Archive - February, 2010

Storying the God of Lent

February 28, 2010 in Uncategorized with 1 Comment

I want to continue my Sunday Lenten tradition of breaking my Lenten fast from Lent by reflecting on the story of the God with whom we walk through Lent. I’ll be assisted this morning by Walter Brueggemann, An Unsettling God.

The story of Lent is a somber story. By giving up what we normally cling to we enact the story of a people who are given life from above, we live into the reality that “man does not live by bread alone.”

In small acts of self-denial, we also enact God’s own participation with the weakness, brokenness, and even sinfulness of the world. To humble ourselves and seek the face of God is not only to perform the script of a people who are in need of redemption, it is to play the part of those who know that their God is bound to this world He has created.

In Lent, if we are not only denying ourselves but simultaneously seeking the face of God, we are telling the story of a profoundly passible God.

God has tied his identity to a peculiar people. Reflecting on YHWH’s tie to Israel, Brueggemann reflects that, as we would expect, the biblical texts always views Israel’s identity as in some sense derived from its God. “But it is equally odd and noteworthy that YHWH will not be discerned in these texts without reference to Israel.”

When we weep, mourn, lament, and fast, our God is discerned not in spite of these these, but because of them, and in them, and through them. We are not striving to leave behind the emotions of pain, mourning, suffering, and lack, but are resonating with God’s own engagement with the world that, though created good, has yet fallen.

Why is Lent part of the story of God? Because the God of the Bible is “unlike the God of any scholastic theology and unlike any of the forces imagined in any of the vague spiritualities available among us. The peculiar character of this God is as available agent who is not only able to act but is available to be acted upon.”

Why is Lent a viable narration of the story of the story-bound God? Because we’re not only remembering or imagining, but acting. We are invoking the God whose commitment to this world will not only bring its evil to judgment on the cross, but will bring its redemption to bear through the resurrection.

Lent is a viable narration of the story of God because though it we walk through the valley of shadow that reminds not only us, but us before our acting God, that the world still needs Easter’s redemption.

It is a viable narration because it tells the story of a God whose life is bound to ours, whose fate is bound to ours, and whose relationship with us is the means by which he is provoked to redeem the unredeemed corners of our world.

And so Brueggemann justly cites Rosenzeig, “All prayer, even the individual lament, subconsciously cries out for the coming of the kingdom”.

Amen. Come quickly, Lord and King.

Public Service Announcement Re: Inclusiveness

February 26, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 2 Comments

I’m working on a chapter on Universalism and Unity for my Jesus and Paul book.

The perception I’m striving to answer is the one that sees Jesus as creating an all-affirming, welcoming, community in contrast to Paul as the instituter of division and exclusiveness.

As a public service to my readers I would simply like to say that there’s a much better case to be made for Paul as a propagator of a universal vision of inclusion than for Jesus.

Though at the end of the day, as at its beginning, neither really will measure up to a bar of universalism.

On the issue of unity, we need the guidance of someone who was around when there were really good fights breaking out. We need Paul to help cast the vision for a Christological unity.

In all, if you’re not ethnically Jewish but are a follower of Jesus, give Paul a big ol’ hug because such an extension of Jesus’ ministry beyond ethnic Israel probably wouldn’t have happened without him. And if you think he’s the root of all kinds of divisive evil, take another look…

Deliverance of God: Can We Be Rescued From These Dire Straits?

February 26, 2010 in Book Reviews with 2 Comments

First, no, the title of this blog post was not a coded allusion to an 80s rock band.

Coming to the end of his first major section, “Justification Theory and Its Implications,” Campbell lays out some serious consequences for adopting Justification Theory. Important here is that in his view all these problems, or most of them at any rate, are built (wittingly or no) on the assumptions of justification theory.

And this is why I found this part of the book to be much less compelling than I had anticipated. In short: there is no way around these issues in the alternative apocalyptic theory, which, because of the concession DAC had to make earlier about its containing a God who judges the world, equally entails many of the most important consequences.

A further general reflection: I continue to be frustrated that DAC does not wrestle in this first part of the book with those theologians who have seen justification as a function of Paul’s union with Christ soteriology. No doubt Campbell will get to these at the end, when he deals with other key texts, but every time he makes these hard and fast distinctions–insisting not only that they are logically necessary but the antinomy Paul himself is working with, I think, “What about, ‘seeking to be justified in Christ‘ in Gal 2?” Or, “So how about righteousness that comes through union with Christ and faith in Phil 3?” Of course, there’s also the massive problem of Romans 5 that mixes the models so extensively that people debate whether Rom 5 is the end of 1-4 or the beginning of 5-8.

But what about the “problems” that the alternative theory can’t avoid?

