Non-conflicting absolutes

You can read Julie’s recent seminary paper regarding non-conflicting absolutes for her Old Testament Ethics course. While the subject matter is dry, Julie takes the paper in an interesting and necessary direction — examining how dualism and a misconfiguration of original sin (a paradigm of judicial guilt rather than systemic brokenness) within more Augustinian theological strands has led to some sketchy presumptions in the study of biblical or Christian ethics.

Interacting with Justification by N.T. Wright – Chapter Three

Wright’s third chapter in Justification, “First-Century Judaism: Covenant, Law and Lawcourt,” is an attempt to explain that first-century Jews (the main characters and audiences of the New Testament) were more concerned with experiencing deliverance from exile (an exile the Jewish people had been experiencing even after returning to their land, as they were still under Roman occupation) by way of David’s promised son. While first-century Judaism was not ignorant to ideas of transcendence and afterlife, those issues were being overshadowed by more pressing physical, political concerns. In other words, first-century Jews, unlike many Christians today, were not simply trying to find their ticket to heaven. They expected God to move within history, within their world.

Wright notes that first-century literature illumines us to the fact that Judaism was not a monolithic religion before, during, or after the time of Christ. He speaks of Variegated Nomism – the multiplicity of ways in which first-century Jews were interpreting Israel’s law, constructing theologies of grace, resurrection etc. 

I find this much clear: first-century Judaism was far different from the works-not-grace caricature of Judaism that Martin Luther so unfortunately concocted in order to read the biblical text into his own sixteenth-century world. There is a cost when we use the biblical text so liberally as to form the biblical narrative and characters in our own image, so that they are living out our story rather than us living continuing their story faithfully in our day. Disregard for historical context, authorial intent and the like can lead us in directions as dangerous as the Lutheranism-gone-awry that was experienced in the Holocaust in the early-to-mid-twentieth century – a mere sixty years ago.

Within the “Judaisms” of the first century, there were some who aimed to calculate the moment when God would deliver Israel from exile. Wright notes many of them leaned heavily on Daniel 9 – a prophecy of the end of exile in which an angel tells the main character that exile would not be for the simple seventy years he read about in Jeremiah, but seventy weeks of years (70 X 7). (pgs 57-59)

This, Wright says, is the social milieu into which Paul writes – a group of people who felt that they were living a continued biblical narrative, still in exile but hoping for the end of exile as described in Daniel 9. Yes, these Jews were back in their land, out from captivity in Babylon. Jews were “enslaved” to pagan cultures and customs.

Here the Bishop lets out some of his frustration with Piper and his “ordinary folk”:

“. . . for many, perhaps most, contemporary Western readers of the New Testament (John Piper’s ‘ordinary folk,’ perhaps), the effort required to think into a worldview where people were thinking to themselves, When is God going to do what he’s promised? is all too much, and they shake their heads and settle back into the comfort of a non-historical soteriology the long and short of which is ‘my relationship with God’ rather than ‘what God is going to do to sort out his world and his people.’ Or, alternatively, the question, when will God do what he’s promised? splurges back onto the theological scene in the form of lurid speculations about the Rapture: drive eschatology out the front door, and it will break in through the back window. And with all of these strategies we thereby put ourselves in the position of musicians who, finding the score of a Beethoven symphony, reckon that because the only instruments they possess are guitars and mouth-organs, that must be what Beethoven had in mind. Or, if you like, that because the only music they know is a collection of songs none of which last longer than four minutes, that must be what Beethoven actually intended.” (pg 61)

Can you tell he’s had it with Piper and his “ordinary folk,” and their commitment to make ordinary what should be a very inordinate use of Scripture?

One of the ways in which Wright’s view of justification succeeds is in its incorporation of the New Exodus motif woven throughout the entirety of Scripture. In Chapter Three Wright exegetes Daniel 9 (remember, this is a text that first-century Jews were leaning into for a variety of reasons), and two things become very clear: “righteousness” in this passage is interchangeable with covenant faithfulness, and God’s covenant faithfulness allows Him to stand as “right” (faithful) when His covenant people are not (allowing the curse of exile as promised in the covenant) as well as to declare “right” (lawcourt language) an unfaithful people (allowing exodus) – on the basis of God’s own covenant faithfulness, not the people’s.

That doesn’t sound much like Luther’s caricature of works-righteousness, does it? No, this is about a God who is covenantally faithful to the extent that He allows consequences of the covenant (exile) but ultimately restores the covenant on the basis of His own covenant-keeping (allowing exodus). This is the hope of first-century Judaism, and the center of Paul’s writing, that God would declare His people right – an act that, to them, was connected to the political ramification of exodus and the ongoing of narrative of human history.

