The End of the World As We Know It - Part 2: The Time of Crisis

In part 1 of this series I discussed how we can deal with the reality of an imperfect Bible, and even more how we can find God in that imperfect book. It's about moving away from feeling like we always need to find an explanation to justify things (which even left-leaning evangelical intellectuals have a penchant for), and how it's so hard for us to accept that the Bible -- just like us -- is an imperfect vessel where Christ indwells. So rather than always seeking to explain why that vessel is not flawed, I propose we learn how to find Christ in the middle of imperfection. Isn't that the whole idea of the incarnation?

The specific topic that was the springboard for that discussion was eschatology, and let's face it... eschatology can get really weird with all of its dragons and demons, really yucky with all of its talk of blood and torment, and really flaky with all the doomsday cults. It's not surprising that lots of Christians just politely ignore the whole thing.

While we might wish that eschatology could just be "left behind," (ba-dum-bum), I think if we look hard enough and deep enough, we will find that Matthew's Gospel, with its apocalyptic focus, has something to say about the end times that, far from being irrelevant, contains a profoundly good, life-changing message that we desperately need to hear in our time, right now. 

Matthew is writing at a time of crisis, a time where the people all felt that things had reached a critical mass and something had to give. Many feel that we are in a time of crisis today. Trump's campaign capitalizes on those feelings and fears. At the RNC Trump began his acceptance speech by saying "Our Convention occurs at a moment of crisis for our nation" before launching into a long dark litany of signs of the end that he promised to rescue us all from.

In these times of crisis, it is common for people to say that the morality and values we would ordinarily hold to should justifiably be abandoned. We can see that throughout history, and we can see it now as well. This has been the argument of those evangelicals who support Trump. They are aware that he is morally the polar opposite of a family values guy, and further aware that he is not someone who will promote peace or work to resolve conflict. Quite the contrary, he is someone who they hope will use extreme strongman tactics to "make America great," such as banning all Muslims from the country, killing and torturing the families of suspected terrorists, breaking off our NATO treaty agreements unless we "get paid" by other countries, using more nukes, revoking the freedom of the press to say anything critical of him, and a host of other things one commonly associates with the behavior of a demagogue or tyrannical dictator. Those are considered a necessary evil that is warranted in the present crisis. Indeed these evangelicals do not see these as a problem to be tolerated, but as strength and virtue. They see violence as good and trust in it as the means to being "saved" in the crisis.

This all echoes the messianic hopes people held at the time of Jesus.  Then as now, in a time of crisis people look for a strongman, a savior who will rescue us with his mighty sword. That was the messianic hope, too. They were expecting for the messiah to be a warrior-king who would kill the enemy Gentiles. They did not expect a servant-Lord who would die for sinners and offer salvation to both Jews and enemy Gentiles. The religious leaders did not expect Jesus, and it seems that many evangelical leaders are looking for a different kind of messiah today as well.

In times of crisis, the common response is to feel the need for extreme actions in response to the crisis. As Jerry Falwell Jr. put it in his speech at the RNC, "We are at a crossroads where our first priority must be saving our nation."  Consequently, as he clarified in an interview, social issues, personal morality (not to mention basic human decency) all fall to "the last ones on the list - very bottom." The basic logic here is that these things that we would normally see as immoral and hurtful are all okay in the crisis.

What is unique about Matthew's Gospel is that he proposes that our response to crisis should be the opposite -- we should not seek to justify extreme and violent responses, we should not seek to justify throwing decency and morality out the door in the state of emergency. Instead, Matthew stresses, over and over again, that the way we will save ourselves from the coming crisis is by exemplifying the way of radical love and forgiveness in the face of evil and oppression. We need to overcome evil, not by returning harm for harm, but by loving our enemies. That's the message we find repeated over and over in Matthew's Gospel. In the crisis we should not justify being less good, rather we must rise to become more good. Michelle Obama summed this up well when she shared the advice she gives to her children, "When someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don't stoop to their level. No, our motto is, when they go low, we go high."

Viktor Frankl had the opportunity to observe people from a place of profound crisis -- as a prisoner  inside of a Nazi concentration camp. There the psychologist observed that a time of crisis has the potential to bring out the best in people, and the absolute worst. He witnessed people become both angels and demons, ordinary people who in the time of crisis would either show incredible acts of selfless love and kindness or exhibit the most inhuman cruelty. We kid ourselves when we think these were monsters who do these evil things. A mother can show heroic love and "go high," but a mother can also justify unspeakable cruelty in the name of protecting her family. Frankl observed both in Auschwitz. The nature of evil is almost always one where the person committing the atrocity feels justified in their actions.

We do truly stand at a crossroads, a crossroad of the soul. In the time of crisis we have a choice to make. Will we sink to justifying hurt to protect our self interest, or will we rise to show grace, mercy, and goodness in the middle of all the ugliness and fear? In that sense the gospel is deeply personal, but it is not only personal, but also social and political. The central message Jesus preached was the "kingdom of God" -- a term whose meaning is perhaps better conveyed today as "God's politics" that is, God's way of organizing life together. The values and way Jesus showed us do not stop when we get to the political or public sphere. They are not intended to be tossed aside when things get tough. As Jesus says on the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew's Gospel, 

"You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves.

This is what God does. He gives his best—the sun to warm and the rain to nourish—to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty. If all you do is love the lovable, do you expect a bonus? Anybody can do that. If you simply say hello to those who greet you, do you expect a medal? Any run-of-the-mill sinner does that.

In a word, what I’m saying is, Grow up. You’re kingdom subjects. Now live like it. Live out your God-created identity. Live generously and graciously toward others, the way God lives toward you.” (Mt 5:43-48, MSG)

Speaking from a time of crisis himself, Matthew has an important message that we need to hear today in our time of crisis. He calls us to respond in the way of Jesus, a way characterized by grace, forgiveness, and enemy love. When they go low, you go high.

Gungor and the Two Faces of Evangelicalism

(Note: This article originally appeared on Red Letter Christians)

This past week the Christian corner of the internet has been somewhat abuzz with headlines like: Gungor drifts from biblical orthodoxy (World Magazine), Dove-Award Winning Gungor Rattles Christian World, (Christianpost) and Singer to Answer for Controversial Views (Breathecast). These articles then go on to accuse the band of “unorthodox theology” leading them to pronounce the band’s “departure from traditional Christianity” and their “wandering away from a biblically defined Christianity."

So what are these “unorthodox” and “controversial views” that put Gungor outside of the bounds of “traditional Christianity” and has thus “rattled the Christian world”?

Read more »

Re-Thinking the gospel #2: The gospel and violence

Last time I discussed how a preacher in the park said that God would send you to hell for stealing a stick of gum. Now what would you say if a person answered, 

"Well, I have never stolen anything. In fact, I have perfectly kept all of God's law. I have no problem keeping all of the commandments!"

Perhaps you would then quote Paul where he says, that no one can keep the law. Except that Paul doesn't ever say this. And guess who the person is who makes the above claim of being the perfect law-keeper? Big drum roll please... 

It was the Apostle Paul.

That's right, Paul says in Philippians 3:6 that he has kept the Torah "faultlessly." He tells us that he was "Hebrew of Hebrews," and has no problem keeping the law perfectly. Yet Paul tells he considers all of this to be "garbage" compared to Christ. Why?

Because of what it did to him.

Despite this spotless record Paul considered himself to be "the worst of all sinners." Not because he had broken any commandments or laws. Again, he was "faultless" here he tells us. No, the reason Paul tells us is "because I was a blasphemer and a violent man." Paul had participated in the violent persecution of the followers of Jesus, and he did this because he thought he was being faithful to God.

When Paul says he is a "blasphemer" this does not mean he was cussing. It means that because of his hurtful actions, he gave God a bad name. Today we experience the same thing: people who preach hate and hurt in God's name drive people from God. They give God a bad name, they make God seem like monster. When people reject this abusive image of God, that is not the blasphemy. The blasphemy, Paul tells us--his blasphemy that he came to be ashamed of--was misrepresenting who God was. As he writes (speaking to people like his former self) "God's name is blasphemed among the gentiles because of you."

