N.T. Wright, "Paul and the Faithfulness of God" (Vol 4) - Introduction to NPP

Scot McKnight begins a month-long discussion of N.T. Wright's newest Volume 4 on Paul from his summary series of an intended 5-volume set, Christian Origins and the Question of God, begun back in 1992 (Vol. 1 - The Church, Vol's. 2&3 - Jesus and His Resurrection, Vol. 4 - Paul, Vol 5. - untitled). Wright's latest volume deals with how Paul's theology should be viewed within in his own first-century Jewish context and away from the church's more popular Westernized, Medieval, Augustinian context of "salvation by justification.". This latter understanding is readily seen through popular Reformed and Calvinistic systematic doctrines such as eternal security, predestination, election, heaven, hell, salvation, and faith (as mixed or separated from with its opposite polarity within Evangelicalism's Wesleyan, Baptist, and Charismatic churches known as Arminianism re prevenient grace, human choice and freedom, works of faith, holiness, obedience, the divine-human cooperative, and so on). This newer perspective which encompasses all the theological views above is known as the "New Perspective of Paul" (and more accurately might be called the "Newer Perspectives of Paul") which we'll shortly explain.

 

Accordingly, NT Wright has struck a nerve within contemporary Christianity by redirecting the Church's efforts backwards towards its antecedent roots in Jewish Theology and what that meant to the Christianized Jews of Jesus' and Paul's day. And especially after the Apostle Paul's profound Damascus Road experience of Christ where the NT's over-zealous Jewish Rabbi is confronted with the Christ he persecuted, to be profoundly overthrown in his life and thoughts, once blinding him to the deep sublimity of Christ's personage, passion, death, and resurrection. Immediately we see Paul begin a lifetime's discussion to re-interpret (or re-measure) his past Jewish theological training and heritage in the aftermath of the Christ-event that he experienced: both historically, in the context of Israel's Redemptive history; and, personally, within his own religious life context as a priest and Jew.

 

Soon thereafter Paul begins down a very long, and arduous, theological road describing how he has become a Messianic Christian selected to proclaim Jesus to the Gentiles as distinguished from being a Jewish Christian to his Jewish brethren worshipping and ministering in the churches of Jerusalem. To be a Jewish Christian was indicative of the Jerusalem Christian's preference to retain as much of their Jewish heritage as possible (sic., Peter's remedial conciliation to do as they wish while no longer preaching the necessity for circumcision, while avoiding idol meat and sexual immorality, against his own profound discovery of the Gospel's proclaim to all non-Jews and heathen Gentiles: Acts 11 and Acts 15). As a Messianic Christian, Paul - who once was a former Jewish Rabbi but now a Jesus convert, and servant to The Name, respects his Jewish heritage while radically uplifting its OT flavor into, and around, the newer paradigms presented through Jesus of Nazareth as man's Messiah-Savior-Redeemer. This theological understanding of Jesus would quickly revolutionize the reading of the OT through Jesus, and soon necessitated the construction of a New Testament as a series of apostolic books bearing both continuity, and discontinuity, to that of the Jewish/Hebrew Canon (itself solidified several hundred years earlier under the Council of Jamnia during the second Temple period) and to the Christian religion centered upon Jesus, God's Son and Savior.

 

N.T. Wright's 4 volume series (5, overall) is meant to be a legacy-capstone project to his professional theological studies in summary discussion to the following ideas. That Christianity's conflicted legacies were struggling with identification and spiritual meaning even as Jewish doctrine was doing the same. Because of Israel's history of warfare and exile, much of its heritage had been lost and incomplete (we call this period of Talmudic transition late Judaism). With Israel's return to the land from Babylonian exile under Nehemiah (technically, Judah's return, as the southern kingdom of Israel's split kingdom) a massive effort was undertaken by Ezra and the scribes to recapture Israel's ancient heritage and beliefs. From their efforts came the Old Testament, which was a collection of their oral history, prophetic writings, and so forth, during this second temple period of restoration. And from that began a  several hundred year effort to re-teach God's Word to the Jewish people creating many splintering groups of Jewish beliefs (such as John the Baptist's much later Essene group in Jesus' day) which debated the particulars of God's Word.

 

From these efforts arose a Jewish priesthood of scribes to transcribe the OT Scriptures from the classic Hebrew language into the modified Aramaic of their day (thus preserving its records), and the Pharisees, who handled the observances of those records through priestly duties and teachings. By the first century, Rabbinism was beginning to form to disseminate first-century beliefs, practices and precepts of the old Talmudic tradition. It was clearly unformed and not yet solidified because of Jesus' many conflicts with Rabbinic teachings and traditions. And to this turmoil came the Christian church's own conflicts and disagreements with Rabbinic doctrine as each body of believers formed and reformed, consolidated, splintered, and re-consolidated again, until a general body politic arose from each mediating group in the centuries preceding.

 

Each tradition - one old (Judaism), one new (Christianity) - were in the incipient (early or unformed) stages of development. Even as the church's doctrine was forming through the ages of the Church Fathers (Christianity's first six centuries), so too was Rabbinism under its own efforts. And quite often, as is normal with any movement, they each played off the other, reacting to one thing or another. And as each religious group moved towards consolidation, so did the church rapidly move towards codifying its own New Testament Scriptures centered around Jesus' teachings and life story, along with His disciple's apostolic observations and writings. This was generally completed around 150 AD but it wasn't until c.692 that the NT was fully instated at the Council of Trullan:

 

"For the Orthodox, the recognition of these writings as authoritative was formalized in the Second Council of Trullan of 692, although it was nearly universally accepted in the mid 300's.^[2] The Biblical canon was the result of debate and research, reaching its final term for Catholics at the dogmatic definition of the Council of Trent in the 16th Century, when the Old Testament Canon was finalized in the Catholic Church as well.^[3]" - Wikipedia

