Tag Archive - church

The Bible Reader Divide

April 12, 2011 in Bible Thoughts, Church with 16 Comments

The gap between academy and church confronts me every day as a NT scholar.

Much of what I wrestle with here on the pages of Storied Theology is an attempt to reframe biblical passages and Christian theology in light of what I take to be better historical readings of NT passages than the ones most of us carry around in our heads.

In the classroom, much of the challenge that faces the students, besides getting through my reading list, comes from the slow realization that I’m building an entirely different framework for understanding what the Bible says and how we can know it. My goal, however, is not to establish a new priesthood of the academic, but to empower the people to read their Bibles again for the first time. This is why I blog–to create space for real people and to intersect with academic theology.

I do believe in the work of the church, and want to reiterate that I think it extremely important that we who are in academia continue to listen to and learn from the church.

Having said all this, I must now say that I do think there are dead-ends along certain paths. And one of those dead-ends is to take the stance of allowing our churches’ theology to determine our readings of scripture. Whether we think of that guiding theology as some small framework such as the Apostles Creed, or an extensive elaboration of doctrine such as the Westminster Confession of Faith, reading our Bibles to discover the theology of the church will inevitably take us far afield from the historical meaning of the text.

A couple points of elaboration.

First, this is not a condemnation of the later theology of the church. It had to say what it needed to say in its own later days and times, just like the biblical writers had to say what they needed to say in their own. To say that the church’s theology is a poor guide to what the NT or OT writers themselves thought is no greater word of condemnation than to say that Matthew’s theology is a poor guide to Mark or that Chronicles’ theology is a poor guide to Samuel-Kings.

Second, we tend to lose sight of the fact, because it is so natural to our world, that articulating a theology as such is not a necessary outcome of having a Bible. The Jewish people have never defined themselves based on Creeds. They do biblical interpretation of stories and law–and that is their defining characteristic. It’s not a statement of faith per se.

The church has defined itself by extensive statements of faith, but the biblical “definitions” of God are much more dynamic. We have different ways of thinking about and talking about God than Paul or Jesus or John the seer did. This means that we have to learn afresh if we want to hear scripture in its historical context. And, this is why I don’t think that the church as such should be given the last word in this academy-church divide.

The church will always read the Bible as affirming its tradition. The academy will always read the Bible as challenging the church’s tradition. And somehow the two together will, in the best of circumstances, create a synergy that leads to faithful narration of the Christian story in our own time and place.

Gap Between Lectern and Pulpit

April 11, 2011 in Academia, Bible Thoughts, Church with 22 Comments

Over at Akma’s Random Thoughts, Akma has posted a few thoughts on the gap between academy and church in how we read the Bible. I resonate with much of what Akma says there. If you’re a Christian or an academic of biblical studies then you live in the strange world where those who have devoted most of their lives studying the book are not the ones preaching from Sunday to Sunday or listening to that text in the pew.

A gap will always exist between academy in church due to the fact that professors, for all our complaints about how much our administrative tasks take us away from our research, spend our lives learning the text and the things around the text that will, if all goes well, make us better readers of it.

But there’s another factor as well. Akma writes:

Perhaps the minister and congregation exemplify the sort of theological inquirer who wants not so much to learn about the Bible and theology as to find authority figures who will reaffirm the congregation’s predispositions.

Do you experience this gap? How do you handle it?

To my mind this is actually the most significant presenting problem, though I wouldn’t put the matter in quite this way. The way it’s stated, this sounds like there’s a peculiar “sort” of inquirer, a minority perhaps, who comes with only the demand that the text will reaffirm the congregation, church, etc.

But it seems to me that the two issues of time researching the text and its environment, on the one hand, and the church’s theology, on the other, come together in almost all churches as invisible constraints that perpetuate the finding of the church’s theology in the text whether or not it is intentionally “the sort of theological inquirer” who “wants” to find it there.

I think that Akma and I are actually largely in agreement here, but I want to take it in my own direction for a bit.

I’ve recently had opportunity to sit in a church context other than my house church. As I sat and listened to the teaching going on around me, I recognized a couple of things. One was that the persuasiveness of the teaching depended on a prior agreement with the point of view of the speaker, together with a general lack of knowledge about the details and issues being discussed. This is not a condemnation of any particular brand of Christianity–it’s what we find in most congregations of every stripe. Lay people aren’t experts in the Bible or its history, and they tend to be found in largely like-minded congregations whether those are liberal or conservative or somewhere in between (or beyond!).

