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Biblical Roots of Beck’s Civil Religion

August 31, 2010 in Bible Thoughts, Culture with 19 Comments

As I’ve caught various whiffs of Glenn Beck’s calls to America to turn back to God, I’ve simultaneously felt the biblical currents that enliven such a dream. Thought it is sometimes hard to see, and requires a little bit of reconstruction, Beck’s vision of a Christian nation is a thoroughly biblical idea.

We catch sight of it when Jesus comes proclaiming the reign of God–that it has come near, is here on earth already. The indications of its arrival are not lost on Jesus’ followers.

When Jesus is riding into Jerusalem, they proclaim him king: Hosanna! Here comes David’s kingdom!

When Jesus asks the disciples who they say he is, they answer quite clearly: You are that coming Christ!

Indeed, the disciples are not only the ones who confess this about Jesus, they are willing to lay down their lives for it. When Jesus is about to be arrested in the garden, a disciple (Peter) pulls out his sword and slices off an arresting agent’s ear.

When Jesus looks forward and sees death they help him find his way: No, Jesus! I rebuke you, said Peter.

Great, Jesus, interesting story about that coming death thing. Now, when you come in glory can brother here and I sit at your right hand and left?

The disciples continue to show us the importance of the nationalistic vision of the reign of God when their post-resurrection knowledge of the Messiah draws them to ask, “So, is this the time when you’re going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

Yes, the civil religion of Glenn Beck has a rich, apostolic pedigree. It has behind it the apostles’ confessions, their swords, and their earnest expectations. God, the all powerful protector of the nation was their god as well. Civil religion is clearly a biblical idea.

Of course, Jesus responded to this idea, found in the Bible, with: “Get thee behind me Satan,” “you don’t know what you’re asking,” “put the sword away,” and “just go wait in the city until the Spirit comes and you finally understand what I’m talking about,” but that’s neither here nor there.

Hope for Now

August 29, 2010 in Bible Thoughts, Culture with 12 Comments

A couple of questions for my Christian readers:

  • Have you ever taken comfort in the fact that you are justified in Christ, and therefore assured of your standing before God?
  • Have you ever prayed for God’s kingdom to come and God’s will to be done on earth?
  • Have you ever pointed to someone spiritual growth and seen there that sanctification is taking place?
  • Do you ever think of yourself as a daughter or son who has been adopted into God’s family?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, your own understanding of life here and now has been shaped by the New Testament’s eschatology. The idea throughout the NT is that the end has already begun and is making itself known in the present.

One of the most profound implications of inaugurated eschatology is that there is continuity between the life we live in this age and the lives we shall live in the age to come.

When we start teasing this out, it means that we need to start weeding out those ideas that plant themselves in our minds that what we do here does no matter because, after all, “it’s all going to burn.”

Returning to my initial questions:

  • Justification is the word spoken by God on the judgment day over his people: they are vindicated, acquitted. Justified. To claim that identity now is to participate in our eternal judgment in Christ before God finally renders it at the end-yet-to-come.
  • The kingdom of God comes with submission to God here on earth (when people recognize and act as though God is the King God is)–but, there is a coming consummation of that reign when every knee will bow. Obedience now is a foretaste of what will be.

And so on. Any change toward God, any change in our status or persons as we identify ourselves with Christ, or, better, as God identifies us with Christ, are anticipations of what will fully be in the life to come. Our own identities walk in what we call and “already/not yet” eschatology.

Last night we had dinner with someone who works as a consultant to help create sustainable business practices. Her goal is to help companies, agencies, etc. live into a future where success is measured not merely by a financial bottom line but also bottom lines that measure social and environmentally sustainability.

As she has worked to bring this message to the church, the greatest hindrance has been bad eschatology.

Why are Christians in America disproportionately unconcerned about issues of environmental stewardship and not merely “being green” but true social, economic, and environmental sustainability?

The biggest problem is that American Christianity has drunk deeply of a future-only, entirely discontinuous vision of the age to come. The dispensationalists have painted powerful pictures through fiction and film about a world in which all we do will be destroyed and God will either simply deliver us out of it, or begin a new work ex nihilo, from scratch.

