On worshiping the 'Big Jesus'

Mark Driscoll is an evangelical and missional sort of Christian, and one of the founders of Mars Hill Church in Seattle. He is outspoken and brash in much of what he says; he isn't afraid of making hasty generalisations and seems particularly fond of false dischotomies. His rhetoric is sharp and he's not afraid of making enemies. Some have said that he has made a difference in their lives, and I have no reason to disbelieve them, but I'm not a fan of his and disagree sharply with him on a number of issues.

Last year, in the magazine 'Relevant', he was part of a seven-person panel of church leaders asked about where they see the church headed. One of the questions was as follows:

What do you see as the greatest challenge for young Christians in the next 10 years?

Mark Driscoll: There is a strong drift toward the hard theological left. Some emergent types [want] to recast Jesus as a limp-wrist hippie in a dress with a lot of product in His hair, who drank decaf and made pithy Zen statements about life while shopping for the perfect pair of shoes. In Revelation, Jesus is a pride fighter with a tattoo down His leg, a sword in His hand and the commitment to make someone bleed. That is a guy I can worship. I cannot worship the hippie, diaper, halo Christ because I cannot worship a guy I can beat up. I fear some are becoming more cultural than Christian, and without a big Jesus who has authority and hates sin as revealed in the Bible, we will have less and less Christians, and more and more confused, spiritually self-righteous blogger critics of Christianity.

[From:7 Big Questions; Seven Leaders on where the church is headed. 8/28/2007]

I think this has massive, serious problems with it. First, this shows a troubling tendency towards simplistic black-and-white thinking: either Jesus is a ‘limp-wrist hippie in a dress’ or ‘a pride fighter’. There is no sense that Jesus, whom we confess as being ‘fully God and fully man’ might be strong enough to genuinely elude our own neat and tidy categories. Moreover, Driscoll’s characterisation of Jesus, taken from Revelation 19, betrays a great selectivity. True, in this one passage in Revelation (although Jesus is not named, his identity seems clear from context) he is presented as wielding a sword ‘to strike down the nations’ (9.15). The sword is metaphorical – it comes ‘out of his mouth’ – but the author of Revelation thought it a fit metaphor for the act of God in Christ. This cannot be explained away and needs to be, somehow, incorporated into our language about Jesus – although in a manner that reflects this as one minor element in his overall character, since most of Scripture presents Christ otherwise.

The odd selectivity of Driscoll’s judgement can be shown in two ways. First, although he states that he can worship someone who is committed to ‘making someone bleed’ and ‘cannot worship a guy I can beat up’, he seems unaware that Revelation more often presents Jesus as the Lamb who was slain. This is purely a passive image, not that of a warrior or fighter, and relativises presenting Jesus as a warrior without reserve.

Moreover, and perhaps even more troubling to Driscoll, in the same chapter which presents Jesus as killing with a sword, presents the church, the saints, as the ‘bride’ of the lamb, who has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear.’ (19.7,8) The text makes clear that this language is just as metaphorical as Jesus as a warrior or a lamb, explaining that the linen represents the ‘righteous acts of the saints’ (19.8) Nevertheless, Driscoll and those like him who want to emphasise the (stereotypically) masculine characteristics of Jesus must explain why they pass over other images of Jesus (as slain lamb, for example).They also need to explain why they see Jesus’ stereotypically masculine characteristics as underwriting their embracing of the same, rather than, in the light of their identity as the saints of God, embracing (stereotypically) feminine characteristics. Otherwise, one seems justified in suspecting that Driscoll has simply co-opted Jesus into a project which he has arrived at by other means- to put it bluntly, idolatry.

There is also, just as troublingly, no sense that there might be a problem with allowing who one can ‘beat up’ to be a sure guide to who one may worship. It seems to me rather that (to borrow Driscoll’s polemical terms, which I do not accept) the power of the decaf-drinking ‘limp-wrist hippie’ is that he can change us, quite despite ourselves, into someone who no longer needs to worship only someone he can’t beat up, but is willing to worship God – who is both infinitely ‘bigger’ than us, yet can also, because he wants to, embrace radical vulnerability and contingency in the incarnation and cross. A God who loves the creation enough to act for its salvation, even though it is entirely his creation and has no being of its own apart from him. A God who is wrathful at our disobedience, sin and injustice, yet who has repented of and foresworn violence. A God whose power is not the simple power of force. A God who can take the humiliation of a cross and turn it into life for the world. A God whose ‘extraordinary power’ is entrusted to ‘clay jars’ such as us so that it is ‘made clear’ that the power isn’t our own. (2 Cor. 4.7) This is a gracious God whose glory and honour works itself out through honouring sinners such as ourselves with new life, making those who were his enemies adopted sons and daughters, and brothers of his only son, whom we killed. (Rom. 5) This is a God who graciously reveals himself, but loves us enough not to let us control him.

Despite all this, there is something right in what Driscoll says, although perhaps not in the way he intends: despite our best efforts otherwise, Jesus is not safe. That’s not to say that he is a violent hothead liable to be out looking to ‘make someone bleed’. It’s to say he cannot be captured and used to our purposes; he can’t be domesticated by our own expectations, whether of the ‘pithy Zen’ or the ‘big Jesus’ variety. And to the extent we insist that only one of those two varieties – or any one of the vast number of other varieties – and exclude anything else, we’ve missed out on the real Jesus.

More than that, he isn’t safe because he isn’t content to leave us alone and unchanged, either. If we dare to come to this Jesus, the real Jesus, then perhaps in the bargain we might be changed into someone who doesn’t need to beat up another but can allow the power of God to transform us into someone new – someone who, for his sake and by his word, might even be willing to suffer for the truth, or give his life on behalf of another.

(Just so that you know - and so that he knows that I know - Halden over at Inhabitatio Dei has also written on this, with much that I would endorse, but I felt the need to elaborate my own thoughts on the matter.)

