Don Thorsen, Calvin vs Wesley - "Differing Ideas on Justification & Sanctification"

Spirituality: Calvin vs. Wesley

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2013/10/23/spirituality-calvin-vs-wesley/

 

by Scot McKnight

Oct 23, 2013

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It could be argued that Wesleyan theology, with its emphasis on “free grace” or "free will" (properly understood), leads the sensitive Christian toward fear of final salvation or toward a lack of assurance, just as one could argue that Calvinism, since it assumes God’s sovereign and preserving grace, can lead to too easy of an assurance or to resignation to whatever happens, including sin at some level. But neither is a fair description, and that is why Don Thorsen’s book Calvin vs. Wesley seeks to present how both Calvin and Wesley understand spirituality. (In light of our earlier post this morning [see further below], this chapter maps the way to compare one another.)

 

Do you think optimism vs. pessimism (or realism) is a fair comparison between Wesley and Calvin on the Christian life?

 

Spirituality in church history has had a variety of emphases, and a good book for this is Richard Foster, Streams of Living Water (though I think the sacramental chapter falls a little short), including contemplation, social activism, personal holiness, theology-loving Christian living, sacramentalism, etc.  Both Calvin and Wesley were strong on sanctification, with Calvin coming to the 3d use of the Law (for Christian living). But they also differed.

 

Thorsen discusses Calvin from the angle of mortification and vivification — putting to death and making anew. These are the works of God and not the works of humans. Calvin’s paradoxical approach comes through: "It is the work of God without denying human responsibility. They are not then “totally passive.” Prayer is important, self-mortification too, by focusing on the presence of sin, the temptation to sin, and the need for grace." Thus, Calvin embraces the notion of the Christian life as a struggle. This struggle is shaped toward being more loving. Providence is shaped for disciplining the Christian. Thus, the struggling heartbeat is Romans 7:14-25 (the text can be found below). This struggle in mortification and self-denial ought to lead to humility in the Christian life. Thorsen brings in the concept of union with Christ at this point. And he sketches how astounded Calvin could be by those who were confident in holiness or what would later be a theme in Wesley, the notion of perfection. Put differently, struggle in self-mortification and the discovery of deeper levels of sinfulness are characteristics in Calvin for spirituality. Yet one more way: it’s about praising God for his grace on a sinner.

 

Wesley differs in emphases, and most especially in hopefulness of sanctification and transformation. By God’s grace, for sure, but God’s grace is transformative. Holiness for Wesley is love. Achievable, through God’s grace in the power of the Spirit. In justification, righteousness in imputed; in sanctification, it is imparted. God conditions this upon faith, conditioned itself upon prevenient grace. God wants his people to grow into Christlikeness. Thus, Wesley’s emphasis is the confident reality of growth in Christlikeness.

 

All discussions here lead to Wesley’s theory of “entire sanctification” or Wesley’s Plain Account of Christian Perfection. It is about “habitual disposition of the soul” and being “cleansed from sin” and “being endued with those virtues which were in Christ Jesus” etc etc. At times in Wesleyan theology justification is about Jesus as Savior and sanctification about Jesus as Lord. It’s about consecration and growth. Often Wesley spoke of a “second crisis.” (Some call this a second work of grace.) He doesn’t accept “complete perfectionism” but “entire sanctification.” A Wesleyan once told me this meant “no longer sinning in intent.” Their will is now consecrated to God alone.

 

Thorsen sees the tension of hope and realism in Wesley. That tension must be respected. Wesley, though, took God’s Word at his word: be holy means become holy over time by God’s grace through the Spirit. The major difference here is that Wesley sees the Christian in need of partnering with God’s grace at work through us in faith and will.

 

 

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Romans 7.14-25 (ESV)

The Law and Sin

7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. 9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. 10 The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. 11 For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. 12 So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.

13 Did that which is good, then, bring death to me? By no means! It was sin, producing death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become sinful beyond measure. 14 For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. 15 For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. 17 So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. 18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.

21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? 25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.

Footnotes:

Romans 7:1 Or brothers and sisters; also verse 4
Romans 7:2 Greek law concerning the husbandRomans 7:6 Greek of the letter 

 

 

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John Piper vs. Don Thorsen

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2013/10/23/john-piper-vs-don-thorsen/

 

by Scot McKnight

Oct 23, 2013

Comments

 

This recent post at John Piper’s site (by Jonathan Parnell, but repeating what I’ve heard from Piper for years) is why we need books like Don Thorsen’s fair-minded and accurate sketch of what both Wesley and Calvin believe (Calvin vs. Wesley). [To this,] those who read Roger Olson’s erudite and source-quoting Arminian Theology will [likewise] be well-informed of what Arminians believe [(both Thorsen and Olson have worked on past projects together - re slater)]. I have highlighted in bold the caricature-like descriptions: 

Either Jesus died to save his church or he didn’t. There isn’t a third option. 

Either he gave himself up for his bride, as Ephesians 5:25 tells us, or he died to create the possibility of her salvation that depends upon the skills of human decision-making. 

Are we dead in our sins, as Ephesians 2:1–3 says, or are we slightly impaired? 

Are we “far from the peaceful shore” or are we gone, sunken to the bottom of the ocean with no chance of resuscitation? Does God toss us a floatation device, or does he raise us from the dead? 

Was the cross of Christ a triumph over sin and evil, as Colossians 2:14–15 says, or was it just a nice first-move? Is Jesus victorious for the sake of his church, or did he spot us a few points? Did he suffer at Golgotha to demonstrate God’s grace to sinners, or was it a presentation of sorta-kinda-maybe hope for those smart enough to understand? 

Did Jesus drain the dregs of God’s wrath meant for his people, or did he merely mute original sin and leave the destiny of our eternal souls in our own hands? 

How we answer these questions has everything to do with what we think about our sin and the glory of Jesus, and therefore, it gets at the heart of the gospel.

Standing where Piper stands, one can see why he’d repudiate Wesleyan thinking and [why he] speaks like this. In return, some Wesleyans will say Calvin’s God is a Sadomasochist Tyrant. But how far do we get when we speak to and of one another like this?

