with no formal biblical or theological training. I can’t begin to tell you how many “testimonies” I have heard from people spouting theological ideas based on “This is what I heard God saying to me.”

American Christianity is sunk in a swamp of subjectivism and individualism–theological and religious populism–where everyone’s opinion is as good as everyone else’s and better if they are nationally read columnists or talk show hosts (or musicians or whatever).

Is there a solution to this? Well, obviously, the desired solution would be for columnists, talk show hosts and others to defer to theologians. But I doubt they know any. A better solution would be for pastors and other church leaders to place more value on their theologians–the ones in their own congregations and/or educational institutions.



SELECT COMMENTS


Dean says:

May 3, 2012 at 7:02 pm

I think it’s obvious why this is the case, Americans consider themselves very religious people (at least that’s what the polls consistently say), but that religion clearly isn’t Christianity. It’s moralistic therapeutic deism, and MTD has no theology, it’s a sociological phenomenon. But even the vast majority of church going Christians out there have no interest in theology at all, I can personally attest that because about a year ago, that was pretty much me. I have been a Christian my “entire” life, and I had very little understanding of the Arminian/Calvinist debate (I had never even heard of Arminius), never heard of Pelagius either for that matter (although I had heard of Calvin), didn’t realize there were other theories of the atonement besides penal substitution, had never heard of Christian inclusivism, had a very dim understanding of the bodily resurrection, did not know what preterism was, assumed the “Rapture” was a settled biblical concept, and just two weeks ago, two weeks, I read a book about open theism and it just about made my brain explode.

But I guess the sad part about this journey is that the only person in my life right now who can even understand the words that are coming out of my mouth (as Chris Tucker would say) is my sister who is a graduate of Fuller theological seminary and who has given me most of the books I’ve read on these subjects. I guess my question for Dr. Olson is how important is theology for the average Christian? Does any of this really matter? Christians have been out and about building the kingdom for 2000 years, and for most of that time, the vast majority of them were illiterate. Not everyone can go to a theological seminary and certainly not everyone should. Are all these theological debates really of any value at the end of the day? I’ve found that most Christians just don’t care, and I guess I’m not really sure they’d be any better off if they did. As fascinating as it has been for me, at the end of the day it is a confusing morass with seemingly no satisfactory resolution for much of these issues, which explains the surrealism that descends upon me when I read that Arminius lived in the 16th century and that book on open theism I read was written in 8 years ago, it really does detract from some of the novelty of it all for me. I guess I’m at a place right now where I feel like it’s a rabbit hole and I’m wondering why I thought it was a good idea to jump in in the first place.

rogereolson says:

May 4, 2012 at 1:47 pm

I recommend you read Who Needs Theology? by Stanley J. Grenz and yours truly. We address those questions there. Of course, it’s not an either-or between highly academic theology or folk religion devoid of any theology. How much theology a person needs to be a good disciple of Jesus Christ depends on his or her age, maturity level, role in church leadership, exposure to heretical or non-Christian beliefs, etc., etc. But, at risk of sounding pedantic, let me suggest that it might be helpful for you to study the kingdom of God from, for example, George Eldon Ladd, a highly respected evangelical New Testament scholar and theologian. He is right that we do not “build” the kingdom of God. There is no such language in the NT. That’s folk religion, not correct theology (of the Kingdom of God).


Sean says:

May 4, 2012 at 12:57 am

Try being a Pentecostal theologian–half the Christians hate me for being Pentecostal; those that don’t hate me for being a theologian. To avoid persecution, I mostly hang out with mainliners, among whom I at least have the advantage of being slightly exotic.

Seriously though, I’ve had many occasions when, upon answering the question, “What do you do?” with “Teach systematic theology,” the asker of the question feels free to immediately begin criticizing me and telling me how that is such a bad thing. I haven’t seen Christians do that with other vocations like pastors or social workers.

“Theology” and “doctrine” have been made dirty words in many church circles (and not just in America), and I don’t know how we can redeem them. Most Christians don’t even know what they mean. I’m certain the working definition of theology for one very good friend in ministry who really should know better, is “The Bible with all the interesting parts left out.” One of his favorite discussion topics is a very central theological question, but you can’t call it that, and he can’t acknowledge that my course of earning three theological degrees and teaching systematics for a decade might give me give me a leg up on the subject.

When called upon to guest preach at a new place, I’ll often “sermonize” a basic theology lesson on, say, the attributes of God or an aspect of Christology. I’m commonly greeted afterwards with two responses. The encouraging: “Brother, I loved your message! I understood every bit of it.” And also the terrifying: “I’ve never heard anything like that before!”

rogereolson says:

May 4, 2012 at 2:04 pm

Don’t think these experiences are just because you’re Pentecostal. I’ve been both–Pentecostal and Baptist and overall and in general the reactions to “theology” and “theologian” are the same in both.