First, I need to reiterate that Campbell must concede that the God of retributive justice, the God who is judge and will judge the world, is ubiquitous in Paul, not confined to the justification texts. “Paul does occasionally endorse punitive action by God, and this even if his vision of the eschaton is not always consistent. This is a small vein of evidence in his texts, but I concede that it is there; Paul’s thinking at this point is not unalloyed” (94).

To my mind, this concession critically blunts the argument of much of the book, because Campbell is going on to argue that just the kind of God who does not exercise retributive justice, etc. is really Paul’s God and one who gets us out of all sorts of difficulties. But such a God is not to be found in Paul’s soteriological narrative.

Here are some “problems” that the alternative theory can, therefore, not alleviate:

Post-Holocaust Perspectives (p. 205). Campbell suggests that since Justification Theory (“JT”) leaves those on the outside highly culpable for their actions, including receiving God’s wrath on the day of judgment, that it tacitly endorses this-worldly violence against outsiders, most notably Jews. But since Paul’s God is always one who inflicts wrath on the day of judgment, and since even the apocalyptic Paul does not give much evidence of a numerically universal salvation, the alternative does not get us very far. Yes, anti-Judaism is a huge problem. No, introducing a disjunction between “apocalyptic” and “JT” is not the way forward.

Homosexual Relations (p. 206-7). Paul’s sexual ethics are as often derived from union with Christ soteriology as they are from the “natural theology” of Romans 1. 1 Cor 6 is a case in point, and Campbell concedes that this shows up in Paul’s vice lists. Putting Rom 1 into someone else’s voice might help the pro-homosexuality argument, but it does not make Paul’s “real God” a supporter of that particular expression of sexuality.

Constantinianism (207). I agree that Constantinianism is bad. I agree that it gets the story wrong. But the way forward cannot simply be abandoning JT for apocalyptic, because (see the concession on p. 94) both views maintain a God of judgment, who avenges the wrong. There has to be another way to get our story straight…

Totalizing metanarratives (208-9). Simply put, it’s hard for me to imagine a more totalizing metanarrative than the apocalyptic one! The whole point of Rom 5:12ff. is to move the narrative of Israel’s God from the realm circumscribed by the Law to the entire human race and even to the whole cosmos with its powers of sin and death!

Other systematic theological issues depend on a minimalist account of JT. This is another point at which DAC’s interaction with his own construal of JT rather than actual advocates of it creates a barrier in my conceding his argument. Is JT really less Trinitarian, pneumatologically deficient, sacramental? Only if you give the thinnest possible account. Someone might argue that Gal 3 ties pneumatology inseparably to justification by faith as an integral part of the saving process. One might argue that the Reformed ordo salutis that places effectual calling (and union with Christ!) before justification shows how the Spirit is intimately connected to the soteriological process in justification, etc.

In all, I found myself leaving section 1 thinking that the difficulties for justification theory were much less than DAC wants us to think, and that apocalyptic is much less free from the difficulties than Campbell’s alternate theory requires.

Up next: Part 2, “Hermeneutical Clarifications”

Disclaimer: I received a gratis copy of this book from Eerdmans, though with no stipulations either that I would review it or review it favorably.

How Did We Do Research?

February 25, 2010 in Uncategorized with 7 Comments

Over at Exploring Our Matrix, James McGrath asks, “How did we manage to do research before this computer age of ours?”

The answer is here graphically depicted:

HT: Ted Rex

Congratulations to David M. Moffitt

February 25, 2010 in Academia with 0 Comments

Congratulations to my friend, David Moffitt, for being named an SBL Regional Scholar.

Strong work, David! You’ve earned it!

Deliverance of God, Some Stimulating Thoughts…

February 25, 2010 in Book Reviews with 12 Comments

I’ve just come through a couple of really interesting chapters in Douglas Campbell’s Deliverance of God, ch. 4 on Judaism and ch. 5 on the question of Paul’s conversion. Rather than give summaries or engaging the arguments Douglas cares about, I want to draw attention to one major point he makes in which he scores a critical blow against some justification theories and then to one suggestion he makes that I find fascinating.

First, the body blow.

Campbell had noted previously that the role of the Law in what he calls “Justification Theory” is preparatory. It shows that there is a bar that any rational human will realize cannot be cleared. When we recognize this we become frightfully distraught and turn to God to save us by grace.

Such a theory of Law makes the Law downright loathsome. Cf. Luther.

Thus, any person who had been so conditioned by the Law, coming to faith in Christ, would naturally abandon the Law more or less immediately. In fact, it would be impossible to be a Christian without abandoning the Law.

Although Campbell does not draw on Acts or Galatians 2 or Paul’s insistence that neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, the very presence of a law-keeping, conservative Jewish Christianity, validated by the apostles in Jerusalem if no one else, means that Justification Theory’s reading of place and purpose of the Law has gone seriously wrong. Law-keeping Christianity is a massive problem.