 

Proceeding apace were reciprocal theological efforts to comport NT Christian beliefs with the OT Jewish Scriptures showing the continuities and discontinuities between historical era and redemptive activity. Thus the Church Father's worked towards developing an Apostolic theology from within their own cultural settings of Greek Hellenism and from the Syrian-Coptic-African Christian attitudes of the early church (remember, Alexandria still held the great libraries of the learned at that time). What resulted were years and years and years of developing dogmas, doctrines, church traditions and beliefs, as regionally demarcated geographically even as they were temporally demarcated culturally. Formative church doctrines such as the Trinity of God or, the nature of Jesus' divine and human nature (known as hypostasis), slathered back and forth creating doctrinal ideas reflective of a church's own culturally-based ideologies as seen in the separation between Roman/Western Orthodoxy as versus the Greek/Eastern Orthodox branches of the church. And later in the Medieval ages between Reformed bodies politic as versus a Catholic understanding. Or even in today's modernistic Bible-believing churches as versus the older mainline denominational churches. Added to these doctrinal differences has come philosophic and cultural ingression into the theologies of the church. From the Greek Hellenism within first century Judaism; to Medieval doctrine's founded in late Hellenism; to today's philosophies of enlightenment - both modern and postmodern, with all the residual affects that each bring to the other.

 

Thus Sanders, Dunn, and Wright's propositions to attempt a return, if possible, from the church's Westernized, systematic theologies steeped in a plethora of late Medieval philosophies, Reformed-Enlightenment, and Evangelic-Modernism to a first century Jewish understanding of Jesus and Paul's teachings. Of course time and culture cannot be avoided, and thus the transfer vehicle in this case is postmodernism to help us redact earlier philosophic eras with its engrained prejudices and beliefs. So when describing this rich tradition of doctrinal turmoil and philosophical rebuttal we find ourselves within the larger philosophical ideas of how one can know God, oneself, one's senses, this world, and all that is within it - as set apart from one's heritage and traditions, and socio-cultural upbringing. As such, Christianity has always been embroiled within the ideas of  a larger philosophical setting. In fact, the disciplines of theology and philosophy find themselves as inseparable twins to the idea of "how one knows what one thinks s/he knows." Which has been the great, good benefit of postmodernism to today's church theologies. The early churches were no less embroiled within these discussions when dealing with the Greek philosophies of Aristotelianism and Platonism; its many perambulations as found in Augustine, Aquinas (Scholasticism and Thomism); and the later arising Reformational ideas found within Catholic v. Eastern, Lutheran v. Reformed doctrines. No foreigner to these debates is today's contemporary church working through its own ideas of a literalistic bible enmeshed within a culture of in anti-intellectualism and anti-science to that of postmodernism's meta-scientific, existential-phenomenological debates. Certainly, theology and philosophy go hand-in-hand even as faith works both within-and-without of religious beliefs.

 

Consequently, Tom Wright will occasionally work through some of these ideas (as he did in Vol. 1) but mostly, one may expect biblical discourses on New Testament doctrine while struggling through the development of a more up-to-date hermeneutical reading of the Word of God known as critical realism that is basically a blended reading of the Bible with a science-orientated view to it. Which by this means that a critical-realistic reading of the Bible is a less naïve reading of God's Word than the standard interpretation used by many pew members today as instructed by their pastors from the pulpit; or exampled by Sunday School teachers in class; or the many inspirational Christian books and devotional tracts that one reads today.

 

And thus, falling across the rich traditions of E.P. Sanders and J.D.G. Dunn, N.T. Wright works through the ideas of the New Perspective of Paul  and away from the heavily influenced Lutheran and Reformed views of Paul (known as the older perspectives of the church. That of Calvin, Luther, Law and Grace, Faith and Law, covenantal nomism, etc). And towards a more Jewish-Pauline perspective of Jesus:

 

"It is often noted that the singular title "the new perspective" gives an unjustified impression of unity. It is a field of study in which many scholars are actively pursuing research and continuously revising their own theories in light of new evidence, and who do not necessarily agree with each other on any given issue. It has been suggested by many that the plural title "the newer perspectives" may therefore be more accurate. In 2003, N. T. Wright, distancing himself from both Sanders and Dunn, commented that "there are probably almost as many ‘new perspective’ positions as there are writers espousing it – and I disagree with most of them".^[5] There are certain trends and commonalities within the movement, but what is held in common is the belief that the "old perspective" (the Lutheran and Reformed interpretations of Paul the Apostle and Judaism) is fundamentally incorrect.

 

"Since the Protestant Reformation (c. 1517), studies of Paul's writings have been heavily influenced by Lutheran and Reformed views that are said to ascribe the negative attributes that they associated with sixteenth-century Roman Catholicism to first-century Judaism. These Lutheran and Reformed views on Paul's Writings are called the "old perspective" by adherents of the "New Perspective on Paul". Thus, the "new perspective" is an attempt to lift Paul's letters out of the Lutheran/Reformed framework and interpret them based on what is said to be an understanding of first-century Judaism, taken on its own terms. (Within this article, "the old perspective" refers specifically to Reformed and Lutheran traditions, especially the views descended from John Calvin and Martin Luther, see also Law and Gospel.)

 

"Paul, especially in his Epistle to the Romans, advocates justification through faith in Jesus Christ over justification through works of the Law. In the old perspective, Paul was understood to be arguing that Christians' good works would not factor into their salvation, only their faith. According to the new perspective, Paul was questioning only [practices and] observances such as circumcision and dietary laws, not good works in general." - Wikipedia

 

R.E. Slater

October 1, 2013

edited October 8, 2013

 

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We Will Call it “PFG”

 http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2013/10/01/we-will-call-it-pfg/

 

by Scot McKnight

Oct 1, 2013

Comments 

What will we call “PFG”? N.T. Wright’s magisterial, academic 2-volume study of Paul called Paul and the Faithfulness of God, volume 4 in his series called Christian Origins and the Question of God. I’ve got a PDF of Tom’s ground-breaking work and we’ll be discussing it until at least SBL in late November. So join along.

