Away

I'm unexpectedly out of town for a few days with limited net access - things will be somewhat spotty around here for the next few days. Be back Friday.

On Walls and Emergence

Brian's response. Fascinating discussion going on in the comments - there are clearly two perspectives represented, one of which is ultimately concerned with doctrine while the other is more concerned with praxis (imho). That's not meant to be pejorative of either perspective - just attempting to describe what is clearly a differentiation of approaches. If you want to see why there is this thing called the emerging church, take a look at the thread. Absolutely fascinating.

Robert Frost is one of my favorite poets. I've long thought his poem Mending Wall is a striking illustration of these two perspectives:

There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.
My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.
He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors".
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it
Where there are cows?
But here there are no cows.
Before I built a wall I'd ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn't love a wall,
That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,
But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather
He said it for himself. I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.
He moves in darkness as it seems to me -
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.
He will not go behind his father's saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."
- Robert Frost, Mending Wall

Go read the rest of it - it's a great poem. There's a parable in there, for those with ears to hear.

Technorati Tags: emerging church, Robert Frost, Brian McLaren

Taking Things Personally

I'm in the habit of taking small breaks from the blogosphere. It helps me to keep perspective on the whole thing. This time was different than most, though - I had a lot to say on a particular topic, none of which I would have been proud to have written. Practicing a discipline of silence for a few days hasn't really cooled my emotions much on the subject but has, perhaps, brought something of temperance to my thoughts. I'm frustrated as ever, but perhaps I've found a way to discuss it - we shall see, I suppose, if that proves to be true.

So here's the deal:
Brian wrote something. People didn't like it. Mark stepped into the mix.

And at that point things got ugly. You should be able to follow the links from there, if you missed it.

Here's what bothers me about the whole affair: at what point did sin cease to be personal and simply become a discussion of issues? Say what you will about Brian's initial post - one thing he absolutely nails is that sin is never abstract. Pause and think about that for a second - there is no such thing as an abstract sin. It is always, always, always personal and embodied. It's never a discussion of ideas held in isolation - it is always a discussion of people and their struggles and hurts and fears and anger and rebellion and failing to live up to the standards of a God who is beyond the reach of any of us.

At some point, we decided that we can talk about sin without discussing those who suffer from it.

I'm deliberately avoiding discussion of the particular topic in question. I realize that at least part of the tension is some questions about ethics, about whether a particular way of being is appropriate or not, about whether it pleases God or not. And I realize that some folks might want to have that conversation, and it absolutely needs to happen. But it can't happen in the abstract, because no matter what you believe about this particular topic or about any topic where the question of sin is raised, it involves people. People with names and faces who are loved by God and who, therefore, deserve to be treated with dignity and respect by those of us who claim to follow Him. Witness Jamie's series of posts on the topic for an example of how this could be handled differently.

We have a saying in the evangelical world. It's trite, really, and doesn't solve anything, but it's frequently trotted out as though it answers all of the problems of approaching this sort of thing appropriately. "Hate the sin, love the sinner," we say. Only - let's be honest - this is what we mean:
Hate the sin, love the sinner.
Is it possible to hate something in the abstract? I'm not sure. I can say that I've never really seen it happen. Or, let's be more specific - even if it is possible, if our energy is spent on hating sin which, by its very nature, is embodied and personal, it's going to be extremely hard to convince anyone of the love that we claim to hold.

I'm reminded of Jesus' words in Luke 11:46: "And you experts in the law, woe to you, because you load people down with burdens they can hardly carry, and you yourselves will not lift one finger to help them." What if we were to become known as burden-bearers, as those who come alongside those who are weighed down and offer to help lighten the load? To walk with them in their struggles and offer encouragement, support, prayer, and yes, when appropriate, correction? But most importantly, perhaps we can point them to the One who carries our burdens for us, instead of being those who make the load even more unbearable.

Technorati Tags: sin, grace

Pause for Breath

I find myself in the awkward position of having nothing constructive to say. It's not that I lack for topics - far from it. I've left several posts over the past few days in various degrees of preparedness. Frankly, I'm completely frustrated, and it's coming through in my writing in a way that I dislike intensely. I'm frustrated with the near-total inability of those who should consider one another brothers and sisters in Christ to disagree constructively, honestly, and respectfully. I'm frustrated with the elevation of secondary issues to the status of boundary markers of orthodoxy. But I'm mostly frustrated with my personal inability to offer grace in my writing to those who frustrate me.