Now, the ironic thing is that when people like that preacher tell us that God will send us to hell for some minor infraction, they base this on Romans where Paul says "All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Because of this, we get the idea that God is the one with the problem. So we need to tell people that God is really mad at them for some trivial thing they did. It's a message completely detached from life that paints God as a petty legalist.

The thing is, this is not at all Paul's point in Romans. His focus when he says that above statement in Romans is on violence, and more specifically on religious violence. Paul is addressing a religious audience who want God to judge, who want wrath to be poured out on the hated Gentiles. Paul is telling them--and he knows this firsthand because he had participated in this religiously justified violence himself!--that this way leads to death. He is not addressing irreligious sinners and telling them to repent of law-breaking, he is addressing religious people who believe in divine retribution and telling them to repent of that.

Now that is a sin that matters! If our only problem is that we tell a white lie or cuss when we stub our toe, then that is really pretty trivial. Many people would argue that God ought to be able to just overlook trivial things like that. After all, they would say, why can't God forgive like he tells us to? But what Paul is dealing with here is hatred, murder, and violence. People killing each other in the name of God and justice. Now we are dealing with some really serious heavy stuff that does real damage, devastating families, destroying lives. God cares about this because he cares about us.  God cannot just overlook that, because it is really hurting people he loves. Paul is not talking about trivial infractions, he is talking about sin which devastates and destroys. Paul is talking about violence.

Not only is this a very serious thing Paul is addressing, it is also quite subtle: It's pretty easy to recognize that alcoholism is bad (indeed it is a very serious sin that causes real harm). It's also easy to recognize that criminal behavior is bad (and it certainly is). But it's a lot harder to recognize the kind of thing Paul is addressing, because this is violence and hurt done in the name of God and justice. What Paul shows us is that you can be religiously "faultless" and still cause severe harm, still spread hate, still advocate for violence, but do it under the cover of God and country, do so while justifying your actions with the Bible! That was Paul's sin, and that is precisely what Paul is addressing in Romans. 

Paul is telling us that the gospel is about breaking out of that way of hurting others in God's name, breaking out of the logic of retributive justice, and entering into God's way of restorative justice demonstrated in Jesus Christ. That's an understanding of the gospel that is not only a much more accurate reading of what Paul is actually saying in Romans, but is also an extremely relevant message for us today.

Re-Thinking the gospel #1: Sin and Chewing Gum

Yesterday, I was walking through Dolores Park and heard a street preacher, saying "If you've ever stolen a stick of gum, then you are guilty of sin! If you've ever looked at Facebook at work, then you've stolen from your employer, and that's sin!" Of course we all know where he was headed: If we have sinned--even with a trivial infraction like a stick of gum--then God who is holy must punish us for all eternity in Hell unless we accept Jesus right now.

I mean, seriously, gum? Why can't God just get over it? Is God less moral than all of us are? This is not a picture of holiness, it is a picture of a petty tyrant. Aside from the horrible picture of God that this gives us (and honestly, who could ever love, trust, and feel safe around a God like that?), what this ultimately does is trivialize sin. It makes sin into a petty infraction of little consequence.

We live in a world with real hurt. All you need to do to see this is read the headlines, and you will see story after story of terrible injustice, violence, and suffering throughout the world. So much so it can overwhelming. If you spend the time to really listen to those around you, and will hear stories of deep hurt, broken families, broken people. We do not need to make up fake problems about chewing gum. There are plenty of real problems and hurt in our lives.

Jesus does not focus on gum, or even going too far with your girl friend in Jr High school, or dropping an F-bomb when you stub your toe. His overwhelming focus was on things that have deep and devastating effects on people's lives--the alienation and estrangement that can come from poverty, sickness, and  injustice. That's what Jesus spent the majority of his time focusing on. They matter more because they have more profound consequences. If you feel worthless, condemned, cut off, this is devastating in a way that affects the whole course of your life.

And here's the thing: Jesus did not tell people that this was a sin. He did not tell them to repent of this. Instead, he demonstrated the care and nearness of God to them. He healed the wounded and embraced the untouchable. The biggest problem, as Jesus saw it, was not that we had done things that were wrong and needed to seek forgiveness from an angry God. Our biggest problem was that people felt cut off from God, forsaken.

This, I would propose, is the #1 struggle that people have with God today. What drives so many people to atheism is not selfishness or hedonism, but the experience of abandonment in the face of suffering, grief, and injustice. In fact, it is a problem that touches us whether we are people of faith or completely secular. In the face of debilitating illness or tragedy we can feel isolated and alone. Similarly, those who have experienced violence know as well that this can make you feel helpless and abandoned.

These are things that can bring us to act in hurtful and destructive ways, but the root problem is not this hurtful behavior (this is a mere symptom), our problem is separation. Our problem is relational.

Now, of course where there is hurt and injustice, there are not only victims, but also those who have hurt others. Surely it is right to call people on their hurtfulness, but the focus needs to be on helping these people to develop empathy, and all the more, our main focus really needs to be on caring for those who have been hurt.

This was the clear focus of Jesus. Yes, he confronted those who hurt others (especially those who did so in the name of religion). Yes, he taught us all to walk in the way of compassion and empathy (which he referred to as  "love of enemies"). But the majority of his time Jesus spent caring for those who had been shut out and wounded, his focus was on victims.

Yes, you heard me right: when we place the focus on sinners in need of repentance we do not share the focus of Jesus. That is simply not how he understood his mission, how he understood the gospel.
It is part of it, but when we make it primarily about this we shrink the gospel, and make it irrelevant to those who are not struggling with this particular issue. In focusing on defining ourselves as "sinners in need of repentance" we have placed the focus on redeeming those who harm others (which includes us), often ignoring the needs of those who have been harmed (which includes us, too). This is simply not the focus of Jesus.

It is good to seek to redeem those who harm, but this cannot mean that we neglect to care for those who have been harmed. That's why Jesus cared so much about issues of poverty, sickness, and a host of other social issues tied to self-worth which can separate a person from God and life which we as the church have so often overlooked. Read the gospels and note that Jesus spends the vast majority of his time demonstrating God's love to those who feel cut off due to suffering and injustice, and relatively little time telling people to repent. In fact, when he does tell people to repent it is almost always addressed to the religious people who were shutting out the poor and the least!

Again, the point here is not to condone sin, not to say "we have grace so let's do whatever." Far from it! The point is to recognize that the problem is much bigger than rule-breaking, and the gospel actually addresses that big problem in a very deep way.  We don't need to make up fake problems (like chewing gum). There are very real problems that we all experience right now, and Jesus clearly addresses these problems. This is what we need to deal with.

That means that the gospel is not some irrelevant problem that we need to convince people they have (God is mad at them for some minor infraction or because of original sin), but rather it addresses our real need in a real way. That includes hurtful behavior (what we call "sin") but it goes way deeper than just the outward behavior--it deals with the heart.

God is not a petty legalist who is angry about every stick of chewing gum. It's just the opposite: God wants us to care for the other. God wants us to care for those whom we value the least. If God cares about sin, it's because God cares about you and me. "As you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me." God cares because God loves us, and wants us to stop hurting each other. So what we need to learn is how to love like Jesus does. That has nothing to do with rules and everything to do with relationship.

The focus therefore is not about how "good" you need to be in order to make it into heaven, or on whether God can overlook that bad thing you did. It's not about using Jesus as a legal loophole so you can get your ticket to heaven. That ultimately leads to self-focus, and we need to instead be relationally-focused. We need to care about hurting each other, we need to be active in making things right. Because, to paraphrase Jesus on the sermon on the mount: You are worth much more to God than chewing gum.

Next time: Paul's view of sin as religious violence in Romans

A Christus Victor presentation of the atonement [VIDEO]

I don't normally like these kinds of skits, but this is just beautiful. It really captures the gospel, both in how it captures the real depth and harm of our brokenness, and also in how it shows how God in Christ acts to break us out of our hurtfulness and restore us into a loving relationship. I can't watch this without crying.