When we look to the future with a deep seated conviction that God is going to destroy everything, we hear pleas for earth-stewardship, for systemic transformation, as little more than cries to start polishing the brass on the Titanic. These sound like foreign narratives, pagan narratives that would distract us from the real work of saving souls for the age to come.

The imagination of North American Christianity needs transformation. It needs to start foreseeing a future that is intimately connected with the present, a future in which the judgment “fires” will not only consume dross, but also leave behind gold, silver, bronze, precious stones.

Eschatology matters. Eschatology shows us what the ending of the story is. And we, as people, are inherently story-bound and therefore inherently living our lives so that they will, to the best of our ability, realize the future that we believe lies ahead.

If we are going to be worth anything as a force for justice, for life, for transformation, we need to get our story straight. We need to better learn where it’s going. And we need to know that there is not merely deliverance to take us from here to there, but a path to walk as well.

Response to Emerging Church: Sanity Is Possible

August 27, 2010 in Church, Culture with 4 Comments

I was heartened to day to read the Church of the Nazarene’s statement on Emerging/Emergent churches.

This is one of the most balanced responses I have seen, and coming from a somewhat conservative ecclesiastical body I am even more impressed with its balance and winsomeness.

The statement acknowledges those among the church’s number who are concerned about theological error in the ECs, but also those within its number who think this is one way to faithfully explore what it means to be a follower of Jesus in our postmodern contexts.

Thus, while warning everyone to steer clear of, and to clearly distance themselves from, what the church considers theological error, it also affirms this:

The involvement of many Nazarenes in this conversation reveals a sincere desire to embrace our missional objectives. They are attempting to reach the emerging cultures around us while clearly articulating an orthodox interpretation of Scripture and theology.

Kudos to the Church of the Nazarene for acting on the godly impulse that people within one denomination can differ on ecclesial and missional praxis while still affirming a common theology and working together for the Kingdom of God.

Well done.

Serenity: Love, Belief, and a World Without Sin

August 26, 2010 in Culture, Media with 7 Comments

If you’ve missed the series Firefly, you may go to Hulu right now and start catching up. It was canceled after one season but managed to produce not only a huge cult following but also a feature film entitled Serenity.

Following up on the series, and assuming for the most part that you know the characters and their ways from there, the film focuses on the desire of the intergalactic alliance (think “the Empire”) to recapture River, a young woman who has taken up with a former freedom fighter (think “the rebel alliance”) and his crew–a posse that now steals and trades whatever they can to make a buck off of their Firefly Class spaceship named Serenity.

This is called a “space western” on many of the sites, and the name is apt (think “first three Star Wars movies, with their western hero Han Solo / Luke Skywalker”). Heck, so long as I’m making Star Wars references, there’s even a scene where the good guy and bad guy duke it out on some catwalks. But I digress.

A few interesting themes pervade the movie, and I’d encourage you, should you dive into this world with its cult following, to keep your eyes and ears open for them.

One of the characters is a “shepherd,” a futuristic sort of monk/pastor. He encourages the main cowboy type, Mal, to believe–even if he doesn’t believe in God, to believe in something. There’s a running theme in the film about the power of belief itself. It’s worth keeping your ears out for that.

One of the core conflicts in the movie seems to revolve around that idea of belief. The alliance believes that it can compel people to be better, to a better way of life. Mal and his posse represent the opposite. Mal says he doesn’t believe we can make people better.

As Mal dukes it out with a guy who always seems to be dressed in black (or dark purple), their different beliefs come to the fore again. Evil dude is a top flight assassin, who is striving to create “a world without sin”–a world that will hold no place for himself, he well knows. The conflict of the film is resolved when Mal presents an alternative means to that world without sin: not killing the girl, River, but telling the galaxies the truth about the Alliance.

In the end, Mal tells the secret of survival to River as they fly off for their next journey: love. It was love that enabled River to be freed from the Alliance in the first place. It is love that allows the crew of Serenity to survive.

Especially for a “space western,” this was a well-told story whose thematic riches might be easy to miss within the otherwise predictable action-hero adventure.

Time To Begin Publishing Adult Magazine!

August 25, 2010 in Culture, Humor with 0 Comments

I saw this on my favorite news source (The Onion), thanks to Andy Crouch‘s keen eye for such delicious nuggets.