Ricoeur Conference on Poetics and Religion

It is killing me that I cannot go, but I felt I ought to mention here that there is an upcoming conference at Leuven on Paul Ricoeur with the theme poetics and religion. I would love to go, but simply cannot. Here is a description of the conference, pulled in its entirety from their website:

Theme

Paul Ricoeur’s investigations into the hermeneutics of text and human being, the poetic force of symbol, metaphor, and narrative are a continuous source of reflection. The hermeneutical paradigm of text and interpretation in From Text to Action, the ‘little ethics’ in Oneself as Another, the incomplete ontology with its vehemence to be completed, the recurring themes of liberty, hope, poetics, attestation, recognition… are challenging issues for theologians as well as philosophers, revealing numerous fruitful trajectories between philosophy, ethics and theology.

The international conference ‘Paul Ricoeur: Poetics and Religion’ wants to contribute to the course of interpretation that Ricoeur’s oeuvre has instigated. The conference will be dedicated to aspects of the intersection between motivation and argumentation, between conviction and critique. Our purpose is to provide a forum for interdisciplinary dialogue on Ricoeur’s hermeneutical philosophy and its interaction with various theological disciplines.

The conference is organised around five general themes: the fundamental relation between theology and philosophy; textual, biblical and theological hermeneutics; metaphysics; ethics and morality; and practical theology.

No mention of a dealine, so I imagine there is still time to register.

If you go, tell me how it was - and if you like Ricoeur and good theology, spread the word. (Ben?)

Rowan Williams on Capitalism

Yesterday an essay by the Archbishop of Canterbury was published by The Spectator.

It is a great essay, filled with human concern about the mythology which surrounds the market and the real damage it can do to people. A couple of quotations:

'We find ourselves talking about capital or the market almost as if they were individuals, with purposes and strategies, making choices, deliberating reasonably about how to achieve aims. We lose sight of the fact that they are things that we make. They are sets of practices, habits, agreements which have arisen through a mixture of choice and chance. Once we get used to speaking about any of them as if they had a life independent of actual human practices and relations, we fall into any number of destructive errors. We expect an abstraction called ‘the market’ to produce the common good or to regulate its potential excesses by a sort of natural innate prudence, like a physical organism or ecosystem. We appeal to ‘business’ to acquire public responsibility and moral vision. And so we lose sight of the fact that the market is not like a huge individual consciousness, that business is a practice carried on by persons who have to make decisions about priorities — not a machine governed by inexorable laws.'

...

'...ascribing independent reality to what you have in fact made yourself is a perfect definition of what the Jewish and Christian Scriptures call idolatry. What the present anxieties and disasters should be teaching us is to ‘keep ourselves from idols’, in the biblical phrase. The mythologies and abstractions, the pseudo-objects of much modern financial culture, are in urgent need of their own Dawkins or Hitchens. We need to be reacquainted with our own capacity to choose — which means acquiring some skills in discerning true faith from false, and re-learning some of the inescapable face-to-face dimensions of human trust.'

Read it all here.

But somewhat troubling is that the essay itself is entitled "Face it: Marx was partly right about capitalism". Now, I am assuming that, as with newspapers, the headline was not composed by the author but added in later by someone else. (I suspect but do not know - I am not a regular reader of the Spectator - that the deliberately provocative 'Face it:' is a regular feature, and that the specific headline follows the colon.) But the headline, whilst attention-getting, is not apposite to the essay. He does indeed mention Marx near the end, in a by-the-way fashion, but this is not his overarching concern, not the theme of the essay. As it stands, it might sound like a full-court-press defense of Karl Marx and Marxism, but this is far from the intent. In fact, he says of Marx, in the only mention of him in the essay:'Marx long ago observed the way in which unbridled capitalism became a kind of mythology, ascribing reality, power and agency to things that had no life in themselves; he was right about that, if about little else.' Hardly a ringing endorsement. And hardly a suitable headline for a passionate, thoughtful, and irenic essay.

Donald MacKinnon on John Hick (plus a bonus quotation)

Professor David F. Ford, back in his early days as (I believe) an undergraduate was in a supervision at Cambridge with Professor Donald MacKinnon. Ford had been discussing John Hick and the sort of conceptual clarity that he brought to his work; MacKinnon was silent a moment and epigrammatically responded to Ford:

'Some thinkers strive for clarity at all costs, while others wrestle with reality at its darkest points.'


To that I would like to add a MacKinnon quotation on apologetics, cribbed shamelessly from Ben over at Faith and Theology:

“The philosopher is not an apologist; apologetic concern, as Karl Barth (the one living theologian of unquestionable genius) has rightly insisted, is the death of serious theologizing, and I would add, equally of serious work in the philosophy of religion.”

—Donald M. MacKinnon, The Borderlands of Theology: An Inaugural Lecture (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1961), 28.

On Sin 4

Thanks to CR for raising the matter of the seven deadly sins in her comment. The 'Seven Deadlies' were not my primary concern in On Sin 3, but rather a characterisation or thematisation of sin as a whole (which, then, the seven deadly sins would seem to instantiate in various ways). Nevertheless, it got me thinking...

It is fascinating - and outrageous - that in numerous identifiable ways the seven deadly sins are now no longer considered sins as such, but rather are actually relied upon and positively encouraged as the basis of much of our society and (especially) economics, and in that sense has become the basis of our supposed security.

If we did not have envy, for example, we could not have fashion - the planned 'obsolescence' of otherwise serviceable clothing - and could not then have an industry and its resultant profits surrounding it. (Not that it is only envy, but it is at least that.)

One of the dilemmas of capitalism, historically, is how to create demand in order to sustain production. Recourse to (at least some of) the seven deadly sins has been one of the solutions.

Naturally, for Christians at least, any structure which relies on - rather than merely accounting for - the seven deadly sins must be held in some suspicion.

