The Shape of Faith

About a week ago I said I was going to start to unpack what life in the Spirit might look like for us in twenty-first century contexts, so I suppose I should at some point get to that. I've actually been spending the last week or so thinking through what I had planned to write, and I think I'm still on the same track, so I'm throwing this out for consideration and feedback.

The thrust of Paul's arguments in Galatians center around one topic: the people of God. Who is a part of God's family, how does one become a part, what does it mean to be a part - these are the themes of the book, and in truth much of the New Testament writings. In Galatians, the context for the discussion is Judaism. Does a Gentile believer need to convert to Judaism in order to be accepted by God? This is the argument of the Judaizers - that Israel is God's chosen people, and as a result Gentile followers of Messiah must also become a part of Israel. This is the argument that Paul systematically dismantles, setting up instead the standard of faith in Christ. To be a part of God's family means to live life in the Spirit and not under the law - anything else is a repudiation of the very heart of the gospel.

The truly unfortunate thing, I think, is that somewhere along the way we've forgotten what this is all about. We've privatized it and systematized it and spiritualized it, so that faith has become about just me and my Jesus instead of God's people living as an alternate community practicing an alternate way of being a community. And somewhere along the way the law has started to creep back in, although we don't call it that - especially those of us in Protestant traditions; we of course will have none of that pull yourself up by the bootstraps kind of religion! And we reduce Paul's message to simply one about merit and effort, and miss the radical call to unity and service and love. We set up our own boundary markers, build the fences high, and spend our time lobbing rocks at those on the other side.

What does it mean to be a Christian, to be a follower of the Way, a little Christ? Does it mean faith in Christ plus... what? A political affiliation? An economic status? A certain level of moral "goodness"? A particular doctrinal position? Paul, I think, argues forcefully against all of these things. I want to pause on that last one for a moment, because I think it's the one that those of us in Protestant traditions grasp the least these days. I think there's the potential to elevate doctrine to the position of law in the way many of our traditions approach faith. What does it mean to be a Christian? It means that you have faith in Christ plus Calvin, or Christ plus an inerrant text, or Christ plus baptism in the Spirit, or Christ plus pacifism...and I have to wonder if we've gotten some things backwards. Do I have to believe in TULIP, or in inerrancy, or in a particular model of the atonement in order to be a follower of Christ? I think, to be faithful to what Paul has said, we must say no - and that is a statement that does not sit well with many folks.

This, of course, is not to say that belief, that doctrine, does not matter - far from it! Rather, what it means is that we should be cautious about who we separate ourselves from, about who we decide to eat alongside and who we force to sit at another table, about who is in the family and who is not. We should recognize that theology is provisional, that doctrine is fallible, and that we are growing in grace and in the knowledge of Christ. We should remember that right belief flows from life in the Spirit, and not the reverse - that it is the Spirit who leads us into all truth, and that as we are formed in the image of Christ, so to should our understanding of him grow and expand. And just as we've been granted grace to belong in the absence of perfect understanding, so too, perhaps, should we grant that same grace to others.

Baby News...

Joy and I had our 20-week ultrasound today, and the verdict is...

Boy!

Three boys...We're currently accepting donations of caffeinated beverages or other stimulants, as well as good condition protective gear such as helmets and elbow pads. For us, that is.

Philly Cohort

Thursday I had the privilege of attending the monthly meeting of the Philly Emergent cohort. Dr. Joseph Mangina from Wycliffe College in Toronto presented some thoughts on the book of Revelation as ecclesiology, as well as an approach to apocalyptic writing in general. It was a fascinating collection of ideas, particularly in light of some of the things I've been reading and writing about lately. A good chunk of his thoughts tied directly into my six month long binge on Wright and Brueggemann, interweaving thoughts on empire and imagination and the importance of apocalyptic speech in our current context. Great, great stuff - he's working on a book at the moment; no word on when it will be out, but I guarantee it will be on my short list.