But the other thing that troubled me, as an academic, as I sat listening was the realization that any student who came Fuller from that church (or went to any number of respectable seminaries around the state or country) would not be able to take what they’d learned in our classroom and bring it directly to this people without either (a) getting fired; or (b) splitting the church.

So I’m troubled afresh by the gap between academia and the church, between lectern and pulpit. I have a couple more thoughts about this, including what I’m not willing to do about it, and what I am. Perhaps more on this tomorrow.

But as I get into this, I remind you what I said last week: the solution is not to stop listening to the church and just to listen to the academy. Though the academy is my primary vocational location, I don’t think that the answer is to create an alternative, academic service of worship.

In the mean time: What do you think? Do you experience this gap? How do you handle it?

Cultivate the Whole

March 27, 2011 in Bible Thoughts, Church with 4 Comments

Sometimes you hear about the magic bullet. The thing. The one thing. The leading thing.

If we get hold of this one thing, the rest will fall into place.

I hear tell of a college whose motto proclaims, in the words of a Protestant Reformer, that the mind is the way to the heart. And there is a vast company of heirs to this motto: Christians who believe that if we get our theology right, the rest will fall into line: right thinking leads to right acting.

Others, of course, put the shoe on the other foot: believe what you want, but really, just get about the business of doing. Do what you’re called to. Share the gospel, and the rest will fall into place–right worship, right understanding.

Missional and attractional church models can fall prey to such thinking: get your people involved in the world around them, and the worship of the church will become more robust! or, build robust worship and mission will flow from there!

But the reality is that the Christian life is a many-faceted affair, and each facet demands its own attention, and no facet will necessarily draw the others along with it.

We all have areas that we gravitate to more readily–and we all easily fall prey to absolutizing the one, prioritizing the one thing at which we excel, proclaiming that this is the way forward to the whole.

But this is comfort at the expense of the truth.

In reality, we have to cultivate a half-dozen to a dozen spiritual practices if we are to faithfully love God with heart, soul, mind, and strength, and no one of us, and very few particular communities, will ever do all of them well.

The worshipers might need to be pulled out on mission. The thinkers might need to be pulled out of their easy chairs by the doers. The practicers might need a theology lesson. And the goers might need to be reminded that there is a worshiping community into which to return.

Rather than claim a corner on the market of doing it right, maybe we just need to start living like we need each other. Not only to do what we cannot, but to help us do what we would have been able to do on our own, but what we can as part of a functional body.

Loving without Affirming?

March 10, 2011 in Academia, Bible Thoughts, Church, Culture with 29 Comments

I have a question for you all. Here’s the set-up:

  • A friend Tweets connects with an old friend, who saw Christian indications on my friend’s FB profile and asked right off the bat, “What do you think about gay people?” The old friend is gay.
  • A church that does not participate in the Christian right is disturbed at the villainizing of LBGT folks coming from Christian quarters. It does not support Prop 8. It wants to be welcoming, but theologically is not affirming.
  • An academic institution that holds to a traditional sexual ethic of sex only within male-female marriage nevertheless wants to live up to its ideals of academic integrity by fostering open conversation about issues pertaining to homosexuality.

So here’s the question: to what extent can the desires of an individual, church, or other Christian institution be met to create a welcoming, loving, and challenging environment for members of the LBGT community without affirming the expression of such sexualities out of hand?

I suppose that’s a two part question: Is it even possible? If so, what does it look like? Is it easier on an individual level than on an institutional level? For those of you who identify as LBGT, will these kinds of attempts to create welcoming space without being affirming simply ring hollow, or is there something in the efforts or results that you would be or are appreciative of?

Thus far on my blog I have been very proud of the way that we have been able to have difficult conversations with a relative level of respect. Let’s keep that up. I know that these are difficult topics–for folks who are affirming and see this as a justice issue in which others are perpetuating injustice and discrimination, for folks who are holding to an understanding of male/female only sex within marriage and see this as an issue of biblical authority and submission to God.

Thanks for being willing to enter into these highly charged waters without attempting to electrocute those who disagree with you!

Now to the question: is it possible to be welcoming without being entirely affirming? If so, what does that look like?

Jesus

December 13, 2010 in Bible Thoughts, Church with 9 Comments

JSN, regular participant in the Storied Theology, has drawn my attention to The Theology Project of Trinity Lutheran Church. In particular, this church has recently formulated its understanding of who Jesus was and is and what this means for a community of believers.

What do you think about its Jesus statement?