But turning to the seven deadly sins themselves, I wonder if there isn't actually a polarity or dualism within them? (I haven't done much work on these, so this is probably a banal observation.) That is to say, it seems relatively easy to get locked into an orientation which reacts against (say) lust, and assumes the opposite (say, anhedonia) to be the virtuous position. But to take this position - reacting against lust - actually incorporates lust into virtue, as virtue becomes a reaction against it, a rejection of it, rather than something which has gone beyond it. Getting beyond these dualisms seems increasingly important to me.

If we instead think of virtue as - well, not merely a mean between extremes, but rather something escaping or transcending the dualism, then we seem to get closer to what we are called to by God as humans.

Streetwise: Rowan Williams on the church's authority and obedience

‘Theologically speaking, an appeal to the Church’s charter of foundation in the saving act of God, rooted in the eternal act of God, can never be made without the deepest moral ambiguities, unless it involves an awareness of the mode of that saving act as intrinsic to its authoritative quality and as requiring its own kind of obedience. That is to say, the God who works in disponibilité, vulnerability and mortality is not to be ‘obeyed’ by the exercise or the acceptance of an ecclesial authority that pretends to overcome these limits.’

Rowan Williams, Arius: Heresy and Tradition, p. 239

On Sin 3

If sin may be primarily thematised under 'pride' - as it has been for millennia - then the appropriate response must be 'humility and obedience'.

But despite its seemingly strong pedigree, this also raises all sorts of questions.

One question which Matt Jenson raises in his book The Gravity of Sin*is, does this thematisation do justice to the actual experience of sin - does everyone suffer from simple pride, or might, say, women, or others, have a different wrestling with this? He responds that, yes, people actually do have different characteristic experiences of sin, that sin takes different shapes for them. Drawing on the work of Augustine, Luther, and Barth, Jenson paints an alternative picture of sin as homo incurvatus in se, using the Latin, or 'humanity curved in on itself', and therefore not able to be open to God or neighbour. I agree that this far better thematises the broad category of sin than simply 'pride'.

This also suggests - quite helpfully - that the 'solution' to sin is not force. If sin is primarily pride, with the appropriate stance being simply humility and obedience, then this implies that the problem is having a will - having a self - and one ought to get in line and do as one is told. It is a military-style solution intended to create identical repetition. It also - at least in effect - discourages thinking. Obedience in this sense is not to be considered, not to be interrogated; imagination has seemingly no role in such obedience; it is simply to be enacted.

There is a deep and disturbing finitude to this which seems not to do justice to the excessiveness of God's grace in Jesus Christ. Put another way, it is hard not to see legalism as the 'solution'** to sin as pride; and legalism and its attendent self-righteousness are, it must be said, godless foolishness.

But if sin - which might well be pride, yes, but is much broader than that - is more a matter of 'one being curved in on oneself', then the response is more a matter of 'opening oneself up', or 'being opened up'. One is opened up to who one is in God and in light of the neighbour; the problem is not one's will or self in themselves. These are themselves gifts of God, and for God's creation to be its fullest we must participate in it, rather than shrinking back from them, or using them for our own ends over others. We need to be healed, redeemed, reconciled, certainly: we should use these gifts appropriately rather than using them abusively, or failing to use them.

If our selves are brought into play in this way, then, it also means that we are also free to think. We are not to shelve ourselves and cease thinking: rather we are to embrace thinking - and acting - in their fullest ways. As I like to say, the life of faithfulness requires thinking and thinking about thinking. That is to say, when we hear - in Barth's terms - the command of God come to us, that command is itself always mediated through the human, whether ourselves or others. Since it is always mediated through the human, it is always already involved in thinking - language, judgement, and so on - and so it is only appropriate that we engage in thinking about thinking. We are not to be formed into a military-like obedience (sorry, Ignatius of Loyola), but rather a thinking faithfulness which is consonant with creativity, yet which is also able to self-interrogate.

I call this a 'light' hermeneutics (or, thinking about thinking) of suspicion. (I need a better expression!) With it, one is open to possibilities in God, perhaps surprising possibilities, for nonidentical yet faithful repetition of Christlikeness in our lives. But one is also open to the possibility of self-deception and ideology. This is meant to instill a vigilance as well as an eagerness to hear. And part of this vigilance is a vigilance against our own perfectionism - 'I must know everything before I can act' - as well as being able to interrogate our own interrogation - 'Am I suspicious of this just because I don't like it?' It is, in philosophical terms, a non-foundational hermeneutic; I mean it to be an ad hoc and ongoing practice rather than some sort of all-encompassing theory of understanding.

And so, in this way, perhaps we might see that the revelation of God to sinful humanity - to quote Rowan Williams, drawing on Paul Ricoeur - 'is addressed not so much to a will called upon to submit as to an imagination called upon to "open itself".' (from 'Trinity and Revelation' in On Christian Theology, p. 147.)



* I reviewed this work - mostly favourably - in International Journal of Systematic Theology. I am not sure if you will be able to access the review, but the link is here.

** How I despise thinking there is a 'solution' to sin! To say there is a solution to it implies that it is essentially something isolable to be managed, simply to be controlled. It not only seems not to do justice to the reality and scope of sin, it also seems to (even more!) domesticate grace, as perhaps some sort of 'strategy for living', an idea which can be plucked out of nowhere and adapted to whatever we're doing, rather than something elemental and awe-inspiring, which cannot be adapted to whatever we're doing, but transforms us in the deepest ways.

Theology in tight places...

I had the pleasure and privilege of hearing Jürgen Moltmann speak in the faculty last Thursday on the topic of German theology since 1908. I was enlightening and exciting, not least because one of the greater figures in the last century of German theology was present giving the lecture.

As those familiar with Moltmann's theology will know, he was captured as a prisoner of war in World War II, and interred interned by the British for quite some time. At one point he was given the option of transferring to a prisoner of war camp near Nottingham, at which he could study the Bible and theology. It was that formative and moving experience which launched him into the field of theology, and both he and theology were never the same again.

It was at this point in the lecture where someone leaned over and said: 'A prison camp where you could study theology? It sounds like my old seminary!'