I have to pause for a moment and reflect on one of the criticisms I so often see about the emerging church. Often, it seems that detractors of the emerging church are quick to call what's happening style with no substance, particularly as defined by an approach to scripture. Those involved with the emerging church are said to be at best more interested in culture than in scripture. I've never found this to be the case, and this particular gathering far and away underscored that for me - there aren't many contexts where I have the opportunity to sit in a room packed full of people fully engaged with a presentation on the nature of apocalyptic speech in Revelation that's over an hour long, especially when there's almost a palpable sense of disappointment that the discussion has to close. There was no lack of respect for scripture in this meeting - I was honored to be a part of it.

It was a really great group of folks, too - our hosts, Scott Collins-Jones and his wife Fairlight, were some of the most hospitable people I've had the privilege of meeting, and it was great to finally catch up to some online acquaintances (Todd and Brad from the Well) in person. There were a bunch of other folks I met (most of whose names I've probably forgotten; I'm terrible with that sort of thing) who were open and interesting and engaged with thinking missionally about the faith that we share, even though the traditions ranged from Vineyard to OPC, house church to high church, and everything in between. An absolutely fantastic evening.

Putting Things Together

I think in some sense this has come full circle now for me, because I'm back to the place where I started - what is the gospel? How do I sort my way through what I've written about these past few weeks and come out with something that makes sense? I think, more than anything, this journey through Galatians has reinforced my initial thoughts on the gospel: when Paul preached the gospel, he preached that Jesus is Lord. The message of the gospel is the call to submit to the authority of Christ the King - no more, no less. It's also a call to join the people of God, to be adopted into the family and to leave previous ties allegiances behind. It's an invitation to faith, to life, to belonging, to hope, to service, and to freedom. It is startling, unsettling, amazing, challenging, disturbing, and liberating all at once - it is undoubtedly the most beautiful and most despised message that has ever been proclaimed on this earth.

Sometimes, we can get so lost in the maze of doctrine and ethic that we forget what led us to the journey in the first place. I think you can hear that in Paul as he writes with incredulity, anger, and pain to the people he thought he knew well. I started to write this with another end in mind, but I don't think I can head in that direction until I stop and reflect on this gospel, on this bit of good news that doesn't always seem so good and rarely anymore sounds like much of news. It's unfortunate what has happened to the message, I think, for those of us who find ourselves in cultures where access to it is easy and often. We've domesticated it and tamed it and forced it to serve our ends - or so we thought. At some point, I think, we failed to realize that the radical gospel had quite escaped us, and in fact was never in danger of being coopted in the first place. Instead, we find ourselves in danger of bowing before a lesser master, one of our own creation with lists and criteria and boundaries and rules - and the most troubling thing is that we do so giving little thought to the fact that we may possibly have missed something along the way.

The truth of the matter, I think, is that the gospel can't be coopted and remain the gospel. Jesus is either Lord or he is not, and a domesticated deity is no deity at all, but rather a silly or sick caricature of a God. Have you ever heard it said of a person that he or she has committed to Christ as savior, but has yet to commit to him as Lord? Horsecrap. There is no such thing. A response to the gospel is a move by faith to follow Christ as Lord - and the rest of our lives then become about making that decision a reality in our lives, of walking through the journey of submission, of learning to leave self behind and of being reformed in his image.

This, ultimately, is what I believe the Christian life to be about. It isn't about theology, or about doctrine, or about ethics or liturgy or social action or any other good and true and worthwhile pursuit. All of these things are a result, I think, of submission to the gospel and the life in the Spirit that comes of that submission - because you can't truly have any of those things until you've at least begun to recognize that you are not the main character in the tale, until you set aside faith in yourself and begin to enter into faith in Christ. That, I think, is starting to approach the message of the gospel - a message that is all the more challenging for its simplicity.