I'm tempted to say more - but I'm going to practice restraint. This week has not been healthy for me in the sense that I've become way too focused on what's going on in the blogosphere. I need to pause for breath, to make space for silence and renewal. I'm stepping away until Sunday. I'll offer more thoughts then; hopefully a few days of silence will allow me to speak with more clarity and grace.

Oops

Apologies for the half-finished post that popped up here - I was working on something in ecto last night but I apparently accidentally published it. It may or may not show up later; I haven't decided yet. It was the sort of thing that one writes to work out thoughts on an issue, but it never really came together for me, so there's a pending delete in its future if I can't get it to a place where I'm satisfied with it.

Anyway - I'll try to keep the place more tidy from now on. ;)

Why Contextual Theology?

I'm finally getting to my posts about Bevans's Models of Contextual Theology. I ran into a surprise at the end - my initial thoughts were that the emerging church tends to work out of a model of praxis while the traditions often critical of the emerging church work out of a countercultural model, leading to some (but not all) of the criticisms. When I finally read the chapter on the countercultural model, I changed my mind completely. I still think that some of the differences are rooted in these models, but I think it's significantly different than I first thought. But I'm getting way ahead of myself - first things first. I want to talk about why we should be thinking in terms of a contextual theology in the first place. I then plan to briefly review Bevans's six models, wrapping up with my thoughts on how this line of thought is helpful for engaging the approach of emerging churches.

Bevans describes contextual theology in this way:

We can say, then, that doing theology contextually means doing theology in a way that takes into account two things. First, it takes into account the faith experience of the past that is recorded in scriptures and kept alive, preserved, defended - and perhaps even neglected or suppressed - in tradition...Second, contextual theology takes into account the experience of the present, the context. While theology needs to be faithful to the full experience and contexts of the past, it is authentic theology only "when what has been received is appropriated, made our own."

This line of thought to me seems self-evident. But for many people - especially some critical of the emerging church - this is not only less than obvious, it's actually offensive. A favorite verse of these folks is Jude 3: "Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints." This actually makes me chuckle. Jude is one of the most self-consciously contextual books in the New Testament, making liberal use of such Second Temple era writings as the Assumption of Moses and the Book of Enoch.

So why do contextual theology? When we do contextual theology, we take the faith which has been passed down to us and make it our own. We preserve it, live it, believe it, treasure it, share it, and pass it down to those who come after us, encouraging them to do the same. We do so conscious of what we bring to the theological enterprise, and we do so with a mind to speak faithfully to a particular context. If this sounds unremarkable, that's because we do it all the time - the importance of thinking contextually about theology isn't because we have an option, but rather because it allows us to be conscious of the tools that we choose to bring to the task at hand.

Technorati Tags: books, emerging church, theology, contextual theology, Bevans

Check Out...

...a great interview with Miroslav Volf over at Jared's blog.

Technorati Tags: interview, Volf

A Small Window Into My Life

My boys are running around our house like drunken dwarves, laughing hysterically. The source of their amusement? They're taking animal crackers, biting off the latter half, and proclaiming loudly, "I ate his butt!!!"

Oh, my.

Let Them Stand

I am going to get to Bevans's book. Honest. Jared asked a question that I want to play around with (and not just in the hopes of getting a copy of Wright's The Last Word ;). Jared asks:

Do we treat the scriptures with greater respect by approaching them with an a priori commitment to their infallibility, or by letting them stand or fall on their own... and why?

An interesting question, to say the least - I spent some time thinking on it this weekend, because I'm not honestly convinced by it. What I mean is that I'm not sure infallibility is even a good category in which to think of the scriptures - but then I thought perhaps that's what Jared was getting at in the question, so I'll throw out some thoughts for consideration. (I'm assuming here that "infallibility" and "inerrancy" are basically the same position - at times infallibility is defined as being limited to matters of faith and practice, but I think it's more often used interchangeably with inerrancy, so that's the definition I'm using as well.)