Wright proceeds to shed light on Piper’s big motif for understanding righteousness and justification, God’s concern for God’s own glory. Here’s one part of Wright’s review of Piper that I found to be particularly funny (and refreshing):

“there is a huge mass of scholarly literature on the meaning of God’s righteousness, and Piper simply ignores it. I am not aware of any other scholar, old perspective, new perspective, Catholic, Reformed, Evangelical, anyone, who thinks that tsedaqah elohim in Hebrew or dikaiosyne theou in Greek actually means ‘God’s concern for God’s own glory. . . . Piper’s attempt to show that there must be a ‘righteousness’ behind God’s ‘covenant faithfulness’ is simply unconvincing. It begins to look as though Piper has simply not understood what covenant faithfulness means, and its enormous significance throughout Scripture.” (pgs 64-65)

Also to my amusement, Wright notes that even J.I. Packer – a notoriously Reformed scholar – slips into the New Perspective when he notes, “The reason why [Isaiah and Psalms] call God’s vindication of his oppressed people his ‘righteousness’ is that it is an act of faithfulness to his covenant promise with them.” (pg 64)

The Bishop proceeds to discuss the role of Israel in God’s plan to put the world to rights. God does not give up on Israel. God does not replace Israel. It is precisely through Israel that God will put the world to rights. Wright notes Piper’s decision to not engage Romans 3 and 4 (chapters centered on Abraham and God’s still-applicable commitment to bless the world through his people). This is consistent with Piper’s evasion of Deuteronomy 27-30, Daniel 9, and the whole of Genesis 15. Piper is not engaging the texts that best clarify that God’s righteousness is His covenant faithfulness.

And it is at this point that I, as a reader, become frustrated on Wright’s behalf. Piper and others within the old perspective have accused Wright of proposing a “complicated” gospel. The danger of that accusation is the implicit notion that Wright is weaving complexities into the biblical narrative. The reality, it seems, is quite the opposite. Wright is merely guilty of engaging more of the biblical narrative in his exegesis and theology. We would do better to call Wright and his gospel “hard-working”or “supremely literate.”

The chapter proceeds with Wright discussing Piper’s construction of a theology of God’s righteousness for God’s own glory. Wright acknowledges that such theology portrays God as Divine Narcissist. In reality God is not a self-absorbed being concerned with making sure that His creation lauds Him; He is an outward-focused giver of love whose tsedaqah elohim is His generous faithfulness to undeserving people who have not been anywhere near as faithful to Him.

The role of Israel and Torah in God’s saving plan is the final theme of the chapter. Wright notes the similarities between E.P. Sanders’ covenantal nomism and Calvinism’s emphasis on covenant and “being in Christ.” Wright esteems the Reformed view for agreeing with Sanders’ take far more than Lutheran exegetes and their construction of Judaism as a religion of works-righteousness.

While often falling in the Reformed camp on many issues, Piper’s handling of Israel is fairly Lutheran; he and his “ordinary folk” may find it easier to create a caricature of Judaism to fit their purposes rather than to study the variety of beliefs within Second Temple Judaism (it seems that Piper is suspicious as to whether much reliable knowledge can be gained from that wealth of material). 

Here Wright chops away at both the old perspective’s antinomianism with which I am so amused and the replacement theology over which I completely fume:

“According to the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that he had not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. A Calvinist will find that much easier to grasp than a Lutheran – though it would be interesting to hear an old perspective expositor explain how Jesus’ brisk commands in that great sermon are to be obeyed by his followers without any sense of moral effort, synergism and so on.”

This is where the New Exodus motif within the Pauline corpus becomes so important: it is the blood of the Lamb over our doorposts that spares us and declares us “right” (initial justification), yet we still need to follow God on the path of liberation and deliverance, the Way that brings us from a former identity (Egypt, Eden) to a new humanity (Promised Land, New Jerusalem/complete Kingdom of God). This is covenantal nomism! Following the law (whether it be Torah or that which the Spirit writes on our hearts) is not what makes it possible for us to be part of God’s people, but it is the guideline for how to get from Egypt to the Promised Land, from a humanity that lives to propagate systemic sin and death to a humanity that lives to participate in the systemic faithfulness and life. This is synergy! And compared to it, monergy is shown to be nothing more than an inferior half-gospel that leaves everyone standing under a blood-covered doorpost, but never leaving their house for the Promised Land!

As Wright is making abundantly clear, there is no such thing as a soteriology that is divorced from eschatology – God is not rescuing people from the unfolding history of His creation; He is acting within the grand narrative of His creation to save it. Wright says it well when he talks about God’s single plan to save the world through Israel, and when he acknowledges Jesus as the uncompromised “Yes!” to God’s covenant with Israel. Jesus is every bit as much the Son of David as he is the Son of God, and until we come to terms with that Israel and Torah will be a source of confusion in our theology of escapist eschatology. But if we can come to terms with our favorite first-century Jewish carpenter, then we can see what it means that Gentiles join Jewish followers of God in their mission to bless the world.

That mission requires obedience and synergy, covenantal nomism. Jesus paid it all, and now we walk in his Way.

Reviewing Wright’s Justification: Chapter Two

In the second chapter of Justification, “Rules of Engagement,” Wright sets out by saying that if we allow books like Ephesians and Colossians equal place to Romans and Galatians – letting each of these canonical texts inform the others on a basis of full mutuality – we arrive at “nothing short of a (very Jewish) cosmic soteriology.” Within Christ the world finds its summation, and now one family of Jews and Gentiles becomes “Christ’s body for the world.” (pgs 43-44)

Wright isn’t calling readers to prioritize Ephesians and Colossians over Romans and Galatians, but rather to hear Romans and Galatians outside of the old perspective by which our interpretation has been conditioned. Because Ephesians and Colossians have never fit nearly into the old perspective (Wright notes the Lutheran suspicion toward Ephesians, in particular), if we use them as a starting point we find that Romans and Galatians don’t actually fit into the old perspective either.