Works of the Law p.2

Scot McKnight asked some excellent questions on my last post that I had been tempted to touch on but initially skipped. Scot asks, "What is that the Judaizing wing was requiring to enter the people of God -- specifically -- and why? What did Paul require -- specifically -- and why?" Excellent questions that I'm going to take a stab at answering - which may be challenging to do in the length of a blog entry, but perhaps I can at least sketch a framework for how I'm thinking about these things and we can go from there.

The specific things that Paul takes issue with in Galatians are not coincidental. They play rather forcefully into his argument. Paul is most certainly not arguing against moral behavior in general, and his discussion about freedom should be seen as quite a strong statement in that direction. Paul names several specific "works" that he opposes: restrictions on table fellowship, circumcision, and observing special "times" (days, months, seasons, and years), which I take to mean the observance of the holy days and feasts. I don't think these are meant to be exhaustive, but I do think they are representative of the way that Paul is arguing against observance of Torah - specifically in its role as an identifier for who is a member of God's family. These specific codes serve as distinctives, as markers so to speak, that one is "in". In this capacity, then, Paul is specifically condemning reliance on the Torah as a means of entry into the people of God and as an identifier of those who are part of that people.

In place of Torah observance, Paul raises up two things - faith as the means of entry into God's family, and life in the Spirit as the identifier. Paul's argument about faith is somewhat complex, and I don't claim to grasp all of its nuances. But one thing is perfectly clear - Paul holds up Abraham as the father of all those who have faith, and in doing so declares faith to be what has always been intended as the primary means of entry into God's family through the promised Christ. The natural extension of this life of faith, then, is being led by the Spirit. We who have faith are no longer bound by Torah observance - not because we are free to do whatever we want, but rather because we are free to follow the Spirit, who empowers us to serve one another in love. This freedom breaks down barriers inherent in the law - barriers between nationalities, cultures, genders, or social statuses - because life in the Spirit is always oriented towards loving service for the other.

I feel like I've left a lot of holes here, but hopefully my basic sketch is at least enough to get the ball rolling. I've deliberately avoided unpacking some of the ways that this should shape how we think of what it means to have faith today, because I have one thought in particular that I'm going to throw out as a separate entry that may prove to be somewhat controversial - look for that one tomorrow. As always, thoughts and comments welcome!

Does This Sound Familiar?

This morning I found this article on Fast Company, and I'm wondering now how prevalent this sort of thing is in churches. I'm thinking probably more than we'd like to admit, at least in part because of our heavy borrowing from corporate culture. I've also seen it far too often for comfort.

So where's the break? How do we fix a structure that allows and, at times, even condones such behavior as beneficial? How prevalent do you think this is in churches?

There and Back Again

Back from my weekend away - our family spent a few days in Washington D.C., seeing the sites and catching up with some old friends. We had dinner with my college roommate and his family; it was great to catch up for a bit, even if the kids did tear up the Olive Garden. On the upside, by the time we get back to that particular location, they'll have forgotten all about us. In theory.

Interesting piece of D.C. miscellany - there is actually an aquarium in the basement of the Department of Commerce. I'm not sure who thought it would be a good idea to put fish in the basement, but there it was. I was initially skeptical at the thought, but my wife had visited before and was convinced that it would be worth the time. I began to revise my estimation when I saw the feeding times for the sharks, pirahnas, and alligators - but then I quickly recanted my upward revision when I saw that the alligators were all of about a foot long. For a minute, I thought we had wandered into a pretty decent pet store - I started to look around for people carrying those little plastic baggies. But at least the boys enjoyed it, and I was able to mock Joy mercilessly, so all's well. (She'd have done the same to me. It's a family passtime.)

At any rate, it was good to get some uninterrupted time with the family. As for the next Galatians post, it's in process, but I'm not going to have it finished until tomorrow. More to come!

Away

I'm going to be out of town for a few days; I'm hoping my hotel room will have broadband, but I don't remember if I requested it or not... At any rate, if I'm without internet, I'll be unable to respond to comments or emails until Sunday. Have a wonderful weekend!