I want to say a couple of things: First, please note that the church does not engage in this exercise instead of confessing the creeds, but in addition to making those historic confessions.

And, I think that taking this sort of ownership, within the community, to return to scripture and be challenged afresh, is good. It is good to confess in concert with the church, and it is good to set out on the journey of discovery as a community and come to own the theology with greater depth.

In terms of the content, I really like its lengthy column depicting salvation. Two things about it strike me as exactly right: (1) it is a long, all-encompassing type of statement that challenges us to recognize the significance of Jesus in every aspect of our lives and the world–and to see how “salvation” is depicted throughout the Gospel stories; and (2) the list pairs “saved from” with “saved for” so that both the old life we are called to leave behind, the symptoms of our brokenness and sin, and the new life we are called to put on are held in tandem.

If I have one quibble, it is with the depiction of the Kingdom of God. I don’t think that kingdom of God is merely a new way of living in the world. I think there is a cosmic reality of God’s reign, being brought to bear by Jesus, that Jesus is putting on display, demonstrating, and inaugurating. There is a power in the reign of God that comes with that cosmic reality, and I’m not sure the statement quite does justice to that reality.

Those were my initial thoughts–mostly quite positive. What do you think of the Jesus statement?

Unity Metaphors & Works in Progress

September 10, 2010 in Bible Thoughts, Church with 17 Comments

The Big Tent Christianity Conference has people asking, among other things, what does a large, inclusive Christianity look like? What sort of tent is it that can hold together a diverse group of people that is unified without being uniform?

When I posed this question on Twitter yesterday, one of my friendly antagonists asked who this “we” might be that doesn’t want uniformity? That’s a fair question. And the “we” is that number of us who see that the diversity in the body is not merely an effect of the failure of human beings, but probably inherent to the diversity of ways that God is at work in the world.

In order to get such a description of large, inclusive, and yet still recognizable Christianity, I wonder if we need to start working with metaphors that communicate something that’s less static than a house or even a tent. That’s not to say that house metaphors are wrong, or that the tent metaphor is misleading.

It’s to suggest that when we speak of house we too readily think of a place where we go to live rather than, as in 1 Corinthians 3, a place where we to to work building. We show up, we bring ourselves, and we build on the foundation–perhaps even laying that foundation for someone else, for another wing of the building.

Or, to jump to John, when we think of the house where we simply arrive and it’s ready and done, that is the house that Jesus goes before us to prepare in the heavenlies, not the house we inhabit here and now.

How might we think of a unified, if not uniform, Christianity? A few metaphors come to mind:

There is the house that is being built, and will be built, until the end. This image has the benefit of appealing to a common foundation, but also of having potential for building up on tradition, and out into various wings that might represent different traditions.

We might talk about a family. Again, there is going to be commonality in lineage and a family resemblance. But families grow and develop and add members and have lines that develop in certain direction.

Or, we might talk about traveling companions. This opens up a number of other possibilities for people who might join us on “the way” of Jesus. Some might go places we wouldn’t stay as we journey together (and vice versa, no doubt). But journeying with Jesus we would be heading in the same direction; or, at least, to the same final destination.

I apologize for not coming up with something more edgy and postmodern. Maybe you can help me out:

What metaphors do you think we should be using to talk about our Christian identity so as to force us to keep our understanding of “Christianity” open enough to include all those other folks-not-like-us who follow the same Jesus, submit to the same Lord?

The [Evangelical] Sky Is Falling!

September 8, 2010 in Church, Culture with 13 Comments

The late Michael Spencer, who touched the lives of so many around the world through his blog, The Internet Monk, before cancer took him this spring, had plied his prophetic powers to the coming collapse of evangelicalism. In an article in the Christian Science Monitor that appears to be from March of this year, he outlines why this collapse is coming and what things will look like on the other side.

I would love to have some discussion here from folks of different social settings responding to his dire predictions. If you’re an evangelical, does his assessment ring true to you? What about you post-evangelicals looking at things in the rear-view mirror? Does anyone from a Roman Catholic standpoint have an outsider’s opinion to throw in the ring? Any of my mainline Protestant readers have two cents to chip in?

Spencer’s basic premise was that evangelicalism was able to thrive in the hothouse that was the Protestant 20th century, but that it does not have the assets to survive in the post-Christian (and increasingly hostile-to-Christianity) 21st century.

Perhaps to get the ball rolling, I share two of Spencer’s observations/concerns.