Love Wins - rethinking the gospel

I'm reading through Rob Bell's new book Love Wins and am loving it so far. He begins the book in the preface by saying its good to ask hard questions, that God wants us to ask them, and then proceeds in the first chapter to ask a bunch of hard questions about the "good news" of the gospel that can sound like bad news:

God loves us.
God offers us everlasting life by grace, freely, through no merit on our part.
Unless you do not respond in the right way. Then God will torture you forever.
In Hell.
Huh?

Is God really going to torture people you love forever in hell because they didn't accept his love? Is that how love acts? is that what grace looks like? Is that what justice looks like? Is that what holiness looks like?

Hell no.

Isn't God the one who teaches us to forgive and love our enemies? So if that's true, then why would God act the opposite? I'm sure you've heard people say it is because he takes sin so seriously, but really doesn't that in fact trivialize sin? Doesn't it make God look petty and unjust? That is one of the biggest reasons people leave the faith, that and all the suffering and injustice in the world. In short, the major reason people leave Christianity is because of moral outrage, because sin--real sin, the kind that deeply wounds people, the kind that destroys lives--is not being taken seriously enough.

What about rape? What about abuse? What about all the violence and oppression in our world? That's the kind of thing that I think God cares about, and he cares because these things are killing us, and he loves us. God is not concerned with his "glory" because God is not egotistical. God is love, and that means that what God really wants, what it truly means to love him, is to love each other. That's a point you will find being made over and over in the NT.

The heart of the gospel is that God does not come to judge us (even though he hates these horrible things we do to each other), he comes to save, he has come to pull us out of that world of hurting and being hurt. That's what real justice is about, making things right, and that is what Jesus was all about.

That way of making things right--the gospel--begins with God entering into our hearts and lives and showing us what it means to be loved. I'm taking here about being born again, about having a personal relationship with God where you come to know God's loving grace first hand, where God just pours his love out on you until it completely changes who you are.

One place I disagree with Rob is when he says that the phrase "relationship with God" is not in the Bible. Of course it is not there verbatim, but then a lot of things are not which are still truly biblical. Like the Trinity for example. The question is whether the concept is there, and I think it clearly is (both the Trinity and relationship with God). Loving God, Jesus says, is the "greatest commandment." But as I said, it can't stop there. If we really love God, if we really know grace, know what it means to be loved unconditionally, then this can't help but spill out into all of our life. We will feel compelled to live out that grace with others, to love like Jesus did.

That is the urgency that Jesus preaches: stop hurting each other, stop with your stupid wars and killing in God's name, stop with all the condemnation and hatred! Learn the way of the cross, the way of overcoming evil with good, the way of enemy love. That is a way that is not just some trivial religious concern which seems so tangential to life, it is about real stuff, life and death stuff, quite literally.

Living in that is the gospel. The gospel is absolutely inseparable from love of enemies. In other words, the gospel is about radically loving everyone. That means that we have to care about poverty and starvation (Jesus certainly did!), we have to care about human trafficking and war and corporate abuse and a host of other social causes because belonging to Jesus means we care about people.

That's the gospel: being loved by God so that we can know love and walk in the way of love--knowing grace firsthand so we can show that grace in a world that desperately needs it.

Getting Historical Jesus Study Wright and Wrong

I recently blogged about why the historical study of Jesus is a waste of time. There I argued against the prevalent mode of historical Jesus studies, which has been to pick which sayings of Jesus are "authentic" and toss out the rest. Apparently, I am not the only one who has problems with this. For example a few months ago Scot McKnight wrote a scathing article in Christianity Today where he made many of the same points I did in my previous blog post here. In his response to McKnight, NT Wright argued that there is a "massive gulf" between the way he (and a few others) do historical Jesus studies, and the kind of historical Jesus studies that McKnight and I are criticizing. What Wright does in contrast is all about understanding the historical context and worldview of the time so that we can then read the canonical text without projecting our own assumptions and worldviews into it. This is something that I could whole-heartedly embrace. So I guess I should re-title that blog post "why the historical study of Jesus was a waste of time until NT Wright came along."

That said, there are some problems that folks have raised with Wright's historical reconstruction of Jesus. I'd like to discuss two of those here and then offer my own thoughts about them. They are (a) the existence of heaven, and (b) the doctrine of justification. So pretty heavy-duty topics. Let me also say at the outset that I offer these critiques with great respect. NT Wright is not only a brilliant scholar, he is also a caring pastor with a real heart for people and for ethics, so I know that the issues I'm raising here are ones he cares about too.

Imagine There's no Heaven. NT Wright has made a point of saying that the NT does not teach that Christians go to heaven when we die. One example of this is an interview he gave in Time magazine called "Christians Wrong About Heaven, Says Bishop." Instead Wright focuses on the larger message that we will all one day rise when Jesus comes back. That of course raises the question: where are my loved ones now? Markus Bockmuehl gave a talk at this years Wheaton Theology Conference (check out the link for video and audio of all the talks) where he demonstrated persuasively from biblical evidence that Wright was wrong about this (or at least that he is only telling half the story). Believers when they die will indeed go to be with Jesus and the community of the saints and be in heaven with God. In the following panel discussion session, Wright does not really disagree with Bockmuehl (although he feels a bit misunderstood), and instead stresses that the reason he focuses so much this non-heaven line is because he wants to get away from the escapist notion of heaven that is so common. Fair enough, but that's like saying God does not exist because people's faith is too escapist (which is of course exactly what the New Atheists do).

So what we have is a matter of emphasis: The NT says that we go to heaven (or if you prefer, we go to "be with Jesus"), and it says that we will all rise in the great resurrection. The focus of the NT is on the later. What then happens is that Wright will be quoted by Time or some other news source which will then simplify this to "Christians Wrong About Heaven" and next thing you know folks are going claiming there is no such thing as heaven (and I've heard seminarians claim exactly that). Wright does not mind this so much because he believes that it is important that we draw our attention away from heaven which he associates with escapism. Here he is making a legitimate ethical point (our concept of heaven should not be escapist), but he is doing so with the wrong means (saying as a historian and scholar that the Bible does not teach that we go to heaven).

This illustrates something that happens all too often with historical Jesus studies: Scholars will use their authority status as historical experts to make ethical points. The very same thing happens when other historical Jesus scholars claim that Jesus did not actually say something which... big surprise... they don't like. Now it is certainly valid for these scholars to make such ethical points, but we need to be very careful here. It is very important to be forthright about the ethical claims that are being made, and not mask these behind the mantle of objective historical research. That would be a misuse of both ethics and historical study, and do a disservice to both disciplines.

What Wright is saying is an ethical point: we should care for this earth. We should be involved in healing our world here. I totally agree with him on that (and highly recommend his closing talk). But that is really an ethical and theological issue, and needs to be discussed openly as such. Frankly, I do not find Jewish apocalyptic helpful at all in working towards this. I find on the contrary that it muddies the waters quite a bit. Maybe that's just me, but I think the focus needs to be on how we can implement the kingdom teaching and actions of Jesus right now in our lives, and not on grasping some foreign concept of eschatology from another worldview. That gets our focus off of what it should be on, which is embodying Christ-like action in our world.

Does Luther get Justification Wrong? Another issue is related to Wright's take on the New Perspective on Paul, which basically says that Paul in Romans is not focused on answering Luther's question of "how can I find a gracious God?" and instead is arguing against issues of food laws and ritual observances. Now I've personally been a proponent of the New Perspective (in particular the version espoused by James Dunn). I find it brings a lot of things to light that had been missed before, like how the gospel deals with issues of religious violence, and exclusiveness. I think it is fair to say that the New Perspective gets Paul right historically in a way that Luther does not.

That said, I think that Luther did manage to see how Paul's message of grace in his own time spoke directly to the issues that Luther was dealing with in his. A first step in biblical interpretation is to understand the original context and meaning, but then we need to go beyond that ask how the text might speak to our own pressing questions. Otherwise it just becomes a letter dealing with issues that were important in the past, which are no longer relevant to us today (food laws, circumcision, etc).