Go, and enjoy:

TIME Announces New Version Of Magazine Aimed At Adults

And Give You Peace

August 24, 2010 in Culture with 6 Comments

Sometimes, people who make no profession of allegiance to Jesus shame me through their telling or enactment of the gospel story.

I’ve commented about the Mountain Goats here several times over the past few weeks. Monday I was looking for some copyright information for the song Love, Love, Love and stumbled across the liner notes for The Sunset Tree.

I already knew from listening and the buzz on the street that this album is heavily autobiographical. And that autobiography entails a childhood deeply scarred by an abusive stepfather. The songs are often moving and hard to listen to as they chronicle personal pain through sung stories.

Today I saw that the following notes are on the liner:

Made possible by my stepfather, Mike Noonan (1940-2004): may the peace which eluded you in life be yours now

Dedicated to any young men and women anywhere who live with people who abuse them, with the following good news:
you are going to make it out of there alive
you will live to tell your story
never lose hope

The first thing that got me was the wish of peace upon the abusive stepfather who “made possible” this chilling album.

And then, there is the proclamation of good news: you who are captive will know freedom; you will know new life. You have hope.

John Darnielle lives within, and creates a world in which, eschatology matters. The end shapes our stories. The coming ending of our stories gives us hope. And, it gives him the confidence to wish a blessing of peace rather than a curse of retribution.

Pillars of the Earth

August 23, 2010 in Culture, Media with 6 Comments

When the Times of London asked its readers to vote for the best book of the past 60 years, they chose Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking Bird. But we all know that being winner isn’t everything. The runner-up was Ken Follett’s The Pillars of the Earth.

I, being a barbarian, was introduced to this latter work for the first time when Netflix Instant suggested I might be interested in the mini-series currently being run on Starz.

I am now addicted.

Now let me hasten to add that I am under no illusion that all my addictions are wholesome. Lost: definitely good for me. Homebrewing: probably good for me. Flannery O’Connor: definitely good for me. Pillars of the Earth: maybe, maybe not. The series is violent, has more than its fair share of sex scenes (I like to say that one of the main characters and his love interest have “a very simple relationship”) and one particularly disturbing rape scene. So, be forewarned.

So why do I watch a violent, “adult content” show, besides, of course, the adult content and violence?

The story sets out, even if too bluntly, the dangers of power, the power one has when one is presumed to speak for God, and the challenges of interpreting a broken world where one’s theology says that God is at work but the things playing out in real life do not testify to that reality.

Although I do not think the story handles the God and power questions with particular subtlety or grace, I nonetheless resonate with the danger I see unfolding on the screen before me. Even for those of us without formal ecclesiastical power, we do a dangerous thing when we presume to speak for God, to interpret the world as God’s spokespersons.

But this is what we have to do whenever we teach someone what the Bible says or how it applies to our lives. This is what we do every time we move forward in confidence because our spirit seems to be nudged by the Spirit of God.

Blowing up those moments into communal and national moments of life and death, as happens in Pillars, has the power to make us realize the power we wield and the danger we undertake when we make similar judgments in our own smaller worlds where the ramifications often seem less a matter of life and death.

Or, to put it somewhat differently. There you are, watching a ruthless king question why God isn’t defending him, why God isn’t blessing him. There you are, confidently barking back that no God worth His salt would come to the aid of such a deluded tyrant. And then maybe, just maybe, it dawns on you: are my expectations that God will baptize my life’s little schemes any more holy? Am I so different? Just what kind of power do I expect to wield on the basis of my faith?

And then, in all likelihood, you get drawn back in and enjoy a captivating story.

Why Blog? Further Reflections

August 21, 2010 in Bible Thoughts, blogging, Culture with 5 Comments

Way back in January, when I launched Storied Theology, I posted a few thoughts on why I got back into blogging. Having been in the saddle now for eight months or so, I have a few more reflections. I think it’s good for our theological debates and it’s a wonderful source of continuing theological education.

Ben Myers recently published an article in which he processes some of the dynamics of blogging as theology. I commend it to you.