John Shelton says:

May 4, 2012 at 10:35 am

Dr. Olson (and readers), I read this post earlier this morning (Irish) time, and being a biblical scholar myself, this really resonated with me. I guess I should realize that since Jesus was not well received even in his own town (Luke 4) and since a “servant is not above his master” (John 15) I shouldn’t be too upset (not saying that’s what you’re doing Dr. Olson) when people don’t seek out my thoughts on biblical matters. I mean, people don’t ask me advice on plumbing or electrical matters. I don’t ever recall someone asking me to cut into their head and do brain surgery. But it seems as if they’d ask anyone else first to cut open their spiritual hearts to do soul surgery. I guess if I want to spin it positively, I could say that I’m grateful that people aren’t following my cult of personality and I am not delivering messages of “the happy Gospel” that is so popular and prevalent. In that, (and not that you are seeking or needing my encouragement) I would offer my encouragement to say: “Keep it up.”

That said, after having read your post, and before posting this comment, I had a leader from a local ministry come to me and ask several questions of a personal matter related to biblical doctrine. I had a hard time not smiling.

All the best, John


Matt says:

May 4, 2012 at 1:23 pm

One of the bizarre features of North American evangelicalism is the distrust with which pastors and lay people treat theologians and biblical scholars. The same people would never ask an accountant for serious medical advice or ask an electrical engineer for tax advice. But biblical experts are not really experts in the minds of many Christians. There are lots of reasons, but I think two of the biggies are: 1.) to them, academic Christians always = liberal Christians; and 2.) pride and/or fear (the bigger factor, imho). To be fair, some may have had bad experiences with #1. But many evangelicals think that if they have read a few books or commentaries from the local Christian bookstore that these things, in conjunction with the Holy Spirit, means they have interpretive matters all wrapped up. I once had someone ask me why I was pursuing a PhD in biblical studies, and the question they asked me outright was, “what more is there to know?” I also think pastors in particular feel intimidated by advanced theological/biblical studies. I get some very strange (almost cold) receptions from my pastor and the good people at my church, and I do NOT flaunt my education; my personal policy is not to talk about school unless someone asks me a specific question, and even then I change the subject quickly.


Andy says:

May 5, 2012 at 12:42 pm

I would add a third reason to your reason #1 (fear of liberalism) and reason #2 (pride/fear). A third reason might be fear of receiving a slanted line of reasoning (Calvinistic, for example). Would you ask John MacArthur about the love of God and what our loving response should be in some situation? Would you ask John Piper about a recent tragedy? [I guess I'm missing a distinction between these "popular" speakers and "theologians" is missing in my comment] So as for me (with the help of this site) I have found theologians I trust. Mostly in books. And I am fortunate to have a pastor of whom I can safely ask questions.


Mark says:

May 4, 2012 at 10:12 pm

One issue among many may be that what often passes for theological discourse in churches (in my experience at least) is done in an ungenerous and uninformed way. Strong personalities dominate discussion. Strong opinions clash (and often the strong opinions are held by strong personalities). People take things personally, and that puts the rest of them off. Then you get the stormers who are determined ‘just to do what the bible says’ and ‘don’t want any truck with this speculative, impractical theology’.

They haven’t been introduced to the kind of fair and irenic theological discourse we get from the best theologians and writers. I think of your style, Roger, which even when defending or attacking a position, is always generous to the opponent (if not their position). Or Kevin Vanhoozer, who is positively lyrical in his writings and lectures.


ME says:

May 5, 2012 at 12:51 am

I’d love the opportunity to ask theologians questions. Here are a few:

1. Why do you think the knowledge of God is obscured in this world? I have my own theory but I’m pretty sure it isn’t based in scripture.

2. We are composed of flesh and spirit (I think.) Our spirit did not exist before we were born, correct?

3. Why do you think God created us creatures to be born, live a short time, and die? I have a theory on this and again doubt it’s exactly based in scripture.

4. I know this is childish, but, in the new creation, do you think I would be able to meet Francis of Assisi?

rogereolson says:

May 5, 2012 at 1:48 pm

To 1. Paul answers that in Romans 1.

To 2. I believe in what theologians call “holistic dualism” or “dualistic holism”–that we are, indeed, composed of flesh and spirit but that they belong together, not separated. We did not exist (except in the mind of God) before our physical births. Theologians have long divided over “traducianism” and “creationism” with regard to the origin of souls. I believe traducianism is the most likely explanation–that we inherit our souls from our parents just as we inherit our bodies from our parents.

To 3. Bodily death is a result of the fall; God did not intend for us to die.

To 4. I hope so and don’t see any reason why not.

Repost: How Postmodernism has helped Evangelical Christianity

"...They have not known nor understood: for they have shut their eyes and cannot see;

they have shut their hearts and cannot understand." (Isaiah 44.18)

In this article Kyle Roberts shows the benefits of postmodernistic theology in its confrontation with Evangelic theology as he urges its followers to become more authentic in their Christian heritage; more engaged with minority theologies and suppressed Christian voices; more accepting and embracing of the richness of plurality within Christianity's global church groups; and more willing to show an epistemic humility when doing the work of hermeneutics and theology.