So I think it would be a mistake is to say that the New Perspective is the one right way to read Paul. Wright however does seem to place precisely that kind of priority on his historical reading, and that is what I would want (lovingly I hope) to challenge. The New Perspective definitely has many profound insights that we need to hear, but then so did Luther and the protestant reformation. Why can't we hear and learn from both of them? The other Martin Luther (King Jr.) also read the New Testament and found it speaking to issues of racial justice and equality, applying it in ways that the original authors also had not directly envisioned at the time. Do we need to dismiss that too because it is equally unhistorical? On the contrary, I'd say that what Luther and MLK were doing is exactly what we are supposed to do too. We too need to learn how to read the Bible and see how it message speaks into our lives and world today. That is after all the theological task: not just to correctly read the past, but to construct a vision for how to apply the gospel to our time. That means we will need to deal with things which were not even on their radar back then: world hunger relief, globalization, medical ethics, and on and on. Historical grounding is a great place to start, but it is not where we should stop.

Why the historical study of Jesus is a waste of time

First let me say that understanding the original history and context—that is, the background material—in which the New Testament takes place is without a doubt a very valuable task. We want to understand the original context of the writers of the NT so that we do not simply impose our doctrinal and cultural biases on to the text but actually hear what the NT authors are telling us. So I am not saying we shouldn't study. I've spent a lot of time deeply studying such things and maintain that such education is very important.

My gripe is with the very specific way that the quest for the historical Jesus, rooted in the assumptions of the historical-critical method, presents a view of Jesus that is deliberately opposed to the message of the New Testament. Rather than helping us to get closer to the original church and to the Bible, it denies this and pulls us away from it. Let me explain:

One of the main tasks of historical scholarship consists in determining the so called "authentic saying of Jesus." To do this scholars will distinguish sayings of Jesus that they believe come the Q source as opposed to for example a saying that is unique to Luke's gospel. One major element here is the distinction between Jesus understood in the light of his crucifixion and resurrection on the one hand (which they reject as "inauthentic"), and a pre-resurrection understanding.

Now the gospels are all about a message preached to us that the disciples finally got after its fulfillment—after Jesus was crucified, raised from the dead, and the Spirit was imparted to the church. It was in that light that the disciples finally understood what Jesus was about all along and this is what we read in the four Gospels. All the stuff that Jesus did and said leads up the cross and resurrection. It gives us the context for understanding the cross and what it means, and at the same time it was only after Jesus rose that they could look back and say "ohhhhh, now I get it!" The gospel's stories (Jesus healing and redeeming people, and his radical teaching) go hand in hand with the climax of that story at Easter and Pentecost.

Now the historical search instead ignores the resurrection and wants to reconstruct a hypothetical version of Jesus as if there was no resurrection. In doing this they need to reject the entire point of the gospel writers, and toss out their message, calling it "inauthentic". They thus present a version of Jesus that Peter, Paul and John never believed in. Indeed most of the time in their so-called historical reconstruction Jesus either ends up coincidentally looking like a reflection of these scholars, or a version of Jesus emerges that these scholars themselves can't do anything with and thus reject as "not compatible with the modern worldview." As a result this "historical" study does not help us understand the NT better, it begins by rejecting the very assumptions of the NT: the resurrection.

So why would we want to listen to anything that these "experts" say to us? Why would I want to listen to someone who is pulling be away from the message of the NT? I find life when I read the gospels and the NT because it brings me into the same encounter of God in Christ that the New Testament authors had. That encounter with the God of grace transforms me, fills me with new life, and as a result I want to listen to them. I trust them because it is through them that I found life, and found the risen cruciform Jesus. The message of the gospel brings life. In contrast to this the message of these historians brings doubt, cynicism, and darkness. It causes me to doubt the words of Christ as "inauthentic" and urges me to just toss out big portions the the NT as a result.

So when I read the gospels I am not interested in figuring out what came from the Markan tradition or what came from Q. I am interested in simply reading what the gospels actually say and understanding that as well as I can. Now there are many scholars who I think can help us in doing this. Ernst Käseman, Joachim Jeremias, James Dunn, and NT Wright all spring to mind. But when I hear people speak of determining the "authentic sayings of Jesus" all sorts of alarm bells go off in my head because this signals for me "let's try and go in the wrong direction away from the NT proclamation." Sorry that's not where I'm headed.

EDIT: I've been thinking a bit more about this and wanted add an important point. I don't so much disagree with the historical conclusions of these scholars. I think they get their facts right much of the time. What I disagree with is the prescriptive conclusions they draw. That is, I think it is probably true that Jesus and Paul have a perspective that comes out of Jewish apocalyptic background while Mark, Luke, and John all approach faith more from a Hellenistic gnostic perspective. What I disagree with is that the Jewish perspective is the "right" one, and the Greek is "wrong" because this is obviously not what the early church thought when it included all of these books in the canon of the NT. What we see in the NT are two things:

1) There is a multitude of perspectives. We have some books that come from a Jewish worldview, and others that have a Greek worldview, and of course we can find even more nuance if we look closer. That means that the NT promotes diversity. It embraces the good insights of different cultures. It is not ethnocentric, but open, diverse, and broadminded. What the historical Jesus scholars get wrong is when they think they need to toss out all the Greek influence as "inauthentic" and replace it with the "authentic" or "original" Jewish perspective. This is just as close-minded as it was when an earlier church did the opposite and replaced all Jewish influence with Greek thought.

2) The NT while embracing the good it finds in multiple cultures and worldviews does not blindly accept them. It engages in a culturally critical evaluation of them, taking some parts and rejecting others. In the NT for example the exclusivity of gnosticism was rejected while the idea of immediate experience of the presence of God was embraced. Similarly, while Jesus was Jewish his Judaism (and Paul's) was one that rejected the ethos of violence running through the OT. So along with an embrace of diverse perspectives we also find their critical transformation by the NT authors.

So we find a picture of diversity, that is at the same time culturally critical in the NT. That's pretty cool, and honestly if it were not for historical criticism we wouldn't have noticed that. So I take back what I said in my blog post title here. I don't think that the historical Jesus is "a waste of time". It is valuable because it allows us to appreciate the broad range of perspectives that make up the NT witness. What I maintain however is that when these historians say that one particular cultural perspective is the authentic, real, good one, then at that point they are not only being narrow-minded, they are also going against the New Testament which embraces all cultures in order to lovingly transform them. Their historical analysis is right, but their interpretive prescription is wrong, and the NT has in contrast a hermeneutical prescription that is a lot more insightful and complex in how it engages culture.

A Subversive Easter Message

I've been spending a lot of time lately looking at the way the Old Testament is quoted in the New, and I've found something pretty surprising: 9 times out of 10 the New Testament citation completely flips the original meaning of the Old Testament passage on its head! Take for example Paul's Easter message in 1 Cor 15 where he writes that "The last enemy to be destroyed is death" (1 Cor 15:26). Paul then quotes the familiar line "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?" and declares that "The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor 15:55-57). As Paul is using the phrase, Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? is addressing a defeated death: where is your sting now, O death? For you have been defeated by Christ! But take a look at the original passage in Hosea that Paul is quoting from:

"Shall I ransom them from the power of Sheol? Shall I redeem them from Death?
O Death, where are your plagues? O Sheol, where is your destruction?
Compassion is hidden from my eyes." (Hos 13:14 NRSV)

The sense here is the opposite of what Paul is saying. It is about inviting death to come and destroy Israel in punishment. The NET translation makes this difference quite clear:

"Will I deliver them from the power of Sheol? No, I will not!
Will I redeem them from death? No, I will not!
O Death, bring on your plagues! O Sheol, bring on your destruction!
My eyes will not show any compassion! (Hos 13:14 NET)


Now in both Hebrew and Greek there are no question marks (or any punctuation at all), so you can't really tell whether it says "Shall I redeem them from Death?" (a question) or "I Shall redeem them from Death" (a promise), but it is pretty significant that most English translations (NAB, NASB, NCV, NRSV, TEV, CEV, NLT, NET) read this as a rhetorical question that implies a negative answer "Do you seriously think I will rescue you from death!?" The only exceptions to this reading are the NIV and KJV. Similarly, most English versions translate the part quoted by Paul to mean "What's keeping you death? Come!" meaning Hosea is not mocking death, but calling for death. Now how do we know that this is what Hosea meant? Context. Look at the last line: "Compassion is hidden from my eyes" and then read the whole chapter too and you'll see it ends by saying,

"They will fall by the sword;
their little ones will be dashed to the ground,
their pregnant women ripped open." (Hos 13:16 NIV)

This was not good news when Hosea said it, but Paul has turned it around. He has taken a passage which in its original context was about death being poured out on people and made it about humanity being liberated from death because of the Resurrection where Christ overcame death. Again, if you look at how the NT quotes the OT you will find that most of the time it is reversing the original context, subverting it, redeeming it. It takes the original context which says "I hate my enemies and want to destroy them" and makes it about redemption, forgiveness, and making things new again. I love that.