Immediately following that point regarding canonical conversation, Wright begins this top-notch tangent:

Supposing that had been the vision that gripped the imagination of the Reformers in the sixteenth century; supposing they had had, engraved on their hearts, that close and intimate combination of (a) saving grace accomplishing redemption in the once-and-for-all death of the Messiah and putting it into operation through faith, without works and (b) the proleptic unity of all humankind in Christ as the sign of God’s coming reign over the whole world; and supposing they had then, and only then, gone back to Romans and Galatians – the entire history of the Western church, and with it the world, might have been different. No split between Romans 3:28 and Romans 3:29. No marginalization of Romans 9-11. No scrunching of the subtle and important arguments about Jew-plus-Gentile unity in Galatians 3 onto the Procrustean bed of an abstract antithesis between faith and works. No insisting, in either letter, that ‘the law’ was just a ’system’ that applied to everyone, and that ‘works of the law’ were the moral requirements that encouraged people to earn their own salvation by moral effort. In short, the new perspective might have begun [at the Reformation]. Or perhaps we should say the new perspective did begin – when Ephesians was written. No wonder Lutheran scholars have been so suspicious of it. But why should that apply to conservative readers for whom it is every bit as much Holy Writ as Romans or Galatians?

“In particular, what Scripture actually says must be brought into creative dialogue with tradition. This is standard fare in beginner-level doctrine courses, and ‘conservative’ churches within the Protestant tradition have always insisted that they are ‘biblical,’ whereas other churches down the road are in thrall to human traditions of this or that kind. But here is the problem, which I hinted at in the opening chapter. Again and again, when faced with both new perspective and some of the other features of more recent Pauline scholarship, ‘conservative’ churches have reached not for Scripture but for tradition, as with Piper’s complaint that I am sweeping away fifteen hundred years of the church’s understanding. Of course, Piper himself wants to sweep away most of the same fifteen hundred years, especially anything from medieval Catholicism, and to rely instead on the narrow strand which comes through Calvin and the Westminster Confession. But whichever way you look at it, the objection is odd.” (pgs 44-45)

Wright then has at it with Piper’s selective ignorance of first-century Judaism. Piper claims that study of the first century context can “distort and silence what the New Testament writers intended to say,” an alarming claim he tries to support by saying that first-century extra-biblical literature has not been studied to the same extent as the New Testament, and so we lack the contextual awareness we bring to the Scriptures. (pg 48)

I can feel my mind going numb thinking about that. So the reason we can’t understand the extra-biblical literature is because we haven’t studied it enough – and that’s why we are wasting our time to study and emphasize it? Seriously? Meanwhile we do have a contextual awareness of the Bible – we just can’t muddy that by studying… its context. Piper goes as far to say that, in terms of word studies, we cannot know “how words were used in that world” outside of their biblical use. Wright responds by noting that Piper’s mindset, “seems to me dramatically to overstate the case.” (pg 49)

Conversely, Wright’s response might be an exercise in dramatic understatement. Even someone who disagrees with Piper about some or many things should be able to acknowledge that he’s likely above-average in terms of intelligence (it’s difficult to lead – directly and indirectly – as many people as Piper does without being a sharp person). Still, Piper’s attitude regarding the Bible’s first-century context is intellectually insulting, and comes across as hiding the facts for the sake of posturing an argument. It demonstrates a desperation that one would expect from a person who is trying to defend ground in a losing battle. Which then begs the question: is Piper really ready to die on the hill of his own Calvinism, or is his life and ministry about something bigger and better, the very topic of Paul’s obsession. (A witty person might ask Piper to not waste his life…) To hide or diminish the facts we can glean from first-century context to defend a philosophy of sixteenth-century origin is not the marker of a truth-seeker. If Piper is in the business of truth-seeking, he had better re-examine his mentality and motives toward the contextual setting of Scripture.

Wright devotes several pages of his second full chapter bemoaning Piper’s shirking off of first-century context in favor of a Protestant-originated interpretation of Paul, and Piper’s attitude that his is the “ordinary” interpretation, held by his oft-cited “ordinary folk.” The Bishop demonstrates his concern:

“It is worrying to find Piper encouraging readers to go back, not to the first century, but to ‘the Christian renewal movements of sixteenth-century Europe.’ To describe that period as offering the ‘historic roots’ of evangelicalism is profoundly disturbing. Proper evangelicals are rooted in Scripture, and above all in Jesus Christ to whom Scripture witnesses, and nowhere else.” (pg 51)

Reviewing Wright’s Justification: Introduction and Chapter One

Justification, N.T. Wright’s latest book, is the Bishop’s seemingly irritated response to John Piper, pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis, Minn., and a figurehead of the “neo-Reformed” sect of Christianity. Wright clarifies that, already balancing a full schedule of pastoral and academic assignments, writing a rebuttal to Piper (who himself wrote The Future of Justification: A Response to N.T. Wright after Wright’s Paul: In Fresh Perspective) is necessary because of the subject matter and its implications. 

This isn’t back-and-forth for the sake of getting petty or something about which Christians should “agree to disagree.” To Wright, there’s simply too much riding on justification.