Furthermore, Evangelic Christianity have been given a tremendous advantage by postmodernistic Christianity's pronounced objectives of bringing to an end evangelicalism's absorption of modernity which needed destroying and replacement in its egoistic Age of Rationalism; its entitlement attitudes before all other Christian and religious groups; its oppressive posturings proclaiming restrictive fiats and dogmas in condemnation upon non-Calvinistic brethren; its over-confident proclamations of creedal and systematic propositions in apprehension of the Divine personage and mystery; and, its willingness to embrace a form of cultural supremacy that has led to idolatry among Evangelic Christians in this Age of Enlightenment known as Modernity. Accordingly, Postmodernism has restored a rightful and necessary re-balancing to the Age of Modernity as the Church enters into a new era in the 21st Century perhaps to be known as the "Age of Authenticity" replacing both modernity and postmodernity as their cultural equivalents.

Lastly, I would note that though Emergent Christianity has embraced postmodernism, it is not, however, fully defined by postmodernism. Rather, a broader definition of Emergent Christianity would be that of forward-looking Christians wishing to leave Evangelistic modernity and actively exploring fuller expressions of God and their personal relation to the Divine, to one another, and to the world at large, in the 21st Century. So that whether this new era is known as "Postmodernism," or as "An Age of Authentication" or even as "An Era of Participatory Community," it will have the following distinctives:

• it will have examined modernism in relationship to postmodern Christianity;
• moved to a more authenticating form of Christianity within its belief structures; and,
• centered its efforts in participatory communities celebrating the life of Jesus to both the world as well as within its own faith fellowships.

So that by whatever era or time period the Church is in (or, entering), Emergent Christianity is positioning itself to speak within that epistemic/philosophic period to bear Christ to the nations through ministry and proclamation.

R.E. Slater

September 12, 2011

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

Postmodernism: Still Alive, Still Prophetic

http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Postmodernism-Still-Alive-Still-Prophetic-Kyle-Roberts-09-07-2011?offset=0&max=1

If we are really entering the twilight of postmodernism,

there may still be time for evangelicals to learn its lessons.

by Kyle Roberts

September 6, 2011

Every now and again, someone declares that this year the Vikings are going to win the Super Bowl or the Cubs the World Series. Eventually, given enough time and enough predictions, someone is likely to be right. (Well, perhaps not about the Cubs.)

Similarly, now and again someone declares the "death of postmodernism." Someone will eventually be right. Collin Hansen, taking his cue from a recent Prospect essay, "Postmodernism is Dead," is the latest evangelical to happily proclaim its demise. Hansen's piece raises a number of points for potentially fruitful dialogue, as church leaders consider whether or not the age of postmodernism is over and done, or whether it still has some prophetic and instructive work to do.

In the Prospect essay, author Edward Docx suggests that an upcoming art exhibit at London's Victoria and Albert Museum, "Postmodernism—Style and Subversion 1970-1990," signals the demise of an era. In the field of art, Docx notes, postmodernism was a flurry of subversive irony. Its energy couldn't last, as lesser lights sought to carry the torch and as criteria for aesthetic judgment gave way to the almighty dollar. On a grander scale, he notes, postmodernism was an intellectual and cultural movement that emerged in response to dissatisfactions with modernity. It was, Docx says, a "high-energy revolt, an attack, a strategy for destruction."

Words like "revolt" and "destruction" have captured the imagination of postmodernism's detractors, many who do not sufficiently distinguish between culture-making practices like art, cinema, and literature and their intellectual backdrop, postmodern thought. The cultural practices and the "isms" informing them are sometimes distinguished as "postmodernity" and "postmodernism," respectively.

Postmodern thought is an array of attitudes, objectives, and standpoints notoriously difficult to pin down, not so much because it is "fuzzy" but because it is complex and variegated. In the popular Christian imagination, postmodernism is rather simple (and as Hansen suggests, even "all-encompassing"): it's the deconstruction of truth and the exaltation of relativism, the abandonment of meaning and the glory of nihilism, and the loss of the word in favor of the amorphous image. For its admirers, postmodernism is the savior of authenticity, dialogue, and serenity; for its critics, it's the enemy of truth, biblical revelation, and of Christianity.

Hansen can't seem to decide, however, whether postmodernism runs against the notion of biblical revelation or whether it has aided in its recovery. On one hand, he says, "thanks to the effects of postmodernism, no longer do Enlightenment philosophies claim they can compile all human knowledge by means of reason apart from revelation." On the other hand, he warns, Christian advocates of postmodernism have lost the basis for truth. This basis, Hansen suggests, can be found in Scripture. Critics of postmodernism, however, often forget that it was Modernism that undermined trust in revelation; higher criticism, Rationalism/philosophical skepticism, deism, etc., were Enlightenment enterprises. While certainly not all postmodernists are Christians (or even theists), postmodernism on the whole has made room for revelation, paradox, and mystery.

For many thinkers and church leaders, postmodernism has been a friendlier cultural and intellectual context for Christianity than was modernism. Aspects and attitudes emerging from the postmodern turn include epistemic humility, tolerance of diversity and difference, hermeneutical richness and complexity. Numerous postmodern thinkers (if not the most radical ones) repeatedly argue that "standpoint epistemology," multiple discourses, and hermeneutical indeterminacy does not amount to relativism or lead to nihilism. Among those who have accepted the postmodern turn, the recognition of contextuality, epistemic finitude, and the significance of perspective enabled a breakthrough in engagement with minority theologies and formerly suppressed (and oppressed) voices.