On Sin

We ought never to be content with our sin, for this denies the justice and righteousness of God and - what's more - the power of God to overcome our sin,to bring reconciliation, new life and transformation.

But we also ought not to be impatient with our sin, for this denies God's grace and decision that we are acceptable in Christ, substituting for it a notion of needing to 'make ourselves acceptable', which is to say, self-righteousness and legalism. It is only a short step from that to the autonomous 'self-made man'.

On Enemies

There has been a little talk about enemies going around recently, with President Bush raising questions about the value of diplomatic strategies - 'talking' - with America's 'enemies', likening this to appeasement, and invoking the (rather over-invoked) spectre of Chamberlain, Germany, and the Sudetenland.

But it seems worth asking just what an enemy is? Or more specifically, what makes someone an enemy? We live in a world of cause and effect, in which we can generally enquire as to why something or other might have happened or might be the case. Why is it that someone might set themselves to oppose us?* It seems that there are four general causes. I'll mention the first three first:

Ignorance: the other might simply not know the reasons for one's actions or understand the stance one has taken in the world. In this case, it would seem that informing the other of the genuine nature of things would alleviate the situation.

Insanity: the other might not be capable of knowing the genuine nature of things due to some defect of function.

Wickedness: the other might oppose one because he or she is wicked, perverted in such a way that he or she willfully refuses to acknowledge the genuine nature of things.

I'll be blunt: these three are rarely wholly and objectively the case with 'the other'. Moreover, it is easy to see how invoking them would serve ideological ends; that is, that they would be a way of lying to ourselves to avoid the truth of the matter.

The other cause is this:

Reasons: the other might oppose one because he or she has genuine reasons for doing so, reasons which might be more-or-less well formed or articulated but nevertheless represent the other's interests and person.

It is worth mentioning that, in the case of a dispute between parties, to call someone an enemy for one of the first three reasons locates the cause of their 'enemyhood' in the other; by implication, this allows oneself to escape scrutiny. The reason there is a dispute is because the other has bumbled into it (ignorance), isn't capable of anything better (insanity), or has deliberately and perversely chosen it (wickedness). The reason the other is opposing one is simply because of something within him or herself; any consideration of oneself as involved in the making of the dispute is out of bounds and improper.

But the fourth possible cause - because the enemy has a reason - brings one into a relationship, opening up the possibility of self-reflection, of exchange, of debate, of talk: also the possibility of repentence and conversion.

Because the enemy might have a reason - more-or-less well reasoned or articulated, correct or incorrect - allows the other to be seen as human. Yet the possibility of self-reflection, for considering how we are implicated in the other's 'enemy-ness' does not unmake the enemy, nor does it explain away or justify the more-or-less well reasoned or articulated, correct or incorrect reasons one has for considering the other an enemy.

Parties to a dispute, enemies, are involved in history - maybe for thousands of years - and there may well be reasons of various sorts over the span of time. Yet to acknowledge that there are reasons between the parties rather than simply within the other party is to open up a horizon within which a conversation (of some sort) might open.

This is not meant to be sunny or pollyanna-ish, just the opposite. To take a sober look at a situation, and allow ourselves to be a party in it - rather than simply a victim of the other - is at least to escape a dangerous and sinful delusion; or, to look at it from the other side, it is to come more fully to grasp the truth of the matter. It is seeing oneself only as an innocent victim and the other only as wicked perpetrator which is sunnily optimistic and out of touch with reality.

Rather, to see the relationship of enemies as mutually constituting constituted by various reasons is to allow both oneself and the other to be genuinely human, both implicated in the other's 'enemy-ness', both caught up in sin - which in various ways partially resembles ignorance, inanity and wickedness - and yet both presented with the possibility of repentance and reconciliation in the Spirit, through Christ.

As we are implicated in - and constituted by - our neighbour, so also are we by our enemy. It is in this way that we can begin to see some of the depth and wisdom in Christ's counsel to love one's enemy. (Mt 5.44)


[aphoristic addenda 20/05/08 21.30]
What I am trying to do, in part, is think a social/relational economy which is shaped by the gospel, recognises the mutual constitution of persons, and can do justice to enemies, sin and grace within this economy. This is intended to recognise the humanity of the other, and not to take his or her sin with greater seriousness than our own - and to recognise how we are ourselves implicated in his or her sin, while he or she is implicated in ours.

If we are mutually constituted as persons by others (and we constitute them) then we are constituted by both sin and grace. But the grace is prior, and elemental; at bottom, we are constituted by God's grace.

Sin is not (ultimately) subject to explanation, at least not in the sense of 'explaining away', as if it were merely a matter of information and not perversity. Barth was right that sin is the 'impossible impossibility'. Yet this perversity must never be allowed to allow sin to be self-evident or 'natural', and must never dampen thinking, attempts to trace and understand (if not explain) it.

This 'mutually constituting' is burden, responsibility, opportunity and delight. But it is not a task per se.

It is commonly enough the case that bad reasons may be offered for 'enemy-ship'. One common situation would be that x constitutes y as an enemy when the real grievance is with z. Yet the proper response would not be for y to respond to x by colouring him in the ways described above. (Actually, ignorance wouldn't be too far off the truth.) But this situation gives the opportunity for x and y and (hopefully) z to talk.


*Taking 'us' and 'them' in the most general terms possible: individual, social, national, and so forth.

Streetwise: Rowan Williams on Suffering and God-Talk

'The resolution of the sheer resistant particularity of suffering, past and present, into comfortable teleological patterns is bound to blunt the edge of particularity, and so to lie; and this lying resolution contains that kind of failure in attention that is itself a moral deficiency, a fearful self-protection. It is just this that fuels the fantasy that we can choose how the world and myself shall be.’