 

 

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Select Comments

by gingoro:

 

"As a Calvinist in the CRC I never hear about Driscoll, Piper, Sproul etc except on various blogs like Jesus Creed or Roger Olson's, in fact there seems a marked lack of interest from the pulpit and in discussions. Besides the church fathers, Luther and Calvin, I hear occasional references from the pulpit to Plantinga, Dooyeweerd, Wolterstorff, Kyuper, Lewis, Keller, and Blackwell, but by far the most frequently referenced is N.T.Wright. The YRR (Young Reformed and Reforming) group do not speak for all Calvinists." - DaveW

 

by Scot McKnight:

 

"So true... and a Reformed student of mine on Monday said the same thing. Why are these guys, he asked, what everyone thinks is Calvinism or Reformed? The only way for this to change is for the Reformed to set the record straight -- over and over -- and Ken Stewart is about the only one who has really taken this task to the table." - Scot

 

 

 

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continue to Index of Articles -

 

Index to past articles on Calvinism v. Wesleyanism

 

 

If Ryan Miller Wrote It, I'm Already Sold! "Everything Breathless" and the "Life of Faith"

By way of an intro, I use to be an avid Myst gamer and book reader. There were three major game titles (Myst, Riven, Exile) that mesmerized me; five that I played (Revelation, End of Ages); and seven in all. The three book titles I read had very little correlation with the games except in establishing how the "worlds of Myst" came into being, and in many ways, were a whole new adventure. As I remember, the last book (D'Ni) was more sermon than adventure - though for half of its length it promised as good a journey as the first two. When reading the first book, The Book of Atrus, I had read up to page 121 before realizing I had read it all wrong and needed to return to the beginning to re-read it again with my newly acquired knowledge at this point in the book. I couldn't believe I hadn't caught on until page 121!! (The only other book that ever had done this to me was John LeCarre's, The Perfect Spy). Needless to say I was hooked right from the start. No other books nor games in this exploratory/adventure genre seemed to match the level of entertainment that Ryan's creations demanded of its avatar'd players. They were fun, and they were extremely creative.

Ryan Miller (born 1974 in Albuquerque, New Mexico) is a writer who worked as a design director for the computer game company Cyan Worlds, founded by his brothers Rand and Robyn Miller. Ryan is credited with writing the initial draft of the Book of Atrus for Myst.^[1] He also received acknowledgment for helping develop the story lines in Book of Ti'ana, Book of D'ni, and Uru. In 2004, Miller and his wife, Heidi, opened Mango Ink, a boutique greeting card company.^[2] Miller self-published two novels, Inkarri (2003) and The Naked Fruit (2010). He lives in Spokane, Washington. - Wikipedia

Rand Miller (born January 17, 1959 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, U.S.) is CEO and co-founder of Cyan Worlds^[1] (originally Cyan). He and brother Robyn Miller became famous due to the success of their computer game Myst, which remained the number one-selling game from its release in 1993 until that record was surpassed by The Sims nearly a decade later.^[2] Rand also worked on the game's sequel, Riven, and later reprised his role as protagonist Atrus in Myst III: Exile, Myst IV: Revelation, Myst V: End of Ages, realMyst, and Uru.^[3] He also co-authored Myst novels The Book of Atrus, The Book of Ti'Ana, and The Book of D'ni.^[4]  - Wikipedia

Which brings us to the question "What ever happened to Ryan Miller?" Did he retire to spend all the oodles of cash he made on the games and books? Is he off creating some new version of Xbox Killer with his brothers that gamers having been impatiently waiting for? For me, the fad passed and I moved on, but during all these many years of being offline Ryan actually has been pastoring a church in Seattle called Branches, and speaking about a Christian faith that is, rather than a faith that requires hoops to jump through, or boundaries to cross, and rivers to forge. A faith that sees God in the moment - and not in the minutia of creedal formulas and church dogmas. To simply be, and to find Jesus everywhere about. Let us join Peter Enns in his interview with Ryan Miller to find out what he means by all of this!

R.E. Slater

October 22, 2013

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Christianity without formulas. imagine that.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peterenns/2013/10/christianity-without-formulas-imagine-that/

by Peter Enns

October 21, 2013

Comments

Today’s post is a short interview with Ryan Miller, author of everything breathes, which just came out this month. Miller spent 10+ years creating video games, including the best sellers Myst and Riven, before taking his creativity to a different arena: the church world. He eventually started Branches in Spokane, WA in 2010. In addition to being the pastor there, he owns and operates an online stationery boutique with his wife, does some graphic design on the side, and attempts to parent three kids… all while trying to enjoy the beautiful Pacific Northwest. Miller has timely ideas about the life of faith and a great style for getting them across to everyday pilgrims. Those looking for helpful paths forward will like this book a lot.

PE - What’s this book about?

RM - I didn’t realize as it was happening but I grew up with formulas. I am a pastor’s kid but not one of those who grew up to reject my faith or get angry at everything that had been done to me. At the same time, my faith has evolved immensely over the last 10 years into something very different than what I was raised with and much of it has had to do with the idea of formulas.

The formulas always seem to start with some kind of “if”: If I accept Jesus; If I read the Bible more; If I find God; If I confess; If I pray more.

The next word to come into play is “then”: Then I will be happy; Then I won’t get cancer; Then I will find joy.

This isn’t just a “Christian” thing – it’s everywhere we look. Advertisements are built on it as much as sermons. If I get a new body wash, new clothes, or a new phone, then I will get a partner, a new job, more time…. And if I get a partner, a new job, and more time….then I’ll be happy. That “then” is hanging out, controlling us, but rarely satisfying us.

In early 2013, I spoke on Ecclesiastes for a series during Lent at our church. As I looked at the book with some fresh eyes and perspective, I was blown away. It was rejuvenating.

The book blasts formulas out of the water. It blasts formulas that we get from churches, from pastors, and from the Bible (or our views of it) into oblivion. It says there are no more formulas. There are no ways to get here or there but that there is that which exists right now, right here, and it’s time to start living it. With God.