“. . . the question is about the nature and scope of salvation. Many Christians in the Western world, for many centuries now, have seen ’salvation’ as meaning ‘going to heaven when you die.’. . . In the Bible, salvation is not God’s rescue of people from the world but the rescue of the world itself. . .  Some Christians have used terms like justification and salvation as though they were almost interchangeable, but this is clearly untrue to Scripture itself.” (pgs 10-11)

Wright cites Piper’s theology of justification ignoring Paul is four main areas: the work of Jesus as Israel’s Messiah, its covenant nature (bringing about the end of exile), the lawcourt metaphor (in which God finds Himself “in favor” of those who follow Jesus; not merely allowing Jesus to transpose his moral achievement to his followers), and eschatology (a full narrative understanding of what God is doing in the entire world). (pgs 11-12)

“What’s All This About, and Why Does it Matter?” is the first full chapter of Justification, Wright comes out of the gate with frustration that Piper and similar theologians demonstrate a concern for “God’s glory” while espousing an eisogeted theology of justification that is centered on individuals finding their ticket of escape from the world. Wright does not discount the value of personal salvation but scoffs at a concocted theology that places mankind at the center of the universe (with no regard for a more universal eschatological plan). (pg 23) 

“. . . the real point is, I believe, that the salvation of human beings, though of course extremely important for those human beings, is part of a larger purpose. God is rescuing us from the shipwreck of the world, not so that we can sit back and put our feet up in his company, but so that we can be part of his plan to remake the world.” (pg 24)

This is no petty argument or nit-picking theological tangent. The nature and scope of salvation have been misstated, leading people to a Westernized individualistic construction in which the “sinner’s prayer” is an end-all-be-all ticket to otherworldliness, with little or no place give to participation in God’s great exilic work in the universe. Of the overall aim for Justification, Wright says, “I hope that the next generation, without preexisting reputations to lose and positions to maintain, will get the message.”

Piper, as well as some early reviews of this book, have accused Wright of constructing a “confusing gospel.” Wright responds to such a mentality toward him and the New Perspective:

“Sometimes, faced with a jigsaw puzzle, one is tempted to make it apparently easier by ignoring half the pieces. Put them back into the box! I can’t cope with that many! The result is of course that the puzzle is made harder, not easier. However, one can imagine someone, having made this initial disastrous move, trying to remedy the situation by brute force, joining together pieces that don’t quite fit in order to create some sort of picture anyway.” (pg 31)

The old perspective on Paul tossed out critical “pieces” of Paul’s theology: “Abraham and the promises God made to him, incorporation into Christ, resurrection and new creation, resurrection and new creation, the coming together of Jews and Gentiles, eschatology in the sense of God’s purpose-driven plan through history, and, not least, the Holy Spirit and the formation of Christian character.” (pgs 31-32)

Wright calls out Piper for completely sidelining passage such as Romans 2.25-29 and Romans 10.6-9 in his treatment of Paul and for picking out Paul’s Genesis 15 reference without consideration for the meaning of the full text toward which Paul was directing his readers. “When Paul quotes Scripture, he regularly intends to refer, not simply to the actual words quoted, but to the whole passage.” (pgs 32-33)

Of the impact of a narrative, covenantal approach to Scripture, the Bishop says:

“God had a single plan all along through which he intended to rescue the world and the human race, and that this single plan was centered upon the call of Israel, a call which Paul saw coming to fruition in Israel’s representative, the Messiah. Read Paul like this, and you can keep all the jigsaw pieces on the table.” (pg 35, italics his)

Re-examining justification

Ben Witherington III has a review of N.T. Wright’s new book that I am absolutely begging you (whether you’re a close friend or a total stranger) to read. In my opinion, BW3’s review sums up Wright’s theology in language that is far easier to understand than Wright’s own voice, but these are theological advances that could help us emerge from a Reformed framework of salvation (while Wright is considered Reformed, by “Reformed framework” I’m referring to the conclusions of American Evangelical Reformed “gatekeepers” like Don Carson and John Piper), back to the justification viewpoint held by the Apostle Paul and many of the Early Church leaders.

To put it ever-bluntly: If Wright is correct – and I wholeheartedly believe his theology of justification is an improvement on the typical Reformed view – then many Christians have been misguided and misrepresenting the gospel when answering the question, “Who are the people of God?” 

Please take time to read the entire review.

The Resurrection, fatalism, and the problem with the Church calendar

Good words from N.T. Wright:

“To preach the Resurrection is to announce the fact that the world is a different place, and that we have to live in that ‘different-ness.’ The Resurrection is not just God doing a wacky miracle at one time. We have to preach it in a way that says this was the turning point in world history.”

Amen and Amen.

Lately I’ve been thinking about the difference between a linear Hebraic approach to history and time over-against the circular mindset that Israel’s pagan neighbors and the Hellenistic philosophers demonstrated toward history, and how these preconceptions influence the way we celebrate holidays – the ways we remember our story. 

Biblical Israel celebrated their feasts with devotion, partly because God commanded them to remember the situation from which they arose (particularly in the case of Passover as remembrance of their emergence out of Egypt). But it was in the context of a people who understood that history is linear, that they weren’t designed to return to that from which they were freed. It is abundantly clear, in the instances when Israel does forget their story and re-enters bondage, that this is not God’s plan for them. The purpose of remembering the story was not to re-live its highs and lows in a circular way, but to remember all the reasons why they should continue going forward in the ways of God.

Remember captivity – don’t re-enter captivity – so that you can walk in freedom. 

Fast-forward to Christianity, which suffers still today from the Early Church’s concessions to Hellenistic philosophy and pagan ideas regarding fatalism and circular history (the gods are going to do what the gods are going to do, and everything comes around…). How does a circular view of history shape the way people remember their story?

Many churches today celebrate a “Church calendar” that includes Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and Pentecost. By no means is there anything wrong with observing these moments within Christian history. It’s great that people want to be well-versed in each and every phase of their faith history (though they don’t even do that really; most Gentile Christians disregard any and all traditions and celebrations carried over from Judaism, which is a sorry disregard for our rich inheritance as those adopted into Israel). What I really want to call into question is the role a circular, fatalistic view of history plays in our approach to holidays.

