Justification

Funny how impossible it is to have an original thought. I have been reading two books at the same time, Avery Dulles' Models of the Church and N.T. Wright's Justification. In the mixture of the two I started wondering whether a "models" approach to understanding Justification might be more helpful than the monolithic approach taken by both Catholics and Protestants. Perhaps justification should be understood as a reality beyond any one biblical or theological model, and instead is best understood in light of several models, none gaining the absolute ascendancy of a paradigm, but all given their due in explaining something key to understanding God's righteousness and our participation in that righteousness. I thought this was a product of the happenstance of reading both seemingly unrelated books at the same time.

But then yesterday I had an interesting discussion with coolnerd (don't think I've ever had a dull one with coolnerd, so it follows) about justification. And guess what he said before I had a chance to open my somewhat large mouth: "As an engineer, we use a models approach to solving large problems. I tend to think justification can be understood that way."

So unless we are both delusional, which is probable in my case and unlikely in his, it may be something to consider.

Perhaps the reformed view that sees Paul grounding salvation in imputed righteousness, in grace perfecting law, all to his and only his glory, is a helpful model. It helps us to first recognize how man's righteousness is "like filthy rags" and how we are given an alien righteousness.

And the Lutheran view that we are legally declared righteous with a radical divide between justification and sanctification, , while remaining sinners, reminds us that while we remain in this world, we testify to the forgiveness and patience of God as forgiven sinners.

And the Catholic view that Justification is a process of God improving our character and changing our hearts reminds us that God's work is not "legal fiction," This reminds us that Justification is a real life experience which vindicates God's plan of redemption by displaying his righteousness as he infuses his grace into the lives of his people through the Holy Spirit.

And the "new persepctive" view that the whole thing is really about God vindicating his original and only plan to make all things right in Christ, that justification is really God's faithfulness to his covenant, that its really all about him demonstrating his consistent faithfulness; this reminds us that in the end its all of God in Christ and that we humans are the showcase or perhaps primary display of his justifying or vindicating his character through vindicating the people of God whom he has raised up.

Taken together, these views have serious points of departure from one another, with various primary visions and images, with various portions of the Gospel's and Paul's writings seen as keys. But they also provide, together, a picture of God sovereignly working out, through Christ by the power and presence of the Holy Spirit, a way of making right the wrong of the fall and healing the nations. The technical mechanisms whereby he does that, and the specific and actual reality of justification is more a speculative endeavor, though not an unimportant one.

From a big picture perspective, a pastoral one perhaps, we see that God saves - that in saving he justifies - that in justifying he vindicates his character and glory - that in saving he makes his people able to participate in his life in all aspect of human life (moral, spiritual, physical, emotional, mental) - that his people are not yet perfected and yet are fully accepted - and that in the final day, when all is said and done, he will be shown to be faithful to his covenant and his covenant people. And maybe that is all we are given to know, and that is what we preach.

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Relax Parents!

Absolutely loved this article at CNN.com:

All great rebellions are born of private acts of civil disobedience that inspire rebel bands to plot together. And so there is now a new revolution under way, one aimed at rolling back the almost comical overprotectiveness and overinvestment of moms and dads. The insurgency goes by many names — slow parenting, simplicity parenting, free-range parenting — but the message is the same: Less is more; hovering is dangerous; failure is fruitful. You really want your children to succeed? Learn when to leave them alone. When you lighten up, they'll fly higher. We're often the ones who hold them down.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1940395,00.html?cnn=yes#ixzz0XLKd4EUO

All the Time Grace

In a great U2 song, Bono crones, "I'm not broke, but you can see the cracks/You can make me perfect again." I'm thinking of this because this week I've filled in some cracks in my driveway, using patching cement. Sometimes, in our humanness, we think of grace as something that "fills in the cracks." In our minds eye, we picture the Christian life as one of learning the expectations of God, trying to do them, sometimes succeeding and sometimes failing. When we succeed, God is happy and we are blessed. When we mess up, thankfully, he fills in the cracks with grace and patches us up. This is often what we mean when we talk about grace, God stepping in when we mess up, kindly forgiving us for that mistake, and helping us back up to continue our fight.

But is grace only operating when we are conscious of "messing up"? St Paul is pretty stubborn about insisting that grace is an all-in-all and all-the-time kind of disposition and activity of God in Christ. In this sense, grace is necessary for every single moment of every day of our entire Christian lives.

And this is the farthest thing from a depressing thought that. In fact, thinking of God as a patchwork grace-giver is ultimately the most depressing image we can latch on to. That's because it inadvertently pictures us as alone. It pictures us as running the race with God on the sidelines, sometimes even as the judgmental, driven parent. It pictures God "stepping in" when times are tough, kind of like the old poem "Footprints in the Sand" one of the worst Christian poems ever written (too bad it was anonymous or we could ask the 'poet' what he/she was thinking??). Sure, "Footprints" pictures Jesus walking side by side with us, but its as if we are somehow summoning our strength to walk beside him, hoping we won't fall or encounter trouble.

But lets look at grace from a different vision, one which sees Christ's constant presence and grace, not taken "as needed" like prescription drugs, but "at all times and in all places." Lets see grace less as a crack sealer, and more as the Balm of Gilead, a healing presence, a relationship with God in Christ of freedom from the condemnation of the law. When we see that grace is God's disposition toward us, his relationship with us, not with any "expectations" but with gentle love and kindness, we are relieved. We can let go of the pressure to try to not have to resort to asking for more grace. We can simply ask for it every minute of every day and rest in the knowledge that he does what he promises.

Relying on grace is not a last resort or a sometimes helpful part of life. Grace is constant, continuous, and total. We are always in need of his grace, always receiving it, and always living in it. In this environment, and only in this environment, can we begin to trust God enough and have enough freedom to see his commands as good things.