It was beautiful for a lot of people, including myself. As the formulas vanished, their chains left as well and people found themselves free to lament, to rejoice and to live wherever they were on the spectrum. I was writing a fiction book at the time and my wife told me I needed to stop writing that fiction book (which probably means it’s not very good) and start writing a book related to the series we had done instead. She’s a smart woman so I listened.

PE - So your formula is “If I get rid of the formulas, then…” what?

RM - Right. I’m really trying NOT to replace one formula with another but it’s so hard given my Western (civilization) frame of mind. How do I get what I want and not get what I don’t want? So much of our life, or my life, comes to that.

But, I’m actually starting to believe that the good news of Christianity is that I don’t have to live that way anymore. There are no more “if I just do this enough than this will happen.” Instead, it’s live now. It’s all already happening.

Even when we look at Jesus who says things like “Blessed are those who mourn” my first inclination is to read it like a formula and find a way to mourn so that I’ll be blessed. But I think what Jesus may have been saying—and I think he did in various ways—is more along the lines of if you’re mourning you’re blessed. Right now. And if you’re persecuted. And if you’re poor. There’s still life to live right now.

The message seems to be repeated often: start living the life God has for you right now and stop waiting for some kind of life you think will come tomorrow or next week or in Heaven. Live now. You can no matter your circumstance and you can know God is with you in those circumstances.

I certainly don’t claim to have all the answers. And I don’t think the author of Ecclesiastes does, or did, either. And I know that there are many who disagree on what the author of Ecclesiastes is even saying.

But, I do think there are some ingredients that have impacted me. More mystery. More awe. More wonder. More awareness. More love. More faith in humanity. More faith that God is with us no matter where we’re at and more faith that God is pulling all of humanity to somewhere better.

PE - What’s your hope for this book?

RM - "My daughter begged me to take her to Arby’s one night after a soccer practice so I did. It was late and the only people in the restaurant were the two of us (she’s 8) and another older couple.

I watched as this older man opened up his sandwich and looked at it with disgust. He then went up to the counter and berated the minimum wage “cook” and the girl behind the counter and the manger because the sandwich was not dripping cheddar like it showed in the picture. He called out corporate America for trying to save money, he called out the millennial generation for being lazy, all because his cheddar melt wasn’t dripping cheddar.

He got a new sandwich and sat down and ate it in silence with his wife.

Maybe the guy was just having a bad day or maybe he needs to be freed from stuff. I think the latter, because I think a lot of us are walking around in [our own] prisons.

I know there are people who are going through lots of pain and they have a list of reasons as to why that pain is there. Many of those reasons have to do with formulas and their failure to correctly live them. They need to be freed to live in their pain and not carry the shame they so often have.

I know there are people who are waiting to start life, after they graduate, or get that job, or see Italy. They have a different set of formulas they are already getting tired of trying to fulfill. They need to be inspired to start living today.

I know there are people who have found the message of Jesus and the message of Christianity to be more stale and cliché than fresh and rejuvenating. I think they need to find a message that makes them fall in love with this faith and gain a new perspective of the world and others again.

I hope people are able to throw away the formulas and boxes and even many of the answers… that only fail us most of the time and find something beautiful and optimistic and empower again. I hope people are able to read this and be directed, at least a little, toward the mystical, confusing, vibrant, inspiring God again."

When Pacifism Meets Reality: Examining Dietrich Bonhoeffer's "Hitler-Dilemma"

Was Dietrich Bonhoeffer a Would-Be Assassin? (Review of a New Book)

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2013/10/was-dietrich-bonhoeffer-a-would-be-assassin-review-of-a-new-book/

 

by Roger Olson

October 12, 2013

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Was Dietrich Bonhoeffer a Would-Be Assassin?

 

We’re in the middle of another Dietrich Bonhoeffer renaissance. A new wave of interest in the German theologian is being lifted by new biographies and examinations of his theology. Everyone seems to want to claim Bonhoeffer for their own causes. This was the case, of course, in the 1960s when radical theologians such as John Robinson and Harvey Cox attempted to appropriate him for secular theologies. And it has happened every few years since.

 

I was surprised to learn, when studying theology in Germany in the 1980s, that there, in Germany, he’s generally not considered one of the “giants” of twentieth century theology alongside Barth, Brunner, Bultmann, Tillich or even Niebuhr. There his legacy is tied to his role in the Confessing Church movement and his participation in a plot to overthrow the Hitler regime. I sometimes wonder if it weren’t for the latter, including his execution by the Nazis, and his enigmatic sayings in Letters and Papers from Prison whether he would be as well remembered and widely discussed as has been the case.

 

Years ago I read Eberhard Bethge’s magisterial biography of Bonhoeffer entitled Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Man of Vision, Man of Courage (1967, ET 1977). Bethge was, of course, one of Bonhoeffer’s closest friends and confidantes. He was his student and they lived together in the “underground seminary” that Bonhoeffer led for the Confessing Church movement. Eventually, Bethge moved into Bonhoeffer’s family home in Berlin and married his mentor’s niece. After the war and after Bonhoeffer’s execution Bethge took it upon himself, with the support of the Bonhoeffer family, to collect Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s papers and publish them. Throughout the 1950s through the 1970s he became the expert on Bonhoeffer. His biography is 841 pages long in English translation (not including the index).

 

I think it’s fairly safe to say that if it were not for Bethge, Bonhoeffer would largely be forgotten. I have trusted Bethge about Bonhoeffer implicitly, as have most others. Bethge was a scholar and member of the Bonhoeffer family and does not seem to have had any axe to grind that would cause us to consider his accounts unreliable.