When we approach holidays with a fatalistic understanding of history, we don’t merely recognize each season of Christ’s journey or our own history as a point along a line, something out of which we emerge, but rather as an endless cycle in which we are trapped. In this cycle there is no differentiation among the holidays. We aren’t living in Easter or Pentecost any more than we are living in Lent. Our celebrations become continuous dramatizations of the same cycle (a treadmill and not a trajectory). It’s different than to say that we live in a point of tension between two seasons along the linear model of progressive time (the already-but-not-yet of the New Testament and the in-breaking of the Kingdom of God); no, this is truly the antithesis of eschatology – there is no expectation for change within ourselves or within our world.

We just go round and round. Bound to the cycles of history. Pushed around by the gods.

Again, this is in clear contrast with the Hebraic understanding of linear time. Again, there’s a difference between remembering you were set free from captivity in Egypt and trying to simulate that captivity. Going further, there is a danger in simulating that captivity: you could very easily begin to define yourself presently in the images and terms of that captivity. 

This is what happens to the Church calendar when approached from a circular, fatalistic lens. It’s no wonder that a Hellenistic, fatalistic, circular view of history leads to a diminished expectation toward Christ’s impact on humankind (am I making up a term to say “Christoanthropology”?), such as that which was held by Augustine, who was certainly trapped in a circular view of history.

A person’s view of history seems to, by necessity, correlate with his/her thoughts on the potential for humanity (not the necessary trajectory of humanity but the possibilities for humanity’s trajectory).

Let me put it differently: say a person undergoes a three-month period of real darkness in his life – maybe extreme substance abuse or something along those lines – but breaks away from that darkness and is now staying clean. It’s possible that, in stopping his abuse, a lot about his lifestyle changed – the clothes he wears, the music he listens to, his sleep schedule, etc. It might be a good idea for him to set aside a concrete time when he can give recognition to the fact that he came out of hardship (maybe he’d celebrate the yearly anniversary of cutting off the substance abuse and living clean).

But wouldn’t it be weird as hell for that person to devote a three-month period of his year to commemorating his emergence from his old life by going back to his old clothes, music, sleep schedule, etc.? None of us would think that was a good idea. What if he went around telling people he is, in present time, an addict? What if he actually went back to the drugs? None of us think that’s a healthy way to “remember,” do we? There is a huge risk in self-definition if he goes through with any of these bad ideas, and we’d all agree that it’s overkill.

Where I’m going with this is that we are, as Christians, Easter people. And we’re invited to be Pentecost people. These are things that are true of us and our reality in real time. A lot of things are valuably true about our past, but these things are intended by God to be part of our present-tense lives.

In real time, we aren’t waiting for a Messiah. In real time, he came.

In real time, we’re not merely Incarnation people. In real time, we’re people who incarnate the beginning of realized Easter hope. And we are meant to have the tools of Pentecost at our disposal as we live incarnationally in real time. 

Now I’m all about giving our history due diligence. As a matter of fact, maybe the most widely read thing I’ve ever written is an article about not reading Easter into the Christmas story, but celebrating Incarnation for Incarnation’s sake. So I’m not being a hater here. It’s just that it seems we get into trouble when we can’t celebrate the past without understanding that history (and, by result, our self-definition as Christians) is to be understood in potentially-progressive linear terms.

Otherwise the Church calendar only fuels our spiritual impotence. We become people who neglect the faculties and possibilities of Easter and Pentecost because we are too busy playing fatalist dress-up.

The resurrection stops being central to our story because, in needing to define ourselves in the terms of Advent, we center our story around the hope of a returning Messiah (rather than taking up the invitation of an already-here Messiah to build his Kingdom).

Rather than seeing Lent as a season out of which we’ve emerged, we define our present lives in its language. So when trouble hits, we muster up some motivational speech about finding solidarity in a Suffering Servant while giving no attention to the idea that Pentecost provided us a Helper to overcome at least some types of suffering. I’m not saying that we never suffer, or that solidarity with Christ is entirely unimportant. But thank God we have more than solidarity with a dead, decomposed Suffering Servant. 

But isn’t that where a lot of people are in terms of self-definition? The hope of Easter and the strength of Pentecost are matched, if not outweighed, by a whiny emo gospel in which we have no victory over sin and death, just a heroic martyr to identify with as we celebrate our frailty.

Even within missional-emergent circles there is a reluctance to really live in the real-time events. I’ll prod and maybe make enemies by going ahead and saying that I think the reason for this failure is due, in large part, to low pneumatology and connected fear of looking more ecstatic than hip. It’s as much of a control game as anything we saw in modern (as opposed to post-modern) forms of church.

In a culture that loves self-promotion and dreads embarrassment, maybe emergent Christians don’t want to risk the diminished mystique of fully abandoning themselves to the work of the Spirit. It goes against our culturally-conditioned obsession with all things moderate and mild-mannered. 

There’s safety in going round and round in a cyclical calendar with our fatalistic assumptions. We don’t have to be torn away from that which used to define us (we’re like the passed-over Israelite who decides to return to Egypt, or the recovering addict who goes back to his old habits to give recognition to that chapter of life).

And no one will mistake us for being radicals. Our persona is in-tact.

