Blogging on Empty

Things have slowed to a crawl around here, which is always an indication that I've hit a wall. I'm processing a few things at the moment but none of them are interesting enough (or well-formed enough) to warrant a post. I've taken a break from theology reading - I realized about a month ago that I hadn't read a non-Tolkien fiction work in far too long, so I'm working my way through Roger Zelazny's Amber series at the moment, which is a rather unique sort of fantasy writing. I think I need to do the same with my writing. I'm stale and I need to recharge. I'm taking an extended blog fast for the remainder of February. I'll be back on March 1, hopefully rejuvenated and refreshed.

Ontology, Incarnation, and Category Confusion

I mentioned in the comments on my last post that I'm not much of a fan of the term "incarnational" ministry. This is something that I've been pondering for a while - in fact, I used to love the term, but over the past year or so I've been rethinking. It's come to my thought again, in part, as a reaction to something that Frost says in Exiles that for some reason put a new spin on the question for me. Here is, to my mind, the crux of the issue: is the incarnation a model for our engagement with culture and, if so, in what way? Frost has this to say:

This one doctrine [the incarnation] alone seems to bother us more than any other. It reminds us of the radical capacity of Jesus the man to seamlessly embrace humanity and divinity equally and successfully. His example, though impossible to duplicate, is nonetheless a rallying point for us to seek to emulate his lifestyle. In the incarnation, God enters fully into close relational and physical proximity to humanity in the pursuit of reconciliation. Likewise, if exiles today are to model their lives and ministries on that of the exile Jesus, they must take a stance that promotes proximity between themselves and those among whom they live. (p. 54)

I again find myself in a position of appreciating where he arrives while disliking intensely the route that he takes to get there. Again, for some, my quibbles with his points may seem pedantic or even mere semantics - but I'm a big fan of keeping our terms unmuddled and our categories straight, and it is in these areas where I think this approach falls short.

The problem is one of ontology - an approach with which Frost has already taken issue. The creeds, if you recall, were in Frost's view too ontological and not narratival, thus robbing the early Church of its missional vitality. But now he wants to switch back to the ontological categories to ground his own model. That's, in my mind, a problem. The incarnation is nothing if not an ontological category - in other words, it has to do with the nature or identity of Christ. Let's leave aside for the moment the obvious methodological inconsistency. There is a glaring problem here that comes to the fore when we start thinking about exactly what it is that the incarnation represents. This is a category that can truly only be applied to Christ and is, in some way, connected to a particular space-time event. It would be improper to think of the incarnation in terms of the Father or the Spirit - in fact, to do so is dangerously close (if not outright capitulation) to a heresy known as modalism. So here's the catch - if the incarnation is our model for mission, then don't we run up against a different ontological problem? How can the Father and the Spirit be engaged in mission if mission is an incarnational category?

I prefer to think of mission as a vocational category that goes back to the imago dei. It's still ontological in the sense that it is a part of who we were made to be - but it's an ontological category that is based in God's very nature as one who goes. Creation is a missional act in this sense - it was God's gracious gift of being to a universe of things other-than-God to which he could show love. Mission is another way of describing the divine task that is represented by the image of God. As such, it's a part of who we are as human beings created in that image.

The incarnation was, in this sense, a missional event - it's a natural expression of the love of God for the other-than-God. God expresses his missional nature in Christ's setting aside his divine prerogatives and becoming human. It is also missional in that Christ is the perfect human, the perfect imago dei acting out his divine vocation as a human being. So in the person of Christ the two missional themes intertwine - God as the one who goes, and humans as those created in the image of that God. And the missional vocation is then passed clearly to the church: the Father sends the Son; the Father and the Son send the Spirit; the Father, Son, and Spirit send the church. Mission is the ongoing task to fulfill the divine creational mandate that has been entrusted to the community of those who follow the way of Jesus. It's a vocational category, and it's an ontological category in that it is a reflection of the church's identity - but I don't think it's an incarnational category. Rather, I think the incarnation is a missional category, and to swap the two, in my opinion, confuses what is happening in the narrative.

Technorati Tags: books, Exiles, Frost, incarnation, ontology

Scriptural Dissonance: Incarnation

I wasn't certain that I wanted to tackle this one next, but I've been reading something that's prodding my thoughts in a particular direction, and having begun to ponder it I think it works out to be a nice logical progression in any case. The tension of which I'm speaking is, of course, the humanity and divinity of Christ. I've chosen the word "incarnation" for my title, however, because that particular term encapsulates something of the essence of the struggle. In this one term we have the holding together of two ideas that seem contradictory and become in their joining scandalous, an offense, something bold and subversive and perhaps rather nonsensical if it weren't for the fact that it is true.