'The world is such - is, independently of our choice and our fabrication - that we cannot think away particulars into comprehensive explanatory systems; the world is such that attention to particularity is demanded of us. If we are to speak of God, can we do so in a way that does not amount to another evsion of the world? There is a way of talking about God that simply projects on to him what we cannot achieve - a systematic vision of the world as a necessarily inter-related whole. Trust in such a God is merely deferred confridence in the possibility of exhaustive explanation and justification; and deferred confidence of this sort is open to exactly the same moral and logical objection as any other confidence in systemic necessity of this kind in the world. A God who essential function is to negate the 'otherness' and discontinuity of historical experience, and so to provide for us an ideal locus standi, a perspective transcending or reconciling discontinuity into system, is clearly an idol, and an incoherent one at that...'

Rowan Williams, 'Trinity and Ontology', On Christian Theology, p. 155,6

Deconstructing the deconstruction of the church: further thoughts

I had a few more thoughts in the wake of what I wrote last night on Jamie Smith's essay offering an appreciative critique of some of the elemental notions of John Caputo's book What Would Jesus Deconstruct? (Smith's blog is here.)

First, while I entirely agree with the notion that the church is the body of Christ, and more than simply a voluntary human institution among others, it is also true that it is, in fact, a human institution as well. (This is not a disagreement with Smith, but a slight expansion of my own ruminations.) Doing away with this dualism, owing to scruples surrounding 'purity' or a misunderstanding of 'holiness' is quite important. But this should never mitigate our own self-criticism, the honest searching for our idolatries and inhumanities, the ways we've hated and betrayed God and neighbour. In short, we should attune our ears to the judgement of God. The presence of the Lord is never undialectical, unambiguous - never, never a possession, nor a merit, never anything but the active gracious presence of the - to borrow Barth's terms - One who loves in freedom.

This doesn't give us a status or power over others - as if the status of the Empire were simply transposed onto the church - but it does give us (I think this is Paolo Frere's phrase) a power for, a status for others; or, even better, (Frere again) it gives us power with, status with others.

Second, while I disavow the idea that the church is simply a voluntary aggregate of like-minded individuals (or disavow that as a regulative ideal, anyway; that's not what we're meant to be), nevertheless, I feel strongly that there is a necessary element of (divine?) patience involved in the being of the church. That is to say, to affirm that it is an organic body isn't meant to imply that it is a closed body, nor that all those 'parts' (i.e. members) of that body should look alike. It is crucial, it seems to me, within the church, to make room for others and the ones they are, to come in at their own time, with their own gifts and concerns and sins and betrayals. This doesn't betray the elementally corporate nature of the Body of Christ, but elaborates on it. And it might cut against some of our most cherished practices and intuitions in the way that body is formed. It also means that the church is always an 'open' body, always receiving the ones that it needs (although it didn't know it), the organs and limbs it cannot live without and yet has for so long. This also means that we cannot make a final judgement on the shape or life of the church, for it is an emerging reality which will only be known eschatologically. (This doesn't at all mean that we cannot make sensible proximate and not-yet final judgements on it; I encourage just as much above from within, and the church needs to hear those judgements from without as well.) Moreover, if we are constituted by the other, then there is a sense in which our corporate and individual identities are opened out eschatologically by those who are not yet here.

All of this implies that, as I mentioned above, there is a quietness (if not a silence) and a patience at the heart of the church (or, again, there ought to be). I have begun wondering if this patience might not be a means of thematising time as ordered to the glory of God. By this I mean, in part, that to be patient is a renunciation of our own power, our own means of resolving everything (or anything), but rather to look in faith and hope to God: to, by the power of the Spirit, grow to embody - however imperfectly - the patience of God, a patience in God which is correlated with his wisdom (Barth again!). This wisdom is not ours, of course, and the patience cultivated in us by the Spirit is a patience which is not the same as God's, but responsive to it.

A subsidiary point about the church not being simply voluntary: to reject voluntarism takes some imagination. That is to say, we must be cautious in rejecting voluntarism and individualism not simply to affirm in some broad and uncritical way their polar opposites. This would be to let the entire individualist problematic to have the last word; we need something better, more faithful. What might that look like? I wonder if 'honouring the other as the one they are' begins to get at it; much more remains to be done here.

Third, while I cling to the notion that orthodoxy is the more radical (and more faithful) way, I mean to clarify that by this I don't mean 1) a closed, decided once for all system that's simply read off and answers all questions (or at least gets people to stop asking them) or 2) a club to beat others with. It seems to me that orthodoxy is established, emerging, and eschatological. That is to say, the basis and subject matter of orthodoxy is God and particularly God's revelation and act in the incarnation (taken to include the cross and resurrection). It's this and not something else, so it is established.*

Yet also it is emerging. It took decades** for John the Evangelist (and his community) to get to grips with the depth of who Jesus was as the Word of God - indeed, God. I take it that his gospel is different not because he needed more time to make up some good stuff, but because there is an endless depth and intensity to the identity of Jesus which simply cannot be 'read off'. Moreover, it is a question whether John would have endorsed the orthodox beliefs of the incarnation (wherein Jesus is fully human, fully divine) and the Trinity (wherein God is three and one) in just the way that they were encoded later in the church. That's not to say either that John was a heretic - not at all - nor to deny that his text served as an important basis for just those formulations. But again, given the intensity of the identity of Jesus, His Father, and the Spirit, it is not unexpected that this might not be recognised in toto in the first generation. More recent questions have to do with questions about God's suffering (and death?), the status of philosophical theism, and who may be (or is) included in the church and its ministry. Because there are strong - often vehement - sentiments on either side of these issues such that opponents may be dismissed out of hand does not in itself change the fact that these are emergent issues about which we are not yet settled; indeed, this kind of strong, heartfelt engagement just shows that we are not yet settled on them.