Works of the Law

I think this is the longest I've ever stuck with a particular subject. But this has been quite an interesting journey for me - I feel like I'm really engaging with something personally that is, in some sense, reorienting. Hopefully it's been interesting for at least some of you as well ;). I want to throw out a few more thoughts on Galatians before I move on, so for the moment I want to think through the whole "works of the law" concept in Galatians and ask what it is that Paul is driving at through his discussion. I want to preface this by saying that I'm not throwing out much in the way of original thought here, at least until I start to unpack some implications of this - I'm heavily indebted to NT Wright and Scot McKnight, among others, for prodding my thinking in this direction. Scot, in fact, has an excellent series of posts at his blog on the subject of covenant path marking that get at this from a somewhat different angle but explain, I think, quite well the approach that I'm leaning towards in my thinking here.

I'm sticking by my contention that what is at stake in the book of Galatians is, broadly speaking, the idea of who is included in the people of God. The primary concern that seems to run through the book is whether or not the Galatian converts must also convert to Judaism in order to be a part of God's people, or whether there can be such a thing as Gentile followers of Messiah. In this context, then, the idea of works of the law is something that is less about my demonstrating that I in some way can prove myself righteous or earn my ticket into heaven and more about what is required in order to be a part of God's people. It's a subtle, but real, distinction - and it's important because, as Scot has identified quite poignantly in his discussion, the definition that I'm proposing is quite a bit more applicable personally and also, I'd wager, for the contexts in which many of us find ourselves.

I think we start to approach the idea that Paul is arguing against when we start to identify things in addition to, or instead of, faith in Christ that are "required" in order to be a part of God's family. It's so much more than some demonstration of spiritual machismo that tries stick its chest out, to show its stuff, to make it on one's own goodness - but it is certainly inclusive of that. I'm tempted to start the list of things I've encountered that could fall under this umbrella - but I won't. I'd rather talk about the alternative, what Paul proposes as the antithesis of works of the law.

Where the Galatians were confronted with law, Paul advocates the Spirit. In a truly beautiful, amazing, and somewhat frightening move, Paul strips faith entirely of things external to the gospel, and instead proposes life in the Spirit. Pause and breathe that in for a moment. In place of the law, of the code, of the curse and the weight and the barrier, we have life and freedom and the very presence of the infinite God somehow inhabiting our being, animating us and guiding us and empowering us and bringing us to life. You can hear the shock, the pain in Paul's voice as he pleads with the Galatian church, "You want to throw away life, the Spirit of the living God filling your soul, for belonging based on whether or not you keep the code? Are you mad?"

And, in truth, I think Paul is often saying that to me as well.

Works, Fruit, and the Cross

I have several remaining things to tackle in respect to Galatians, and to be honest I'm not all that sure how to go about it, because it's not really all that sequential. I want to throw some thoughts around about works of the law, as Scot has identified, and I want to come back around to talk in more depth the whole concept of unity discussed in 3:28 and what that means for us as the body of Christ in our current context, which is something that Ross mentioned a few posts ago - but that I'm saving for last, because I think the crux of the book revolves around that passage, so I want to unpack a few more things before I come back to it. Scott mentioned also something that I want to delve into, and that's how the cross fits into the mix - this is something that I think is absolutely huge, but I haven't really put anything cohesive together on this besides some thoughts in the comments, so I thought I'd take a stab at this through a passage that might seem a bit odd at first - Paul's discussion about the fruit of the Spirit.

If you grew up in a Protestant church in America as I did, it's likely that you endured the same flannelboard productions detailing all of the fruit and how we should demonstrate them in our lives. (Paul probably didn't use vegetables as his illustration, because he knew that kids everywhere would no longer want to demonstrate the vegetables of the Spirit, and scores of Sunday School lessons would be ruined.) The problem with the approach to this passage that I, and perhaps you as well, grew up learning is that it's not true to context. What I mean by that is this: when I learned about the fruit of the Spirit, what I learned was that I personally needed to be loving and peaceful and joyful and patient and all of the other virtues as well. And even if I didn't know what longsuffering was, and even if it didn't sound like fun, I knew that it was probably fairly important, because it fit onto the watermelon. In other words, I learned that the fruit was a collection of characteristics of individuals.