 

I begin with this: In my lifetime only a few books have been like this one (set). I consider EP Sanders’ Paul and Palestinian Judaism, Martin Hengel’s Judaism and Hellenism to be two rivals, with Jimmy Dunn’s Paul the Apostle a close third. This book rivals and may excel the others, so I want you to understand that we will be examining a book that will undoubtedly shape conversations for at least a decade and will influence discussions for decades.

 

Which of NT Wright’s book is most influential? your favorite?

 

Where will we be going? Beyond what most have called Paul’s theology or New Testament (NT) theology or NT history, and behind much of what is called both. Here’s how Tom puts it:

Here we may note one particular result of this proposal. Most works on ‘Pauline theology’ have made soteriology, including justification, central. So, in a sense, does this one. But in the Jewish context ‘soteriology’ is firmly located within the understanding of the people of God. God calls Abraham’s family, and rescues them from Egypt. That is how the story works, and that is the story Paul sees being reworked around Jesus and the spirit. This explains why chapter 10, on ‘election’, is what it is, and why it is the longest in the book. I hasten to add, as readers of that chapter will discover, that this does not (as some have suggested) collapse soteriology into ecclesiology. Rather, it pays attention to the Jewish belief which Paul himself firmly endorses, that God’s solution to the plight of the world begins with the call of Abraham. Nor does this mean that ‘the people of God’ are defined, smugly as it were, simply as the beneficiaries of salvation. The point of the Jewish vocation as Paul understood it was that they were to be the bearers of salvation to the rest of the world. That, in turn, lies at the heart of his own vocation, issuing in his own characteristic praxis.

Tom sent some of this manuscript about four years ago when he was on sabbatical at Princeton and at the time there was not yet an introduction. So the manuscript began right where it begins now (without that Intro), in a most surprising place, with [the Pualine letter to] Philemon. That little letter [has been] often ignored. But Wright opens up with a letter from Pliny the Younger writing to a friend about a runaway freedman and then Wright compares that letter with Paul’s letter to a friend, Philemon, about his “wandering” (not quite runaway) slave who had become a Christian while [ironically] Paul, of all places, was in [the] prison in Ephesus [for being a slave to Christ] … all to show that instead of [(the Roman view of)] hierarchy, and power, and benevolence, we [have in its place the view of] brotherhood, and family, and love, and forgiveness. In other words, a “world apart” (6).

 

Instead of a [being considered a] fugitive, Onesimus is [to be regarded as] a brother and Paul’s own [adopted] son. In those terms we see the heart of the Pauline experiment of grace flowing in all directions. Paul’s word is “fellowship”: he is creating a new family, or God is creating a new family, that includes people from all tribes and nationalities and statuses. Gone, then, is the power hierarchy so typical of Rome.

 

Wright has a wrinkle on [the word] “for-ever,” where he sees a possible looking back to the [books of the] Pentateuch in which a slave could choose to be a slave forever by refusing manumission [(release from slavery)]. Wright then suggests Onesimus will say "Please let me back and I will serve you forever." And then v. 21 might suggest manumission as the far reach of what Philemon can do.

A classic paragraph from Tom Wright:

These discussions about the actual situation and the request Paul made have tended, as I said, to make exegetes overlook the point which is just as important in its way as the question of what Paul was asking for, namely the argument he uses to back up this central appeal. In order to make his triple (and increasingly cautious) request, Paul adopts a strategy so striking in its social and cultural implications, so powerful in its rhetorical appeal, and so obviously theologically grounded, that despite the chorus of dismissive voices ancient, and modern, the letter can hold up its head, like Reepi- cheep the Mouse beside the talking bears and elephants, alongside its senior but not theologically superior cousins, Romans, Galatians and the rest (16). 

What we have then is a radical revisioning of monotheism and [divine] power on the basis of the cross [(where rule and power is given up)], and resurrection’s power to create one new body in Christ [between all men and tribes and nations]. It’s all about learning to think through this thing called “worldview”, as Tom says it:

In particular, this way of approaching the matter explains why the tendency since at least medieval times in the western church to organize Paul’s concepts around his vision of ‘salvation’ in particular has distorted the larger picture, has marginalized elements which were central and vital to him, and – because this ‘salvation’ has often been understood in a dualistic, even Platonic, fashion – has encouraged a mode of study in which Paul and his soteriology is seen in splendid isolation from his historical context. Paul experienced ‘salvation’ on the road to Damascus, people suppose; his whole system of thought grew from that [(isolating)] viewpoint; so we do not need to consider how he relates to the worlds of Israel, Greece or Rome! How very convenient. And how very untrue. If we take that route, a supposed ‘Pauline soteriology’ will swell to a distended size and, like an oversized airline traveller, end up sitting not only in its own seat but in those on either side as well. In particular, it will become dangerously self-referential: the way to be saved is by believing, but the main theological point Paul taught was soteriology, so the way to be saved is by believing in Pauline soteriology (‘justification by faith’). For Paul, that would be a reductio ad absurdum. The way to be saved is not by believing that one is saved. In Paul’s view, the way to be saved is by believing in Jesus as the crucified and risen lord.*

[*however, most evangelics that I know are always careful to connect the two thoughts of faith in Christ and not to separate them so foolishly as faith in one's faith. - re slater]

The hypothesis I offer in this book is that we can find just such a vantage-point when we begin by assuming that Paul remained a deeply Jewish theologian who had rethought and reworked every aspect of his native Jewish theology in the light of the Messiah and the spirit, resulting in his own vocational self-understanding as the apostle to the pagans.