I’ll come back to my opening quote from Wright:

“To preach the Resurrection is to announce the fact that the world is a different place, and that we have to live in that ‘different-ness.’ The Resurrection is not just God doing a wacky miracle at one time. We have to preach it in a way that says this was the turning point in world history.”

Or, to put it differently, we might consider some words from the Apostle Paul (Romans 6.4-11): 

Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection, knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him. For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God. Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.

I affirm what the Apostle Paul and N.T. Wright are saying: the resurrection and its ensuing Pentecost are our defining moments. We have a rich history worth acknowledging – filled with important moments of expectation and suffering. But history is not a circular mechanism, nor are we defined equally by all of these events. 

The possibilities, energy, equipment, faculties, and potential of Easter and Pentecost are readily available to all who want to follow Christ out of unnecessary cycles and into a linear trajectory toward something beautiful.

Framing stories, new exodus, and excitement

Paradigm gatherings begin this Sunday, and I’m excited (as well as appropriately nervous) about them. In contributing to this new work, I’d like to think that we’re going to be able to meet the needs of anyone and everyone who visits with us and/or commits to our community in the long-haul. But I realize that I can’t guarantee that or make any lofty promises – people might check us out and be sorely disappointed, and, to a certain extent, I need to be alright with that.

From a teaching standpoint, I really like what we’re doing in the next few months. While in general I think we’ll do a lot of exegetical preaching – straight through an entire book, chapter by chapter (not necessarily divided by the chapter break, but you get the idea) – but we’re starting with a couple ideas that we think will make a good primer for our future encounters with Scripture.

Call them our primers. Our motifs. Our framing stories.

We’re beginning to teach on the new exodus and the Kingdom of God. The exodus series will take us on a quick tour of Exodus (of course), Isaiah, the Synoptics, Romans, and 1 Corinthians. The Kingdom of God stuff is a bit more stationary, as we’ll spend almost all of our time hanging out in Luke before transitioning (seamlessly, I hope) to more exegetical exploration of Acts at Pentecost.

I don’t think that this motif approach will be easy – way more page-turning than sequential-exegetical and topical approaches. We’re going to be careful to use big enough chunks of text that it’s clear we’re keeping with authorial intent and the larger narrative of Scripture, not slipping into itsy-bitsy proof-texting.

But the flow over the next months will generally progress as follows: contrary to what you’ve heard, Jesus didn’t come to offer you the “status” of salvation so that your “immortal soul” is ready for an “other-worldly afterlife”. Rather, Jesus offers you liberation from sin and death – enabling you to walk in the Way. You’re saved for something. And that something is participation in the Kingdom of God, which isn’t the institutional church you often see in your cities, nor is it the “Jesus-is-my-homeboy” individualism that pervades our culture; the Kingdom is a third other, which is good news. It turns out the Kingdom of God is the primary thing Jesus taught about, so might want to approach it as our primary concern and not some passing fancy. How do we best participate in the Kingdom of God? By receiving, discerning, and obeying the work of the Holy Spirit. When we’re not about the Kingdom or when we aren’t actually led by the Spirit – that’s when things go awry, when a group of people merely tighten their fists around the title “Christian” while not actually functioning as the people of God.

So anyway, that’s what we’re up to at Paradigm. We’ll see what comes of it. But I’m excited to get into the gospel with everyone. Hopefully Seattle will be better off for it.

Making sense of perceived fractures within the emergent movement

Mark Sayers wrote a really interesting piece the other day about what he sees as division and redistribution among those in the emergent-missional movement. Sayers sees the emerging missional church fracturing into several “mini movements,” which he categorizes as Neo-Anabaptist, Neo-Calvinist, Neo-Missiololgist, Neo-Clapham’s, Digital Pentecostals, Neo-Liberals, and Blenders.

It’s an assessment with which I partly agree and partly disagree. (How’s that for vague?)

Ecclesiology and church history are both topics of interest for me – and, though I’m probably in the minority on this one, I think they’re vital components of a larger pursuit of living/practical/applied theology. I’m glad that Sayers shed so much light on this topic and I want to chime in and share a couple thoughts I have about his claim of a fractured “emerging missional church.” 

I’m not attempting to cover this with much authority, just as someone who’s participated in a few of the groups represented in Sayers’ categorization, been educated by another camp, known plenty of people in each bundle, and tried to observe historic and contemporary ecclesial happenings because, like I said, it’s interesting and part of a larger, more important picture.

My first and foremost friendly critique of Sayers’ piece is that he puts these various groups under the “emergent missional” umbrella and compares them to a Protestantism that, after first breaking off from Catholicism, endured several splits into smaller factions that make up most of our denominationalism today. But maybe we should consider whether at least one of the groups Sayers lists, Neo-Calvinism (which is not very “Neo” anything; it’s Calvinism, as immovable as Calvin’s God), better parallels the Catholicism of the Protestants’ day – an ‘old guard’ that enjoyed entitlement and prestige within the previous technological-epistemological epoch, strongly resistant to a new epoch’s potential contributions to the epistemology, theology, and doctrine of the Church. In our modern-day reformation, the Reformed are playing the role of sixteenth-century Catholics.

Reading though Sayers’ piece, I also wondered where to locate someone like Rob Bell within Sayers’ blurbs (Neo-Clapham?). Bell doesn’t share the house/simple church schtick of Frank Viola or Alan Hirsch, yet his missional theology has a led a mega-church full of people to live missionally while still gathering with a large ecclesial body.