Roman Catholic Apostolic Constitution for Anglican Ordinariates Published

In recent times the Holy Spirit has moved groups of Anglicans to petition repeatedly and insistently to be received into full Catholic communion individually as well as corporately. The Apostolic See has responded favorably to such petitions. Indeed, the successor of Peter, mandated by the Lord Jesus to guarantee the unity of the episcopate and to preside over and safeguard the universal communion of all the Churches,could not fail to make available the means necessary to bring this holy desire to realization. Read it all here.

Which Liturgy?

Every church has a liturgy of some sort, and that point has been well made elsewhere. And in liturgical churches the idea is to go ahead and own up to the fact that human beings inevitably settle into set patterns, and intentionally work with rather than against that fact.

The down side of planned liturgy is the possibly of hijack. If the people manning the controls of the liturgical texts decide, on the one hand, to hack away at orthodoxy or, on the other hand, to try to enforce a "pet" theology, then everyone suffers. This is especially true when the ecclesiastical authorities are working hand in hand with the liturgists for the purpose of hijack rather than godly devotion.

That's why its important to develop a theology and practice of liturgics within any worshiping church tradition. This theology and practice should take into account Scripture, the development of the creeds and early Christian worship, and the history of Christian worship. It should also address the bipolar impulses that create rivalries between simplistic primitivism and radical innovation. A helpful liturgical theology that envisions way forward that respects the past while recognizing the present aspect of worship. And that doesn't become a vehicle for people on various sides of issues to try to control the liturgy in order to control the conversation about their theological argument.

I think a "conflation" approach may be helpful here. In New Testament manuscript production, conflation was the phenomenon of copyists deciding to include all the readings of a particular text, simply because they were afraid they might leave out the original. In liturgics, borrowing from this tendancy, we might envision not so much a constant innovation, but a rearrangement and restatement of what is already there, with a constant eye toward not losing anything. Even that which is considered a "medieval imposition" may have something to commend it. At least that's how Cranmer seemed to operate.

Also I wonder if we can "conflate" the worship of the early church, medieval, reformed, and post-liturgical-movement together as a whole, rather than choosing one as our template. Primitivism leads toward over glorifying the early church's worship. Radical innovation leads toward "present tense" superiority complexes. Why not reject both in favor of a conflation theory that values all of the periods, while recognizing the particular weakness of each.

David Lews Stokes on Anglican Authority

The basic issue that has eroded the Anglican Communion is what has been eating away at its foundations for 400 years: how ecclesiastical authority is to be understood. Since the 16th Century, two very different understandings of authority have engaged in a tug-of-war within the Church of England and the larger Anglican Communion.

One understanding is that the church is determined and shaped by Catholic tradition. Anglicans committed to this understanding of authority have sought to be faithful to that which has been believed by Christians everywhere and at all times. And while these Anglicans would admit that a correct discernment of Catholic tradition is often difficult, they have always considered their church bound by this tradition.

The second understanding of authority, while often respectful of Catholic tradition, proceeds from the Protestant principle of private judgment. This understanding may (and often does) appeal to Scripture and the Holy Spirit. And as long as it was rooted in a coherent culture, this understanding seemed to possess a theological coherence of sorts. But when it is torn from the soil of a coherent culture, as has occurred over the last century, the roots of this understanding are seen to be what they always were: the occasional opinions of whatever happened to be the prevailing majority.

The first understanding of church authority is that Christian revelation presents us with an objective truth to be pursued. The second understanding believes that if there ever was a Christian revelation, it presents us only with an approximation of whatever God may (or may not) be. That such a house divided has managed to stand for 400 years is an odd testament, I suppose, to the power of British culture. But an ethos can hide incoherence for only so long.

Read the whole op ed piece at Projo.com

Roman Catholics and Anglicans

This week the Vatican announced a new arrangement to accept Anglicans into the Roman Catholic Church. For those Anglicans who have already embraced a more Roman approach, but still want to retain the rich Anglican liturgical and spiritual tradition, this is fantastic. And the fact that the ABC celebrated this, rather than seeing it as a threat to ecumenical talks is also, to my mind, a great thing.

But the question of catholicity remains. What does it mean to be catholic? This new arrangement, in essence, continues to define catholicity as acceptance of papal exclusivity, non-essential (from an Anglican perspective) Roman dogmas such as clerical celibacy, and of course particular Roman Marian dogmas. In the final analysis, Rome believes that the entirety of its dogmatic theology is necessary for full catholicity.

Much has changed since the Reformation, but this is still a sticking point. Anglicanism has defined catholicity, in a basic sense, as fully present in a church that has the Bible, the Creeds, the two Sacraments, and the historic episcopate. If we take this seriously as a list of essentials, we are able to reunite with Roman and Orthodox churches, so long as we allow for their additional dogmas to function within their jurisdictions, and as long as they allow for our non-acceptance of those additional and particular extensions of the basics. The "three branch theory" which allows for Roman, Orthodox, and Reformed Catholic expressions would then be the functional basis of a reunited Church. But we cannot accept the idea that we are not already catholic Christians.

The ANiC has a fantastic statement to this affect, which includes this gem (H/T Rob Sturdy):

After hearing the news today, an ANiC priest wrote Bishop Harvey: “As for me and my house, we will remain ever faithful to the authority and primacy of the Holy Scriptures and the Faith and Order of the undivided Catholic Church. I need not become a Roman Catholic to be a Catholic Christian. As an Anglican, I am a Catholic Christian.”
“A quote from the English reformer John Jewel (1522-1571) sums up where I believe we in ANiC stand,” says Bishop Harvey. “Jewel said: “We have returned to the Apostles and the old Catholic Fathers. We have planted no new religion but only preserved the old that was undoubtedly founded and used by the Apostles of Christ and other holy Fathers of the Primitive Church.””