Tom will be using the story of Philemon throughout PFG so it might be good to read it again, at least the core parts in Philemon 8-22

Philemon 8   For this reason, though I am bold enough in Christ to command you to do your duty,  9 yet I would rather appeal to you on the basis of love—and I, Paul, do this as an old man, and now also as a prisoner of Christ Jesus.  10 I am appealing to you for my child, Onesimus, whose father I have become during my imprisonment.  11 Formerly he was useless to you, but now he is indeed useful both to you and to me.  12 I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you.  13 I wanted to keep him with me, so that he might be of service to me in your place during my imprisonment for the gospel;  14 but I preferred to do nothing without your consent, in order that your good deed might be voluntary and not something forced.  15 Perhaps this is the reason he was separated from you for a while, so that you might have him back forever,  16 no longer as a slave but more than a slave, a beloved brother—especially to me but how much more to you, both in the flesh and in the Lord. 

Philemon 17   So if you consider me your partner, welcome him as you would welcome me.  18 If he has wronged you in any way, or owes you anything, charge that to my account.  19 I, Paul, am writing this with my own hand: I will repay it. I say nothing about your owing me even your own self.  20 Yes, brother, let me have this benefit from you in the Lord! Refresh my heart in Christ.  21 Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say. 

Philemon 22   One thing more—prepare a guest room for me, for I am hoping through your prayers to be restored to you.

Here is the outline to PFG, and those numbers are page numbers (so, Yes, this is a big double volume).

 

 

BOOK I

 

Contents: Parts I and II xi Preface xv

 

Part I - PAUL AND HIS WORLD

1. Return of the Runaway? 3
2. Like Birds Hovering Overhead: the Faithfulness of the God of Israel 75
3. Athene and Her Owl: the Wisdom of the Greeks 197
4. A Cock for Asclepius: ‘Religion’ and ‘Culture’ in Paul’s World 246
5. The Eagle Has Landed: Rome and the Challenge of Empire 279

Part II - THE MINDSET OF THE APOSTLE

6. A Bird in the Hand? The Symbolic Praxis of Paul’s World 351
7. The Plot, the Plan and the Storied Worldview 456
8. Five Signposts to the Apostolic Mindset 538

Bibliography for Parts I and II 572

BOOK II

Contents: Parts III and IV ix

Part III - PAUL’S THEOLOGY

Introduction to Part III 609

9. The One God of Israel, Freshly Revealed 619
10. The People of God, Freshly Reworked 774
11. God’s Future for the World, Freshly Imagined 1043

Part IV - PAUL IN HISTORY

Introduction to Part IV 1269

12. The Lion and the Eagle: Paul in Caesar’s Empire 1271
13. A Different Sacrifice: Paul and ‘Religion’ 1320
14. The Foolishness of God: Paul among the Philosophers 1354
15. To Know the Place for the First Time: Paul and His Jewish Context 1408
16. Signs of the New Creation: Paul’s Aims and Achievements 1473

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

 

NT Wright Series - Christian Origins and

the Question of God, 5 Volumes (4 completed)

 

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

 

The New Testament and the People of God/ Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol.1 by N.T. Wright and N.T. Wright (Sep 1992)

 

Part of a five-volume project on the theological questions surrounding the origins of Christianity, this book offers a reappraisal of literary, historical and theological readings of the New Testament, arguing for a form of "critical realism" that facilitates different readings of the text.

Paperback: 535 pages

Publisher: Fortress Press; 1st North American edition (September 1992)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0800626818

ISBN-13: 978-0800626815 

Jesus and the Victory of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, Volume 2) by N. T. Wright (Aug 1, 1997)

In this highly anticipated volume, N. T. Wright focuses directly on the historical Jesus: Who was he? What did he say? And what did he mean by it?

 

Wright begins by showing how the questions posed by Albert Schweitzer a century ago remain central today. Then he sketches a profile of Jesus in terms of his prophetic praxis, his subversive stories, the symbols by which he reordered his world, and the answers he gave to the key questions that any world view must address. The examination of Jesus' aims and beliefs, argued on the basis of Jesus' actions and their accompanying riddles, is sure to stimulate heated response. Wright offers a provocative portrait of Jesus as Israel's Messiah who would share and bear the fate of the nation and would embody the long-promised return of Israel's God to Zion. 

 

Paperback: 741 pages

Publisher: Fortress Press (August 1, 1997)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0800626826

ISBN-13: 978-0800626822 

 

 

The Resurrection of the Son of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God, Vol. 3) by N. T. Wright (Mar 1, 2003)

 

Why did Christianity begin, and why did it take the shape it did? To answer this question – which any historian must face – renowned New Testament scholar N.T. Wright focuses on the key points: what precisely happened at Easter? What did the early Christians mean when they said that Jesus of Nazareth had been raised from the dead? What can be said today about his belief?

 

This book, third is Wright’s series Christian Origins and the Question of God, sketches a map of ancient beliefs about life after death, in both the Greco-Roman and Jewish worlds. It then highlights the fact that the early Christians’ belief about the afterlife belonged firmly on the Jewish spectrum, while introducing several new mutations and sharper definitions. This, together with other features of early Christianity, forces the historian to read the Easter narratives in the gospels, not simply as late rationalizations of early Christian spirituality, but as accounts of two actual events: the empty tomb of Jesus and his "appearances."

 

How do we explain these phenomena? The early Christians’ answer was that Jesus had indeed been bodily raised from the dead; that was why they hailed him as the messianic "son of God." No modern historian has come up with a more convincing explanation. Facing this question, we are confronted to this day with the most central issues of the Christian worldview and theology.