Hansen glossed over a striking concession in Docx's essay: postmodernism, by de Marginalized and subordinate groups were given voice, in large part thanks to the postmodern turn. In this respect, it is not contradictory, as Hansen suggests, to find postmodernists seeking justice. For the patriarch of deconstruction, Jacques Derrida, "deconstruction is justice."

Hansen is certainly correct that it is, in the end, the Gospel that matters. The paradox of the God-man and the salvation he offers to the world is our central concern, our focal point as Christians. But if anything, postmodernism as applied to Christian theology has helped evangelicals remember that Christ is just that: a paradox who offers himself to be appropriated by faith (not by Rationality). And he offers himself first and foremost as a person, not a proposition.

Postmodernity, at least as it has been appropriated within evangelical Christian theological discourses and church practices (e.g., the Emergent Church), has aimed toward authenticity; patience with plurality; contentment with hermeneutical limitations and theological incompleteness; in sum, toward epistemic humility. These qualities are not inconsistent with a Gospel-informed life of Christian discipleship.

It is tempting for evangelicals to triumphantly declare that the wicked witch is dead, so we can go back to the Kansas we once knew. But dead, dying, or still kicking, the prophetic lessons of postmodernism should not be forgotten in the face of the inevitable increase of plurality and difference in our neighborhoods, towns, and urban centers. Postmodernism has given us conceptual tools with which to fight against our natural tendency to have the last word, to lean on our own presumed certainty of knowledge, and to subsume particularity under a totalizing homogeneity. If we have entered the twilight of postmodernity—which may or may not be the case—it would be a shame if it came and went without really understanding it.

Postmodernism will indeed eventually give way to something else. If it is, as Doxc suggests, the "Age of Authenticity," then it will be, at least in part, due to postmodernism's persistent critique of our natural tendency toward idolatry (cf, Peter Rollins, "The Idolatry of God, Breaking Our Addiction to Certainty and Satisfaction"). In this sense, the lessons of postmodernity are consistent, as Hansen rightly acknowledges, with the teaching of the Apostle Paul: we see through a mirror dimly (1 Cor. 13:12). We are finite, fallen, and broken. And we are still not in Kansas anymore. But if we are really entering the twilight of postmodernism, there may still be time to learn its lessons.

For further resources geared toward Christians engaging and understanding postmodernity, see:

• Myron B. Penner, ed., Christianity and the Postmodern Turn: Six Views
• Merold Westphal, Overcoming Onto-Theology: Toward a Postmodern Christian Faith
• James K. A. Smith, Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? Taking Derrida, Lyotard and Foucault to Church

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

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

Introducing Animate's "Faith Formation Series" for Adults, Teens, and Kids by Sparkhouse

Animate - Faith Formation Series - Intro Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5SLfvMcCZvk

For more information -

http://wearesparkhouse.org/

Published on May 2, 2012 by wearesparkhouse

Seven leading Christian voices.

Seven big conversations about faith.

All you need is seven weeks.

Animate is an exciting series that leverages the knowledge and experiences of a diverse set of leading Christian voices. Together, they helped us create a new introductory course that creatively explores central topics of Christianity.

The first course in the series is Animate: Faith. The session titles are listed below. Learn more at www.wearesparkhouse.org.

God | Faith Is a Quest

Brian McLaren

Religion | Spirituality Is Not Enough
Lillian Daniel

Jesus | The Revolution of Love
Mark Scandrette

Salvation | Abundant Life Now
Shane Hipps

Cross | Where God Is
Nadia Bolz-Weber

Bible | A Book Like No Other
Lauren Winner

Church | An Imperfect Family
Bruce Reyes-Chow

Holy Moly - David & Goliath

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNBt6IjYlnE&feature=relmfu

Updating outdated flannel graphs to today's new media Holy Moly is a new Sunday school curriculum that irresistibly captures the imagination of kids by bringing the Bible to life! Kids walk away from class excitedly retelling the stories they just learned and eagerly awaiting what's next.

Each lesson invites kids into the story with animated Bible story retellings, reinforces the lesson through the colorful pages of the Holy Moly Storybooks and Holy Bible, and encourages creativity and imagination with activities that bring the stories to life.

Holy Moly Field Test

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAYKwyVW8zg&feature=relmfu

When we created our new Sunday school curriculum, Holy Moly, we had a feeling kids would be jumping out of their seats with excitement for God's Word, we just didn't expect quite so much jumping.

Check out clips from this recent Holy Moly Field Test. We went directly to the source to be sure we were on to something good. It's probably safe to take the excited squeals as a "yes!"

Holy Moly is coming out in May. More info coming soon! Stay tuned.

Yes, Relationships Between Equal Married Partners Does Work Better (And it's Biblical!)

It’s not complementarianism; it’s patriarchy
http://rachelheldevans.com/complementarians-patriarchy

by Rachel Held Evans
May 3, 2012
Comments

Russell Moore is concerned that too many evangelical marriages are complementarian in name only.