My own experience with this world of biblioblogging is that it has been a great way to more quickly become part of the biblical studies community, especially with other young New Testament PhDs. When I go to our annual conferences, I know dozens of late-20s to mid-30s scholars and/or scholars in training. I have gotten to know some of their work, and am able to have conversations about theological and biblical topics both online and offline due to the relationships that this medium has helped create.

The positive relational angle also manifests in the debates themselves. I take my recent exchange with Dan Wallace to be a case in point. I’ve never met Dan, he just popped up in my comments a couple days ago. We’re in the process of hashing out some differences over Jesus, the Law, and the nature of biblical authority. This is a low-key, non-polemical context. In the online world I don’t feel so much ownership of my position that I couldn’t change based on the discussion. It’s not peer review and doesn’t need to be.

The blogsphere is broadening how I develop relationships with biblical studies colleagues whose feedback and challenge makes my own thinking better.

And this bleeds into the second set of points. The blog is great for Continuing Theological Education (CTE). And I mean this in two directions.

One is what I’ve just alluded to: it’s good for my own CTE. People challenge my thoughts and my thoughts become more articulate, or my positions change, or I learn about a resource I was previously unaware of. This also happens in the process of writing itself, of course. But as often as not the place I learn or have my perspective shifted is in the push-back or extensions of the thought that happen as you, the reader, jump in on the comments.

But one way that I have been more excited about the CTE angle recently has been from the presence of former students on the blog. One challenge we biblical scholars face is that everyone comes into our class knowing how to read the Bible and what it says, and we engage in this lengthy process of trying to reframe thinking, to give new theological constructs, to transform our students’ imaginations.

And, believe it or not, even with a superb teacher such as myself, sometimes this takes longer than one 10-week quarter.

One exciting thing I’ve seen on the blog over the past 8 months is students continuing to come around, to wrestle with some of the big-picture ideas and how they work out in he details. The blog becomes an on-going post-classroom experience in which I can keep the educational conversation going–and where a number of students have shown that their understanding of what I’m up to (for good or for ill!) is continuing to crystallize.

And so, the blog must go on.

Tiny Desk Concert: John Darnielle

August 19, 2010 in Culture, Media, Uncategorized with 0 Comments

Dear NPR, I love you for hosting this and making it available online.

Long live the Mountain Goats!

Anger: Catharsis versus Resurrection

August 17, 2010 in Culture with 2 Comments

A nice article on You Are Not So Smart challenges the idea that what we need when we are angry is an outlet. “Catharsis,” simply put, does not work.

Here is a summary of the studies cited:

If you think catharsis is good, you are more likely to seek it out when you get pissed. When you vent, you stay angry and are more likely to keep doing aggressive things so you can keep venting.

It’s drug-like, because there are brain chemicals and other behavioral reinforcements at work. If you get accustomed to blowing off steam, you become dependent on it.

The more effective approach is to just stop. Take your anger off of the stove. Let it go from a boil to a simmer to a lukewarm state where you no longer want to sink your teeth into the side of buffalo.

That goes for any number of desires besides anger as well. A couple of important points are worth noting. One of these is that we our bodies and our emotions are intimately connected. There are physiological consequences to how we deal with emotion.

The other thing to ponder is that such psychosomatic unity makes strong emotional responses to situations a very difficult pattern to change. From what I understand about recent research, the “brain chemical” issue isn’t just about how long you stay mad in one cycle of anger and response (for example) but also about on-going patterns of chemical production. Catharsis not only sustains a given period of anger, but such explosions make us more apt to act similarly in the future.

Once upon a time I was looking at 2 Timothy and was struck by the idea that self-discipline was the outworking of the Spirit’s presence. Which is it? The self disciplining or the Spirit? Similarly, the fruit of the Spirit list in Galatians 5 lists self-control as part of the Spirit’s effect.

Perhaps I should wonder at this less. It is the Spirit whose power raised Jesus from the dead; the Spirit who gives substance to and typifies the resurrection body itself. Maybe a rereading of these passages in light of modern psychology and neuroscience consists in recognizing that we ourselves need a physical transformation in order to realize the holiness that God has for us.

The new body that we begin now to participate in in Christ must make itself known as our minds and brains are transformed, the chemical compositions changed, through the Spiritual self-control that makes our actions new.

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