The chapter under discussion to day is, “Women in the Story of God.”

Julie Clawson engages and critiques the chapter at One Hand Clapping. She raises some important concerns about the chapter from the perspective of feminist theology and the reality of what women have experienced in the church.

Andrew Perriman at p.ost engages the chapter in conversation with his own understanding of what apocalyptic means and how that transforms our understanding of the story of God.

Each reviewer has the kind of substantive engagement and substantive concern that can lead to productive conversation. Check out the posts, and join in unfolding discussions in the comments!

And, of course, if you’ve not yet gotten your hands on the book, your hour has come…

Think that Paul’s idea of Christianity is, basically, getting you, yourself, and you right before God? Think again…

James McGrath’s thoughts are here.

Look for Jamie Arpin-Ricci’s at missional.ca.

Today’s chapter in the Jesus Have I Loved, but Paul? blog tour is “New Creation and the Kingdom of God.”

Posts are up by Matt Montonini and Tim Gombis.

This chapter lays my understating of how Paul articulates something akin to the “kingdom of God” proclamation we meet so often in the Synoptic Gospels.

Also, Andrew Perriman has a few thoughts in review, in anticipation of his official Blog Tour post next Monday.

And, he says, this is just the problem.

In his book, Insurrection, Rollins makes the case that our ideas of God are, pervasively, sub-Christian, precisely because they hope too much for a happy tomorrow rather than embracing the broken today.

Rollins warns the reader early on that the purpose of this book is, in essence, to slash and burn: this is a work of “pyro-theology,” not constructive theology–an attempt to burn away the husk that has accrued to Christian faith and practice and return to the source.

In the end, this will be both the book’s strength and its failing. Its strength in that it holds up the mirror to the church and demands of us that we take a long hard look at what we say and do–and how these things fail to embody the gospel we confess to believe.

But it is also the book’s weakness as Rollins insists on a “not/but” where he should have constructively engaged in a “both/and.”

First, then, the strength of the book and what the church desperately needs to hear.

The book begins with reflecting on the significance of crucifixion. Christ was crucified. We are co-crucified with Christ.

And, on the cross, Christ was abandoned by God.

Thus, to live into our co-crucifixion is to live in a space where we experience and acknowledge that we are forsaken, that there has been no miraculous deliverance. The church has to create space for this embrace of darkness. Rollins speaks of our common mythology–the one that makes us all want to believe in God–that things will get better because God is present to deliver.

When we suffer, there will always be an army of Job’s comforters who attempt to save our mythologies, and like Job, we must resist them.

What does this have to do with the church? The church, wittingly or not, creates structures that reassure people that the experience of crucifixion isn’t what is truly real. The church’s confident sermons, its songs of comfort, tell us that the co-crucifixion is not ultimately determinative. “The structure acts as a security blanket that enables us to speak of the Crucifixion without ever undergoing its true liberating horror” (48).

The problem as Rollins outlines it is that when we have people celebrating divine presence in dozens of ways, we are enabled “to admit that absence and forsakenness are part of our faith without experincing the transformative trauma of this admission” (70). And, of course, while being the agents of certainty, many pastors secretly harbor the very doubts that they are covering other for others.

Instead, the community should be helping us acknowledge and find life in the midst of suffering. The “new life” of resurrection that Rollins will turn to in part two of the book is lived now as life is found within the suffering and trauma of the world.

Although he uses language and takes it to a level that I am not always comfortable with, Rollins makes a strong and important case in the first part of his book that crucifixion is a crucial component of the Christian life experience–not something to be overcome in order for us to know and live what is true, but something that is to be lived in as where we discover the truth about ourselves in the Christian story.

Next time, we’ll turn to what he says about resurrection. And this is where I’m going to want to part ways with Rollins, in order to embrace a paradox of saying yes to what he advocates while simultaneously saying yes to the hopes of traditional Christian piety.

Disclaimer: I received a free copy of this book from the Speakeasy on Tap book review folks. The Federal Government wanted to make sure you knew this, so that you could have all the information you needed to determine whether I was basically paid advertising rather than an objective reviewer. Of course, I never told the folks at Howard that I’d write a positive review, but they gave me a copy anyway. So, now that you know, you can decide for yourself: will I buy the book, or is this word of Kirk simply too tainted to be believed? I hereby fulfill my duties to the Federal Government.

Other posts today are by Charity Singleton and Todd Hiestand.