My big problem with the whole category of infallibility is that it places us in the same relationship with the text that I've been talking about - our relation and submission to the text is defined in terms of its factual accuracy. On some level, it's the scripture-as-answer-book syndrome taken to its logical conclusion. The challenge that this presents is that there are many texts that are factually accurate but that I don't consider authoritative. Scot McKnight mentioned some time ago that we expect infallibility from the phone book, but that doesn't place it in authority over us. The premise, though, that underlies the argument of infallibility is, in part, that the text is trustworthy because it is accurate. An accurate text reflects the trustworthiness of God - if the scriptures were found to contain the smallest of errors, then the entire structure of Christian belief would come crashing down like so many jenga blocks.

There is, of course, some sense in which this is true. If, for example, the biblical narrative discussed Atlantis as opposed to Israel, then certainly I think we'd have something of an issue. We do take for granted, many of us at least, that there is an historical referent for the narrative - we believe that Jesus really was a man who really lived and really died and really rose again, or at least those of us who find ourselves interested in questions like infallibility believe along these lines. The problem, I think, lies with the nature of what we mean by "infallible". I'd suggest that "infallible" imparts a twenty-first century understanding of historical reporting and factual retelling that may not be fair to premodern storytellers - in short, the human authors of scripture themselves.

What I'm suggesting is that the narratives we find in scripture are all biased. They tell the story from a particular perspective and with a particular goal, and are unembarrassed by this approach. There is no sense of impartiality or objectivity - the scriptures unabashedly describe the unfolding history from a particular perspective, offering a particular "spin", if you will, on the events themselves. All scripture carries a certain apocalyptic undertone, in which the often hidden activities of God are revealed to the reader in such a way as to present the perspective of God on human history. That the tellers of the tale sometimes play fast and loose with their material - the raw "facts" of the story - should not be considered from the perspective of modern journalism but rather from that of the authors themselves.

A case in point - compare the narratives of David counting the fighting men in 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles. On the surface, these narratives are simply two retellings of the same events. But the devil is in the details, so to speak, and in this case literally. 2 Samuel 24 tells the story as God inciting David against Israel. But 1 Chronicles 21 recounts it as Satan. 2 Samuel counts 1,300,000 fighting men, 1 Chronicles 1,100,000. 2 Samuel says he paid 50 shekels of silver for the threshing floor, 1 Chronicles 600 shekels of gold.

Now, at this point I need to stop and ask myself a few questions. Is this a "factual" account? In some sense, yes - and a lot of ink has been spilled trying to account for the differences. Just google "David census differences Chronicles Samuel" and you'll see what I mean. But let's pause for a second and realize that, by virtually every estimation that I've ever read, the Chronicler would have had access to Samuel. So the question we should be asking isn't so much about whether the two accounts contradict one another, bringing the tower of jenga blocks tumbling to the ground. Instead, why not ask what the author intended by changing the details in the way that he did? In this case, a focus on "infallibility" may actually prevent us from hearing the voice of God through the scriptures. The gospels, by the way, are full of this sort of rearranging and retelling and have caused folks headaches for years along these lines.

This is an incomplete answer to a complicated question - good thought provoker, Jared! My answer, in short, is to let the scriptures stand on their own merits. Focusing on the minutiae often required by an a priori commitment to infallibility may actually result, at times, in missing the point that the author may be trying to make.

As an aside, I should note that I really haven't said anything here that, as I read it, goes against more nuanced definitions of inerrancy or infallibility. I don't in any way deny the truthfulness or authority of scripture - I just think that there comes a point at which continuing to nuance these definitions is no longer helpful, and perhaps we should start instead by rethinking our categories.

Technorati Tags: scripture, hermeneutics, inerrancy, infallibility

The Question of Suffering

I started class again tonight; it's a promising course called Spirit and Church. We're hitting a number of topics based on the epistles. Tonight, we started off with the topic of suffering. It is, of course, a weighty subject; I still feel somewhat subdued as I think over the various threads of conversation. One thing in particular, though, struck me as significant, particularly in light of my previous post. We were reading and discussing an article by Chuck Colson in which he was reflecting on the lack of resources that the evangelical tradition offers when dealing with issues of suffering. (He turned, interestingly enough, to the mystics such as Theresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. I was somewhat surprised - I never thought of him as having a mystical bent.) What struck me forcefully, though, was the realization of the nature of suffering as opposed to the typical approach to scripture-as-answer-book I discussed previously.