I could go on for pages and pages with other examples of this. If you want to see for yourself, just pick any passage from the NT that is quoting from the OT and then read the whole OT chapter to see what the original context was. You'll see that over and over the NT turns the original meaning around. If you ever wondered why it was that the disciples were so shocked that Jesus had to die on the cross, it's because this was a complete reversal of everything they had learned about the messiah from the prophets. They had learned from reading the OT prophets to expect the messiah to come as a warrior and kill all the bad people. The NT takes all of these messianic prophesies that are about violence and destruction and reverses their meaning. Instead of being about an oppressed people getting revenge, it makes it into a story where all of us need mercy and grace.

Now this kind of crazy exegesis that takes the meaning of a passage and turns it on its head is also exactly how we need to read life. The very heart of the gospel is that God has turned everything around at Easter. The one condemned to die is shown to be victorious. Jesus in his death has conquered death. So while we might look at our lives and see darkness, while we might see pain and hurt, while we might be hopeless screw-ups, God says to us through the resurrection, "behold I make all things new!" God takes what we see around us and flips it right-side up.

Christ entered into our hurt and helplessness and overcame it. That's why the early church could have hope in the middle of horrible persecution, that why people who are suffering can find hope in the middle of that blackness, that's why those who are wracked with guilt and feel helpless to change get so overwhelmed by grace. So my prayer for you this Easter is that you could find a way to see yourself the way God sees you, that we all would learn to see grace in the middle of our messed up lives, to have eyes that see hope in a dark world. It can be really hard to see that sometimes. But that is the truth of the Resurrection. Love has and will overcome hate and hurt. Because of that, nothing you have done, nothing that has been done to you needs to define who you are. In Christ we can be re-defined by grace.

Happy subversive Easter. Christ is risen!

Junkboy

I was recently asked if there was a gospel tract that expressed the Christus Victor model of the atonement. An alternative to those nasty Chick tracts that talk about threat and fear and ticked off God. I was reminded of a little book I read a long time ago in German called "Ein Ganz normaler Müllmensch" (trans: "Just Your Average Junkboy") that I really loved. Since there is no English translation, I decided to translate this sweet little tract myself for you (and you thought knowing German was only good for reading Karl Barth!).

So without further ado, I present to you the story of Junkboy. Just click the picture below to read the rest.

Atonements Debate: A Response to Recent Criticisms

I'm reading through the book The Atonement Debate which is a collection of essays by evangelical theologians who gathered together at a symposium hosted by the Evangelical Alliance and the London School of Theology to debate the pros and cons of penal substitution in the wake of the recent controversy in Europe sparked by a comment by Steve Chalke in his book The Lost Message of Jesus that was critical of the doctrine.

In this post I want to address the chapter by Garry Williams entitled "Penal Substitution: A Response to Recent Criticisms". Williams begins by addressing a criticism raised by Steve Chalke: that it would be inconsistent for God to command us not to practice retribution, if God made retribution the center point of his redemptive work in Jesus. Chalke sums up his position saying that "I for one believe that God practices what he preaches". Williams in response argues that God does in fact have a right to act differently than humans do. He appeals to Paul's argument in Romans 12 where he urges us not to practice retribution, but to leave that to God.

Williams is, I think, right in saying that God is not subject to the same rules as humans are. God can judge in a way that no human can. God has a right to demand our worship in a way that no human does. So Williams makes a valid point here generally. However, while we cannot take everything God does is a model for human behavior (since we are not God), the cross is presented in the New Testement specifically as a model for ethical behavior. So we can and should take the message of the cross as a model of how we should act. Paul grounds his teaching on ethics in Philipians on our imitaion of the way of the cross. Jesus also calls us to "take up our cross" and follow him. If, as Williams insists, the central message of the cross is a demonstration and affirmation of retribution, this would mean that retribution is being set forth as a model of human interaction. If the "way of the cross" is the "way of retribution" then we are called to follow in that way. Since we clearly are not called to practice retribution in the New Testament, retribution is not the "way of the cross".

Secondly, Williams in championing retribution seems to be missing the larger point of the gospel. Even if we do accept that divine retribution is justified and right, and that we as sinful humans are headed towards that judement, this by itself is by no defintion the "gospel". The gospel is a way to avoid that retribution, a way for God to not send us to Hell. The whole point of the gospel is that the economy of quid pro quo justice, of get what you deserve, of sewing and reaping is superseded by the superior economy of grace where God acts, despite the fact that we have not earned it, to save us, heal us, and set us free. I am sure that Williams agrees with all of this, but his focus on retribution seems to loose sight of the larger perspective of salvation and grace.

This is not simply a matter of semantics. Williams, in focusing his soteriology seemingly exclusivly on the idea of retribution leaves no room for the idea of sanctification. As Williams puts it, the only problem is the need for punishment. Once that punishment is "exhasted" on Christ, Williams says, the "obstacle" to new life is removed. In other words, there is no objective onological problem of sin in people that needs to be healed, the problem is with God. Here I think Williams gets it backwards. If God is angry at sin, it is because sin is a real problem. Remove the problem by healing the sin, and you remove the cause of God's righteous anger. So God acts in Christ to heal, to cleanse, to renew, to sanctifiy, to liberate, to make us new, thus addressing the problem of sin which is our problem.

The papradigm here is a medical one. If a person is sick they need a doctor. That is precisly the reason Jesus gives of why he has come to seek sinners: they are sick and need a doctor. If salvation is framed however only in terms of retribution, then the entire idea that sin is a problem that needs to be healed is simply lost. Sin becomes only an act that needs punishment, and once that punishment is taken care of, the problem just vanishes. This strikes me as a very shallow understanding of the depths of human brokenness. There are real consequences to us hurting and being hurt. Deep and profound consequences. We might even describe them as a kind of "retribution" flowing out of that action, as Williams does. But the task of salvation is for God to break that vicious cycle, to set us free from that bondage, to heal our brokenness, to make us new and clean again. That's a perspective that allows for the reality of so called "divine retribution" (and we do need to be very cautious of such phrasings as they can easily evoke a picture of sinful and petty human anger), but views it in its proper perspective within the larger picture of God's redemptive work. Simply put, it is the dilema, not the solution. The solution is grace, which is a creative, restorative, transformative, action of God, not an inaction.

Biblical Literalism & Conservative Values

It's common for people to link authoritarian conservative values with biblical literalism. I'd say however that the opposite is the case: strict biblical literalism leads away from authoritarian conservative values and towards compassionate redemptive values because (hold onto your hat) authoritarian conservative values are anti-Gospel.