 

A few days ago a new book arrived: Bonhoeffer the Assassin?: Challenging the Myth, Recovering His Call to Peacemaking by Mark Thiessen Nation, Anthony G. Siegrist, and Daniel P. Umbel (Foreword by Stanley Hauerwas) (BakerAcademic, 2013). The “myth” referred to in the title is that Bonhoeffer participated in a plot to assassinate Hitler. That is clearly expressed and argued (viz., that it is a myth) in Chapter 3, “Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Assassin?” (pp. 71-97). The authors’ thesis is expressed in several ways, but I find this passage especially concise: “There is no evidence that Bonhoeffer was ‘involved in the plots to kill Hitler.’ Hopefully we have also shown that there is no real evidence that Bonhoeffer himself affirmed the killing of Hitler.” (p. 93).

 

The authors of Bonhoeffer the Assassin? argue for continuity between Bonhoeffer’s pacifist theology, as expressed in writings such as The Cost of Discipleship (or just “Discipleship” depending on the edition) and his life in the Abwehr—the German military intelligence agency that was the breeding ground for some of the plots to overthrow Hitler and the Nazi regime. They furthermore argue that there is no evidence that Bonhoeffer ever actually participated in any conspiracy to kill Hitler even though his ecumenical contacts on behalf of the conspirators to overthrow Hitler (in Switzerland and Sweden) involved him indirectly in the resistance to the Hitler regime. According to them, Bonhoeffer remained a pacifist throughout his adult life and never encouraged killing anyone.

 

The authors admit that Bonhoeffer knew some of the plotters, even those who were conspiring to kill Hitler and others, very well and had personal conversations with them. His brother and brother-in-law were members of the conspiracy and almost certainly had few, if any, qualms about killing Hitler (after a certain point when simply overthrowing him did not seem feasible). They are right, however, to point out, as Bethge does, that Bonhoeffer’s own actual role in the Abwehr conspiracy was remote. It was confined largely to traveling to neutral countries (mentioned earlier) to meet with religious leaders (mostly British) to talk about German surrender and cessation of war should the conspiracy (either to overthrow Hitler or kill him) succeed. A few remnants of those conversations remain in letters and memories (later written).

 

If we are to agree with Nation, Siegrist, and Umbel, that Bonhoeffer never advocated, condoned or participated in an actual plot to kill Hitler (or anyone else), we have to question Bethge’s testimony which is clear. And the authors do question it. They suggest his memory of Bonhoeffer’s own sayings to him and to others was faulty. (pp. 92-93)

 

But let’s look again at Bethge’s own recorded memories in Dietrich Bonhoeffer. And let’s remember that much of the material in that biography was not first “remembered” by Bethge in 1967 when he wrote it. He had been deeply involved in Bonhoeffer scholarship for over a decade then—collecting, compiling, interviewing, reviewing, writing. So we should not picture Bethge, at age fifty-something (we don’t know exactly when he wrote the parts of the biography but only when it was published) for the first time sitting down to write about these events and conversations and striving to remember them.

 

The relevant section of Dietrich Bonhoeffer is “Section Two: Conspiracy” of “Part Three: Sharing Germany’s Destiny.” It comprises pages 627-702 of the 1977 Harper & Row paperback edition. Bethge there leaves no doubt that he believed Bonhoeffer at least tentatively gave up his pacifism in a “boundary situation,” namely, the extremity of having to end the war and the holocaust.

 

Bethge opens this section of his biography with a quotation attributed to Bonhoeffer by one of his ecumenical contacts, Bishop Bell with whom Bonhoeffer met in Sweden in 1942. According to Bell, Bonhoeffer told him that he once responded to fellow resistance members who proposed ceasing subversive activities that could result in Hitler’s death, thus making him a martyr, “If we claim to be Christians, there is no room for expediency. Hitler is the Antichrist. Therefore we must go on with our work and eliminate him whether he be successful for not.” (pp. 626-627) Bell published this quote from Bonhoeffer (Bonhoeffer quoting himself to Bell) in 1945—two to three years after the fact (assuming it happened at all). Bethge did not doubt anything except that Bonhoeffer called Hitler the “Antichrist” (p. 627) and Nation, et al., call on this doubt to cast doubt on the whole quotation. What’s interesting, though, is that Bethge wrote about Bell’s account (of what Bonhoeffer said he said to his fellow resisters) that it “contains accurate and improbable parts.” (p. 627) The only “improbable part,” according to Bethge, who knew Bonhoeffer very well throughout this whole time, is Bonhoeffer’s calling Hitler the Antichrist. He did not call Bonhoeffer’s calling for Hitler’s “elimination” into question. In fact, in effect, he called it “accurate.” After wrestling with whether Bonhoeffer would have called Hitler the Antichrist for an entire page (p. 627) Bethge concludes thus: “If that rather crude theological expression [viz., Hitler as the Antichrist] could really have encouraged his friends, Bonhoeffer might perhaps have used it verbally.”

 

Bethge’s chapter argues convincingly for “Bonhoeffer’s actual complicity in the plot against Hitler.” (p. 628) And by that he clearly did not mean some kind of remote knowledge of the plot. According to Bethge, Bonhoeffer was remembered, after the war, for saying things like “You can rely on it, we shall overthrow Hitler!” to his ecumenical contacts and others during his trips to Switzerland and Sweden. (p. 632)

 

Bethge nailed down what he meant by Bonhoeffer’s complicity with a saying he remembered Bonhoeffer uttering in September, 1941 at Sakrow, where Bonhoeffer’s brother-in-law, a major player in the plot lived then. First, notice the time and place. Clearly Bethge was not merely going by (faulty) memory. Here is what he recorded Bonhoeffer as saying then and there: “That if it fell to him to carry out the deed [viz., killing Hitler], he was ready to do so, but that he must first resign, formally and officially, from his Church….” (p. 656)

 

Nation, et al., cast doubt on Bethge’s “decades old memory” (pp. 92-93). I find that rather cavalier given Bethge’s naming the month, year and place where the conversation took place.

 

Bethge left us no doubt what he thought. On page 659 he recollects from conversations with Bonhoeffer about other, non-violent resisters, that “Bonhoeffer…was already pleading the need for assassination.” This is specifically in contrast to resistance leader Helmuth von Moltke of the “Kreisau Circle” who urged non-violent resistance to Hitler. Nation, et al., make much of Moltke at the beginning of their book and hold him up as a model of non-violent resistance to Hitler. Bethge clearly thought, from personal conversations with Bonhoeffer, that Bonhoeffer thought the Krisau Circle, von Moltke, and non-violent resistance to Hitler was useless.