The problem with this approach is that Paul here is not in any way talking about private spirituality. While it is most certainly true that these virtues are to be practiced by individuals, they are primarily about the way those individuals live together in the context of community. Here is the passage that sets up the entire discussion: "You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love." (5:13) Paul places two orientations, two approaches to practicing community in diametric opposition - indulging the sinful nature, and serving one another. Paul will go on to describe the acts of the sinful nature in contrast to the fruit of the Spirit, and the key to getting at the heart of what Paul is saying is to recognize the contrast between serving self and serving others.

Here, then, is how the cross fits into Paul's discussion of community. In 5:24, Paul tells us how it is that we can live together in the way that he has just been describing: "Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires." Paul is saying, as he says in several other places in Galatians, that the politics of God's people is rooted in our participation in the cross of Christ. John Howard Yoder, in his incredible work The Politics of Jesus, discusses how the New Testament, when speaking of Jesus, consistently holds him up as an example for us in one area only - the cross. The cross, over and over, serves as the defining event around which the people of God are formed. The cross makes possible Christian community by finally dealing with the problem of sin in a way that the law never could, thus releasing us from the power of sin in our relationships. But the cross is more than just an ontological transformation - the cross also serves as our primary example, demonstrating decisively what we are called to be as the people of God - a people who serve one another in love, as Christ served us and gave himself up for us.

Making Space

This was one of those perfect summer nights, when the stars have all come out to play and the air is just cool enough to make you think twice about a jacket. Knowing that it would almost be a sin to let such an evening go to waste, I picked up my laptop and (what else) my pipe and headed outside.

I grew up, as I have no doubt mentioned before, in rural Pennsylvania. I love quite a few things about Philadelphia and my local community in particular, but I will always miss some things about my home. One of those is the night sky - on a clear night, you can see literally thousands of stars, each one flickering and dancing like so many tiny flames, the Milky Way bright and bold, meandering through the sky all stately and majestic. If you lie flat on the grass and look straight up, eventually the sky will "pop" and you'll feel like you're in a vertical position, staring straight ahead into space while clinging to the side of the globe like some frightened insect. You may, if the sky is especially clear, feel the need to dig your fingers into the turf to keep from sliding off.

Another thing about my home that I notice in its absence is the noise. Of course, in the suburban community where I live, we experience no lack of noise - well, actually, that's not quite true. One noise that is sorely lacking in my concrete and plastic community is the sound of the night singers - frogs and crickets, katydids and the occasional owl, all conducted according to some celestial score, weaving a melody both beautiful and haunting that gets into your soul and stays forever. It used to be that I could still catch a hint of the song in the late summer evenings, but the large open space near my home was recently covered with asphalt to make space for the cacophony of Home Depot and Wal-Mart, and the singers have moved on to another stage.

Still, few things can approach a clear summer night for inspiring reflection and wonder, and underneath the light pollution and paving materials, some hint or suggestion of former glories still glimmers faintly. My pipe was lit, and my computer remained dark. A few fireflies still played among the trees, and the Great Bear danced overhead. But most importantly, I think, the One who gave a mere insect beauty enough to make us pause in gratitude came and sat down next to me, and we talked for quite some time about everything and nothing.

"Look at me. I stand at the door. I knock. If you hear me call and open the door, I'll come right in and sit down to supper with you..."

Server Errors

Just fyi - if you run into a server error when trying to post a comment, it's a known bug coming from a recent upgrade to the cPanel installation on the server. You can read about it here if that sort of thing interests you. Movable Type is working on a patch as we speak. What I've been noticing is that, in every case, the comment has been saved to the database but not published to the site. I'll be checking in frequently to make sure there aren't any stranded comments, so if yours doesn't show up after receiving an error, I'll probably find it in the system and update the site, but please feel free to drop me an email as well. Sorry for the inconvenience!