The dean of the School of Theology and senior vice president for academic administration at Southern Baptist Seminary recently said this at the Together for the Gospel Conference is Louisville, Kentucky:

“What I fear is that we have many people in evangelicalism who can check off ‘complementarian’ on a box but who really aren’t living out complementarian lives. Sometimes I fear we have marriages that are functionally egalitarian, because they are within the structure of the larger society. If all we are doing is saying ‘male headship’ and ‘wives submit to your husbands’ but we’re not really defining what that looks like...in this kind of culture, when those things are being challenged, then it’s simply going to go away...”

He’s right. Whenever I speak or write on this topic, I hear from men and women who say that they went into their marriages expecting to impose upon them the hierarchal structure advocated by the complementarian movement, but who found that, practically speaking, a relationship between two equal partners just worked better than a relationship between a boss and a subordinate.

“It just didn’t fit,” they often say. “Hierarchy felt awkward and imposed. It made so much more sense to work together as a team, to settle into roles based on giftedness rather than gender.”

This is exactly what happened to us. Even though Dan and I were both raised in a complementarian culture, our marriage was “functionally egalitarian” long before we began reevaluating our interpretation of those passages of Scripture so often used to support hierarchal-based gender roles.

We make decisions together. (No one holds a trump card.)

We share household chores. (No one gets out of doing the laundry or helping with the yard work based on gender.)

We don’t impose gender-based absolutes on one another. (I like football more than Dan, and nobody’s particularly concerned about that. Roll Tide!)

We don’t have a single leader. (Dan likes to say that “leadership” requires context. It’s not something you are; it’s something you do. So depending on the circumstances, sometimes I lead, and sometimes Dan leads. Sometimes I support, and sometimes Dan supports. We see our gifts, particularly our spiritual gifts, as complementary. We function best—as individuals and as a team—when we do what we’re good at and what we love, and when we cheer one another on. We also function best when our leadership looks more like service than authority, just like Jesus said.)

Moore is right. Complementarians are losing ground. And they’re losing ground for several reasons:

1. They are losing ground because more and more evangelical theologians, scholars, professors, and pastors are thoughtfully debunking a complementarian interpretation of Scripture and doing it at the popular level through books like The Blue Parakeet (by Scot McKnight), Discovering Biblical Equality (by Ronald Pierce, Rebecca Merrill Groothuis, Gordon Fee), How I Changed My Mind About Women in Church Leadership (by a who’s who of evangelical leaders), through evangelical colleges and seminaries that celebrate women’s giftedness to lead and are producing record numbers of female graduates, and through organizations like Christians for Biblical Equality.

2. They are losing ground because their rhetoric consistently reflects a commitment to an idealized glorification of the pre-feminist nuclear family of 1950s America rather than a commitment to “biblical manhood” and “biblical womanhood”—terms that many of us recognize as highly selective, reductive, and problematic. This reactionary approach often comes at the expense of sound biblical interpretation. (I touched on this in a post about Mark Driscoll’s interpretation of Esther and Vashti a few months ago. We’ll be talking about this a lot more in the weeks and months to come.)

3. And they are losing ground because, at the practical level, evangelicals are realizing that complementarianism doesn’t actually promote complementary relationships, but rather hierarchal ones.

Complemenarianism is patriarchy—nothing more, nothing less. (Though sometimes it is referred to as "soft patriarchy.") This was made crystal clear when John Piper announced months ago that Christianity is inherently masculine. Such a view can hardly be described as “complementary” when it excludes one gender entirely! We experience the same discomfort when we realize that, based on the “complementarian” understanding of gender, Fred Phelps would be more qualified to speak to your church on Sunday morning by virtue of being a man than someone like Lois Tverberg or Carolyn Custis James or Christine Caine. When a man with no biblical training whatsoever is considered more qualified to teach than a woman with a PhD in theology or a woman whose work in New Testament scholarship is renowned the world over, we are not seeing complementariaism at work, but patriarchy. (And, I might add, we are missing the Apostle Paul’s point to Timothy about teaching entirely—but that’s a topic for another day.)

Furthermore, as Russell Moore himself has observed, even married couples who identify as “complmentarians” are functioning as equal partners rather than forcing a hierarchal pattern onto their relationship that is highly prescriptive regarding gender. This should come as no surprise seeing as how a truly complementary relationship is one in which differences are celebrated, but not forced. If your marriage is like mine, this means that the complementary differences between you and your spouse often fall into gender-influenced norms (I am more emotional; Dan is more even-keeled), but not always (Dan is better at nurturing relationships than I am; I am more competitive). Rather than trying to force our personalities and our roles into prescribed molds based on gender, it just makes more sense to allow our natural difference to enhance and challenge one another. We lead where we are strong; we defer where we are weak.

Complementarianism isn’t working—in marriages and in church leadership— because it’s not actually complementarianism; it’s patriarchy. And patriarchy doesn’t work because God created both men and women to reflect God's character and God's sovereignty over creation, as equal partners with equal value.

In June I’ll be running a more in-depth series on the Bible and gender in which we will tackle some of those passages of Scripture that are used to promote hierarchy in the home and in church leadership, because I realize and respect the fact that that, particularly among evangelicals, it’s not enough to say that hierarchal-based gender roles don’t work; we must also be able to show that they are not required by Scripture. So stay tuned for that discussion!