If the essential elements of catholicity and apostolic, orthodox Christianity are found in the Lambeth Quadrilateral, then in a way they represent its fullness. But Anglicans don't envision the Quadrilateral as the only thing. Each stream of catholicity must have in place its own way, or faithful tradition. So Anglicans are not asking Roman Catholics to disbelieve things they already believe, but in reunion not requiring us to believe them as well.

My thought is that someday there will be an African Pope. Since Africans didn't go through the polemical period of the Reformation, they are often puzzled by the hard lines between Anglicans and Catholics in the West, it follows that an African Pope, at least in attitude and spirit, may inaugurate a more basic vision of catholicity. And over time, maybe many generations, this movement could lead to a softening of the requirement that catholic Christianity necessarily entails acceptance of particularly Roman dogmas.

Until that day, I think it is in the interest of unity and ecumenical reunion that there remain in place a strong, robust Anglican Christianity. If we continue to cultivate the "third branch" we call reformed catholic, then this branch will someday be the conduit for many other Protestants to be grafted in. But if we simply accede to Rome in the name of ecumenical unity, we are closing that door. The beauty and power of reformed Christianity is then lost along with the gifts it brings to the catholic family.

Other Links:
ACNA Statement (++Duncan)

Forth Worth(+Iker)

T19 (Kendall Harmon+)

Same Kind of Different as Me

Same Kind of Different as Me by Ron Hall and Denver Moore.

This bestselling book is a powerful, firsthand story of two men and the woman who made their friendship happen. Denver grew up sharecropping, literally in worse conditions than slaves endured, save that he eventually was able to hop a train and leave. He considered the streets of Fort Worth, Texas better living than the cotton plantations. Ron grew up poor in the Texas, eventually graduating from TCU and becoming a millionaire art dealer. It was Ron's wife Deborah who drew him into serving at the local Rescue Mission, and urged him to befriend Denver. I won't spoil the story, but their friendship and the loss they endure together is a powerful story of mutual love, wisdom, and grace.

I was, of course, interested in the spiritual components, and was dazzled. Ron openly tells of conversion in Bible Study, of changes in his Christian life and faith, and speaks of his evangelical tradition in a way that is honest, and self-deprecating. He seems keenly aware that 'evangelical' is one great way of being a Christian and yet not the only way. And honestly, you don't see that often in us evangelicals.

Denver has a faith based on hearing Bible preaching for hours every Sunday growing up. He has a deep knowledge of God and of the wisdom of God's ways. Words of knowledge and even prophecy seem to be his gift. In fact, the authors weave these experiences with divine visions and words of knowledge into the story in ways that are beautiful and not intrusive. They simply don't try to build a theology out of these experiences, they are just relating them as part of the story. They don't seem insecure about 'proving' them as an exercise in self-justification. You don't see that often either.

And they didn't want this book to be a self-help book. They wanted it to be a story of grace and love, acceptance and friendship, a work of God in their lives that showed up through the compassion and care of Deborah. They wanted their story to inspire compassion and friendship, not necessarily to "solve" the homeless problem, but to bring healing and grace to both the streets and to the elite.

One thing evangelicals don't usually like to do is leave off "application" or "now that you've heard our story, go do these four steps..." But these guys managed to pull it off. They simply trusted that a story of God's care and intervention, wrestling with finding him in tough situations, and of people caring for people would be enough.

Read it - you won't be able to put it down.

Where is Golgotha and What does it have to do with Church?

I am reading through some of the notes in my new ESV Study Bible. Its a great book, by the way. I ran into an article on the site of Golgotha. Okay, this is going to be tough to describe, but I felt like the history of the two sites believed to be Golgotha tell us something about catholicity and protestantism. I'm weird, I know.

The Church of the Holy Sepulcher sits atop the traditional site of Golgotha. catholic Christians have worshiped there for centuries. The problem was, this site did not look like a skull (Golgotha="place of the skull") and did not seem to have a garden nearby. In 1883 General Charles Gordon proposed another site, because it was a raised area that looked like a skull and was near a garden. This seemed to make sense, and since modern scientific thinking is superior to tradition, mostly Protestant Christians have been worshiping at Gordon's Calvary since.

But then they started digging at Holy Sepulcher. And they discovered that it was an unquaried portion of rock, with tombs cut into the side (would have looked like a skull) and then found evidence of arable land nearby. They also discovered that the closest gate to the city is called the "garden gate". It began to look like the traditional spot made more sense as the true location of Golgotha.

This story is interesting to me as being a kind of analogy of protestant and catholic history. First you have the catholic tradition, pointing back to the past, based on the past, but covered over by enough layers that its not clear exactly where it all started and how it originated. Then you have the Protestants, rejecting traditionalism in favor of refreshed views without the "layers" conflating everything. And yet founded more or less on the interpretations of the Reformes in place of tradition. Both traditions worship Jesus, even though from different "hills" or supporting structures.

At the two Golgothas, it is a beautiful thing that Christians bow in worship. In these two streams of Christianity, it is a beautiful thing that Christians bow in worship. But unfortunately, at Holy Sepulcher, the church hides the real tomb. At Gordon's Calvary, Gordon's hill attracts folks away from the real tomb. In catholicism, medieval conflations often hide the Gospel, while in protestantism enlightenment intrusions often attract people away from it.

When they bypassed some some accrued layers at the traditional Golgotha, revealing the authenticity underneath, we were closer to finding the truth. And then we began to realize that the other Golgotha is founded more on Charles Gordon than anything else.

The catholic tradition, if peeled back to the first five centuries, and the protestant tradition, if reconnected to those same five centuries, may have more in common than we think. Perhaps both traditions can end up worshiping together in the basement of Holy Sepulcher, with the medieval conflations of catholicism bypassed and the enlightenment intrusions of protestantism left on Gordon's hill.