Finally, orthodoxy is eschatological. A true orthodoxy - to the extent it gestures towards or describes the real God - is always aware of its own incompleteness, for it does not, cannot, encompass or master God. It cannot be exhaustive or final; although it can manifest a measure of confidence in its confession of the Lord, the truth of that confession - indeed the constitution of the one so confessing - is entirely dependent on that same Lord. And being aware of our own sin, incompleteness, idolatry, ideology, and so forth, we ought to be deeply suspicious of a contentment that comes from a closed doctrinal system, or a confidence in ourselves as independent experts. As Paul says to the Corinthians, 'Now we see in a glass darkly (in all sorts of ways, not merely doctrinal), but then (eschatologically) we will know in full, even as we are known.' And so one of the attitudes of the orthodox (it seems to me) should be a certain sort of 'startled humility' (Barth, again): not that our truths are not true, but that they are not ours. I hope the connections here between these doctrinal affirmations and the practices of the church such as prayer, Eucharist, Scripture-reading, conversation, baptism and so forth are manifest.

*In fact, God doesn't need our orthodoxy: we do, for it names - and glorifies - the true Lord.

** That is, John is written several decades after the synoptic gospels; not that he was writing all that time, but that the author and the community had more time behind it between them and Christ.

Picture - Rembrandt's Christ At Emmaus, 1648

Oh yeah, well deconstruct this!

It's been awhile since I've posted. Of all the habits of blogging, doing it consistently, regularly, has been the hardest for me. I'll get a streak of several posts within a week or so, and then be dark the next week as my 'real life' (ha ha) gets busy. All of which is not to say that I'm going to be better on this front, just that yes, I know...

Anyway, I ran across an article by Jamie Smith - who is usually assistant professor of philosophy at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, but just now is overseeing their exchange program at York St. John's University - on The Incarnation as More Radical Hermeneutics. It is a critical yet appreciative review of John Caputo's What Would Jesus Deconstruct?

I like the sort of stuff that Smith does, and this is a good introduction to part of it. Part of his critique of Caputo is that his portrait of Jesus is (ironically) hard to tell from contemporary liberalism, and that the Jesus of the gospels - indeed, for those with ears to hear, of orthodoxy - is far more radical than that. One way this is so is that the scandal of the incarnation creates a body, an institution, which carries on in the Spirit down the ages, witnessing to the Word, the living God; this body is scandalous (to us) by not simply being a voluntary organisation of like-minded people, a benevolent organisation whose watchword is laissez-faire individualism. At least in this way, we are different from the world around us.

Or so we're supposed to be.

Go and have a read of Smith's essay, it's good. I've borrowed a couple of terms and intellectual moves from him for the above, which is an improvisation on one or two aspects of the essay.

On the cross: and true and false gods

The formidable Kim Fabricius has provided the internet with a copy of his brilliant and bracing Palm Sunday sermon, entitled Lose your Faith, via Faith and Theology; it is moving, bold, poignant - and theologically right on.

It's possible that his wife was right and he should have curtailed the refrain of 'Lose your faith' - or maybe repeated something in a mood other than the imperative. But on the other hand the boldness - parrhesia? - and honesty in what he says, being unwilling to 'make it safe' or even 'wrap it all up' at the end makes it. On the whole, it's a tour de force. Here's an excerpt, to whet your appetite for the rest:

(All content of this excerpt is from Kim Fabricius, and I'm sure he claims (at least) moral right to be identified as its author - just so we're clear)

This sermon doesn’t have three points, it’s got three words: Lose your faith! (I warned you I would be sacrilegious.) Yes, lose your faith. Lose your faith in God. For as the French mystic Simone Weil insisted, there is a kind of atheism that is purifying, cleansing us of idols. Lose your faith in the god that the cross exposes as a no-god, a sham god. Lose your faith in the god who is but the product of your projections, fantasies, wishes, and needs, a security blanket or good-luck charm god. Lose your faith in the god who is there to hold your hand, solve your problems, rescue you from your trials and tribulations, the deus ex machina, literally the “machine god”, wheeled out onto the stage in ancient Greek drama, introduced to the plot artificially to resolve its complications and secure a happy ending. Lose your faith in the god who confers upon you a privileged status that is safe and secure. Lose your faith in the god who promises you health, wealth, fulfilment, and success, who pulls rabbits out of hats. Lose your faith in the god with whom your conscience can be at ease with itself. Lose your faith in the god who, in Dennis Potter’s words, is the bandage, not the wound. Lose your faith in the god who always answers when you pray and comes when you call. Lose your faith in the god who is never hidden, absent, dead, entombed. For the “Father who art in heaven” – this week he is to be found in hell – with his Son.

I am just reviewing James Alison's book Undergoing God: Report from the Scene of a Break-in, and much of what Kim says resonates with Alison's unapologetically Girardian take on theology. While I am not a follower of Rene Girard, full stop, myself, he is insightful and even haunting in the way that his work illuminates Scripture, and helps to expose our own idolatries.

We need more people who are willing to wield the idol-hammer, not out of iconclasm (which, today, is usually more about the hammer-wielder than the icon), nor out of hatred of our images, but above out out of love for God - and, in God, love for humanity.

Wisdom - Let us attend.

The title of this entry is taken from the Orthodox Christian liturgy, said just before the reading of the gospel. I use it because Clifton Healy, an old friend from seminary who has entered the Orthodox Church, has written something beautiful and wise which I wanted to share - I hope he doesn't find it embarrassing that I do so.

I share it partly because I find it beautiful and wise, but also because it gives voice to some of my own recent ruminations on life and faith, although he wrote this before I did and (no doubt) did so with more elegance and incisiveness than I might have. But it captures well the mystery of the searching love of God and the growing contentment with my own perplexity in being caught up in this which I have been growing in awareness of recently. (The only aspect I might add in, for my part, is the judgement of God.)

Anyway, here is an extract:

It seems as though with every day that I continue on in my journey as an Orthodox Christian, I find myself knowing less and less. The things I thought I knew are so pale and incomplete when placed in the center of the reality they claim to approximate, that I wonder if there is much use in holding on to them. God is love. The Tripersonal God is love. God the Father is love. Jesus, God the Son, is love. God the Holy Spirit is love. The Holy Trinity loves my wife, my daughters, my parents and siblings, my in-laws. Even, more mystery, even me.