• Paperback: 740 pages
• Publisher: Fortress Press (March 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0800626796
• ISBN-13: 978-0800626792

 

Paul and the Faithfulness of God (Christian Origins and the Question of God) by N. T. Wright (Nov 1, 2013)

 

This highly anticipated two-book fourth volume in N. T. Wright's magisterial series, Christian Origins and the Question of God, is destined to become the standard reference point on the subject for all serious students of the Bible and theology. The mature summation of a lifetime's study, this landmark book pays a rich tribute to the breadth and depth of the apostle's vision, and offers an unparalleled wealth of detailed insights into his life, times, and enduring impact.

 

Wright carefully explores the whole context of Paul's thought and activity— Jewish, Greek and Roman, cultural, philosophical, religious, and imperial— and shows how the apostle's worldview and theology enabled him to engage with the many-sided complexities of first-century life that his churches were facing. Wright also provides close and illuminating readings of the letters and other primary sources, along with critical insights into the major twists and turns of exegetical and theological debate in the vast secondary literature. The result is a rounded and profoundly compelling account of the man who became the world's first, and greatest, Christian theologian.

Paperback: 1700 pages

Publisher: Fortress Press (November 1, 2013)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0800626834

ISBN-13: 978-0800626839

 

Biography

 

N.T. Wright is Bishop of Durham and was formerly Canon Theologian of Westminster Abbey and dean of Lichfield Cathedral. He taught New Testament studies for twenty years at Cambridge, McGill and Oxford Universities. Wright's full-scale works The New Testament and the People of God, Jesus and the Victory of God, and The Resurrection of the Son of God are part of a projected six-volume series entitled Christian Origins and the Question of God. Among his many other published works are The Original Jesus, What Saint Paul Really Said and The Climax of the Covenant. He is also coauthor with Marcus Borg of The Meaning of Jesus: Two Visions and the volume on Colossians and Philemon in The Tyndale New Testament Commentary series.

 

 

 

 

Continue to Index -

 

Index to the "New(er) Perspective(s) of Paul"

 

 

 

 

 

 

Despair and Disillusionment: "It's All Rubbish"

 

... And when she came to the mountain to the man of God, she caught hold of his feet.

And Gehazi came to push her away. But the man of God said, “Leave her alone, for

she is in bitter distress, and the Lord has hidden it from me and has not told me.”

- 2 Kings 4.27 (ESV)

...Who were building on the wall. Those who carried burdens were loaded in such a way that

each labored on the work with one hand and held his weapon with the other. And each of

the builders had his sword strapped at his side while he built. The man who sounded the

trumpet was beside me.

- Nehemiah 4.17-18 (ESV)

Is life all rubbish? Is everything that we have striven for, tried, and done, rubbish? Have we found ourselves on a never-ending merry-go-round dancing to the tunes-of-the-day faking content in the masquerade of life's daily grind?

Is there a God? And if so, where can He be found? Can God be found at church? Can God be found in Christianity? How many times have you asked yourself these questions? And how many times have these questions come back unanswered to your complete dissatisfaction? Or, as a Christian, how many times have you heard that God can be found here, at this location, at this place, this time, this event, this school, or in this idea?

Cave of Despair by Benjamin West

Christian disillusionment can be a very difficult thing to face, especially when finally determining there is nowhere to look - neither inwards nor outwards nor upwards - because all is rubbish and filled with deep despair and angst. At first, the erstwhile seeker would flee to wherever God was said to be. But once arriving to belatedly discover that, "No, God was not there at all... at least for me." Misbelieving that to get to the center of something that is "holy and wonderful" is to perhaps find a kind of escape from life's hard questions and even more disturbing ills. Years of hard work - of looking and spending precious time or money, of ministry and helps - may have produced no further insight than what one had begun years earlier. Causing a deep cry of soulful despair believing "All that was done was simply rubbish!"

And maybe it is. Maybe we have been deep contributors to this world's rubbish heap. Building into frail lives hate and despair, suffering and pain, even as we have been in turmoil and pain ourselves. Perhaps the garbage troughs that abound are part of our handiwork to this life which we have misspent and ill-provided for, and now must live with, under its stink and scour.

And so, where is this deliverance? Where are the answers? What did we expect when we thought to ourselves that we had found the answers to life's dilemmas? Or, having found none, and giving up, to escape into those glittery worlds of disillusionment to laugh and drink, to mock and lie, one's problems away as no more than a fantasy dream?

Wings of Despair

Perhaps as a pastor you've labored all your life under the idea of a Christian hope that others would discover the Jesus you know and love, but to then see your ministry lapse and fail against all reasonable effort and prayer? Perhaps as a faithful believer you've given you're blood, sweat, and tears to the building up of God's church by your gifts and ministry, only to find you've been building on the wrong foundations, or misunderstanding your direction and calling?

But like any life that is lived, at the last we must either thank God for it, or repent from it, and trust to His wisdom and grace, however much we may have missed the road signs along the way saying to turn back, do not go down this road, beware of washed out bridges ahead. While we were busy building bigger sheep pens for God, God was busy building that same sheep pen around us. Guiding and protecting us where possible. Bringing us to doubt and futility if necessary. Perhaps stopping us - turning us hard around, up-ending all our fantasies and whims, all our misspent days and intoxications, our misbeliefs and the half-truths we dared not face.

One of the jobs of God is simply to push hard after us until we see Him in all that we say and do. That it was by our own hand that we have chained ourselves to sin and ruin, even as it was by His hand of grace and mercy that would break those hardened chains imprisoning heart and soul. To finally know that all that we are, have, and have done, is His to do with as He pleases. That there is nothing remaining behind the sacred Temple curtain save His love and forgiveness beckoning "Enter into the Holy of Holies, and there abide in My holy presence with Jesus My Son, as unto Myself."