Engaging Atheism by Taking It Seriously

I always hate it when theists reject the idea that an atheist can be sincere. That is, we sometimes belittle atheism as a "head in the sand" kind of mentality which will usually be exposed to be motivated by personal hurt or anger against God. "There are no atheists in foxholes" we remind ourselves.

So we assume that some deep wound or maybe some deep arrogance leads to atheism. Unfortunately for that theory, deep woundedness and arrogance which generate theology or philosophy are not particular to atheism. We human beings share those things and they drive us more often than we are happy to admit.

Why do we like to assume that only a wounded or arrogant (or both) person could disbelieve in God? One reason might be that we are insecure about our own faith, or don't desire to engage with atheism, or simply don't have time. So we find it easier and safer to simply write atheism off as just an illogical or totally emotional reaction.

That is not to say that no Christian takes atheists seriously. Obviously those theistic philosophers who engage with atheist philosophy and philosophers do so, and do so well. But in popular Christianity, and in American theism, we tend to simply write it off.

But if most atheists, or agnostics for that matter, are actually seeking after truth, trying to understand and decipher the mysteries of the universe, then we may have reason to engage. We might have reasons to take atheism seriously. And we also may have much peril in ignoring and mocking it.

If atheism is not simply or exclusively arrogance or and expression of anger, then it could have a powerful intellectual and philosophical attraction(and does for many). Any powerfully attractive non-Christian philosophy or theory is a de facto place for us to engage. St Paul is the best example from Scripture of a Christian who saw his ministry as engaging with the powerful religious and philosophical thinking of his day.

All Christians do not have a particular calling to study, debate, and dialogue with atheists and atheism. Not at all. That would be a huge waste of time and resources. I just mean that as we encounter atheists, or atheism (a growing segment of Europe and lately of our country) we should not be dismissive. We should not be afraid. We should not be angry. We should simply listen, observe, talk, pray, and think. We should not assume that a disbeliever is simply angry or arrogant. We should listen for reason, for thinking, learning about a life philosophy that does not, as much as is possible in our theistic culture, reference a personal God.

As a Christian, we find it sad that a human being, which we believe to be created by God, would be unaware of or disbelieving of that same creator God. We believe that knowingly seeking to overthrow a God one believes in is the height of arrogance. But we don't believe that a person who sincerely seeks truth and can't seem to see God is doing that.

Just as some Christian leaders are extremely dogmatic, unfeeling, and manipulative, so are some atheist influencers. And wherever you find this kind of thing, it stinks. But when you find an atheist or agnostic who is willing to dialogue, to listen, and to think along with you, you have found a friend. You may both be interested in convincing each other, converting each other, or at least gaining each other's respect. But you can connect at the human level, and we should do so. It is our Christian duty, loving our neighbors as ourselves.

The Shack and Why We Love the Church...

Our monthly book club likes to read and discuss, and we have great fun along the way. We have spirited theological discussions of popular and not-so-popular books. We recently paired two unpairable books, and the discussions were very interesting. The first was The Shack by W. Paul Young. The second was Why We Love the Church by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck.

We started with The Shack. We talked about the nature of the book as a fictional approach to tragedy, pain, and God's "getting right in there in the middle of it". We also discussed the criticism of the book, but mostly saw this as a misunderstanding of the nature of the book and the goals of the author (not a systematic theology, but a mystical, experiential struggle in a fictional form). Most of the group identified with Mack's struggle to reconcile God's role in human suffering. A couple of people saw that, but felt it seemed less than authentic. Everyone seemed to believe, though, that Paul Young's personal struggle with suffering comes out powerfully in the book, and that it at the very least reminds us that God doesn't hide away when we are in pain. We also briefly discussed Young's attempt to provoke the reader in terms of our gender and racial biases. We noted the "Great Sadness" as something that only God himself can bring to light and heal.

But I felt that the one main weakness of the book (which I harped on!) is that Mack reconciles with God, his family, and his own emotional self, but he never seems to be redeemed in his relationship with his church. That part is left hanging, and it implies that a Christian can be healed by God simply by encountering God without God leading the person back to community. Yet Christ himself founded the Church, so even when it messes up, it can be redeemed/renewed too, and still has an essential role to play in our healing. We all agreed, however, that Mack and many other Christians have been left so shattered by negative and disconnected church experiences, and that their healing has to start outside of that context.

So this month we selected Why We Love the Church in the hope that we could "close the loop" left open by The Shack. And we may have found the wrong book to do that.

We jumped off the starting blocks right smack dab into the author's apparently limited view of what constitutes the Church of Jesus Christ. When they refer to 'the church' they seem to be exclusively referring to the conservative, reformed, evangelical church. They don't seem to reference the whole Church in its worldwide and historic visible presence, including Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and other expressions including Anglicanism. So the book may have been better titled "Why We Love OUR church" (but don't like it very much and have to slug away every Sunday just to stay interested!). They feel that the emergent church sees Christ as a headless body, having severed the Body of Christ from Christ. And yet they pictured Christ as the head with maybe one arm and nothing else.

This was a book that should have been written, but we seem to be of one mind that these were not the guys to write it. We shared some of their critiques of the emergent or in their words the "anti-church" or "leavers" people. But we found ourselves often in sympathy with the emergent or "leavers" group as well. And their attempts to humbly admit that their tradition is often boring, irrelevant, and overly sentimental kind of worked to counteract their arguments for staying!

We agreed that the visible, institutional life of the church is vitally important, even if often in need of drastic reform. We struggled a bit to discuss how the visible church encompasses massive buildings, bad decisions, and embarrassing realities. The authors seemed to confront the "bad" parts of church life in three ways:

1. Downplay them...(discussing slavery in 2-3 paragraphs?) if that doesn't work...
2. Make people feel guilty for leaving so they will put up with bad stuff.
3. Make fun of people who have differing viewpoints or who have left.