 

Bethge opened his final section (of the chapter) entitled “The ‘Boundary Situation’” thus: “Today, in more orderly times, some people are reluctant to call Bonhoeffer a ‘conspirator’, and to give primary importance to such an originally degrading term. The further we are from the events, the more we hesitate to use the term. But it seems as if all attempts to tone it down fail to see the exceptional reality that Bonhoeffer faced, and merely cover up what is shown to us here.” (p. 696) I suspect if Bethge were alive today he would say the same about Nation’s, Siegrist’s, Umbel’s, and Hauerwas’s reluctance to identify Bonhoeffer as a conspirator to kill Hitler. Nobody calls Bonhoeffer an “assassin,” so the book’s title is a bit misleading. There is no “myth” of Bonhoeffer “the assassin” (that I’m aware of). “Participating in a plot to assassinate” would be a better, more descriptive term for what many, including Bethge, believe about Bonhoeffer. But Nation, et al., also deny that.

 

Bethge did not use the nearly worn out phrase “teleological suspension of the ethical” (often attributed to Kierkegaard) to describe Bonhoeffer’s own sense of justification for his involvement in the conspiracy to overthrow and then to kill Hitler. However, this entire final section of the chapter amounts to that. For Bethge, Bonhoeffer found himself in a “boundary situation” where he had to act contrary to his own best ethical principles and throw himself on the mercy of God. Bethge quoted (p. 700) from a sermon of Bonhoeffer’s in which he prophesied a time “when martyrdom would be called for” but in which “this blood…will not be so innocent and clear as that of the first who testified. On our blood a great guilt would lie….” Clearly Bethge believed that Bonhoeffer foresaw a glimpse of his own fate.

 

My conclusion is that the authors of Bonhoeffer the Assassin? (and Foreword author Hauerwas) fail to give us a strong enough statement of Bethge’s proximity to Bonhoeffer throughout the time of his involvement in the resistance against Hitler and unjustly cast doubt on his veracity about Bonhoeffer’s role in it. Anyone who reads the book must also read Bethge’s biography of Bonhoeffer, or at least the portion of it dealing with the conspiracy, and then make up their own mind. Believing Nation, et al., will require more than doubting Bethge. And if Bethge could be wrong about this, he must not [then] be considered as a "reliable" witness to the life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

 

 

 

N.T. Wright, "Paul and the Faithfulness of God" (Vol 4) - Jesus' Larger Story

At the Heart of the Apostle Paul: The Story

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2013/10/22/at-the-heart-of-the-apostle-paul-the-story/

 

by Scot McKnight

Oct 22, 2013

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Symbols and praxis need a story in a worldview to make sense. Famously, Bultmann stripped the New Testament of its mythology, but notice how N.T. Wright, in his Paul and the Faithfulness of God, describes Bultmann’s agenda:

The main problem with Bultmann’s proposal, in addition to the muddling of different senses of ‘myth’, is that when he insisted that we should strip the early Christian world of its ‘mythology’ he meant not only that we should express the existential challenge of the gospel without its pre- Enlightenment scientific assumptions, but also that we should re- conceptualize the gospel in a non-narratival form, reducing it to the pure existential challenge of every moment, in which one is called to hear God’s word now rather than think in terms of the waste, sad time stretching before and after (457-8).

What Bultmann was to recode that message into a saving narrative characteristic of Protestant (Lutheran) theology, ramped up by 20th Century German existentialism as well. The impact, and this is characteristic of many forms of soterian thinking, is to de-Judaize the Bible (I’m using Wright’s use of de-Judaizing). For Wright, this whole New Perspective debate is all about whether or not someone embraces the Story of Israel into its theology or not. He observes the irony that Sanders erased that narrative and — this is well-known — colonized Paul into a soteriology. He sees the same in Dunn.. Wright then takes on those who deny narrative/story as a retelling in Paul and emphasize, in various ways, proposition or a more vertical theology (JC Beker, Watson, Barclay). With Wright stand Richard Hays and many others, including Morna Hooker. There has been a rather stubborn, if not productive, pushback against the importance of operating within, or explaining Paul within, a narrative framework. Wright’s discussion then ought at least to offer a response. For me it offers a counter to a tiring discussion. When Paul says his gospel is “Remember Jesus Christ, raised from the dead, descended from David … this is my gospel” then denial of a narrative plot fails at the start.

 

In fact, NT Wright argues for stories within the story, plots within the plot. The outer story is about God and Creation. God is creator, he made humans, they have a purpose, they thwart that purpose, there is a work to undo the thwarting, etc, Age to Come, etc… this redemptive work of God has already begun in the Present Age.

 

New Creation has invaded … all a hint to a large underlying story at work here for the entire cosmos. Death is the enemy and is and will be defeated. The evil forces — demons — are in need of conquering. So this story has a theme of judgment, and this judgment is connected to a coming Davidic king.

From pp. 484-5: So how does this ‘outer story’, this framing plot of creator and creation, function in relation to all the other things Paul is talking about in his letters? Is it just a loose, wide framework, so big, so unrelated to the detailed concerns of his churches, that for the most part it has little or no effect on what he actually says, on the line he takes, on what he urgently wants his congregations to reflect on and to embody? 

That might be said (for instance) about the Stoic belief in the great periodic Conflagration. The serious philosopher can see the connection in theory, and can live ‘in accordance with nature’ in the light of it. But for most of the time Stoic ethics, as we saw, has no need to look beyond the horizon of the particular human being and, perhaps, the particular polis. One may well be able to develop the classic virtues without being too concerned about, or even conscious of, living in a universe that may one day go up in smoke and then, phoenix-like, reappear and repeat the entire story. One can believe in that framing story without it having an immediate impact on day- to-day living.