Usually the church is the last place to find God, even as it is the first place to find a fellowship filled with other flawed followers of Jesus seeking meaning to life's questions. Instead of finding holiness and love we meet many like ourselves simply trying to work life out - how to love, how to forgive, how to rest in Jesus' provide. Hoping to find a place where honesty might be present instead of the lies and dishonesty we speak to one another and too frequently live.

And yet, church is a place that should challenge our disillusionments. A place that might fit us around God's faithful presence in our lives. And then, "Push us back out into a world from which we had fled." Knowing its ok to live broken. Knowing that I'm rubbish without Jesus in my life. Knowing that escaping doesn't help. Knowing that God lives in-and-through His creation. Within this very world that we live with all its relationships and interconnectivity. And even within His Church struggling itself with knowing God's wisdom and leadership.

But the radical church also realizes that wherever a person is in their life, even so God is there with him, or her, in that very same life, however it is... or isn't whether church-bourne or not. That God's "Holy of Holies" is this very world in which we live. Here and not later, not there, not some other thing, person, or organization. Not someday when I die. Not in the Heaven to come. Nor in the Hereafter of life. But here. Now. Today. This very hour. Within these very soiled relationships that surround us. That inhabit our being with their presence and challenge, turmoil and strife, beauty and wonder.

Forest of Despair

That escaping from this life to somewhere else, or to someone else, or to something else, is not the answer. But rather, to know that where we are here-and-now is exactly where God is. Who has given to us all that we need to face the things we're not willing to face and are trying to flee from. That it is possible to suffer through the difficulties that we each live knowing God's deep love in the face of evil and wickedness. That we each bear burdens, must make tough decisions, or seek help when necessary, while learning (or providing) patience and forgiveness. Hope and healing. Wisdom and grace. For some, this will never be the case, and it is to those of God's honored martyrs whom we might have been able to help had we been more able to hear and to listen, to seek and to save.

But for many, spared such devastation, even as we seek the mountain tops of life, so must we learn to embrace the desperate valleys lying between those high pinnacles of life. Believing that even in these self-same valleys of unknowing and wander, lies God's blessings, His presence and faithfulness. To accept that all of our life is God's holy, blood-bought temple - from the highs of it to the lows of it - that we might abide within it's perimeters as devout, sacred, holy, precious, fragile, and strong. That we are the church where God resides - even as we must reside in Him. That our failure to find God is the failure of not seeing God within the interior spaces of our lives. Instead of looking out-and-around, here-and-there, running from place-to-place, we have forgotten to look within. For it is this God-in-the-mirror whom we have been looking for all our lives who has been with us as constant companion. Whatever the difficulty, the lie, the grief, the deceit, or dishonor. It was He who was with us, who dwells within us, by His Holy Spirit. Who is present with us along every step of our pride, our sin, our failures, our ill love for self or others. It was this God that we dared not look at within. Who abides with us while ever whispering healing and peace in Jesus' precious name.

Is life all rubbish? More closely, is my life all rubbish? Is there a God? And if so, where can He be found? Can God be found at church? Can God be found in Christianity? The answers are both yes, and no, as you would expect. But it all depends on where you look, upon what you believe, and upon whom you depend, even when you think this God is absent from very life itself.

To simply look at ourselves for life's answers will end in despair. But to look within ourselves at the God who is our Redeemer-ReCreator is to find hope and healing. The journey begins as it ever did with God alone through all the conflict, uncertainty, and doubt, that will arise. Life, after all, is difficult. It is hard. We will suffer. But we are not alone.

The answers to life are provided by a God who works through us - charging us with its remake and recreation. Its reclamation and provide. Even as God does now through us such as we are - through His broken church and flawed people. We are the hope to the world around us whenever Jesus is there to bind up all in God's grace and mercy. The foundations have been set by God in His Savior-Son. And empowerment given through His Holy Spirit. Not in some magical, mystical, extra-supernatural way. But through our fleshly hands and feet - our humbled tongues and hearts - our deep passions and patience - within this hard life that we must live.

Into the Valley of Despair

For it is left to our very selves to redeem a broken humanity for man's holy reclaim and rebirth in Jesus' place, and as His ambassadors, and by the power of His Holy Spirit. However we are gifted. However we are composed. Including all that we are but think that we are not - or are not enough - to be worthy vessels for the Lord's usage. But to know it is we, God's people (as are all people on this Earth though they reject His presence and duty, bounty and provide) who must be God's holy script written in the emptiness of the flesh who must overcome despite our disillusionments and pain, failures and sin. To persevere even as we are God's very example of resurrection into the newness of life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Once wearing rags but now clothed with holy vestments of God's empowering love, grace, forgiveness, mercy, and hope. These are no mean cloths to be despised or ignored. But cloths to the newness and testimonies of the power of God in the common man's life who thinks himself or herself to have been forgotten of God and left lying about without purpose or end.

For we are not without help. The same God who created this world will recreate it again through very mankind itself - however broken and sinful. For it is to humanity's deep burden and responsibility that we must wholly shoulder and undertake this godly work. But it cannot begin without Jesus leading its vanguard. And through the Church by whose humble and merciful example and leadership would raise high God's holy banners in truth and justice, love and wisdom, against this world's knowing response. But perhaps, like Jonah the prophet who came unwillingly to sinful Nineveh to preach repentance, perhaps this world does repent of its sins and ills and leans into the mystery of God's goodness and love if even for a time, and times, and half of times.

Even so, let it begin with  God's people today, moved by divine hands and repentant hearts, on bended knees and bowed heads, in prayer, and in unity's soulful fellowship to those broken worlds lying all about. Let us speak forgiveness and help, thoughtfulness and kindness, not forsaking those in need. Abandoned and betrayed. Unloved and despised. And let us speak powerfully in the voice of the Spirit who Himself moves the hardened hearts of men and women. Even we ourselves who were at one time rocks of granite against the Spirit's implore, prayers, and petitions.