While Sayers’ intrigue is with perceived fracturing of emergent-missional camps reflective of Protestant divides, there’s something to be said of postmodern Christians being pre-Catholic and pre-Western – finding a wealth of truth in Eastern Orthodoxy as well as Judaism. Maybe postmodern Christians – many of whom were likely raised in Protestant settings – are still predisposed toward division. I can’t disprove that. But maybe their break from Westernized Christianity is not for the sake of division and re-categorization; maybe its a move toward and with something (some gems within Eastern theology) which, by necessity, pull them away from fully identifying with Westernized Christianity. That’s how I see it, at least.

At first I was surprised that Sayers described Digital Pentecostals as adopting Neo-Clapham thought, but the more I think about it, the more I see what Sayers is saying. I wonder if this is where Sayers would locate someone like Leonard Sweet, who has strong pneumatology along with a zest (understatement) for visual media and multi-sensory worship experiences. 

I assume that Digital Pentecostals have an easier time with the postmodern shift than other Christian groups because their epistemology is relatively robust (at least in the U.S. and U.K. many of them are coming from a Wesleyan-Holiness church history lineage that is closer to Eastern epistemology than the anti-experiential sola scriptura stance esteemed by many Western Christians).

As far as a Neo-Liberal group goes, I agree it exists, but I hope that Sayers is wrong in placing most “Emergent” (I assume he means Emergent Village) leaders under this umbrella. It makes a bit of sense that liberals within Mainline Protestant churches jumped on the emergent bandwagon – the Mainline churches’ ship has been sinking for awhile and emergent churches provided younger Mainliners a generally innovate methodology for worship while (typically) not shoving a dictated style of inspiration, patriarchalism, and a low eschatology onto anyone’s theological plate. While I’m glad to be in a faith community with Mainliners, I hope that the Church is headed toward something beyond Mainline Protestantism and liberalism. I hope we can find a right tension between a social gospel and a holiness gospel (see Wesley, Finney, and the Booths).

That said, I’m not too worried about our Church in transition settling into the path carved by Mainline Protestantism because, like I mentioned earlier, what I see currently is a reclaiming of Eastern thought (pulling from Judaism and Eastern Orthodoxy) that is more substantive and of greater implications than the Mainline’s back-and-forth reactionary relationship with Fundamentalism.

Brian McLaren put it well when he compartmentalized Christian groups’ approach to change in four ways: 

1. Low change in method; low change in message

2. High change in method; low change in message

3. Low change in method; high change in message

4. High change in method; high change in message

For those emergent-missionals who have discovered and reclaimed Christianity’s Eastern roots, it is clear that they belong to either the third or fourth category on this chart. No, they’re not inventing theological statements that have never before existed, but they are returning to some thoughts on God that pre-date the foothold of Hellenistic philosophy and the Augustinian tradition that so greatly influenced both Catholicism and Protestantism. 

There is a difference between novelty movements and lasting change, and I believe lasting change will be found in the shift toward a Church that is both post-Western as well as pre-Western. In terms of worship expression that might manifest in very historically-rooted ways (category three) or multi-sensory, hi-tech ways (category four) – unless, of course, you’ve been raised in Eastern theology, in which case you’re hanging out in category one or two and finding that you’re suddenly everyone’s new best friend.

For this reason, I’m really interested to see what comes of the people Sayers locates in his Blenders category, those who seem to advocate for alternative worship in a larger ecclesial setting (Sayers notes their resistance toward the stripped down church models of the Neo-Missiologists) but who have yet to demonstrate considerable interest in moving beyond Western theology into something that is pre- and post-Westernized Christianity (I would say pre- and post-Augustine).

There are certainly shifts going on within the demographics that have been labeled emergent-missional. I don’t believe people are returning to a handful of Protestant sects, though – at least not those who are quadrant three or four emergents by McLaren’s terms. I think the movement taking place is people finding their place along McLaren’s quadrants – determining whether they were serious about theological recovery and progression, or if they’re fine with the status-quo and just like candlelight/beat tracks/organic food/etc. 

A century from now, I believe it will be those quadrant three and four Christians who change the Church for the better. We’re in the midst of another great shift in Church history, similar to the West’s break from the East, and the West’s internal break (Catholicism-Protestantism). What we see now is an emerging generation of Christians moving away from their Protestantism and the West for the sake of rejoining the East. For as much as breaking and division is part of my forecast for twenty-first-century Christianity, there will be just as much reuniting, reclamation, and communion.

Reviewing JWSC by Rob Bell and Don Golden: Chapter Three

Bell and Golden’s third chapter, “David’s Other Son,” begins by quickly summing up some major Israelite history – the return to Jerusalem and the reconstruction of the Temple. Yes, technically the Israelites are home, but things are still very “off.” The Roman Empire occupies their land, forcing Israelites to support through taxes the expansion of Roman military efforts. Bell and Golden note that the Romans built the Praetorium, a military center, next to the Temple, and just a few feet taller than the Temple, in order to “remind the Jewish people who really is in charge when they go to worship their God.” (pg. 76)

Interestingly, the authors note that the Israelites’ captivity in Egypt lasted 430 years (Ex. 12.40-41), while Nehemiah’s return to Jerusalem could be marked around 430 BC. (pg. 78)

Enter Jesus, a prophet like Moses. Bell and Golden highlight that the language surrounding Jesus’ birth brings us back to exodus terms. The only Old Testament quote used in all four New Testament gospels regarding Christ’s birth is Isaiah 40.3: “Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight paths for him.” (pg. 78)

Solomonic comparison is the focus of Chapter Three. Bell and Golden donate a significant amount of energy in this book to explaining the significance of Solomon as a character in the biblical narrative. Their understanding of the landscape of first-century Judaism (clearly influenced by New Perspective sources like NT Wright) excels here. First-century Jews are not without a robust theology of grace, nor are they merely seeking a political Jesus to make Israel a superpower itself (instances of such mindsets are examples of fringe minorities and not that of the common first-century Jew). Rather – and Bell and Golden make this perfectly clear – there is a nervousness about Christ’s Son of David identity. Will this Son of David hear the cry of the oppressed? Will he turn Israel into a light to the nations, or just another Rome?