The other interesting suggestion, coming up in a similar vein, was that Paul himself preached law-observant Jesus following in the early years after his conversion. One argument from silence is that the issue of Law did not come up during his first visit to Jerusalem, when he hung out with James and Cephas. The suggestion Campbell makes is that this manifestation of Christianity arose at Antioch, and Paul learned it and adopted it there.

The piece of information that is more tantalizing in this respect is Galatians 5:11: “If I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted?” “Still” preach circumcision? When were you preaching it before? Paul never presents himself as a Jewish missionary before his conversion, rather a persecutor of the Jewish-Christian church.

Might he, in his early years, preached a Jewish Christianity even to his Gentile converts? Fascinating thought…

Disclaimer: I received a gratis copy of this book from Eerdmans, though with no stipulations either that I would review it or review it favorably.

“We Don’t Know Who We Are Until We Story Ourself”

February 24, 2010 in Uncategorized with 0 Comments

This video is Phyllis Tickle talking about the importance of telling our stories. Facts don’t cut it. We need stories to show who we are. First few minutes are the best, then there’s a great little story in there about finding space, and God, in forsythia.

Phyllis Tickle on Story from All Things Converge on Vimeo.

Being Handed Over, Being a Child, Being Exclusive

February 24, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 12 Comments

I confess: it takes a lot sometimes for me to see what Luke’s up to in the way he strings together the Jesus stories. But today I’ve been pondering a possible thread through three pericopes: Jesus’ passion prediction, the disciples subsequent arguing over greatness, and their confession about stopping a guy from exorcising (all in ch. 9).

First, in a striking juxtaposition, Luke tells us that Jesus responds to everyone being astounded at all the things he was doing by saying to his disciples, “Listen carefully to these words, ‘For the son of man is about to be given over into the hands of people.’” Greatness is going to be turned on its head. The mighty, powerful one will be handed over to sinners.

It’s worth pondering whether Jesus said, “Listen to these words” prospectively (“what I’m about to tell you,” NIV) or retrospectively, (“Listen to what these people are saying, and hold it together with the next part of the story.”). The latter, incidentally, is how Peter preaches Jesus in Acts 2.

But in any event, Jesus’ falling into the hands of sinners is set in striking juxtaposition with people’s glorification of him. And, the disciples’ deafness to the calamity is put on display by their own visions of glory.

The disciples get into a dispute about greatness. Interesting, isn’t it, that division arises when people are pursuing greatness? There’s a connection here between unity and humility. A call to oneness will only be successful when that oneness is predicated on the gospel narrative that turns the world on its head: the narrative of the handed-over Messiah as God’s agent who embraces the world.

<aside> Incidentally, this is why I’m quite sure that a narrative hermeneutic is more fundamentally Christian than a Trinitarian hermeneutic. A Trinitarian hermeneutic, or even one that simply reads the stories as telling us about “God” does not contain the inherently self-emptying dimension of the cruciform narrative of Jesus. If you want to say that this is exactly the kind of God who exists as 3 in 1, I’ll not fight with you on that, but only point out that such a claim entails a cruciform, narrative hermeneutic to interpret God. The narrative is the thing, the description trails behind. But a Trinitarian hermeneutic, could very well leave the disciples’ quest in place as inherently legitimate, a questing after the sort of greatness that God has put on display in his acts of creation and providence. </aside>

Jesus takes a child and puts it in their midst, telling them that to receive such a one in Christ’s name is to receive not only the child but Christ and the Father as well. The “name of Christ” will recur in the next story as well. The question for me is why is receiving such a child a sign of greatness and a creator of unity with God?

My initial thought is that this is, itself, an enactment of the reception God brings to us in the gospel of Christ. It is a reenactment of the narrative. Note how it turns the expectations of the disciples on their heads. They are, rather Corinthian-like, thinking about their own greatness in the kingdom. The child is a reminder of the opposite. Moreover, to accept the child is to associate with the child, spurning the pursuit of greatness and the halls of power. It is to become the least by embracing the least. This is the way to greatness.

Ok, Jesus, so we can be like you, receive people in your name, and then we’ll be great. Got it. So, just checking here, this still means folks have to be with us, right? I mean, we’re the center of blessing and everything, so we still control the boundaries, right? So, like, this guy we saw casting out demons in your name, we were right to put a stop to that since he’s not following with us, right?

*sigh*

No. Wrong again. Part of the point of this whole thing is that Jesus, not the disciples, is the set-binder. To act in his name is to be on the mission of God. To act in his name by receiving a child, or to act in his name by casting out a demon. Unity is found in the gospel narrative which places Jesus at the center of kingdom of God.