The rest is inscrutable. Why is it that I am called to just this time, just this day, just this city, just this parish, to do that which I am called to do: to pray for the conversion of others? Why is it, that I am given just these pains and consolations at just this time? Why is it that I have been called to these things, and to this struggle? I do not know. I wonder whether I will ever know. I do not even know whether the pains and sufferings will be recompensed with deliverance and joy. I do not know whether the consolations will bring about further union with God, or whether I will squander them. But here I am, at this time, in this place of struggle and desolation and loss, and joy. And I must believe that God is love. And I must pray for the conversion of others.

Interestingly, this parallels in some respects what friend Maggi Dawn has recently written in the Christian Century 'Faith Matters' column:

When I was taking my first degree in theology, most of the building blocks of my faith came up for serious reexamination. I asked one of my professors how it was possible for faith to survive this kind of intense intellectual scrutiny. He thought for a while, then said, "Once upon a time I believed in a great many things. Now I believe only in a few things, but I believe in them more deeply than I ever thought possible. That God exists, that God is love, and that Jesus is the son of God—these things I believe. Everything else is up for debate."

I think I've realised in retrospect that this has been the case for me, after a fashion. Plunging more deeply into the church's tradition and the depths of contemporary theology has been humbling and formative. It's brought - what? Less certainty, more trust? That begins to get at it.

Not, that is, that I would only list the few things that Maggi's professor would. The Incarnation and the Holy Trinity are absolutely foundational for me. But they are not 'foundational' in the sense that I have them all figured out or even - as I study further - that I understand them in anything like an exhaustive sense. (Indeed, seeing how the church itself has maintained a discreet silence in some areas has been a large part of this learning.) But I believe in them, confess them, believe they are true, and that their truth is not dependent on my understanding them. It's not that they are not truths - it's that they are not my truths. They're truths of a world within which I have been given the grace to live, and the grace to spend inordinate amounts of time learning about, thinking about, and contemplating these truths.

Indeed, they make sense: not that they are entirely transparent to penetration by human reason, one wouldn't expect that of God anyway. Rather, they 'make sense' - create sense - because by them the world is rendered more sensible. Again, this is not 'more sensible' meaning 'more useful', as in a strategy to use the world for my own ends. It's something much more like seeing the world in the light of God's glory, and praying to be used for that.

Sin, Society, Violence and Responsibility

This is a slightly modified version of a response given to a comment on an earlier post.

The larger claim (the 'deeper question' as I phrased it) I was making in my post Getting Schooled? Violence in three movements - the claim which brackets the gun talk - is that America is a violent nation and seems to have become moreso in the last few years. I was ruminating on that and wondering where we’ve gone wrong, how is our soul deformed so as to work out this way? (So the risk is more a matter of being in the society than being in its schools.)

It is noteworthy that this is an American problem, not a problem for humans per se – other developed nations have nothing like the gun crime rates, nor overall violent crime rates that we do.

And my ruminations on Noah’s Ark suggest that, perhaps, at least theologically, violence is not the solution to violence.

So I am left wondering what can be done earlier in the process so we don’t get to the point of violence. There is disagreement among Christians, on Scriptural grounds, about the legitimacy of violence as a response to violence - although it would seem that all Christians, even those who espouse just war, must admit of limits to our actions, geopolitically and (presumably) personally. But Christians of all stripes would, I take it, be interested in the question of what gives rise to this violence, peculiarly focussed in one society.

Naturally, the answer on some level is that the problem is sin, and the response needs to be repentance, reconciliation and healing. I wholeheartedly agree. But sin is particular to systems and individuals, and the form of repentance, reconciliation and healing are just as particular. Given that violent crime – much of it between strangers, according to statistics – is so widespread in America, what particular form would these take for us?

Or to put it only slightly differently, what is broken and deformed in our system which prompts people to act out in this way? How might we even be complicit in this? After all, the ‘problems’ are not just those who act out, but also the extended social network by which they are formed and of which they are a part – and which they contribute to forming. The sin is not just the violent acting out, but also the sin done to a person to prompt them to act out, and the broader, systemic sins committed against a person. Sin begets sin.

Note well: This is not in any way saying that someone who acts out is merely a victim and not responsible – on the contrary, we are all victims and simultaneously we are all responsible. We are all sinned against, and we all sin.

So that’s the set of questions I am sitting with: what are the specific conditions of sin – and the specific shape of redemption and healing needed – in America today? At this point, I see the effects (violence) but am only beginning to grope towards an analysis of the causes in greater detail than ‘sin’ (which is universal, yet takes different characteristic shapes). I suppose in some sense, this has been an ongoing preoccupation of this blog ever since I began it.

Photos of rapeseed crops used in accord with relevant copyrights: uppermost image from Wikimedia commons; lower image from stock.xchng. Unfortunately, it is probably another 4 to 6 weeks for the local rapeseed to blossom.

'conservative', 'liberal' and theology

A blog I've enjoyed reading over the last few months is Dan Reid's. He is an academic editor for InterVarsity Press, and he writes mostly about theology and theological publishing. (I also seem to think I've met him in real life once when he was here in Cambridge for a sabbatical.)

He recently wrote a particularly good post which dovetails with a good deal of my own thinking and writing, and I wanted to at least dogear the reference for another time (and share it with you as well).

In the post he cavils with the ease with which the terms 'liberal' and 'conservative' are deployed in theological writing, and (especially) the pernicious effects of such. Put simply, it hinders thinking and engagement, two things we dare not live without.

If you need a goad to get you to click over and have a look, here is a choice quotation from the entry:

'It is a cheap scholarship that out of fear or partisan motives feels the need to immediately divide viewpoints into the simple categories of conservative or liberal—or relegate something to the ominous “slippery slope.”' - Dan Reid

Well put; thank you Dan - may your tribe increase!