I think our group would have preferred a book that approached the "leaving" movement in a different way:
1. Take the frustrations of folks and the Church's negatives seriously.
2. Envision how the visible, institutional life of the church is historic and global (i.e. catholic), and how supportive this community can be to our personal faith and our corporate faith.
3. Try to comprehend the differences, if possible, and to see how the emergent critiques of church life might be absorbed into church life rather than being seen as a rejection of church life.

Sadly, this is not the course these two well-intentioned authors took. In the end, the book reads more as an intramural evangelical polemic than a helpful Christian reflection.

So I'm left feeling that we have a movement of evangelicals who advocate leaving institutional church life as a way to find fulfillment and spiritual growth. We also have a movement that wants to respond by defending the status quo with no real substantive reflection or change in mind. And hopefully we have a movement somewhere that wants to see renewal within the visible Church, renewal that is catholic and irenic in spirit, attentive yet challenging to those who have left, and legacy building in terms of facing the real changes in our culture of the past 50 years (finding ways to bring the visible Church, renewed, into the next generation).

What is Man?

Biblical study, theological reflection, and teaching on the question of the nature of man are greatly needed today. This is not to say that there isn't a vast amount of study and theology available, its just to say that in our recent past we have focused more on the theology of God and Christ, apologetics, evangelism, and the work of the Holy Spirit.

There are tons of popular books out there that focus on helping Christians to embrace the acceptance of God, that he personally loves each of us in Christ, and that the Holy Spirit is present to empower and comfort us. There are tons of apologetics books helping us defend the faith, providing answers to critics, and delving into the nature of doubt, unbelief, and nagging fears. There is also a range of resources about what is called personal evangelism, encouraging believers to share Christ. Not all of these books and resources is as helpful or theologically healthy as they could be, but nevertheless the conversation is ongoing. Recent books like The Shack have generated discussion about the Trinity. We've heard a lot about where God is during pain and suffering, a recurrent theme for the past 50 years, perhaps because of the War and then the subsequent generations' desire for each person to find himself and deal with painful pasts.

I find that starting with the first councils and beyond, we've discussed the theology of the Apostles' creed, well, mostly. We've studied almost every line, argued, fought, and even, sadly, divided up over our differing perspectives. But it seems to me like in recent times we stop at "I believe in the Holy Spirit..." The charismatic movement revived that discussion, and in some ways restored the theological reflection on the person and work of the Spirit throughout all churches. And of course we've argued eschatology, the last two lines of the Creed.

But it is the theology of the next few lines after the Holy Spirit and before everlasting life that seem to be left alone:

I believe in...
the holy catholic Church
the communion of saints
the forgiveness of sins

This is the theology of man. The fall, the people of God, the Church, forgiveness, sin and is implications for our nature, our bodies, and our psychological, spiritual, emotional, and social selves.

What is man?

When we talk about Christian worldview, we usually rightly start with God, the story of redemption in Christ, and the Holy Spirit, but we seem to think that our understanding of man's nature is either undebatable or settled, or is simply unimportant. Or we simply affirm that people commit sins and that is bad. But its not quite that simple.

Human beings are complex animals. There is no easy way to describe the Christian view of how our history and nature interact with God and the world. And when we dig deeper into the various traditions, catholic, orthodox, protestant, evangelical, calvinist, arminian, on and on, we find differing perspectives on vitally important questions.

What is God's relationship to fallen man? How does he interact with those outside of Christ and the Church? What is the difference in nature between those in Christ and those outside? How is the Christian life lived? What should we expect of human beings? What does God expect? Why do people do what they do? How does the sin and the Gospel affect us socially? Psychologically? Spiritually? How is religion involved in salvation? What is sanctification in relationship to justification? What is the Church's role in the salvation of the world? How can people be human beings and yet saints?

Of course, Augustine spent much time on this (what did he not spend much time on?) and Luther and Calvin specialized in answering these questions. Arminius and John Wesley had particular answers as well. But in recent times I sense that we have papered over our understanding of man. And papering over any area of theology is not such a good idea.

I find in reading today's Christian books, and in interacting with Christians and Christian culture (largely evangelical culture), that we are very weak on 'man'. We strongly believe that God saves us through Christ through grace, by faith. But we seldom consider how God accomplishes that in the hearts of people. We often talk about evangelism, but seldom think about how the person we are evangelizing are made up as human beings. We often talk of prayer, but we rarely think of it as affecting anything but our spiritual selves. What about the rest of us? We tend to assume things about human beings that are more a product of post-enlightenment rationalism, and less a product of Christian belief.

When evangelicals from different traditions get together, we often ignore 'anthropology' because it is fraught with tensions about sovereignty, will, sin and holiness. So we ask each other if we believe in the Trinity, in Christ as the only Savior, in salvation by grace through faith. Then we shake hands and ignore what we think about mankind. And in church life, we are often ignoring this to our peril.

Here is an example. As happens very often, a man confesses to viewing pornography on his computer. As a pastor, I tell pray with him, tell him all the reasons why pornography is harmful, sinful, and destructive, and then assign him an accountability partner to keep him in line. Hopefully I continue to pray for and with him. And I hope that somehow his resolve kicks in and that he is able to kick that dark habit.

But is this really what will free a man from bondage? Am I not assuming too much of his ability to resist temptation in the false notion that providing the mind with knowledge and the heart with inspiration will free the will to choose the right? Luther said our wills were in bondage. Wesley even talked of the inability of people, in themselves, to choose the right. How could my pastoral care, in this case, reflect our Christian belief that "the heart of man is desperately wicked" and "who can know it?" How do I help this man fight the good fight of faith, while also rightly approaching him as, like myself, a fallen creature totally and completely (socially, psychologically, spiritually) dependent on the mercy and grace of God?