But with Paul it is different. This framing story, though it appears only seldom, functions dynamically in relation to the other stories, precisely as an outer story in a Shakespearean plot might function in relation to the smaller stories that nest within it and are joined to it by all kinds of subtle threads. To explain this next move we need to go slowly and carefully. We must ask: what are Paul’s sub-plots, and how do they relate to the main, overarching plot itself? 

To make life easy as things get more complex, I shall now do what good storytellers would never do, and reveal in advance the shape of what is to come. The first sub-plot, I suggest, is the story of the human creatures through whom the creator intended to bring order to his world. Their failure, and the creator’s determination to put that failure right and so get the original plan back on track, demands a second sub-plot, which is the story of Israel as the people called to be the light of the world. This is the level of plot at which the Mosaic law plays out its various roles, like the complex but integrated roles given to the Moon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Then, because of Israel’s own failure, we find the third and final sub-plot, which is the story of Jesus, Israel’s crucified and risen Messiah. His work, at the centre of Paul’s narrative world, resolves the other sub-plots, and provides a glimpse, as we have just seen, of the resolution for the main plot itself, the creator’s purpose for the whole cosmos. It is only when these various levels of plot are ignored, confused or conflated that problems arise. Allow each to do its proper job, and the Pauline story will work.

So there you have it: how the God and Creation plot shapes the whole of Paul’s story-telling and stories within the Story.

 

One plot is about the redemption of humans — purposed to reign for God in this world. They must be redeemed to reign, they must turn from their ruling on their own to rule for God. Here’s how it all fits together, from p. 489:

Thus the story of humankind falls, like the most obvious sub-plot in a play, within the larger plot, and cannot properly be understood (in Paul’s terms at least) independently from that larger narrative. The plot and the first sub-plot thus fit together as follows, explicitly in Romans 5—8 and 1 Corinthians 15 and, because these are so obviously central for Paul, by implication elsewhere as well: 

1. The creator’s intention was to bring fruitful order to the world through his image-bearing human creatures.

2. Humans fail to reflect God’s image into the world, and the world in consequence fails to attain its fruitful order; the result, instead, is corruption and decay. 

3. God intends to restore humankind to its proper place, resulting in the rescue and restoration of creation itself. 

So far, so good – though of course we have not yet explored the question of how the creator will accomplish Stage 3. This three-stage outline is not yet, in point of fact, a complete narrative, though it has the shape of one. There are many blanks still to be filled in. The passages we have already glanced at contain the clues, which we shall follow up presently.

What is so often neglected in what I call soterian approaches is that the story stops here and the whole thing gets reduced: we lose Abraham, Israel, Jesus as Messiah, and it all gets reduced to personal salvation, and here I’m rehearsing what Tom Wright is saying in this chapter. The story of Abraham is how God chose to reinstate humans in this world — Israel, then, is central to the Story. If Israel, so also David (that’s from me).

What happens if we ignore this narrative, and never enquire about its placement within Paul’s largest story, that of the creator and the cosmos? The answer is obvious, because a great many readers of Paul have done exactly that. First, it will then be assumed that Paul is talking, not about the plight of creation, but simply about the plight of humans. Second, it will be assumed that when he appears to speak of a ‘solution’ to this ‘plight’, this solution is basically something to do with Jesus and his death and resurrec- tion, seen in isolation. Insofar as Paul refers from time to time to Abraham, he is simply a ‘predecessor’, someone in the scriptures who had faith (or: the right sort of faith!). Instead, I propose, and shall now argue, that Paul’s entire theology gains enormously in coherence and impetus if we see that he affirmed, even though he radically redrew, the particular second-Temple Jewish narrative which we studied in chapter 2: the story of God’s people, of Abraham’s people, as the people through whom the creator was intending to rescue his creation. This makes sense of so many passages in Paul’s letters that it ought not to be open to doubt that Paul had this narrative in mind, and gave it substantially the same meaning it had within his native Judaism – except, of course, for the radical redescription to which he had come through the shocking and totally unexpected way in which the story had in fact reached its denouement. But to read the same story with new eyes as a result of its surprising ending is still to read the same story (495).

How so? Though the faithful Israelite, namely, the Messiah.

 

Wright explores how the Story of Israel fits into this Story … and it’s all about that singular divine intent to save the world through Israel, its failure to do just that and the expansion of Israel into the church … but in this section Tom finds a new expression that God has a “rescue operation [Christ] for the rescue operation [Israel].” Nice turn of phrase that will, I predict, become like “life after life after death.”

 

Enough for today. Come back Thursday for more.

Continue to Index -

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

Empty Spaces

Empty Spaces

I woke this morning to the empty spaces of a lingering, personal, numbness  much like a grey, misting fog stubbornly refuses to lift to an early rising dawn; finding myself groping for what thin, vanishing support remained within the disembodied promises of hope and healing I had heard all week long. I was feeling both a deep, personal loss, and that feeling of a general disorientation that was trying to make sense of everything that had come to pass.

For it was on Tuesday last that I stood over my father's dying body to embrace him long and hard, then begin gently cradling his feverish head between my hands to breath final words to ears that were no longer listening. Believing that touch was the only sense of connection left between a dying person with the land of the living, the body having become dissociated from the spoken words it was hearing so engrossed it was in its impending death. And as my dad laid within a borrowed hospital bed provided by our hospice group, I wetted his face, dabbing his temples with a wet cloth, then compressing drops of cold water into an open mouth that could no longer speak or swallow. Like so many of the previous months before, I felt helpless against dad's long illness and suffering grief. I could only pray the Lord's tender mercies upon a beloved father laboring under diminishing breaths and wordless whispers. As the day wore on dad fought valiantly to the end against a lingering illness that would keep its promise of certain death and final rest.