This series strives to bring together “the biblical sense” with the “cultural significance” (p. 10). I take this to mean that its writers strive to bridge the horizons between an ancient meaning of the text and a contemporary significance. Like many new commentary series, it aims at use among practitioners, rather than providing accounts of the text from the perspective of would-be detached historians.

From my reading of ch. 11, and spot-checking elsewhere, the commentary makes good on its purpose to provide a Jesus who speaks to contemporary audiences.

The first section of the commentary on ch. 11 contrasts the prosperity gospel of health, wealth, and happiness with the story of John the Baptist. His spiritual career was skyrocketing until he hit rock bottom with imprisonment, loss of conviction about Jesus, and finally decapitation.

If John is any indication, life in the kingdom is not about seeing fortune and glory here and now. It is as much or more about crucifixion. But resurrection awaits for those who are faithful to the end.

In the second section, Woodley comments on Jesus as the one who welcomes the outcast, who blesses God for hiding the gospel from the wise and learned but revealing it to babes. Jesus’ words come with strong warning to his hearers. In what was, to me, the most compelling moment of insight in this section, Woodley writes:

He doesn’t warn those who need conversion; he warns those who think they already have it. (130)

The cross illustrates that God’s economy of salvation does not match the economy of the world.

As someone who engages books on both sides of the academic/popular divide, I found this commentary to be firmly situated on the latter. Had I not read the series preface, I would not have guessed that giving anything like a historical meaning, or explanation of Matthew’s Gospel as such, was a directive for the series.

It’s not that things aren’t spoken of as “what Jesus is saying to his contemporaries,” so much as the sorts of things Jesus says sound so much like contemporary evangelical theology. It leaves me with some concern that the overall commentary won’t leave folks with much of an understanding of why the story works, of why it makes sense that Jewish people were opposed to Jesus, of why, ultimately, they opposed Jesus to the point of death.

Having said this, however, the overall theological texture is commendable. Woodley is wrestling with the cross-shaped story of Jesus, and inviting readers to consider how it unmasks our mistaken presumptions about what it means to be the blessed people of God.

Can we say, in times of struggle, darkness, and hardship, “This isn’t what I signed up for”? Not so much: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God… Blessed are you when people persecute you…”

The story of Jesus, the story of the cross, is the story of the people of God: of John the baptist, of Jesus’ hometown, and of us.

I hereby inform you, the otherwise unsuspecting reader, that I was provided a copy of this book free of charge. By so informing you, I have fulfilled the requirements placed upon me by the Federal Government as one who grubs free stuff and reviews it on my blog. You must now determine if such privilege has poisoned my ability to objectively (or otherwise helpfully) report to you the product under review. ὁ ἀναγινώσκων νοείτω

I’m involved in some discussions about homosexuality in the church, and we’re using Mark Yarhouse’s book, Homosexuality and the Christian as our jumping-off point. There are two ideas he puts forward that I would love some broader feedback on.

First, Yarhouse issues a word of caution about quickly embracing the idea and language of gay identity.

Instead, he suggests we think about a three-tiered understanding (probably more like three points on a spectrum) of a person’s sexual predilections: (1) attraction; (2) orientation; and (3) identity.

The difference between 1 and 2 might be persistence over time or strength / prevalence of a given way of being attracted.

The third, “identity,” is something that has literally only become possible over the past century or so. To claim an identity based on sexuality is a relatively modern invention. People before wouldn’t have said, “I’m straight” or “I’m heterosexual” or “I’m homosexual.” Each is a sociological label that tends to carry with it a set of expectations of not only attractions but also practices.

And, since such an identifying label defines “who we are,” those attractions and practices tend to become normative. Living an integrated, healthy life is largely a matter of knowing who we are and acting in step with that.

Yarhouse suggests that avoiding the language of identity is important for giving people space to process how they will respond to attractions, and whether or not they will be in any sense defined or bound by them. Thus, someone might choose to say, “I am a Christian, and I am a Christian who is attracted to other men.”

This point dovetails nicely, it seems to me, with what Jenell Williams Paris wrote about in The End of Sexual Identity. We might do well to resist the notion that our sexuality defines who we are.

Do you think that such a separation is helpful?

The second place I’d like more discussion is on the idea of “scripts.” First, as we talk about scripts, it is important that we not look at these pejoratively. Each of us has an understanding of what it means to act out a part we have been given.

As a professor, I have a certain sense of what it means to faithfully teach or write or get mired in committee work that I perform based on my understanding of what script comes along with the role I’ve been assigned. Similarly, my understandings of what I do because I am husband or father.

Social setting and experience and myriad other factors come together to provide us with scripts. It’s part of life.