So many resources at hand simply reinforce the "knowledge+emotion=will" approach, tossing in a little grace, (and even Reformed resources are guilty!). Its as if we have forgotten that mankind is "prone to wander."

And what I wonder is this: Are we afraid of sin and grace? Are we afraid to say to the porn loving man that he can't turn away? Are we afraid to tell him to stop his feeble efforts at reform and cast himself on the mercy of God? Are we assuming that guilt and fear can motivate a man to change? Are we afraid to tell him the truth about his nature, and the truth about God's intervention in his life, and then just let that be? Are we trading in our faith that the Holy Spirit will work for the human confidence that guilt motivates more quickly?

And to let my sacramental theology come into play, I would suggest one place to start is the old-fashioned sacrament of confession with absolution. Wouldn't this suggest more to us sinners that God will have to, and is, doing the work. This sacrament is based on the belief that the changing of the human heart is above and beyond our reach. Perhaps we have neglected the old paths when it comes to our expectations of human beings. And in doing so, we've lost something of our understanding of how human beings actually exist in this world.

This post is not so much an answer and pointing out that we need to stop and reflect, study and pray, about the Christian view of mankind as fallen but redeemable. We probably need to dig out Augustine, Luther and Calvin, and yes, Wesley, and I would say the contemporary theologian Paul Zahl. We need a Christian view of man or we will end up with a sub-Christian or non-Christian one.

What are your thoughts?

Radical Paradoxes

The early Church preached the Kerygma – a story that with divine power in the telling. The Kerygma is in essence recorded in the Apostles' Creed:

I believe in Jesus Christ, his only son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.

Why did they believe that the simple telling of the Gospel, with the power of the Holy Spirit, had the power to unlock the human heart? What is it about this story that is so compelling?

Part of the answer must be the paradoxes involved here:

God becomes man

The Lord is a servant

Created beings kill their own creator (!)

The eternal God dies

A mortal man is resurrected

The God/man who descends to us ascends and goes away

The one who secures and offers forgiveness will be our judge


These paradoxes rattle our cages. They shake up our notions of life, they take hold in our hearts and minds. They turn over all of our assumptions. To be a Christian who believes that this story is THE story is to be a radical. It is to give up our attempts to save ourselves, to see ourselves as servants, to lay down our lives, to hope in God.

When the Holy Spirit opens ears to hear, and this story is heard, it is nothing like what we, in our fallenness, expect. At every single place it rocks our world.

So in the witness of the Gospel, we don't need reinvention, though we often need re-presentation. We don't need to dazzle, to coerce, or to fret. We only need to tell and pray. Thats it. There is power in the telling.

President Obama to Address all Public Schools

Next week, President Obama is going to video feed and internet stream a talk to all public schools.

First, I have no problem with the President doing this, except that if feels more like a "Government School" thing than a local, community based school, and I prefer the former.

Second, I don't think he will be partisan, I think he will inspire the kids to learn and stay in school and overall it will be a good thing.

BUT

What is disturbing to me is the study guide prepared by the Dept of Education. Its a pretty good preparation and follow-up, except - and this is a huge exception - it has no mention of any evaluation or critique of the President's talk.

Now, I understand that 3rd graders probably aren't ready to critique a presidential speech. But high schoolers sure are. In fact, one of the bedrocks of our democracy is the right to free speech. Kids need to learn that its no only okay to critique the President, it is important. All of the study guide materials (click here to see) are about figuring out what he is telling them to do, and then how they are going to do it. Wow. I'm shocked that High Schoolers, and maybe even younger kids, are not even being given a basic civic lesson in evaluative thinking and democratic initiative. They are simply allowed to think that if the President speaks, they are only to listen, understand, and then obey.

I really don't believe that some sinister plan is afoot. I hope its just an oversight, and that most teachers will allow room for challenge, or at least to show that challenge is valuable. But I suspect that a wave of feel good educators may be forgetting that although our current President is a good guy, that may not always be the case with future Presidents, and often it hasn't been the case. So our kids need very much to know that the President derives his power from the inalienable right of the people, and not an inalienable right for him to rule.

Thanks to Paul W. for sending me the link.

Emotional Sustainability and Diversity of Expression in Worship

Much church life and worship uses the high-test emotional model to fuel everything. Every Sunday the ‘praise and worship’ time is supposed to be awesome, and diving in full speed with full emotion and excitement (or seriousness depending on the songs) is seen as the true ideal for authentic worshippers. Everyone should be like that, all the time. Preaching is considered best when it dazzles, and fellowship is only good if the interactions are highly authentic, totally open, and deeply personal. Programs are judged, often, by the amount of moving stories that are later told. And though I love to see people set free to express their personalities and the emotions of their worship, I wonder if expecting a constant high level is really ideal for the whole community the whole time, Sunday after Sunday. Aren’t some weeks just bummer weeks?

Why not take a more "sustainable" approach? The word ‘sustainability’ is associated with energy use, but it could be used in terms of worship forms. The idea is that when we are building community and planning worship, we should be taking an approach which considers the ability of human beings to sustain high emotional levels. This sounds more scientific than I mean it to be, but really its about treating people like human beings and not angels. We people have a limit to our ability to sustain high emotional levels, don't we?

My own tradition, Anglicanism, has been called the least sentimental of the reformed and Protestant churches. And I think that is often misunderstood to mean cold or ritualistic. But I’ve found Anglican worship to be deeply moving, and though it is filled with reverence and soberness, it is also filled with wonder, joy, and loud shouts of “Alleluia!” But the emotive part of our worship, perhaps due to an English sensibility, is channeled into sustainable patterns, cycles, and seasons. There is a kind of built in calmness, not to be mistaken for apathy or emotionlessness. And I wonder if that is why I’m starting to question why we all still use bursts of emotion as our litmus test instead of looking at the long term depth of the knowledge of the love of Christ in the parishes.