Six months earlier I had carried dad's broken, feverish, body into the hospital's emergency ward to revive him from a deep, aspirated pneumonia misunderstood and left undiagnosed. My previous visit two weeks earlier, and succeeding daily calls, never informed me of dad's declining health until receiving my mother's call for help on a careworn Thursday afternoon (I was to visit that weekend). Late into the evening the ER doctors worked to stabilize dad's shaking body, all the while asking the inevitable questions of whether the family wished to resuscitate him or not. Afterwards, each of the next eight days and nights revealed to the family how deeply serious dad's chronic condition had become, causing each of us to rethink final preparations for his care. And during this time, as dad laid within yet another hospital bed - this time in the hospital's intensive care ward - his words can still be heard ringing in my head, asking me, "Am I going to die?"

How does a son answer that? "No, you aren't going to die?" "Yes, you are going to die?" How does one respond when, with each passing day, we learn of the many new ways that my father's body was beginning to fail? All the while struggling to educate ourselves as a family how to care for dad's wasting disease known as Parkinson's. Our next steps were to place dad's recovery into a nursing facility's sub-acute unit where we could stall for time while preparing and educating ourselves how to successfully care for dad at home. If we were to honor dad's wishes to go home and die in a place he found comfort and peace, than we needed to somehow prepare for bringing him home without returning him to a nursing home to live out his final days. It was what he wanted,, and what the family would attempt to do, without any medical training behind us. It required teaching my mom, who would become dad's primary care giver, what to look for, and how to effectively help him when he needed it. In effect, at 81 years of age, mom would have to become dad's full-time nurse without previous training or experience. And it is to her credit that she did such an amazing job far beyond anyone's expectations.

We next had to figure out what outside agencies could assist us with the task of bringing (and successfully keeping) dad at home - along with a backup plan in case all failed and came crashing down upon us. After countless days of interviewing nursing homes and agencies over the next several weeks I finally came upon the helpful offices of the Veteran's Administration (VA) and quickly came upon a viable, long-term, solution that soon found me housed within the offices of Hospice of Michigan (HOM). There, under the consult of one of the organization's regional directors, I spoke of my dad's condition. And as I spoke, my confidant's soulful eyes glistened with tears listening to my concerns of medical ethics and personal guilt while asking questions of when is enough, enough, after seven long years and a failed double heart attack? When do you quit? At what point do you stop trying? Are finances sufficient reason? How do we avoid ignorance and ineptitude in dad's care? Questions I needed to ask as I looked down the road to dad's inevitable end. A disquieting end that troubled me as much as it inflicted him with its wasting pains and growing physical dilemmas.

During the next few days I prepared the nursing home staff, and then my family, for the fatal resolution of bringing dad home to die under the care of hospice (even as we entered into the care of the rehab unit, the floor doctor had spoken cautiously weeks earlier of dad's survivability beyond the next several weeks. And to have looked at his depleted condition in the face of his lingering pneumonia one would think the good doctor to be right). We next met with HOM and had the nursing staff meet with my parents and family for a final examination, consult, and patient exit. After eight long days of hospitalization, and another thirty days of rehab and recovery at the nursing home, we transferred dad home to begin preparing a mobile staff of nurses, aides, doctors, social workers, chaplains, medical devices, and equipment around him. Forty days had passed since dad had laid on death's door in my arms, and in the emergency ward, and now he was back home to prepare both himself, his spouse, friends and family, for a slow, wasting death which would come some nineteen weeks later - more than twice the length of time that I actually thought we really had, and none had confidently predicted.

During dad's remaining days we were able to fly in a nephew from South Korea who had recently been released from overseas duty and was coming home on furlough. At his visit hospice thought to honor both dad and grandson for their military service in Korea (it was appropriately timed and thoughtfully suggested as we would later find out). Before a grandson dressed in military blues, a former navy veteran to administer the honorarium, and a news reporter on hand to headline all of the proceedings, each were duly honored and awarded. To which proceedings dad dryly observed that while his grandson served in a clean, dry, warm, barracks far removed from the DMZ, he (at the tender age of 19) was stationed sixty-two years earlier near the Korean front lines in active combat with only a sandbagged hole in the ground for lodging. Above his head stretched a wet, snow-bound canvas that held within it a potbellied stove to stave off the long, cold, wintry months of the Arctic winds. More fortunate than most, dad became the company supply sergeant when the Army found he could type. His duties were to provide warm clothing, boots, blankets, food, armor, and bullets, to the front lines. Fifty years later, in 2003, he would meet some of his frontline buddies for the first time since those days of his youth at a military reunion held by his company's regiment in St. George, Utah. That was ten years ago against a dithering will as to whether he should go or not, but to then happily discover lost war-time friends when he did decide to go with mom. Those were happier times.

Over the ensuing weeks and months, mom and dad slowly allowed hospice to increase their personal services to the family, each thinking dad's days would last forever but finding in reality that his body was beginning to shut down, no longer able to withstand the chronic disease wasting away at dad's muscles and nerves. In dad's final weeks, we would learned just how desperate his end would become... at which point my greatest fears were beginning to haunt me as I witnessed my mother's emotional decline against a strong resolve to not succumb against the daily strain of keeping dad alive. Her mind was beginning to wander, and her unfailing stoutness was beginning to break, under the stresses of seeing her beloved husband becoming more and more diminished. With each new realization came mom's mounting irritability amidst a growing emotional tension within our close-knit family (most easily witnessed by every intrusive visit by son or daughter). At the last, I had hospice meet with the family to discuss dad's final, impending stage while attempting to prepare private-duty nursing for him - and especially for mom in great need of help. Nursing that I was to find out was generally "more in name than in function," when finding agency after agency that would take our money but not lift dad off the floor when he fell (which he did often). Their solution was to call 911. Nor would they help administer medication because of the liability (though a second set of eyes would make me feel better at the behest of mom's continued administration). Hence, the difficulties of making dad's death at home successful were beginning to mount up. Even so, there were a few agencies that would provide for dad's physical care and lifting, although it most generally would go under the name of "aide" of some kind, thus requiring two sorts of people at the house instead of one.