See also:
Complementarians are Selective Too
Esther and Vashti: The Real Story

What do you think? Are complementarians losing ground? Should it be called “complementarianism” when it’s really just patriarchy?

Review: Matt Chandler's "Explicit Gospel" misses on many fronts...

The Gospel from the Air

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2012/05/03/the-gospel-from-the-air/

by Scot mcKnight

May 3, 2012

Comments

 

Matt Chandler, in his new book, The Explicit Gospel, makes a case for two dimensions of gospel — one on the ground, which is basically individual salvation, and one from the air, which he calls the meta-narrative of the Bible. The former focuses on God, man, Christ, response; the gospel from the air focuses on Creation, Fall, Reconciliation, and Consummation. The former is expounded through Romans 11:23-26, which permits Chandler to focus on the gospel as about God’s glory; the latter permits him to focus on Romans 8:18-24. He brings in other biblical passages but these two texts set the central themes for him.

 

Does Chandler’s “gospel from the air” contextualize his “gospel from the ground”? Or are they more or less the same thing? Why do these studies on the gospel ignore Israel’s Story so much? Is christology central enough in Chandler’s view of the gospel?

 

A few words about each of the chapters in this second part of his book:

 

1. On creation: he has a lengthy diatribe against science because it is unstable, and he sees instability in that people change their minds — he calls it a “constant state of subjectivity and do-overs” (95). Well, what he’s getting at here is that his view of the Bible and theology and creation don’t mesh with evolution (he takes a shot at BioLogos) … and says theistic evolutionists “have to believe that [evolution] in order to stay in science’s good graces” (98-99), which is both uncharitable and uninformed. This game of “I know their motive” goes both ways: one could counter and say that his crowd sustains its view in order to keep specific watchdogs happy. I’ll stop with this except to make the observation that the same kind of changes occur in theology and hermeneutics over time and if he applied his logic to them he’d be in a heap of trouble. This whole section harms the book as amateurish, and the book would have got along fine without it. The rest of his stuff here on creation is unexceptional but sound: creation leads us to worship God and that things went haywire.

 

2. On the Fall: this chp did not do what I thought it would but instead has a rather innovative, and at times witty, sketch of Solomon and Ecclesiastes as indicative of the fall.

 

3. On Reconciliation: here he sketches the view that ultimate reconciliation is cosmic. He somehow managed to avoid discussing universalism and how theology from Barth and Torrance onward has pondered this very question. His focus here is that the work of Christ is not just individual salvation but epic — “national redemption, covenantal restoration, and ‘real world’ reconciliation” (137). The one observation that I have to make is that he has not developed this theme in his own head, or at least in this chp, because there are all sorts of issues that arise when one begins to discuss this idea of cosmic reconciliation. It’s about individual salvation “and more” — and the reader wants him to clarify in details what this “and more” entails. And he sees reconciliation as generating a reconciling mission on our part — so he gets into missional (attractional and incarnational). For Chandler it is very clear that on the ground gospel sets in motion a systemic reconciliation.

 

4. On Consummation: this seems to be the heart of his concern about the gospel from the air. Chandler confesses he’s not a fan of much of Christian (zany) eschatology, so he focuses on the larger themes: new creation, kingdom, etc. He has a long, long quote from Tom Wright. Most who are attracted to new creation themes immediately work them into social justice and peace and political actions, but Chandler appears to me to be decidedly a-political.

 

Some observations:

 

1. His gospel from the air is really a larger version of his gospel on the ground with a cosmic eschatology. Which means…

 

2. His explicit gospel proposal is a thoroughgoing soterian gospel that ignores the Bible’s plotline and instead finds a salvation story line, and I have previously described this approach as “covenant soterian” gospel. His gospel more or less skips from Genesis 3 to Romans 3 and lacks any interest in the Story of Israel, the Story of Jesus (his references to the Gospels simply do not have shaping influence), that Jesus is Messiah/King is of little concern … and this means…

 

3. His proposal needs more attention to Israel and Church as the locus of God’s work in this world. Even when he brings in the cosmic stuff in part two of this book I kept wondering what role Israel and the church play in his gospel from the air. It seems to me that his church is individuals who are saved. Trevin Wax is but one who has pushed hard to incorporate ecclesiology into our understanding of the gospel; Chandler seems to me to be avoiding that theme.

 

4. His method is to use favored soteriological texts (Romans 11, Romans 8 ) that are filled in with other texts, and he does use a number of biblical texts but they fit within categories established in these two important texts. He needs to spend more time expounding 1 Cor 15, the sermons in Acts, and to examine why the Gospels are called “gospel.”

 

At the core of my King Jesus Gospel proposal is methodology: where do we go to define the gospel? Do we go to “gospel-defining” texts (which I attempted to do) or do we go to “salvation-defining” texts, which Chandler does. I suggest the former approach is sounder.

 

 

 

 

The Story of Re/Creation - "Aha, My Dear Watson, the Game's Afoot!"