Before I explain what I mean, let me first define biblical literalism. Of course it does not mean taking every part of the Bible literally. It does not mean "in accordance with... the primary or strict meaning of the word or words; not figurative or metaphorical". No one thinks for instance that when the Bible describes God as "a rock" that God is literally an inanimate stone composed of minerals. We all get that this is a metaphor. So what does it mean? A literal interpretation of the Bible is "adhering to the primary meanings of a term or expression," the "plain" or "unadorned" meaning. The confusion with the term "literal" is that the meaning of the word has changed over time. It used to mean "plain meaning" and now it means "non-metaphorical"

All biblical literalists interpret the Bible by looking for the plain meaning and intent of the author. So while all get that when David says "My heart has turned to wax; it has melted away within me" that he is being melodramatic not literal, a literal interpretation would claim that Jesus really did raise from the dead because all indications say that the authors did not intend for this to be taken as a metaphor, but as historical fact. A literal interpretation is all about the intent of the author. When Jesus says to a young man "Go, sell everything you have and give to the poor" a literal interpretation would think that he really meant that.

The funny thing is that the verses quoted to back up an authoritarian conservative view of morality - strict adherence to the law, severe punishment as a consequence of transgression, no mercy without payment, a low view of humans as evil, etc - invariably come from the Old Testament. If you read the New Testament literally the clear picture you get is of grace. Its a picture of God loving his enemies, of God coming among us in Christ "not to condemn sinners but to save them." It is a picture of God valuing redemption over retribution, and taking any blame, condemnation, humiliation, and damnation upon himself at Calvary. It is a clear message to us that grace should likewise be our ethic, that love trumps everything, that we should always seek redemption, and rather be wronged than seek an eye for an eye. This is absolutely everywhere throughout the New Testament. The picture is not of a strict Father God who demands unquestioned obedience or responds with corporal punishment, it is the picture of God the Father in the story of the Prodigal son who is so loving that it is humiliating to the older son and to the values people held at the time focused on upholding honor. It was a scandal, and still is, but that amazing shocking counter-intuitive picture of grace is the Gospel, it is the image of God incarnate. Read the New Testament literally, and you get a morality based on grace that is in stark opposition to an authoritarian conservative morality. That morality is described as the sinful flesh, as the way of the world.

Now this does not mean we can simply toss out the Old Testament, but you will not find a conservative theologian who would not agree that the New Testament contains a superior and fuller revelation of God's heart than the Old. All would agree that we read the Old Testament in the light of the New, as seen through the eyes of Jesus. Yes, the OT lays out the basis upon which the fuller revelation of the NT is laid, but that does not means that when Jesus says "you have heard it said... but I say to you" that we can ignore his words. We are followers of Jesus the Christ, not followers of Mosaic law. Grace trumps law.

So if that's the case, why is it that so many evangelicals quote almost exclusively from the Old Testament? It's almost as if they have never even read the New Testament(!). My theory is that this is because most sermons focus on Old Testament narratives. If you go to a conservative church like I do, then I'm sure you've noticed this. Most sermons do not preach out of the New Testament, they preach out of the Old. The reason is that pastors are taught in seminary that narratives preach better, and the Old Testament has lots of narratives. So they tell a story from the Old Testament and connect it with a moral. But half the time these are sub-Christian morals. Why they do not preach a narrative from the Gospels is frankly beyond me... maybe they want to save them for Christmas and Easter. But my prescription is going to sound very traditional: we need better biblical preaching, and we need to read our Bibles, we need to let the way and heart of Jesus sink into our bones, we need to have his eyes to see, have his heart, have his values. And those values, taken literally and strictly, and doing the same with the teachings of the Apostles will not lead to authoritarian conservative values, they will lead to grace. Go literalism!

Preaching grace

In the public square Christians are sadly known as people who specialize in judging others - who is moral and immoral, who is saved and who is damned. To a certain extent we do need to be able to evaluate our world, and to recognize things that are messed around us. Everyone does in fact do this. It's impossible not to. But the response that should characterize us as Christians is that of grace not condemnation. Grace recognizes that there is real wrong and hurt, real sin and evil in us and in our world, but instead of responding with condemnation, grace responds by "always hoping, always believing, always trusting". Grace does not deny or ignore the reality of brokenness in our lives, it does not pretend that we are not screwed up. Instead Grace defiantly loves and hopes in the face of our failure and stupidness. Grace counterintuitively seeks to redeem the lost causes. It looks at the reality of our world filled with suffering and injustice and insists that despite all this, we choose to believe that God's grace will still win the day.

Grace is what we should be known for as followers of Christ, but sadly we Christians are largely known for what Phillip Yancy has called 'ungrace'. Ungrace is "that state of being in which self-righteousness and pride are a result of thinking that we have somehow earned God's approval and may now stand in judgment in his behalf." In a rather amusing passage from Church Dogmatics Karl Barth sums up how ridiculous we look when we try and take on God's roll in judging,

"Man thinks he sits on a high thrown, but in reality he sits only on a child's stool, blowing his little trumpet, cracking his little whip, pointing with frightful seriousness his little finger, while all the time nothing happens that really matters. He can only play the judge." (CD IV/2 60.2, p.446)

We may think we are battling for God in our outspoken condemnation of wrong around us, but if we are not doing this in a radical spirit of grace, then we are simply not representing Christ and God. If there is one single sin in the New Testament that is seen as the most severe, the most harmful, it is the loveless judgmentalism exhibited by the religious leaders. The harshest words of Jesus are reserved for condemning exatly this sin, and Paul in Galatians has a cow when that church begins to buy into this way, asking them incredulously if they have completely lost their minds and telling them that in following this way of judgment and law they have "fallen away from grace". He means that quite literally because the way of judgmentalism exhibited by the religious leaders of our day is the opposite of grace. It is, Paul says, and 'ungospel'.

From a biblical perspective, and in particular from a New Testament perspective this is the most serious of all sins. No other sin is so harshly condemned. Yet when do you hear pastors from the pulpit confronting these religious leaders, calling them on their sin as Jesus does? Instead they manage to hide in a mantle of religious self-righteousness. As if we had never read the New Testament. The problem is not so much that there are some obnoxious people who use religion and a cover for their hate. The problem is that the church does not vocally speak out against it as clearly being the deadly sin that it is. The problem is that the way of grace is rarely ever preached.

This way of grace is not self-evident. It goes against the grain our natural (read: carnal) inclinations. So we need to hear grace preached to us so it saturates our thinking and becomes second nature to us. Christians are not those who do not judge, we are those who love, hope, and forgive in spite of seeing our own failings and the failings around us. We are not those who have it all figured out, who are upstanding and flawless. We are, as a Switchfoot song goes, "the church of the dropouts and losers and sinners and failures and the fools". We are those who love because we have been loved when we were unlovable.

The Bells, Smells, and Narrative of the Gospel

Many Emergents seem to be drawn to the "bells and smells" of traditional mainline churches. They have come to appreciate ritual and symbol. So they pray the Divine Hours, and go to Taize services. Coming from an Evangelical background of white washed walls and folding metal chairs they revel in the beauty of stained glass cathedrals and the echoing beauty of hymns like a Midwesterner raised on pork chops and mashed potatoes might eating their first Haute Cuisine meal in Paris.

My friend Suzanne once told me of how growing up in the Episcopal church she never really paid much attention to the service. Years later after having become a born again Christian, she had returned to an Episcopalian mass and suddenly the hymns were filled with meaning for her, and she could hardly believe that she had missed it all before. It had all just rolled off her back - stand up, sit down, sing a song, repeat some words - it had all just been a meaningless ritual to her. Pretty, but with no real connection to her life Monday through Saturday. Now she saw it exploding with meaning.

That's because art - all art - needs to be connected to a narrative in order to move, in order to be anything beyond aesthetics, beyond mere decoration. Suzanne connected to the bells and smells of the Episcopalian mass because she had a connection to the story that it pointed to - she had a first hand encounter with the living and risen Jesus and her story was now shaped by His story. The "art" in church was meaningful because of her narrative connection to it in the same way a certain song might capture all your feelings about something, or how a symbol like a Christmas tree might bring back all sorts of memories and feelings. In each case you are connecting that song and that symbol with your own narrative and therefore experiencing it as full of meaning.