And this is borne out by Scripture. If you read between the lines, you find that periods of revival are followed by long “mundane” periods. And St Paul, while fanning the flames of faith in Corinth, seems also to be settling everyone down and encouraging a more structured, ordered pattern. And this everyday pattern, if open to the needed flashes of fire, can be a more long-term approach.

I’m wondering if we tend to wrongly assume that the primary and exclusive sign of renewal and lively faith are constant high emotional states. A sign? Yes. THE sign, probably not. Perhaps this comes from our history of powerful revivals that shook the land. But when we use the revival eras as our ideal for every era, we may run into trouble. In doing so, we too often test the quality of church life and worship by simply and only looking for high enthusiasm, exuberant expression, and sentiment. Is this expectation sustainable over long periods of time for any group of human beings? We’ve treated worship and church life as if anything less than total excitement and emotion is a problem. My sense is that this is not a sustainable expectation, and it causes burnout. I think that we have often placed the unrealistic and unhelpful burden on folks to be “on” all the time.

This is a tender topic because we are all so bi-polar when it comes to talking about these things. If someone loves emotional expression in worship, especially if he has experienced rejection because if it, he may see this kind of post as just another snooty criticism of emotional expression, which it is not. It’s simply asking us to stop and question our expectations in terms of the ability of people to sustain that state over long periods of time. And to question the idea that all people should be expected to be at the same level of outward emotive expression. Perhaps there are calm, sober minded Christians who have a deep passion for Jesus which is expressed more in quietness. And if they don't shout or cry often, is that a failure, or is an emotional scale simply a fundamental part of the God-given variation among human beings? Is our worship and church life better if we take this into consideration?

Again, this is not to say that emotional experiences are harmful. In fact, they are essential because we are emotional beings. It’s not to say that sermons should be boring or that fellowship should be impersonal and cold. And its definitely not to deny that some among us could stand to loosen the collar and stop being so "dignified." It’s just to point out the simple fact that the majority of our time in life is not spent in a high emotive state and that many serious, pious, and devoted Christians are also non-sentimental people. We simply can’t sustain high emotions forever, and we can't impose it. So why do we try so hard to create such high emotion in every facet of our church life, and in each time we meet?

I would suggest that much of the correction of this over-emphasis is in attitude. That is, if pastors and worship leaders do not seem to be anxious about “having a dynamite service” then the people will probably sense permission to be comfortable in their own emotional skin. We could check our rhetoric, to make sure that we aren’t suggesting in our sermons that God is not at work unless people are highly charged. We could at least occasionally use illustrations of faithful people that are, well, mundane. We could find ways to recognize and nurture the deep piety of quieter or more serious and somber believers. We could vision a Christian life that sees the Gospel in every phase of emotional life, including the patterns of down time.

And, most importantly, we could just let worship be worship. That is, we could stop looking for the responses of the worshippers as the focus, and instead focus on blessing the God whom we worship, regardless of our feelings at the moment, high, low, or in between. We could celebrate the variety of personalities involved in a congregation gathering around the throne of God.

I hesitate to say this, but maybe in our zeal to raise emotional levels, we are going for the glitz while missing out on the substance. I wonder if, long term, treating people like people and not angels leads to more and deeper levels of emotional attachment and sentiment towards Christ and his church. If we aren’t overdoing it in trying to drum up excitement, perhaps we can create space for people to listen and hear better. I hate to use a pop psychology phrase, but just maybe, given emotional space, folks will "get in touch" with their true emotions, rather than mimicking an expected ideal. And in being given this space, perhaps the various personalities and expressions will harmonize into a beautiful picture of the New Jerusalem.

An Example of Faithful Church Institutional Renewal

In this blog, I've often discussed not throwing out the visible Church structures simply because they've been done badly. In fact, I've tried to champion the idea that institution and charism go together and that renewal can only be sustained and amplified if good organization is put at its service. After all, administration is a spiritual gift. So, if you are interested, check out this article by Gbenga Onayiga at The Nation Online (Nigeria). Akinola's approach is a great example of holding together both the visible, institutional nature of the church with the invisible, spiritual nature. They used organizational planning to work toward a healthy, growing, vibrant church institution, and the organizational model was at the service of the mission, not the other way around. Have hope, it can be done!

Believing in a shared vision, the new Primate, Peter Akinola, used the occasion of his presentation in Abuja on March 25, 2000 to flag off the process of articulating the vision of the Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion). Just two days after his presentation (March 25 -27) Akinola embarked on a 2-day visioning exercise with over 400 leaders of the church made up of all the bishops, some clergies and laities representing all the Dioceses of the Church of Nigeria. He brought in some experts in visioning process including Chief Ernest Shonekan, former Head of State and Chairman, Vision 2010 and Prof Alele Williams, Vice Chancellor of the University of Benin as facilitators. The propositions of this body which were based on the vision which the Primate sold to them were harmonized and eventually adopted as the Vision of the Church of Nigeria by the Church of Nigeria Standing Committee on June 5, 2000 at Owerri. The Vision states that:

The Church of Nigeria (Anglican Communion) shall be Bible based, spiritually dynamic, united, disciplined, self supporting, committed to pragmatic evangelism, social welfare and a church that epitomizes the genuine love of Christ.

Read it all at the Nation.

The Disciple Ship

I had a very helpful chat with a good friend this week about discipleship. He painted a picture of a baseball diamond, in which each base represents a component of our experience as disciples: initiation, empowerment, serving, with home plate representing mentoring other Christians along their way.