Ah, the mystery of creation, unlearned in the story of Genesis, but known in our heart of hearts that there is a God who rules the deep and the heavens above with a soaring majesty that only He alone holds, and has, as Sovereign of creation, Ruler of mankind, righteous Lord of life and love.... Who dwells in the mystery of creation and furthest reaches of man's heart. Who comes on the wings of the wakening dawn and in the black still of the heavenly night. When all about shouts for attention soon lost upon the heats of the day and the cold of unfeeling mankind busied with the tasks of life's harshest demands unfailing in misery's blight.

Just what do we know of this dear Sovereign who calls Himself Yahweh (YHWH) unspoken in name by His ancient people Israel worshipped as their Protector/Keeper from a world of woe that earlier Jewish generations discovered all too true in their subservient bondage from Egypt's brick fields to Assyria horrific holds, from the Philistines foul servitudes to Babylon's exilic lands, when not keeping faith to their eternal Suzerainty-Lord who cut covenant with them under Abraham and Moses? Spoke blessings and curse to all who beheld this covenant cut for their protection and keep. Upheld unconditionally by the only one who could keep this covenant through the power of the Suzerainty's own sacrifice, heavenly Priest and one-day Ruler. He, who would rule not only the heavens and the earth - but one and all - through a divine wisdom mere seekers but pray to glimpse or discover. With a patient love and gracious heart full of compassion and mercy. Whose anger knows no bounds and whose holy justice must be propitiated. Just who is this God who calls himself  the great I AM refusing all heathen worship except that which subscribes to His sense of holiness and purity?

It is this same God whom all mankind wishes to know and has grasped by any number of religious instructions and institutions both man-made and divine, secular and holy, yet failing to apprehend the Divine's great mystery while pursuing this great God with equal passions of work and play, worship and prayer. "Yes, the game's afoot, my dear Watson," as all humanity lunges after the mighty works and power of this great God still unknown but speaking to our poor and trembling hearts with a majesty unbroken by our sin and hate, jealousies and despairs. Who is this God? What does He want? Where is His truth and love and beauty in a world driven by insanity and self-fulfilling psychoses and mania too disturbing to plumb except through escape, remorse or guilt?

Nay, this very God has come at a time when humanity's worlds have crashed and burned. When all around us feels like unknowing and baldest lies coming from the most learned mouths we dare hearken to yet falling short whilst beholding the wisdom of a God lying unknown at our very doorstep, bound in the darkness of our weary hearts, ignored by the work of our hands, our unseeing eyes and unhearing ears. What does He want? Nay, we know its very truth - our very selves! Who is He? Nay, none other than what our poor heart fears, the only Ruler who can rule our unruly hearts. Who rises with the dawn speaking peace on the whisper of the wind through the tender drops of rain and gentle birdsong instilling sanity within the roar of our uncertain dawns, humanity's fierce whirlwinds, and the blundering brass sound of a created world's nethering darkness, speculative fantasies and endless pursuits of the unholy - or the divine - by sundry human works and endeavor, organization, government and worship.

When all around crumbles at our feet and nothing feels right to our broken hearts. Where love is lost in selfish pleasure, cruel injustice, or maudlin pursuits lost and empty. Where Chaos is everywhere around and no less than within us in the relentless break of sound and fury making senseless the very thing that stands before us, around us, in us, and through us, within our very society's structures, and everyday worlds should we stop, look and listen. Man has not been left alone to seek mysteries unobtainable, unknowable, unfelt. Those very mysteries began at the very dawn of creation when all ancient men could but stop and hear with all the power held within the primordial breast to its undying soul and restless minds seeking for the divinity of the universe. Upheld by the only Creator who cast Himself within the hue-and-cry of lost Israel's plight in a land of lost pyramids risen to the hail of wicked Pharoahs vouchsafing their divine rulership over the land of the lost and damned. A Creator who came upon the wings of the dawn, in the freshness of the day, on the untold beauties of love and grace, speaking fey peace to our wandering hearts with a surety unlost and true. A Creator who holds within the folds of His heart those deepest truths of love found in a Savior's impassioned cross of selfless shame and unmitigated atonement through Calvary's bowed nob hill. Risen on a cross of sacrificial love-and-death for a creation lost-and-alone wandering a desert wilderness of skulls and valleys of dry bones unrisen and dead.

Nay, we have a great Shepherd and burning bush. His name is Jesus. The bible tells us so. From Genesis' first opening passages we meet this God as the Creator of our souls; through its Old and New Testament passages proclaiming our need for this God against a sin that would prevail; even to its ending chapters of triumphal reign and rule in the fiery/doomed book of Revelation where ends man's nethering reign. Where tells of a heavenly Kingdom come like the Temple of God to rule with a righteous order over a world created in holiness and death relenting heavenly rule against the will of sin and death. A Temple once begun on creation's dawn in the opening chapters of Genesis and built again to the resounding trumpet of hail-and-conquer in the last of Revelation. Whose occupant is the very God that created all that once rested in creative rule but listed to immediate fracture under willful sin's grievous weight. Whose Temple all mankind was invited as co-rulers to find beauty and worship in the things of God soon lost at the behest of sin and death. Now awaiting restoration and renewal through the only thing that can restore and renew - that Day of Atonement - come through Messiah Jesus, Israel's sent Deliverer and mankind's hope. Once come in the spoils of a rude manager blessed as God's very living temple to embracing joyful hearts. This day give all, give all to the Lover of our souls, the only Redeemer that makes sense to our untempled hearts of rebellion and shame. Who heals our flesh, baths our wounds, binds solve into the scars of guilt and terrible hurts through His very blood and shame, brokenness and own deep wounds. To this living Paschal cup of blessing we lift with thanksgiving as healing drink. Breaking the bread of fellowship with like-wounded supplicants and warriors to the bread of life. He who is the wine of eternal waters. The God of life and light. Lover of our souls in a world of wickedness and death.