UPDATE: Looks like it's been fixed - please drop me an email if you're running into anything really odd. Thanks!

Perpetuating the Curse

It's too late to write what I wanted to tackle, but I think I need to take another quick diversion. I had a thought tonight that I want to throw out, to see if this makes sense or if I'm just nuts. This actually goes a bit back to something I wrote a few months ago about names in the context of the narrative of the fall. My proposal was basically that the theme of hierarchy, of one kind of human exercising power over another, was not something in the narrative that was inherent to creation, but was rather a function of the curse, of the brokenness that came as a result of sin. (I think I said it much better in the other post - heck, I'm writing too much like an academic lately. I need to get the creative juices flowing again. But I digress.)

Fast forward to the Law. What we see happening in the Law is that, while the exercise of power has limits imposed on it, functionally speaking the societal roles still exist. There are still distinctions between Israelite and non-Israelite, between men and women, between rich and poor. Make no mistake, though - the Law was lightyears ahead of what other cultures considered appropriate, and definitely shows a move towards defining a people oriented around justice and mercy. Still, the Law cannot remove the divisions, and here is my thought as to why: The Law cannot remove the curse. It was never meant to. Consequently, it can only perpetuate the models of relationality that are grounded in the curse. Although it can put boundaries on the exercise of these divisions, it cannot heal them - to do so would require lifting of the curse and healing something far deeper than the Law is able to do.

Fast forward again to Galatians. Paul writes in 4:13, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us." What I'm proposing is this: in redeeming us from the curse, Christ has also redeemed us from models of relationality that are rooted in the curse, which would mean any model that is based on exercising dominion over another, in particular models that run along lines of ethinicity, gender, or socioeconomic status, as described in 3:28. We who are in Christ are free indeed - free from the curse of the Law, and free from relationships that perpetuate the curse.

Thoughts? Does this make sense, or am I stretching too far?

Galatians as Politics p.2

Let me take a step back and give my perspective on why thinking this way about the book has been somewhat revolutionary. Like a good Protestant, I grew up with the typical Luther-esque reading of Galatians, meaning Law = Works. All of the other stuff about Jewish and Greek believers seemed like just context - Paul's real point was that you can't earn your way to heaven. Here's the problem with that line of thought - although the conclusions are valid and true, it minimizes the gospel to just a "me-n-Jesus" thing. There are zero social implications for that line of thought, and that shows in the way that we practice being the body of Christ.

One thing that immediately becomes clear, though, when you start to read the whole thing all together is that the whole Peter issue makes no sense. Why would Paul accuse Peter of not acting in line with the truth of the gospel, if he's just eating with his countrymen? There's nothing in the context to indicate that Peter is suddenly slipping back into a Torah-as-merit system, so why the fuss? Something else has to be going on here - something deeper than just how I get my rump on the glory train.

Then there's this other odd passage just sort of stuck right in the middle, like it's rather important and should probably be heeded: You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. (3:26-28) Why is this odd? Primarily, I think, because it has absolutely nothing to do with merit seeking - but it has everything to do with who we are as the people of God. There is more to this than just the fact that salvation is open to all.

This is why it is such a big deal that Peter sits with the cool kids at lunch. What the gospel means - what is so beautiful and amazing and mysterious about it - is that in Christ, all other social distictives evaporate. Nothing remains but unity in Christ through the Spirit. For Peter to continue to observe the laws of segregation is nothing less than a denial of the very gospel itself.

Can you feel it? Can you feel how incredibly radical this is? This gospel that calls us to lay down any and all differences that would divide us - there is nothing else like it. Paul is preaching a politics of an altogether new kind, a social identity that is based not on ethnicity, not on gender, not on socioeconomic status, but that is based solely on belonging to Christ.

I'm a bit excited about this - you'll have to bear with me. Do you realize what kind of people we would be if we only recognized the depth to which the gospel calls us to set aside our differences?