Let us learn to build better dams and bridges. To govern and legislate more wisely. To teach and educate the youth of the future. To be better parents, moms and dads, sisters and brothers. To create dreams both lofty and practical. To know the negotiables in life, and how to negotiate them. To write passionately. Live passionately. Love passionately. Seek grace. Build trust. And be of good will and cheer. To learn forgiveness and give grace when we are deeply wronged. And when wronged again, to seek humility and wisdom, knowing we are not alone as martyrs to the cross of Christ, for the God of the universe is ever with us despite our doubts and fears. That at the end, it's only "all rubbish" if we allow it, or think it to be, when beholding life's foibles in our despairs, our hopeless futilities, apart from the Christ of our salvation and rebirth who is very life to our bones, heart, hands, and head. This is a truth. Amen and amen.

R.E. Slater

September 30, 2013

For further discussion on this topic go to -
 Devising a Meaning for David Guetta's, "Titanium ft. Sia"

Of Dads and Daughters, of Parenting and Love: "Wakefulness in a Night of Fireworks"

Inspiration is as much about theology as reading long words and even longer explanations behind complex and complicated ideas. But tonight, let's step back a moment and simply reflect on the wonders of God's creation in this special moment recorded between a dad and his daughter when she couldn't sleep thinking she was hearing fireworks outside her home.

 

R.E. Slater

September 28, 2013

 

 

Tonight You Belong to Me (Cover) - Me and my 4 y.o.

 

 

Published on Sep 17, 2013

She thought she kept hearing fireworks and couldn't sleep,

so we sang to keep her mind preoccupied. In the end,

nothing competes with fireworks.

* * * * * * * *

A Daughter Poem

http://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/dads-love

 

A daughter thanks her dad for his love. 

 

A Dad's Love

by Samantha R. Almodova

 

On sunny days and dark nights,
in troubled times and pointless fights,
you've been right there through it all,
you've stood your ground when you could have taken the fall.
Many times my mouth has slipped free,
but you were always there to put it back where it was supposed to be.
You've taught me a lot, and a lot I have learned.
You've given me the tables and many I have turned.
You deserve the world, but only a poem I could give,
but another gift I have given is to learn,

that the life of a father is an awesome life to live.
Thank you dad for your love.

 

 

* * * * * * * *

 

 

The cutest video ever? Quite possibly.

Duet between a father and his daughter

http://www.lifesitenews.com/blog/the-cutest-video-ever-quite-possibly.-watch-this-duet-between-a-father-and

 
by John Jalsevac
Wed Sep 25, 2013 10:08 EST
 

Being a parent has its challenges. But as a young dad with three kids (Four, really. But the fourth is keeping a low profile for the time being.), I know that there are joys associated with parenthood that surpass just about anything else I've ever experienced.

 

It's quite simply impossible to put into words that feeling you experience as you watch your children quietly playing with their toys, or reading a book, or tearing through the house chasing one another amidst peals of laughter, or sleeping peacefully after a long, hard day of play.

 

Non-parent outsiders often see nothing but the diapers, the tantrums in the grocery stores, the insistent demands for food at inopportune moments, and the squabbles, and conclude that parenting is simply hard. Well, it's true, parenthood is hard. But that's not the whole story. What they can't fully understand is the sheer awesomeness of these little people, who give back 1000 times over in love and hilarity whatever they demand from us in energy and patience.

 

Anyway, all that is simply a prelude to this video that is making the rounds on Youtube which, by focusing on one of those awesome moments experienced by one dad as he tried to soothe his unutterably cute daughter back to sleep, has made me feel even more lucky to be a dad, and to be able share such moments with the miracles that are my own kids.

 

 

* * * * * * * *

 

 

Another Daughter Poem

http://www.familyfriendpoems.com/poem/as-i-watch-you-grow

 

A mother writes to her daughter letting her know how much she loves her.

 
As I Watch You Grow
by Kay Theese
 
Do you know how much you mean to me?
As you grow into what you will be.
You came from within, from just beneath my heart
it's there you'll always be though your own life will now start.
You're growing so fast it sends me awhirl,
With misty eyes I ask, Where's my little girl?
I know sometimes to you I seem harsh and so unfair,
But one day you will see, I taught you well because I care.
The next few years will so quickly fly,
With laughter and joy, mixed with a few tears to cry.
As you begin your growth to womanhood, this fact you must know,
You'll always be my source of pride, no matter where you go.
You must stand up tall and proud, within you feel no fear,
For all you dreams and goals, sit before you very near.
With god's love in your heart and the world by its tail,
You'll always be my winner, and victory will prevail.
For you this poem was written, with help from above,
To tell you in a rhythm of your Mother's heartfelt Love!

 

*Written and dedicated to my precious daughter - Tammy in 1990

 

 

 

Discussions in Science and Religion - Week 3: Recap - "The Problem of Evil"

HighGravity Religion and Science: wk 3 Emergence, Eco-everything, and Evil
http://homebrewedchristianity.com/2013/09/26/highgravity-religion-and-science-wk-3-emergence-eco-everything-and-evil/

by Jonnie Russell
September 26, 2013
Comments

This week we dove into the world of biology, perhaps the most contentious field of Religion and Science interaction. I’m thinking some of my recaps have been a bit much (length-wise), so I’m going to try to be brief here, and lean into the reaction-and-question part a bit more.

Recap:

Philip began our discussion with a look at the aspects and functions that ancient cosmogonies played.  They are our oldest stories–grand narratives that sought to give shape to a view of life and the world.  It is in this context that we presume the biblical creation narrative should be read, as an attempt to flesh out a way to see life and creation. Tripp, highlighted how Augustine (though he’s done his fair amount of damage) got this right, focusing on the figurative force rather than the literal elements of the narrative.