R.E. Slater

May 3, 2012

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Sherlock: A Character Who's More Than Elementary

http://www.npr.org/2012/05/02/151852747/sherlock-a-character-whos-more-than-elementary

by John Powers

May 2, 2012

Listen to the Story

http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=151852747&m=151853230

AP Basil Rathbone (right) as Sherlock Holmes and Nigel Bruce asDr. Watson in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, 1945.

One of my favorite professors, the late Ian Watt, taught that there were four great myths of modern individualism: Faust, Don Juan, Don Quixote and Robinson Crusoe. This always got me wondering which, if any, pop-culture heroes might endure in the same way. James Bond? Luke Skywalker? The Avengers? C'mon. In fact, there's only one who I feel sure will last — Sherlock Holmes.

In the 125 years since Arthur Conan Doyle created the world's greatest detective, 75 different actors have played him in the movies, and scads more on TV, not to mention the countless knockoffs like The Mentalist or Mr. Spock, who once claimed Holmes as his ancestor.

EnlargeHartswood Films/BBC for Masterpiece

Benedict Cumberbatch plays a modernized Holmes who

carries a cellphone and gets his buzz from nicotine patches.

We've had him as a teen in Young Sherlock Holmes, as a wise-cracking action star played by Robert Downey Jr., and as a retired beekeeper in Michael Chabon's terrific little novel The Final Solution, where he encounters the crime of the century — The Holocaust. Now he's been updated as a present-day Londoner in Sherlock, the British TV series that offers the best version of Holmes and Dr. Watson I've ever seen.

The obvious reason for Holmes' enduring appeal is that, while he possesses no superpowers — his parents weren't wizards, no radioactive spider bit him — his gifts are cool enough to be superhuman. Playing to our fantasies of being smarter than everyone else, Holmes performs jaw-dropping feats of perception.

Like the one in the first episode of Sherlock: Martin Freeman's Dr. Watson has known Holmes all of 90 seconds when Sherlock, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, talks about renting a flat together — and gives Watson a taste of just who, or maybe what, he's dealing with: an astute observer who picks up intimate details about Watson's personal life seemingly out of thin air. This Holmes is a bit of a showman, one who feels sure that he ought to be mythic.

He's right. Like all mythic figures, Sherlock embodies an archetypal aspect of the human psyche — in his case, the power of rational thought.

"I am a brain," he tells Watson in one story, "the rest of me is mere appendix." And as a brain he is the embodiment of the scientific mind. A relentless empiricist, he not only notices details that ordinary folks don't, but he also treats all of reality — from tobacco ashes to a dog that doesn't bark — as a collection of clues. He puts these clues together to solve baffling crimes, which can involve a pygmy murderer, a poisonous snake or a gigantic hound.

Now, lasting mythic heroes tend to emerge during periods of psychosocial tumult when old values are being threatened by new ones. Holmes came to life in 1887, during the waning years of a Victorian era in which everything from the traditional social order to the belief in God was being subverted. It's no accident that this same period produced three other literary creations who spoke to a sense of chaotic darkness bubbling beneath the surface of things: the blood-drinking Dracula, the murderously schizoid Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and, of course, Peter Pan, who refused to grow up into the complicated world of adulthood. Their mythic power still persists, but mainly as metaphors like the Peter Pan Complex, or in the welter of hip vampires roaming our pop culture.

Sherlock remains Sherlock. Of course, darkness bubbles in Holmes' world, too. If he lacks the tragic dimension of Faust — a fellow thinking machine, but one with ambitions so grand they damn him — he's not a cipher like 007 or Hercule Poirot. His monomaniacal genius borders on sociopathology. It cuts him off from humanity.

He has but one friend, Watson — his Sancho Panza and our surrogate — and but one great love, Irene Adler, whose appearance opens Season 2 of Sherlock with a bang. When he's not solving crimes, boredom and melancholy lead Holmes to the violin — or cocaine.

Yet if Holmes' desire for oblivion hints at the lonely man lurking beneath the brilliant superman, it remains less potent than his sheer joy in asserting rational control over purveyors of chaos like his archenemy, Professor Moriarty. Detective stories are about learning the truth and restoring order. That's their power. And for Holmes, that's also their fun.

Indeed, one reason why Sherlock still feels so fresh is his pleasure in the chase. Never dull nor moralistic, he embodies that part of us that's turned on by a mystery, who when he hears of a murder, feels that special tingle and cries, "Come, Watson, come. The game is afoot!"


Related NPR Stories

The Enduring Popularity Of Sherlock HolmesDec. 19, 2011

In 'Sherlock,' A Classic Sleuth For The Modern AgeOct. 15, 2010