It's sort of obvious, isn't it? The reason that the evangelical tradition offers virtually nothing in terms of a meaningful theology of suffering is that suffering, by its very nature, resists answers. Our prof read an excerpt from Nicholas Wolterstorff's Lament for a Son that is stunningly beautiful yet simultaneously tragic. Wolterstorff writes:

What is suffering? When something prized or loved is ripped away or never granted - work, someone loved, recognition of one's dignity, life without physical pain - that is suffering.

Or rather, that's when suffering happens. What it is, I do not know...I understand nothing of it. Of pain, yes: cut fingers, broken bones. Of suffering, nothing at all. Suffering is a mystery as deep as any in our existence.

I've written previously about some of my marker stones, so to speak, on my spiritual journey. Most of them are captured under this thread about hope. I think that all of us have defining moments, experiences in our lives that form us and shape us so deeply that, once experienced, change us forever. Some of these are joyful experiences; often, they are not.

What do we do when we are confronted with the wildness of God? I don't pretend to understand it. I have questions but no answers. I find myself in the position of Wolterstorff, confronted and confounded by mystery that I cannot grasp, and holding nothing but a theology that claims to have "all the answers," nicely packaged and bound in new leather and red letters. But when I turn the pages, I am not confronted by answers. I am faced with questions, pages upon pages of questions that remain unanswered. "Why do the wicked prosper?" "Why, O Lord, do you reject me and hide your face from me?" "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"

But it's in the questions that I find comfort. Particularly the last, one uttered by Christ himself as he faced greater suffering than any of us have ever known. Christ who suffered, Christ who questioned, the Word himself unanswered, pouring himself out in lament.

I read these words and know that I find myself in the best of company.

Technorati Tags: hope, suffering, Wolterstorff, questions

Scripture, Answers, and Alex Trebek

A few days ago I read this post over at Dan Kimball's blog, and I haven't been able to get it out of my head. I thought it was profoundly disturbing, particularly when I read the part about "some issues are just black and white". It's disturbing particularly because it's an approach to scripture that's so common among Christians today - God's Answer Book, or some such. But is that really what this is all about? I have to be honest with you - I can't make it work for me. Saying, "The Bible has all the answers," defines a rather odd relationship between a person and scripture. Besides the fact that reducing the Story of God to an encyclopedia of historic facts and theological statements, it clearly begs the question. Nobody who utters such a statement ever intends for it to be taken literally. There are any number of questions on which the Bible is completely and unabashedly silent. "How do I change the oil in my car?" "What kind of wine goes well with beef?" "How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop?"

The difficulty with approaching scripture from this vantage is that it can't help but turn into something ugly. The reason that I say this is because one can only look for answers once we've defined the questions - and defining the questions is a matter of power and control. There are some questions that are approved: What does the Bible say about justification by faith? Ahhh, they say, and nod their heads. The Bible has the answers. Turn with me to Galatians. There are other questions, though, that are clearly not allowed: Where, exactly, does scripture call itself "inerrant"? How do we deal with the Old Testament picture of God, which seems so different from Jesus? What, exactly, is the gospel anyway? I'm not saying that scripture has no answers to these questions. I am, however, suggesting that merely providing answers may not be the point exactly. What if scripture is at least as much about the questions as it is about the answers? What if the point of much of the stuff that we struggle with is to get us to ask the questions in the first place?

If the Bible is an answer book, then it must, absolutely must, say the same thing all the time about a given subject - hence the focus on things like inerrancy and refuting contradictions and whatnot. But if scripture is a question book, then something changes. Ross wrote something a while back on hermeneutics, about how we need to be able to hold the "It is written," with the "It is also written." Here is a case in point: Deuteronomy, God's authoritative Word, defines the relationship that Israel was to have with Ammon and Moab: "No Ammonite or Moabite or any of his descendants may enter the assembly of the LORD, even down to the tenth generation." It's quite clear, right? No ambiguity there - it is written. But there's a slight problem. Fast forward to Ruth. Ruth, the Moabitess, is granted a place among the people of Israel. The irony isn't lost on the author of Ruth, because this is how the book ends:

This, then, is the family line of Perez: Perez was the father of Hezron, Hezron the father of Ram, Ram the father of Amminadab, Amminadab the father of Nahshon, Nahshon the father of Salmon, Salmon the father of Boaz, Boaz the father of Obed, Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David.