When Bell and Golden say that “this new son of David isn’t just leading a new exodus for a specific group of people; he’s bringing liberation for everybody everywhere and ultimately for everything everywhere for all time,” this redemptive theology should be understood in two facets – atonement and blessing. (pg. 83)

Bell and Golden are correct to say that this new son of David is for all the earth and not just a select portion of its human beings. Jesus is the Second Adam, not the Sort-of Second Adam or the Second Adam For the Limited Few. Christ’s work matches the Fall in scope and range. Atonement is an exodus for all who were in exile from Eden, or at least all who choose to follow Jesus to New Jerusalem. Just as no one was forced to follow Moses out of Egypt, no one is forced to follow Jesus out of an “east of Eden” life. (If they were, it wouldn’t be exodus; it’d be a different type of exile and slavery.)

In terms of favor, partiality exists even after Christ. The promise to Abraham is very much in tact (see Romans 11), the Church is still called to invite the entire world into the Jesus Way. The concept of “blessed to be a blessing” does not end with Jesus; through Jesus it is only empowered. The call to royal priesthood remains a call to duty for Christ’s Church. (This is the context of Paul’s election language through the middle of Romans.)

Chapter Three continues to explain Jesus by way of comparison to Solomon. From the miracles that Jesus performed, to his correction of Peter when Peter cuts off Malchus’ ear (Jn. 18.10), to the cross itself, Bell and Golden want readers to see Christ as an end to the myth of redemptive violence. (pgs. 87-88)

“Someone would have to have the courage to put away the sword, forever, regardless of the consequences for his own security. No matter how tempting it is to pick it up and start swinging, someone would have to say, ‘Forgive them, Father, because they just don’t get it.’” (pg. 88)

Bell and Golden’s third chapter wraps up with a succinct version of Romans 5:

“What has been needed from the start is another Adam, not an Adam who would again give in to the temptation of the serpent but one who would crush the serpent. But the serpent-crusher’s victory would have to happen in a specific way. The only way it would actually change things would be if the serpent-crusher survived death – to experience the worst a human can suffer and then come out the other side, alive.” (pg. 90)

Reviewing JWSC by Rob Bell and Don Golden: Chapter Two

The second chapter of JWSC, “Get Down Your Harps,” begins where Chapter One left off, in Babylon. Bell and Golden utilize the language of Psalms 137.1-4, where on the rivers of Babylon the Israelites hung their harps and wept. Bell and Golden circle the Israelites’ weeping as a time of communicating with their God, who “always hears the cry of the oppressed.” (pgs. 52-53)

It seems that exile is a wonderful place to consider exodus – for yourself and for others.

Exodus has been exchanged for exile, and there are consequences. But in the middle of the tears, the Israelites “begin to dream again.” With the kingdom of comfort relinquished, the prophets rose up with language of a new – a second – exodus. The authors explain Isaiah’s prophecy as a call to end all exile – not just of one people, not just from Egypt – that will address the exile from Eden. Things are moving “from the particular to the universal.” (pgs. 56-57, 59)

The language of exodus reappears, the authors say. Isaiah talks about those in the “wilderness” preparing “the way” in the desert – clearly exodus language. The context of Sinai is obvious as Hosea describes the rescue of an unfaithful spouse: this is geared toward the infidelity of the marriage at Sinai. According to the authors, it is on the rivers of Babylon that the prophets receive a vision, a “re-imagination,” of grace. (pgs. 58-62)

While a return to Jerusalem is their hope, the prophets understand that it’s completely possible for favor to be squandered all over again. As Bell as Golden say:

“That’s always the danger, isn’t it?

That we’ll be broken,

our empires will collapse,

we’ll cry out for help,

and when that help comes,

when we get back on our feet,

when there’s money in the account again,

and things are back to how they were,

the danger is that once we get it back -

whatever ‘it’ is -

we’ll just forget what happened.” (pg. 63)

It is good to be familiar with the whole of Bell’s work and the well of academia from which he draws when reading Chapter Two. When he and Golden write about this move from the particular to the universal, it’s a matter of theological life-and-death to understand the role of the particular in the universal.

I wish the authors would have been more clear about the ways in which the Abrahamic Covenant plays out in this expansion of exodus. It is through the particular that the specific happens; through a New Testament lens we know that salvation is from the Jews, and the whole world may be grafted into the olive tree. One of my critiques of JWSC is that the Abrahamic Covenant could have been better incorporated into the flow of the story, if only to squelch misinterpretation of what Bell and Golden are proposing theologically.

Chapter Two finishes with the call for Israelites to “pick up [their] harps.” The prophets dream of another son of David, one who will make right the things Solomon abandoned. A prophet like Moses (a prophet of exodus), one who will establish the house of David forever. The suspended promises will be fulfilled. (pgs. 68-72)