The book in question is Frost's Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture. I have a confession to make, and I hope this doesn't mean that I can't sit with the cool kids at lunch anymore - I'm about fifty pages in and, so far, I'm not really into it. I like the points that he's making, but I find myself in serious disagreement with how he gets there. My biggest complaint thus far has been his take on the creeds:

Sadly, the early church was quick to move beyond the very earthy, actional description of Jesus in the Gospels to a much more ontological one in the creeds...The later Nicene Creed, composed in the early fourth century, while containing many of the same elements found in the Old Roman Creed, reads more like a philosophical formula than a summary of a story. Jesus Christ is "...light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father." The later Athanasian Creed is an even more striking example of the move toward doctrinally oriented conceptions of the faith. When the earliest witnesses to the Christ event sought to describe what they saw, they rarely took such a philosophical stance. They speak in very practical, plain language about what Jesus did and said. And this affects the way that they saw mission. If the gospel is about a real man, eating, drinking, teaching, crucified, buried, resurrected, it locates the message in action. When we see Jesus as light from light, true God from true God, it dramatically changes our spirituality. Jesus becomes one to be worshipped, examined, reflected upon. The earlier creeds, however, present a lifestyle to be followed. (p. 30)

Now, let it first be said that I really want to like this book - I've had such high hopes for it after Shaping. But this discussion is wrong on so many levels that I'm not sure where to begin. Well, I suppose what immediately leaps out at me is that this is just a sloppy argument. For one thing, Frost hasn't given any credence to the thought that perhaps the creeds are an excellent example of contextual theology, framed in a way that is completely appropriate to the fourth century world in which they were constructed. To take a swipe at them for not being narratival seems, well, petty. But that's besides the point. The big concern is that Frost is in fact dealing with the substance of a heresy which the early church knew all too well. In fact, by the time Nicea rolled around, it was old hat - it was called Docetism, and it was confronted by the likes of John, Ignatius, and Polycarp. It was, put succinctly, the belief that Jesus only appeared to be human, but was not so in fact. 1 John begins with a text that begins to sound rather philosophical as it goes along (contra Frost's dictum): That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched--this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. The early church had, by the time of Nicea, already rejected an approach that would suggest that Jesus was less than fully human.

However, we would do well to pay attention to the conflict that generated the Nicene Creed. It is, in some sense, docetism's opposite; it's known as Arianism, and it was one of the most significant struggles that the church faced in its first five hundred years. To put it succinctly, Arianism taught that Jesus was something less than fully God, that he was created by God and that there was a time before he existed. While this on the surface seems a small thing, in reality it has the potential to radically reorient the way in which we read the Story. If Jesus was not "true God of true God", as the Creed states (and as the Arians denied), then what of the incarnation? What of the subversive, scandalous text that is the Gospel? What of the God who humbles himself, takes on the form of a servant, and becomes the "ordinary human" that Frost champions?

Please don't misread me - I'm not suggesting in any way that Frost is espousing Arianism or that he's denying the incarnation. However, I do want to suggest that we need to think somewhat more carefully on the importance of the Creeds and treasure them for what they are - the church's reflection of how the Story is to be read, not as a substitute for the Story itself. And in this instance, I think, the Church has gotten it right, even if those of us who are a part of her tend to teeter from one side to another: belief in the tension between humanity and divinity in the person of Christ is what makes us Christian. Tension, that is, in how we understand the incarnation, not in the person of Christ himself - let me be clear! I agree with Frost in that the Church has often drifted towards a functional docetism while denying its substance - we have acted as though Jesus' earthy, human life was of less importance than the meaning of his death and resurrection. But let us not make the corresponding mistake of not reflecting deeply, thoroughly, and, yes, worshipfully on what it means that God himself has walked among us, and we have seen his glory.

Technorati Tags: Frost, incarnation, scripture, Exiles

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My hand is healing nicely - many thanks to those of you who dropped by. The burns have healed much more rapidly than I had expected; I'm able to function normally with no pain and only a small amount of discomfort. I still don't have 100% of the feeling back in my fingers where the most severe burns were, but I expect that to return soon.

On another note, I have a new theory about communicable diseases. I suspect that most germs would quickly die out were it not for toddlers. I've taken to calling Ryan (my 13-month old) the Petri dish. Not only will he put nearly anything in his mouth, thus ensuring that he will catch the maximum number of bugs, but he has tiny sinus cavities, resulting in an endless stream of toxic sludge for the duration of his cold. Of course, I've been hammered by his latest catch for the past several days, which for me means that I can't breathe, I can't sleep, and I'm running a near-constant low grade headache. Still, that's beginning to improve as well, and I hope to be back up to speed within a few days.

All of that to say that posting should now return to normal. I'm continuing to think about the subject of scriptural tensions - I've been taking my time with these, because I find that they need a bit more care than I'm used to taking with my writing. This is, I think, fitting on some level, but it has meant that I've been working through this more slowly than I'd like. After this, I have a few book reviews that I've promised to do, and then I want to start to delve into the question of the gospel - what is it, how does it function in the NT, and what does it look like in our world? I also should have some updates soon on where we are with the church planting process - this has also been proceeding slowly, but we're starting to round a few corners and, if all goes well, it should be picking up steam soon.