Back up a second in case you missed it. The point of Ruth isn't that Ruth was a phenomenal woman (although she absolutely was). The point isn't even that God will make an exception if you're really nice to His people. The point of Ruth is that David is a Moabite. David, King of Israel, man after God's own heart, according to Torah should never have been allowed to enter the assembly of Israel. I don't suppose I need to remind you, then, of a certain other descendant of Ruth through the line of David... It is also written.

I suggest that the whole book, the whole collection of writings that we call scripture, is like this. Scripture isn't a song sung in unison. It's a chorus of voices all singing at times in harmony and at times in dissonance - but always beautifully. Does it provide answers? Most certainly. But often, for some strange reason, those answers might be in the form of a question.

Technorati Tags: scripture, hermeneutics, Ruth, questions

Thoughts on Contextual Theology

One of the books that I've been working my way through is Models of Contextual Theology by Stephen Bevans. It's a fantastic little book that's very easy to read but packs a lot of content into the pages. Bevans's basic premise is that all theology is contextual - in other words, all theology is influenced by the "present human experience" of the person or community crafting the theology. As Bevans states:

There is no such thing as "theology"; there is only contextual theology...The contextualization of theology - the attempt to understand Christian faith in terms of a particular context - is really a theological imperative. As we have come to understand theology today, it is a process that is a part of the very nature of theology itself.

I wonder what it says for my faith journey that I take this premise to be simply a matter of course? He might just as well have said that the sky is blue. And yet, five years ago that statement would have set my teeth on edge... At any rate, I think this little volume is absolutely fascinating. Bevans sketches six models or approaches to contextual theology - or, in truth, theology as practiced in general, given that all theology is contextual - giving some positives and negatives to each approach, as well as several examples.

I'm going to follow Bevans here for a few posts. I'd like to briefly summarize the models he's suggesting and then discuss how I've seen them applied in emerging churches. One of the things that became clear to me almost immediately was that Bevans has provided some excellent language here to talk about some of the ways that emerging churches differ from more traditional bodies; some of the conflict and criticism, I think, can be traced to these distinctions. Having a language to talk about the how and why of theology is often as important as its content - I think that developing that language will be of immense benefit for those of us with connections to the emerging church.

Technorati Tags: books, emerging church, theology, contextual theology, Bevans

Some Thoughts on the Kingdom...

are up at via media.

On My Bookshelf

I thought I'd post a quick look at my current in-process and up-and-coming reading list. Some of these I'd started a while back, but I haven't finished because of course work; others are new acquisitions. A few weeks ago I mentioned doing some reviews of books I've been reading - this is the list I'll be working from.

Body Prayer - Doug Pagitt
Models of Contextual Theology - Stephen Bevans
Body Politics - John Howard Yoder
The Liberating Image - Richard Middleton
The Character of Theology - John Franke
Jesus and the Victory of God - N.T. Wright
Velvet Elvis - Rob Bell
Religion and Empire - Richard Horsley
Texts that Linger, Words that Explode - Walter Brueggemann
Deep Memory, Exhuberant Hope - Walter Brueggemann
The Jesus Creed - Scot McKnight
Constructing Local Theologies - Robert J. Schreiter
Beyond Culture - Edward T. Hall
The Silent Language - Edward T. Hall
The Celtic Way of Prayer : The Recovery of the Religious Imagination - Esther De Waal

Technorati Tags: books, theology

Finished!

HUZZAH! I finished my final exam about three minutes ago, so I'm officially done with church history for this semester. What a brutal course! Good instructor, don't get me wrong - but the coursework was insane.

On the upside, now that I'm not sinking five to six hours a day into reading, I can get back to blogging. I don't like neglecting this site, but at the same time, I guess if I can't recognize what are proper priorities, then I've got no business being here in the first place. That doesn't mean I don't miss you fine folks though - I've got a lot of catch-up reading to do and some posts I've been sitting on to publish, so look for more activity here and at via media this week.

Happy New Year

Blessings on the New Year to you and yours!

...Now back to my homework. Honestly. ;)

(I'll be back on Monday!)