As the intramural oneness was undone by hoping that, as an individual, the disciple is greater than the next guy (thereby failing to live into the narrative of the humble messiah), the inter-group oneness was undone by hoping that, as a group, the disciples were greater than the next guys (thereby failing to live into the narrative of an all-determining Jesus). The former is failure of the individuals to live into the gospel story, the latter is the failure of the group.

Indeed, the surprising turn of phrase that caught me off guard in 9:50 was when Jesus said not “whoever is not against us is for us,” but instead, “whoever is not against you is for you.” Your good is assessed, Jesus indicates, by seeing how my work is being done in the world–whether by your hands or not.

And, we’d all better hope, there seems to be a lot of “or not” going around.

“I called, and you did not answer…”

February 24, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 1 Comment

Just a quick little “hmmm…” observation today.

A recurring theme in the OT (I’m thinking especially of psalms, with a little shake of Jonah thrown in for good measure) is “I called to you and…”

Typically, this is followed by, “You answered me.” Sometimes it’s a bit more dire: “Out of the depths I cried to you and you heard me.”

Reading Isaiah, I discovered the opposite and found it striking: “I called to you, and you did not answer” (Isa 65:12).

Of course, in this case, God is the speaker. The motif is reversed as God takes up the words typically ascribed to people in their distress. In the time of distress, again and again, we read that when “I call on YHWH, he answered me.” But when the shoe is on the other foot, who can deliver the reputation of YHWH? Who can act in faithfulness?

“I called and you did not answer; I spoke and you did not hear. You did evil in my sight and chose that in which I did not delight” (Isa 65:12).

Failure of Exile and Theological Interpretation (4)

February 23, 2010 in Bible Thoughts with 2 Comments

In the first forays we took in to 1st Isaiah’s expectations of return from exile, I suggested that Isaiah proclaims an expectation that the exile itself will be purifying and atoning for the people’s sins. Moreover, I advocated reading 2d and 3d Isaiah as responses, at least in part, to the failure of these prophecies. The people was not transformed, did not get their new hearts, and come to think of it didn’t get a glorious restoration, either. There was a historical (and theological?) problem that generated creative reengagement with the prophecies. The old narrative was transformed in light of the current circumstance.

One conviction necessary for such reworking is tied to Israel’s understanding of God. It’s not simply that YHWH really is God, or that the true God will always be faithful and true, but that God’s identity is wrapped up with the people to whom he has bound his name.

God is not true in the abstract, God is true to Israel. Thus, to echo yesterday’s post, the question is not, “Why, O Lord?” but “How long, O Lord?” Or, if you’re a prophet, “Yet a little while, and I will shake the heavens and the earth, says the Lord…”

Last time, reflected on how the lingering failure of the promised restoration enables the Gospel writers to renarrate the hoped-for renewal. John’s is the voice of Isaiah 40, and Jesus the agent of God’s promised deliverance. Isaiah’s promises of transformation can only be read through that climactic episode in the story.

And yet, the church today does not look like that gloriously restored people. We claim to have the Spirit that adopts us as God’s children, and yet we do not live out the “unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” We claim to be indwelt by the Spirit who at last enables us to be transformed from the inside out–to become those heart-circumcised people who are obedience to God, and yet we do not perfectly obey God (or even, very often, show forth the sort of systematic obedience that might distinguish us from the world).

Between resurrection and return of Jesus we find ourselves in the peculiar position of having to say both that the fulfillment of Isaiah’s vision has arrived in the unexpected guise of a crucified and risen messiah; and, at the same time, that we await the fulfillment of Isaiah’s vision when the heavenly Zion comes down as the capital city of the new earth.

Christians must renarrate the story for our moment. We must reread Isaiah in light of Jesus and say that he is the means for fulfillment. And we must reread its hopes for the future in light of the New Testament’s already/not-yet eschatology.

1st Isaiah was speaking about us, but about who we’ve only begun to be and who we will fully be only in the future. And living faithfully in light of Isaiah’s vision will depend upon our willingness to serve a God whose means for bringing His story to its telos are always open to surprising turns in response to His people. It is a Christian reading only if it recognizes that the God who spoke through Isaiah speaks also in the surprising continuation of the story in Christ, in the sometimes baffling continuance of it in the church by the power of the Spirit, and who will speak its “Amen” yet sometime in the future.

The inherent paradox in a Christian hermeneutic of the OT is captured for me by Martin Buber, as I quoted yesterday in one of the comments: “To the Jew the Christian is the incomprehensibly daring man who affirms in an unredeemed world that its redemption has been accomplished.” (M. Buber, “The Two Foci of the Jewish Soul,” in Jewish Perspectives on Christianity, ed. F. Rothschild, p. 131.)

Yes, “already accomplished”–and that as the prophets foretold, whether they knew it or not.

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