I appreciated the analogy, because often we aren't connecting baptism, confirmation/catechesis, praxis, and discipling in a line. They appear as discrete moments, but don't seem to be all of a piece. And often if we do connect the dots, we do it in a one-size-fits-all way which turns discipleship into a cookie cutter. Unfortunately, this can end up cutting off too much dough - the very dough God can use in the person being discipled.

As we talked, we discussed the dangers of the "discipleship movement." One of those dangers is the aiming of programs at people. The new or confused Christian sitting in the pews gets a tap on the shoulder by a well-meaning "mature" Christian. He turns around to find he is being invited into some program of change that is being planned for his life. Human nature kicks in, and resistance begins. Nobody, I mean nobody, enjoys programs of change aimed at them. And this is especially true when the program is more horizontal than lateral, more force feeding than setting the table with good food.

Another danger is the danger of turning discipleship into a program for making respectable middle class citizens out of perceived socially unacceptable people. The goal of discipleship becomes learning conservative Christian culture enough to be passable in a serious small group, to cut down on swearing and bad breath, and to see if maybe stable work is available. These middle class values become substitutes for the way of the cross and the way of Christ. Not than its a bad thing to learn the Protestant work ethic, proper grooming, and positive social behavior. Its just that they aren't the Gospel and they aren't the sign of Christian maturity. Being like Christ, the crucified one, and being humbled before all men is the biblical and historic Christian sign of maturity. And many a humble, Christ-like servants lived lives that offended the sensibilities of the middle class. In fact, most of the saints fit that category.

Discipleship that involves community, is lateral in that the disciplers are alongside and not over the disciplees, and is both about learning and experiencing is closer to the ancient Christian and biblical ideal (See Jesus approach in the Gospels). Discipleship that is relational and based on personal knowledge of each other, not on stereotypes and on programs of change is paramount. Discipleship that is patient, kind, and which is based on grace over moralism is absolutely essential. And finally, discipleship that is a process which never ends, in which everyone is considered in process, and in which the leaders are simply passing on information from further up the trail is beautiful.

Programs can fit very well into this vision. They can be the vehicle to set the table. But the basic and fundamental idea that we are all naked before God, but not ashamed in Christ, is absolutely necessary or else discipleship becomes moralism. We are all trying to learn how this works, and we will not always get it right. But if we seek humility along the way, we may find that grace is doing its lovely work and that Christ is being shown in our parishes.

Preaching Paradoxes

A preaching life is a wonderful life. It is a life of prayer, thought, study, wrestling, (outlining) and then speaking to a congregation of people who are seeking to hear God's Word. It is a life of learning about people and getting to know people. It is a life of listening and talking, reflection and observation. And it is a Gospel life.

At least that is what we hope it is. We pray that we are hearing and learning and then finding ways to preach the Gospel one more time. We hope that our message affects the psychological nature of our hearers (us too), but that it also goes deeper into the whole person. We pray that our words, when they are Gospel words, speak to the minds of people, but also sink down into the heart. We pray that the Gospel reaches the heart without staying there, effecting actions of giving. All while praying that grace is at work and not guilt, that love is inspired and not shame, that sin is pointed out, but apart from condemnation. We pray that Christ is lifted up and that all men are drawn to him. And in all of this, it is the Holy Spirit working through personality.

And in preaching, we find that God works. He works despite our obvious shortcomings, repetitive phrases, overemphasis, "adventures in missing the point" and other foibles and follies of preachers. He works, in fact, often through these quirks, as he did with the Disciples. He just loves his people that much.

Preaching is odd today, in that we don't often find a room full of people sitting quietly for 20 or more minutes, just listening to one person. And that one person is not usually very dazzling, if we are honest. And yet, there we preachers are, talking. One human being talking to other human beings. But we are to trust that preaching is a God-ordained institution, irreplacable, and imporant. Paul told Timothy to "preach as of the oracles of God." Kind of scary if you think about it. But, then again, not really. We are simply to preach believing that God can use these earthen vessels to communicate the Gospel to his people. That's the oracles of God.

As I reflect on my preaching life, I realize that often we are called upon to bring together the mystery of two seeming opposites. We are to show how Three are One, how Law points to Grace, how God became man, how justice is mercy, and how resting in Christ means lots of action. We have to stand up and say that God loves sinners while pointing out how dangerous and widespread sin and its affects are. We have to tell the world that God is offering pardon, while warning of a future judgement. We have to be sober but not lose our sense of how comic mankind can be. We have to bring heaven and earth together into one and make sure we always vision Christ as the all encompassing reality of all things. All this in twenty minutes a week (or more), and in categories and word pictures that people connect with.

But its so very worth it. It is such a beautiful thing to know that when Christ is preached, even by such a one as me, that he is drawing people to himself. It is a graceful gift to be one who stands up before the congregation and says that the God who made us remakes us. It is a surprise of Providence to find oneself in the pulpit, sometimes it even feels like a joke God is playing on the parish. Me? The bald guy who sweats, talks too fast, and thinks English grammar is interesting as an illustration? "Yes", he says, "its you. Stand up and preach my Gospel one more time." And so it goes, week by week, year by year, and by the grace of God, he will make me an old retired priest someday, a man who has finally learned that it was all him, and all about him. And I pray that preaching will be a spiritual discipline, practised and learned over a lifetime, which will shape this creature more into the likeness of Christ.

New Series at iMonk on an Evangelical Protestant Liturgy

Always love the posts a iMonk, a Southern Baptist postEvangelical former catholic and a great writer.

Check out his new post for a series on Evangelical Liturgy...

This series will assume that corporate worship is an activity of the gathered church, not a seeker event or primarily an event aimed at unbelievers. Much of what I will be describing here comes from 12 years of planning worship in a small Presbyterian Church.

This is a series that affirms my belief that post-evangelicalism- intentionally reaching back to the resources of larger, deeper, more ancient church- is the way forward for evangelicals.

Read it all at iMonk.