Reconciliation, divine and human

Theologically, reconciliation with God is never apart from reconciliation with people, although obviously God takes the lead in ways that humans never could. As the Archbishop of Canterbury has elegantly put it in a recent talk here in Cambridge, 'Christian faith does not make the world smaller, it makes the world larger, puts us more in touch with the truth of reality, not less.' And a part of that, I am convinced, is seeing the magnitude of our own sin, personally and systemically, as well as sin done in my name and on my behalf.

On Being Left Behind

Here I am, nearly a week later, and last Sunday’s gospel lesson is still rattling around in my head, Mt. 24:26-44. When it was read in chapel it quite struck me and my mind lingered over it for some time; I’m still not entirely sure just what to make of it, but I’d like to share some of my thoughts in process.

First, this is a favourite prooftext for premillenial dispensationalists to quote in support a rapture from the earth in which Christians are taken away to heaven and the world bears the brunt of God’s righteous wrath. This is the basis of the Left Behind novels – from the passage saying ‘one will be left [behind]’. This is a troubling doctrine in a number of ways, not least because it seems to indulge our own (self-righteous) thirst for others’ blood, at times even endorsing a sort of prurient voyeurism on others’ misfortune – I have heard some seriously suggest that they would enjoy being in heaven looking down and seeing everyone get theirs. It seems when doctrine fuels anything like these sorts of attitudes in us, we ought to take pause and soberly reassess where we’re at and how we’ve gotten there. But this is also not a true doctrine; in any event, it is abundantly clear that it couldn’t be supported on the basis of this passage: just as those in the flood were ‘taken’ in judgement, so also those at the coming of the Son will be ‘taken’ in judgement as well. This isn’t a matter of believers being raptured away out of the world, but of them being left in the world. (So much for the old Larry Norman song, I guess.)

This gives a slightly different sense to ‘apocalyptic’ – at least here – such that it is not about the rending of creation, but rather its judgement and continuation. In fact, there is almost the opposite sense, and nearly the opposite sense of the flood, that actually life goes on. The man in the field, the woman grinding: do they simply continue their work in the following days? It seems likely (although presumably there is now more work to do).

But I wonder if those left feel ambivalent about those taken? Or to put it more strongly, I wonder if they are left in grief, in loss, feeling the massive hole where these other valued people used to be: co-labourers, but also presumably friends, family, loved ones. Life does not merely continue for those who remain, but it continues with loss, and visible notable gaps where others used to be.

What is clear on the basis of this teaching is that although those left may live with grief and loss, no smugness of self-righteousness is allowed. There is a discreet veil over what happens to those ‘taken’ in judgement; there is no room in the kingdom, it seems, for satisfying our bloodthirsty curiosity. We are instead to be ‘ready’ for when the Son comes at an unexpected hour, a readiness which (I think) speaks of a certain integrity of life, such that we deeply appropriate and live the gospel of Christ, and its grace, service and love.

I trust that God’s judgement will be just and good and loving and in accord with the grace and holiness manifest in Christ. But at least now it takes a bit of graced imagination to think how this might work out, and I’m not sure I see it at this point. Even so, I join my voice gladly – though with perplexity – to the church’s chorus down the ages” Mara natha, O Lord Jesus, come!

This is also posted over at Hopeful Imagination, a group blog for Advent - check it out throughout the Advent season for more postings!

Mature Christians and Willow Creek

I have had - at best - an ambivalent relationship with Willow Creek and what they're about. Of course, evangelism is crucial, and they've tried doing it in a focused and specific way, and so should be praised for that. But I have far more questions and hesitations than I have endorsements for them.

They've come out with a self-study entitled Reveal*, which Christianity Today writes about here. They have discovered that, on the basis of a survey, people who are not yet Christians or who are new Christians find that Willow Creek (and churches like it) is wonderfully helpful. Growing and mature Christians however find it unhelpful and are moving to leave the church. The CT essay is right on in a number of ways. First, it questions the - at least potential - spiritual narcissism of someone who is 'mature' and is looking to be 'fed'. Bill Hybels said that they need to learn to be 'self-feeders', with the church giving them the tools to continue growing on their own. There is something basically right about this, and I've always been concerned about Christians using this phrase 'being fed' when it comes to teaching or preaching in a church: presumably when we are adults we can feed ourselves - and feed others as well. But I'm also concerned about this idea of being a 'self-feeder' to the degree that it is pretty isolated, something one does alone and apart from the church.

The essay expands on this helpfully:

Should we be encouraging this apparent spiritual narcissism by helping people become "self-feeders"? This does not strike me as a healthy way to describe the mature disciple of Jesus Christ. While there is great wisdom in developing for individuals a "customized personal spiritual growth plan"—which looks very much like the venerable practice of spiritual direction—I wonder if we want to make "my spiritual growth" the focus for the mature believer.

The more mature we become in Jesus, the less we try to measure or chart or describe "my spiritual growth." Instead, we are called to think less about ourselves and more about God. We're less interested in what the self is experiencing and more interested in the Jesus we're serving. The self, including the spiritual self, is increasingly crucified. The key question of the mature disciple is not "Am I growing?" but "Am I serving?"

'Not being fed' might also be about depth, too. (In fact, the phrased isn't parsed out.) If the only idiom in which the church can speak is an introductory one, then perhaps there just isn't much there to encourage depth of growth or engagement. Maybe instead of using the image of eating or being fed we might talk about a massive multi-generational conversation, which incorporates people at all levels: it isn't dumbed down for children, but neither are they excluded (indeed, the conversation is what they are brought into, even they don't understand it all).

Through all this, there is also a pretty anemic ecclesiology; there is no sense of the church actually being a body, and of the relationships among the various constituent parts being a crucial aspect of that body's identity. Indeed, one gets the idea that the church is primarily for getting people over the threshold, rather than being a differentiated body engaging the mission of God in the world; in Willow's model, it seems that the primary locus of discipleship is the individual, someone who is mature enough to be responsible for himself. But that's pretty limited; it seems instead that we are called as the church and as people to a kind of interdependence.


* Disclaimer: I have not yet read the survey and - like so many other commentators, no doubt - am relying on second-hand reportage.