What Yarhouse contends in the book is that there is a powerful and compelling script for acting out the role of homosexuality on offer from the gay community, but that there is no compelling alternative coming from the Christian world–and this is a huge problem that we need to address.

Here is how Yarhouse sees the gay script (p. 49):

• same-sex attraction signals something natural (even God-given)
• same-sex attractions are the way you really are
• these attractions are at the core of who you are as a person
• same-sex behavior is an extension of that core
• self-actualization in such behavior is crucial for your fulfillment

In other words, the script communicates quite strongly that sexuality is at the core of our identity, and that living in accordance with, and in expression of, that sexual desire is how we live healthfully.

In contrast, Yarhouse outlines what a traditionalist Christian script might look like for someone experiencing sexual attraction (p. 51):

• same-sex attraction is but one of many distortions of nature that we all experience as part of life that is not the way it is supposed to be
• [same-sex] attractions are not the defining element of your identity
• you can choose to integrate same-sex attraction into a gay identity…
• … or, you can center your identity around other aspects of your experience
• the most compelling aspect of personhood for the Christian is one’s identity in Christ

I’m curious what you think.

Have we as Christians, both heterosexual and homosexual, bought in too much to the idea that our sexuality is at the core of our identity as persons? Do we all need to put sex on more of a back burner when it comes to who we truly are?

Also, is there a compelling, alternative Christian script–perhaps one that sits less like Yarhouse’s, as a counter-point to the homosexual script, that we should be promoting for everyone alike or for those who experience homosexual attraction in particular?

“The Bible speaks to all areas of life. If you want relational, financial, sexual, or political guidance, the Bible is the place to go.”

“The Bible is the owner’s manual.”

“The Bible contains the system of doctrine that God’s people should know and believe.”

“No,” says Christian Smith. “And no. And no. And no.”

The subtitle of The Bible Made Impossible is “Why Biblicism is Not a Truly Evangelical Reading of Scripture.” The gospel is the good news, the good news is the word of Jesus Christ. To be an evangelical is to be one who promotes the good news of Jesus Christ.

And, a truly evangelical reading of scripture is one that recognizes that the point of the Bible is the saving word about Jesus Christ.

To read the Bible as an evangelical is not to read it to assemble a whole series of doctrines; it is not to read it as a compendium of life advice. Evangelical reading of the Bible is reading so as to discern in both Testaments the witness to Jesus Christ.

Or, as I put it so often here: we must imitate the NT writers in their employment of a Christological Hermeneutic.

What the Bible is “about” is not everything, it is about God’s salvation of the world through Christ. We should therefore seek this message, and discover the Bible’s unity, around this saving story.

In other words, there is a unity to scripture. But it is not the unity of a wholesale theological system; it is not the unity of agreement on what every passage means; it is not the unity of a transhistorical law which God reveals piecemeal over time.

The unity is what makes us Christians: the common affirmation that this is the story of God’s reconciling the world to Himself in Christ.

This understanding of what a Christian reading of the Bible looks like is not only as ancient as Jesus’ words in Luke 24 or John 5. It is also what we find advocated by John Stott (“Our savior Jesus Christ… is Scripture’s unifying theme,”) and the Dutch Theologian G. C. Berkouwer (“the significance [of scripture] can never be isolated from the redemptive-historical work of Christ”) (p. 103).

One of the crowning moments of the chapter on Christocentrism was an assessment Smith made of a sermon he heard on James. I’ve dabbled in and wondered about how we should be reading and preaching James–a virtually Christ-less book in the NT. My thought? We need to read it with the same strong Christological hermeneutic we are charged to bring to bear on the OT. Smith said essentially the same thing.

So my love fest with The Bible Made Impossible continues. Smith has rightly focused our attention on what the Bible is, and what it is for–and these mean that other ways of thinking about, reading, and applying scripture are shown up as misguided at best.

As an aside, I should say that the Westminster Seminary that died in the early 2000s had previously taught me just this way of thinking about the unity of scripture. It was the story of the work of God to save a people to God through Jesus Christ. The replacement of that Christological commitment with a version of evangelical biblicism is testament to the counter-intuitive nature of Smith’s proposal for many in the evangelical world.

Also, so you know: all is not pure unadulterated love. Smith keeps saying that a Christological reading is according to the rule of faith and Trinitarian, to which I of course say “No and no.” However, the overall import of what he is advancing is so crucial that I overlook this quibble and embrace Smith’s work for the greater good.

Aside 3: this program of Smith’s also finds a strong ally in Karl Barth and resonates strongly with what I’ve been posting in the Barth reading group posts over the past couple of months.