Emergence. This is the frame and terminology in which Philip couches the manifold evolutionary process that unfolds in creation. From proteins to small group primates and beyond, the phenomenon of emergence pervades our reality. Simply defined, emergence can be understood as complexity unfolding. It is a process whereby things that evolve remain dependent on and are influenced by the earlier evolutionary history, but are simultaneously more than the entities/forces they depend on. In this way, they have a genuine newness and novelty that is not fully reducible to or explained in terms of their substrates (i.e. smaller or more simple bits–or more fundamental forces). Philip’s whirlwind 17 minute cosmic story showed the “tremendous emergent structures” we now have. Life, for example, is a radical emergence of certain chemical systems.

A critique often leveled at emergence helps specify a crucial component  for a genuine [strong position of] emergence. Put simply, it’s the claim that the emergent qualities have not top-down or unique causal powers.  A real explanation of what's happening will be explained by the more fundamental parts. [Thus,] nothing new is explanatory going on in life, for example, just more complex combinations of stuff that is causally determined by genetics, etc. So, the definitive need for emergence is genuine top-down causal impact.

The genetic determinism of the “new synthesis” in biological studies in the 1930′s and 40′s proposed to have found the explanatory link between Darwinism’s processes of random variation and selective retention and transitions between generations with the discovery of the gene.  It was the gene, via the structure of DNA, that served to pass the randomly selected (successful) genes on and therefore motor the evolutionary development of reality along. This, at bottom was conceived as a reductive process that causally began and ended with ‘selfish’ individual genes (Dawkins’ famous terminology from the 70′s).

But… this project was flawed because it failed to appropriately think the environment within which the organism exists. In reality, organisms are part of complex environments that they co-create with other organisms around them, and in turn are created by the environment itself.  Ecosystem commingling, systems theory, and a profound reciprocal interconnectivity (remember this term from week one?) are the processes that determine reality…at every level.

Therefore, reality betrays a co-constitution  at every level. We are co-creators of each other and our broader world. As Philip notes, this is ripe ground upon which to think the God/world relation in a participatory and co-creative nature wherein it is not simply God and his human creatures co-creating, but all of the created order in that intertwined way creating and interconnected as a ecosystem– a macro-creational ecosystem that mirrors small-scale ecosystems we explore in the evolutionary process. In other words, whatever God is doing, we are full-fledged participators in (or frustrators of?) the making of the world, and not only us, but all created reality bears a responsibility for our world.

React:

- Tripp raised a great (and very difficult) question about the problem of evil in the context of the evolutionary process.  Why the unimaginable amount of waste, suffering, and massive extinctions? Why this shape of the evolutionary process which seems to contains such egregious evil? Philip alluded to a kind of theodicy response (he might shy away from that term) which essentially says that God wanted the kind of world and relation to it that included this co-creational element, which presumably necessitates accepting the existence of random suffering and epochal extinctions over the universes billion year development. In other words, the suffering and evil we have is an inherent product of having the God/world relation we do.

Now, Philip might want to nuance this or reject that logic as implicit in his argument, but I find it difficult to swallow. It sounds similar to the more classical free will defense theodicy, which argues that evil is the byproduct of the freedom required to have the loving familial kinds of relationships with us (very anthropocentric in its classical construction) God wants to have. The trouble with this logic is that it just pushes the question back a step in the sense that we are told that in Philip’s case, this co-creational, intermingled world has a necessary byproduct of evil that could not be otherwise. So, that reality, that truth, is more fundamental–the arche-truth of the cosmos–than God and the God/world relation? The puzzle is similar to the tired old "divine command vs. divine reason" arguments about morality: is something right because God commands (it issues from God’s will), or does God choose it because it’s right (issuing from some reason God too seems subject to). I’ve always leaned towards divine reason (if forced into the binary), but it creates a puzzling logic of some arche-reality of fundamental logic more binding, more in control, more universally present, than God. Help me here Philip. I’d love to hear your thoughts or a tweak to the way I’m characterizing your response.

-Perhaps this logic assumes a crude form of creation ex nihilo in the sense that I’m imagining God as prior to an order which will be brought into being, but what’s prior to that, even prior to God, is the universal truth that x begets y: a ecosystemic, co-creational world, necessitates incalculable waste and suffering. What might a non-creational ex nihilo account that you might want to chase down do for your reasoning here?

- On a less interrogating note, I am fascinated by the eco-theological emphasis in this discussion, particularly the way it ennobles the rest of the created order with a creational power and genuine relation to God. Ellen Davis recently was at Fuller to give one of their annual lectures and she touched on very similar themes  in the Old Testament.  Her fundamental idea was that there is a covenant triangle between God, Israel/humanity, and the land/rest of creation. Now of course, the distinction might be a bit too strong between humans and the rest of creation, but she points to a profound way in which the land, particular the agricultural world of Israel is profoundly included in the covenantal language in parts of the Old Testament (Joel, some Psalms, Hosea, and other places).  The three points of the triangle hang together in the sense that God has covenanted, created bonds and is committed to, the whole of the world. God is even said to suffer along with the land, something that echos Sallie McFague’s recent focus on land as a kind of “least of these” in our time. In Terrance Fretheim’s language, creation beyond the human form is given a kind of “interiority”, we might say genuine subjectivity akin to our own.

These ideas seem to cohere very well with your ecosystemic thought where responsibility is dispersed to all of us in a genuine sense. I’m not sure if we will get there in this class, but I’d love to hear you flesh out how you think through this kind of responsibility.  Do you consider it a kind of interiority/subjectivity? Is panpsychism or panexperientialism–the idea that the mental or experiential aspects we have, in some sense, go all the way down through lesser forms of complexity in matter–the way to go here?

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Index to past articles on "Science & Religion"