But here's the rub: many Emergents who connect the aesthetics of traditional services to their own narratives of a relationship with God also suffer from an "allergy to evangelism". They have had so many bad experiences with hit-and-run evangelism that they have simply jettisoned the entire idea of sharing the Gospel. Instead they focus on the kingdom of God - on being involved in social justice, caring for the poor, fighting slavery and poverty and AIDS. These are all certainly vital things that we need to care deeply about and be involved in, but they do not change the fact that people also need God personally, that they need to be loved and touched and transformed by Jesus. My concern is that Emergents who have "deconstructed" evangelism and jettisoned it will go to "smells and bells" mainline churches that do not ever preach that one can have a first-hand life transforming intimate relationship with God, and that the next generation will grow up in that vacuum like my friend Suzanne and like so many others like her have - people who do not have a narrative and personal connection to the symbols and aesthetics and for whom it is therefore meaningless and empty rituals- mere Sunday decoration.

So what I am calling for with all the bells and smells surrounding you this Christmas, with all the symbols and songs, is for us Emergents to remember our narrative connection to the Gospel, to recall the story of our own encounter with Jesus, and to look for ways to invite others into that story, ways to encounter people with the living Jesus that are beautiful and creative and real. In short, the Emergent church needs to rediscover evangelism. Not an evangelism disconnected from the kingdom of God, but one that is about loving people and caring for all of who they are, one that ties personal faith together with social action.

The Two Christianities

Throughout Christian history there have been two definitions of what it means to be a true Christian. One representing the established institutional church focusing on holding onto tradition and orthodoxy, where ascribing to correct doctrine is the true test of whether one is a Christian; and the other representing renewal movements and a revitalization of personal faith, and seeing being born again and having a relationship with God as the heart of Christian faith. We can see both of these competing definitions within Evangelicalism. It is easy to think of certain groups that one could apply either focus to. For a while I thought that the "correct doctrine" was descriptive of how Calvinists understood faith, but I think that is incorrect. Even within Calvinism we find both - people focusing on correct doctrine like Charles Hodge, and others focused on a relationship with Jesus like Charles Spurgeon.

More often than not one finds both of these diverging emphases internalized in a single individual, producing a sort of theological "multiple personality disorder". For example, an Evangelical may insist on the need to adhere to correct doctrines such as the infallibility of the Bible, and declare that anyone who denies these “fundamentals” cannot call themselves a "real Christian". However, if one were to ask this same person whether the heart of Christianity is not in fact much more in knowing Jesus in a personal relationship, they would fall over backwards to agree with you. They may still insist that correct doctrine is vital, but not claim that salvation hinges on it. To those on the outside Evangelicalism seems to be focused on adherence to doctrine, to those on the inside it is focused on relationship. So why are we giving people this false impression of what the heart of faith is about?

Donald Dayton suggests that the problem is that the people who represent the public voice of Evangelicalism - those behind the microphones and writing books - are predominantly white intellectual men with a strong Calvinist background, whereas the opposite is true of Evangelicals "on the street". Historian Douglass Sweeny agrees,

“White men are in the minority, few evangelicals are intellectuals, and evangelical beliefs seldom conform to a standard Calvinistic worldview. In fact a simple head count of evangelicals, both here and around the world reveals that most of us hail from lower-class, “Pentecostal” religious traditions (a blanket term Dayton uses in opposition to “Presbyterian” and that refers broadly to Arminian, Wesleyan, Holiness, and/or Pentecostal Christians, people who rarely resonate with the words of Calvinist intellectuals).”

As a result, Evangelicalism, being largely a folk movement rooted in personal faith which is continually reforming itself, has not for the most part produced theologians who can express the heart pulse of ordinary Evangelical faith, but instead have been much more influenced by the doctrinal battles that characterize the academic and political world - for example getting caught up in the Fundamentalist vs Modernism controversy. In this vacuum, Evangelicals looking for a way to express their faith will simply “borrow” the doctrinal statements formulated by these non-representative voices, creating a theological “Frankenstein” by sewing a dogmatic head on to a relational body. Take a look at the doctrinal "statement of faith" posted on your church's website for instance, and notice that very little is said about a relationship with Jesus or living in grace, and instead it is filled with definitions (the Trinity, the infallibility of the Bible, etc.) that while correct formulations, seem detached from what a vital living relationship with God is about.

My intention here is not to propose a relational faith that is divorced from biblical fidelity and orthodoxy, but rather to draw attention to the fact that the way we Evangelicals have learned to convey our faith theologically does not seem to capture the rich relational aspects that it is inwardly characterized by. What is needed is to develop doctrine and theology that arise out of the reality of our relationship with God, and foster a community of people characterized by Christ-likeness and grace. The choice then is not ultimately between doctrine and relationship, but to have right teaching that is rooted in and characterized by right relationship with God and others. In this, relationship - loving God and others - is primary. Right doctrine arises out of right relationship. Placing doctrine over relationship on the other hand leads to not presenting the heart of faith in a loving relationship with God to those outside of our faith, but instead showing them a religion characterized by self-righteousness, condemnation, legalism, and a heartless Pharisaical faith that is in opposition to biblical teaching.

God's Justice

In the OT justice is primarily focused on Israel who is oppressed under pagan captivity calling out for justice. We can see this is the Psalms which speak of being "saved" from those who pursue and attack David, to the Prophets who speak of the poor being lifted up from under their burden. Jesus quotes several of these prophesies that speak of good news to the poor, and it is from this understandable that the Jews at the time expected the Messiah to be one who would destroy the evil pagans and restore Israel to its former glory.

But the message of the NT and Jesus instead says that evil is not just "them" over there, it is "us". We are all sinners, and if we only seek to destroy the bad guys to bring about justice, we will find ourselves at the end of that sword. To put this in the language of Paul, we have all sinned, we are all guilty, and we are all subject to wrath. So the good news of wrath - that the bad guys are gonna get it - is really bad news because we are all guilty of oppressing and hurting others.

At the same time though we are also victims of sin. Both sin done to us by others, and also by our own sins that imprison us in hurtful self -destructive behavior. So while we need to be saved from wrath, that can't be all. There needs to be a different way for justice to come about, not by destroying our enemies (which will just come back to get us since we are all guilty of hurting others), but of a way to lift ourselves out of the bondage of hurting, and to stop the cycle of blame and revenge. So here we go from the idea of retributive justice (and also of the idea of acquittal from retributive justice) to the idea of restorative justice, of a justice focused on setting things right, mending what was broken. Because while we now see in the light of the NT that we are the oppressor, we are at the same time the victim too. The victim of others hurtfulness, but also the victim of our own hurtfulness, and merely not getting punished does not actually take us out of that bondage to hurt we are stuck in. It does not bring about justice in us to simply get clemency. We need to go beyond a punitive model to a restorative model that heals what has been broken in us and our world, one that redeems and makes all things new, that gives us new life. Going from the way of and eye for an eye to the way of overcoming evil with good through love of enemies and unmerited grace that God demonstrates by loving us first while we were his enemies because of our hurtfulness. That is the good news to the poor.

A History of Relationship with God in the Church

I've just finished a summer intensive in church history at Asbury and had a chance to explore some of the history of German Pietism, Moravianism, and early Methodism. I've been paying special attention to the idea of a relationship with God and wanted to sketch out a brief history of relationship with God throughout church history.

I'm sure we are all familiar with the church in the Book of Acts, which took off at Pentecost, and was characterized by the infilling of the Holy Spirit, intense community, caring for the poor, and sign & wonders. This carried on in the primitive church, and the persecution of Rome not only was unable to crush the early church, but in fact the persecution seemed to intensify their resolve and enlarge their numbers.