On the level of popular slogans, we have everything from “God said it, I believe it, that settles it!” to “Vote Responsibly–Vote the Bible!” to “Confused? Read the Directions! [picture of the Bible]” Evangelical biblicism is reflected throughout its kitsch culture (pp. 7-8).

Of course, it is elaborated at greater length in books: Bible Answers for Almost All Your Questions, Biblical Principles for Starting and Operating a Business, How to Make Choices you Won’t Regret, Esther’s Secrets of Womanhood (pp. 8-10). The point: we treat the Bbile like it’s about everything–a handbook that answers all our questions. We treat the Bible like it’s a clear, direct word from God to us about how to live our lives. These assumptions are upheld by others such as, “If we read the Bible aright, it can perform this function for us.”

In the more technical theological realm, the idea of scripture’s unity and internal consistency are the points that come more to the fore, but still in ways that lead one to think that the Bible should be able to be heard with relative clarity on all that it speaks of. In particular, biblical statements about the Bible deny contradiction in scripture (which must all be consistent because it is God’s word, after all), or state that anything we need to know is either laid down in scripture or may be deduced by good and necessary consequence.

In fact, the more theological sophisticated versions make the Bible less a practical handbook for daily living and more a box of puzzle pieces to be rightly ordered into a system of doctrine. Both, however, depend on the same way of understanding the Bible as the word of God.

So what’s the problem with all this?

The single greatest problem Smith sees is proliferating interpretive pluaralism. In other words: people don’t agree with each other on what the Bible says. Not only this, they don’t agree about what the Bible says about significant, defining issues of faith and practice. This is because the Bible is not, in fact, univocal on important issues.

Here again, Smith points to publishing. You know all those awesome and helpful “Four Views” or “Three Views” books? Their very existence is an exhibition of the irreducible interpretive pluralism that will always beset the church so long as it thinks that “just believing the Bible” is what is required for faith and practice.

Note how important the topics covered are: Atonement, Baptism, the Doctrine of God (!), Hell, Divorce and Remarriage, The Lord’s Supper, Historical Jesus, War, Women in Ministry, Predestination, Christ (!).

So besides, Jesus, God, and how the cross works, we agree on all the “important” stuff?!

Smith insists, and he is correct, that at the root of this is a way of seeing and understanding what the Bible is, which is demonstrated to be false because we who read the Bible with honesty and integrity cannot agree on what it says. The theory is rendered false by the results it has produced.

Next time, we’ll look at how a theory that is falsified daily manages to keep such a strong hold on the church and also survey some of the other problems with evangelical biblicism.

One of Mark’s favorite metaphors is the contrast between a college lecture hall and a karate dojo. He contends that we have made Christianity too much like the former, a place of passive reception, whereas Jesus calls us to a life of active following and doing.

This book is an invitation to a transformed life. It is an invitation to join with others in stripping off the veneer of Jesus that we’ve slapped up over our American consumerist lives in order to truly seek justice, more radically give to the poor, faithfully participate with God as co-creators in this world.

I don’t like these kinds of calls.

Honestly, there’s a reason that I am a professor: lecture hall Christianity is very comfortable for me. And Mark Scandrette reminds me that Jesus did not call me, did not form a community of followers, for the ultimate purpose of sitting and learning a bunch of facts and ideas.

The facts and ideas are to be part of the catalyst for the disciple’s participation in the hope for which we pray: “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth.”

Mark Scandrette sets the stage in part one the book by talking through the value of practice. And in the second part he gives some guidelines for creating experiments for your community. This guidance stems from several years of putting on such experiments with reImagine in San Francisco. The stories and guidelines are readable, humble examples of how the process of experimenting is open to both success and failure, with both outcomes opening doors for understanding better what it means to follow Jesus in our world.

If you’re ready to be made uncomfortable, if you’re ready to be drawn out of the everyday life of doing so as to take care of yourself into the world of doing for others, then get this book–not merely to read it, but to experiment with your friends.

In accordance with Federal regulations, I hereby inform you, the reader of this book review, that I fully anticipate getting a free copy of this book from the publisher. I’m also friends with Mark. You could take this as an indication that the book review would have been positive no matter what; or, you could take note of the fact that I think highly enough of what he’s doing to partner with him in some things, including the Theology Hub podcast, which should have a new episode appearing next week. So really, you can take this review with a grain of salt if you want to, but I do actually think that this book, if put into practice, has powerful potential to transform the way that you think about following Jesus.