To help reduce some of the tension, and to get mom out of the house so her "batteries might recharge," I took both parents downtown to the city's art festival not long before dad died; my brother would bring dad outside to the wood pile to sit beside him in the sunshine while he split and stacked wood; and my sister would sit with dad while mom took a nap in her favorite swing on the porch; a grandson would stop by to help in the morning - and then my brother again in the evening - with dad's lifting and dressing; and family friends came by to cheer and to pray. By placing dad into hospice's care we found a tremendous resource of help even as we found a reasonable way to prepare everyone for dad's impending death. Though it seemed cruel to begin it so early, it actually began exactly when it should have. From the time when I took dad into emergency, until his death this past Tuesday evening, nearly six months had passed... far longer than I actually thought we had... and far shorter than anyone was actually prepared for.

Which brings me to Tuesday last as I embraced my father, placing my hands to either side of his feverish face, telling him my love for him and what a good dad and friend he had been to me, between gasps for air and fingers that could only squeeze in response. And as I placed my hand on his emaciated breast to pray for the Lord's merciful removal from this life, tears rolled down my face thinking of the grand memories dad and I had shared over so many long years. From working the fields together on the dairy farm as a kid, to hunting, camping, hiking, ball games, and the celebration of Christmas. Even as recently as a week ago my father had asked mother to bring up a few Christmas decorations so he could hear the Hallmark displays sing-and-play over-and-over again one last time. It was his favorite time of the year. Soon, dad fell back asleep under a medicated stupor and I left the room to watch a stream of people troop through the house knowing that he was passing against the prayers of many belatedly entering. I finally decided to leave as the hospice nurse began issuing her final instructions of care. My heart had become overwhelmed and I did to wish to stay for my father's final passing. My sister however, had elected to stay the night, along with a niece, an aunt (my dad's final remaining sister) and mom. As I left I wasn't sure I would see dad again but needed to leave for my soul's sake. And as I left I found myself driving over to my grandmother's childhood farm where dad's cousin resided with his wife and cried with them for a time. Both cousin and father had farmed together and had actively served as firemen together (95 years between the both of them). They knew each other well and I wanted to bring my relatives up-to-date because no one else had called them of late. We each hoped to yet see dad one last time the next day and made plans to meet at the house in the early morning. But that day never came as I steadied dad's cousin at the news of his death earlier that night, helping him into a receiving chair in the family home where he had come to pay final homage with his wife of many years.

On the night before, between great sobs on the phone, my niece had called me, then my sister, to tell of dad's passing. They had briefly left his bedside for a few minutes to get ready for their night shift when they noticed they no longer heard dad's desperate breaths for air. Rushing back they found dad gone. Departed his broken body and with the Lord above. In the space of five minutes dad died to the tears of all. And on a day once joyfully marked on our calendars as the opener for Pheasant season - for dad loved to bird hunt. And the date of October 15 was always marked in red when we would set off across the family farm to traipse through field and brush, rain and snow, mud and wet, with uncles and cousins, to closely watch our sporting dogs working the scrub ahead of us with their snuffling noses to the wet ground. It was upon this the glad day that dad died to go hunting for departed friends and families in the great beyond. A mere ten days before his 83rd birthday as his family sung to him around his bedside when last he awoke earlier in the evening the refrains of "Happy Birthday." And it was but a short week later (yesterday), that I would witness dad's burial under dirt and spade to lie with his son and parents.

And so it was that I would find myself before dad's open coffin on yesterday's pages reliving the rapidly escalating events of the week before as each day blurred into the next. Causing me to react by trying to live normally without feeling too much for fear of never recovering. But it was also on yesterday's autumn morning that I stood with mom receiving friends and family against an honor guard embracing my father's coffin ahead-and-before, locked in time-and-space, and changing out to the regular beat between city and county police, and fire services, as they honored dad as their own family over four long decades of faithful service. It was but brief moments earlier I had stood before dad myself to rest my hand one last time on his stilled breast breathing my goodbyes while I had the time alone before the church opened its wide, glassed doors. To find myself, shortly thereafter, embracing a fireman stepping off the city's fire truck sobbing in my arms in the parking lot, even as I did in his, as he relived his son's unfortunate death two years ago. This was not an uncommon experience over the past two days as mourners came one-after-another to express sympathy and perhaps painfully relive the deaths of lost loved ones yet bereaved. Even so, did my dad carry my brother's untimely death to his grave, in sorrow and in grief. And thus do we bear one another's sorrows. For if we do not, who will?

Soon, family and relatives were somberly ushered to the front of the church. Accolades and sermons were made-and-given. Mindful songs were stirringly sung a cappella, and by weeping grandchildren in disquieted testimony. And all concluded before a lengthy military procession past dad's flag-draped coffin. Away in the distance could be heard the dying echoes of a soulful refrain of taps played on silver'd bugle from somewhere outside. And beneath its hallowed reverence  came the reverberation of a 21-gun salute fired before a flag flown at half-mast. And all the while soldier-after-soldier presented long, slow salutes of personal respect and military reverence by an honor guard at my father's military service to his country when but a boy taken from the farm to become a man overnight. A carefully folded flag was next placed into my mother's arms with the spent casings from the volleys in respectful tones of farewell and goodbye. Then under the escort of my father's steel-gray casket, we, his pall bearers, rolled dad out to the awaiting hearse to witness one of my final, lasting images. That of dad being driven away, out-of-sight, clutched between patrol cars and firetruck, to be laid to rest in one of the city's oldest cemeteries. Many with street names for last names. And many of which I too often had buried with my dad in childhood's youth.

There, today, this morning, and last night, lies my father with his wept parents and beloved son. Quietly at peace with his Lord and Savior. "Hail, my dear father, and goodbye. Now rest to await that further day when all will be resurrected to a new body without sickness and death in its bones. Without want or need except for relationship with the dead and living soon to come. And soon to pass. Fair morning has arisen with its exhaustion of tears, its want of lament, and last rays of autumnal sunshine. Worn out, disoriented, we must fumble forward even as you had, searching for the wise use of our remaining days. Seeking the help and goodwill of friends and family. Providing service where needed and prayer for all. Vade in pace."

R.E. Slater

Tuesday, October 22, 2013





Deputy Chief of Police, Russ Slater, age 82
Mlive.com

A Second Sight