With the "conversion" of Constantine we see the beginnings of a downward trend, as the church gradually became less characterized by the living God in people's hearts transforming lives and society, and instead with an institution of power that represented the very opposite of what Jesus stood for. By the early middle ages we can see that the church is an institution characterized by massive wealth and shocking use of oppressive power and violence. We do see in this dark age occasional glimmers of light in people like St Francis of Assisi or Julian of Norwich who had deeply intimate relationships with God that overflowed into compassion for the poor. But these beacons of relationship with God are mostly drowned out by Rome. This was the time of the bloody crusades and inquisitions, which meant not only that heretics were burnt at the stake, but that more often than not, people were martyred by the Roman church because they exhibited Christ-likness. One example is the Waldesians who from an orthodox standpoint were completely in line with Catholicism. They felt that rather than amassing wealth, they should give what they had to the poor and live among them incarnationally. Because of this they began to gain a great deal of moral authority among the people. Pope Innocent III (whose name as we see is quite the misnomer) was at the time the richest man on the planet, and he saw these humble monks as undermining his authority among the masses. So he ordered mercenary crusaders to invade the town were the Waldesians were and kill them. While they were at it, for good measure, they killed everyone else in the town, too.

So while we do see signs of vital transforming relationship with God in the monastic and mystical movements, the official focus of faith is not one of personal relationship, but rather a mediated faith administered by the institution. Everyone was baptized as an infant, and thus a member of the church. No was choice involved, no concept of new birth existed. You accepted the authority of the church, or you were killed. The point here is not just that this was extremely oppressive and murderous, but that people simply did not have any concept that they even could have a relationship with God, since it was not taught, and no Bibles were available to read. People like Julian of Norwich surely existed. God was there despite the darkness. But they were the exception to the norm. Officially, personal relationship with God was not promoted as an option.

The turning point, as you might have guessed, was Martin Luther who in his "Turmerlebnis" (tower experience) rediscovered the Gospel of salvation by grace while reading the Apostle Paul's book of Romans. Luther describes this in his own words as "like being born again". This rediscovery of the Gospel sadly went into a recession after Luther's death in 1546. By the early 1600's the Lutheran church had become engulfed in the scholasticism Luther hated so much. Large tombs of theology were written with every answer to every question so that if the Lord God himself was unsure on a particular point of doctrine, why he could look it up right there. Pastors would hold long and tedious lectures expounding ad nauseum on these topics that were completely irrelevant to the lives of the congregation. In response to this cold and barren propositional theology that Lutheranism Protestantism had become, German Pietism was born, and with it the resurgence of Luther's own message.

While remaining theologically orthodox to Lutheranism, the German Pietist movement, headed by Philipp Jacob Spener, sought to cultivate in people a living and intimate relationship with God. One of the key ways that it sought to do this was through “Bibelkreise” (meaning "Bible circle" evoking the picture of people sitting together in a circle reading the Bible). These groups were very similar to the home-group Bible studies common in Evangelical churches today. One of the central teachings of Spener was "Wiedergeburt" (born again). This new birth into a relationship with God was at the very heart of German Pietism. Out of the German Pietist movement, Zinzendorf and the Moravians emerged adding a strong focus on evangelism. It was the Moravians who John Wesley met while on a missionary journey to Georgia in the new American colonies. Wesley writes in his diary of his encounter with the Moravian leader August Spangenberg who asks Wesley about his personal relationship with God,

Have you the witness within yourself? Does the Spirit of God bear witness with your spirit, that you are a child of God?
I was surprised, and knew not what to answer...
"Do you know yourself?"
I said, "I do." But I fear they were vain words.

As is well known, at Aldersgate Wesley did come to the personal assurance he lacked, where his heart was “strangely warmed” as he listened to a reading of Luther's commentary on the book of Romans. It is worth noting that it was the combination of the proclamation of the Gospel message of saving grace, combined with seeing this lived out in the vibrant and personal faith of the Moravians that together resulted in Wesley coming to an assurance of God's love and forgiveness.

Not surprisingly these renewal movements experienced persecution from the institutional churches, now including the Protestant churches. One bewildering example is a decree issued in 1690 under the urgings of the Lutheran officials declaring "private meetings in which the Holy Scripture is explained" as "dangerous" and forbidding them "upon pain of imprisonment"*. This is painfully ironic coming from the denomination of a man who stood before Rome alone with his Bible and translated the Scriptures for the first time in to German so common people could read the good news. As the Pietist renewal movement, centered in a vital and transforming relationship with God, continued to grow in numbers and in conflict with the traditional Protestant state churches, people began to flock to the new American colonies in search of religious freedom. Puritans, Pietists, Methodists, Moravians, Anabaptists, Quakers, and many others traveled to the colonies. It was in this atmosphere that the First and Second Great Awakenings exploded in tent meeting revivals across the new frontier.

In the next installment we'll explore how this idea of a living personal relationship with God took shape in the new world, from the First and Second Great Awakenings, to the forming of denominations, and finally the neo-Evangelicalism of Billy Graham.

* Quoted in Dale W Brown, "The Problem of Subjectivism in Pietism" (unpublished PhD dissertation Northwestern U, 1962) p 86. From Johann Arnds et al. Der Deutsche Pietismus: Eine Auswahl von Zeugnisen (Berlin: Furche, 1921) p 109

Deconstructing Derrida

I just returned from the 2007 Emergent Theological Conversation with John Caputo and Richard Kearney speaking on the deconstructionism of Derrida. The basic idea of deconstructionism, (as Caputo and Kearney have interpreted it in a Christian context), is based on a "theology of the cross" that crucifies the flesh, crucifies pride, deconstructs what we think we know in order to open up the possibility of us getting closer to the absolute beneath all our biases and blinders. This is surely something crucial to do if we want to be faithful to Christ who calls us to die so that we might find life.

In the final session, Kearney was asked whether he thought that all religions lead to the same God. He responded:

"Yes, I think they do. I think that all religions are pointing to the indeconstructable source and end of life which is love... hence the need for constant deconstruction so as to preserve that kernel which remains unknowable and unpossessable by any one religion. That's not relativism, that's a respect for the absolute which no finite human being or institution can claim to possess."

Now I don't have a problem with what Kearney says above. Where I do have a problem is what he leaves out. He rightly says that Christianity is, to quote E Stanley Jones "the human system built up around Jesus, man-made and fallible". But Christianity is not the Gospel, Christ is. Christianity is not the truth, Christ is the truth. Both Caputo and Kearney speak of Christianity as it that was all there was - our fallible human religion, and do not seem to have a working understanding of Christ as beyond and above that, as God's speech to us. The Gospel is not about proclaiming religion. The Gospel is not even about proclaiming Christianity. The Gospel is the proclamation of God's personal self-revealing in Jesus Christ in order that we messed up humans can encounter the living God of the universe, that we can meet Truth with a big "T" relationally and salvicly.

Deconstruction is about us chipping away at the crust to get to the absolute core, but the Gospel is about the Absolute breaking through the crust to us. That is way bigger that any religion. It is in the thundering words of Job "Higher than heaven, what will you do? Deeper than hell, what can you know?" Indeed, what the Hell do we know? I know nothing. But the Gospel is not about what I say or know, it is about what God has said through the Incarnation. The Absolute has entered into our broken and blind world and revealed to us this "treasure in jars of clay". I can't claim to have a hold on truth, but I can let Truth get a hold of me, and I can do that because Truth has broken through the crust to me. That's not about knowing, it is about being known. It is about trust. In trust I proclaim that the one true God above all culture, religion, and thought has been revealed in Christ.

In an earlier session Caputo expressed disdain for the kind of evangelism characterized by a triumphant Christendom. Think we can all agree that we we can do without that "anti-gospel". Again the problem is not in what they say, but in what they leave out. No body wants that. But what I do want is - out of trust, in humility, in compassion, with fear and trembling - to boldly and unapologeticly proclaim that the Absolute Truth beneath the crust we chip away at has come to us in Jesus Christ, and that because of that act of the Absolute towards us, we can know the Truth in a personal intimate relationship and let that Truth set us free. That Gospel is the very deconstructive hammer that shatters every religion (including ours) and every philosophy (including Derrida's). It is, as E Stanley Jones says "an evangelism that evangelizes the evangelist because it sends us to our knees even as we proclaim it". Jesus is the indeconstuctable cornerstone. Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces, but he on whom it falls will be crushed. (Luke 20:18)