First, (evangelical) Christianity is, in fact, viewed by all but (evangelical) Christians as the enemy of the common good. We have not figured out how to conduct ourselves in the public arena (or our own in-house affairs, for that matter) in such a way that people see us as the champions of liberty, justice, and equality. That is not our voice. We do not, in our participation in the public square, step forward with the deep conviction that we are to love our neighbor as ourselves and do unto others as we would have done to us. This is a big problem, perhaps the most important problem that Christians need to address with respect to our participation in national issues.

Second, Spencer has several points that boil down to this: evangelicalism is theologically and intellectually vacuous. There are some clear indications that, as a general assessment of what/how our churches are doing, this is correct. The recent publications about the state of our youth with respect to their faith is clear evidence that we are not raising up theologically or biblically well-informed followers of Jesus.

It might be that points 1 and 2 are related. Just a thought.

And yet, I don’t think his dire predictions are on track. At least, I think it will take a lot longer than a decade for evangelicalism to come crashing down. I also have a lot of hope for various denominations because people my age who are asking the hard questions are staying where they are as often as they are leaving. So yes, there will be new groups, “small bands working to rescue” through renewal. And, I think these will have a long-term stabilizing effect if they don’t get run off by the old guard.

What do you think?

Revisiting McCracken’s Hipster Christianity

September 7, 2010 in Book Reviews, Church with 15 Comments

A few weeks ago, I jumped on the “Pummel Brett McCracken for a crappy article in the WSJ” bandwagon (Part 1, Part 2). I’ve now had an opportunity to read his longer, and somewhat more responsible, article from this month’s Christianity Today. Both of these articles are summaries of his book, Hipster Christianity (full disclosure: I have not read the book).

As I said, I found the CT article to be more responsible than the WSJ article. What I mean by this is that it more accurately represents “hipster” as a particular sub-culture. Whereas the WSJ article showed no clear understanding that being a “hipster” is different from tying to be “hip” or “cool,” the CT article gives some indication that McCracken does in fact know what the word hipster means. If you don’t know, here’s the photo essay I compiled to help you along (and the comments there are helpful too).

Having said that, however, I am still not convinced that McCracken has either a viable working definition of “hipster Christianity”, or a realistic understanding of how tied we all are to the cultures in which we live.

On the problematic of what qualifies as “hipster Christianity,” any church that is not simply a reflection of 50′s or 60′s Americana seems to be damned if it does, damned if it doesn’t. On the one hand, you’re hipster if you strive to throw off the culture of church and embrace the cool culture of the ironic urbanites. On the other hand, you’re hipster if you sing old hymns with simple guitar accompaniment.

I’m not sure if McCracken or the CT editors created the inset “Stuff Christian Hipsters Like,” but the upshot of the list is this: You’re a hipster if you read certain new writers, if you read certain old ones; you’re a hipster if you think theology or philosophy or spiritual classics or Jewish philosphers or modern popular writers are worth reading.

Seriously. The “stuff hipsters like” list is populated by Plato, Augustine, Tim Keller, N T Wright, Karl Barth, Flannery O’Connor, Thomas Merton, Paul Tillich, Marilynne Robinson.

It seems that the only thing that holds together McCracken’s hipster Christians is that he so labels them.

And this brings us up against the continuing problem that besets his work: he shows no indication that he is aware of the culturally embedded nature of all Christian practice. It’s one thing to imply that current Christians are being trendy because they like singer-songwriter type music.

18th Century Hipster

I’m eager to read the chapter that chastises Handel for mindlessly mimicking the style of early 18th centuryGerman and Italian opera, Luther for mimicking early 16th century nationalism, and Calvin for over-applying 16th century jurisprudence. Egad!

After that, I’ll flip back in search of an appendix that chastises Jesus for using terms that so clearly derived from militaristic Jewish expectations of God’s coming, conquering kingdom, and that chastises Paul for setting up churches that looked so much like ancient cults and guilds and other associations.

The muddiness of the article comes in this: there is no distinction made between those who might learn from the traditions of the past while engaging the present (people who would read Augustine, Barth, and Wright) from whatever this nebulous, nefarious “hipster” thing might be.

McCracken does say “hipster” is ok so long as it’s growing up in a “hipster” context. But then, apparently, if the “hipster” church has learned that the church should be talking about sex trafficking as injustice, homosexuality as a pressing moral issue, or AIDS as something demanding our attention, the rest of the Christian world isn’t allowed to follow suit. These are “shock value” topics, apparently, not the things that staid, upstanding suburbanites talk about in church.

What’s McCracken’s alternative? Returning to the stereotyped moralism of yesteryear. He mourns for the days when not drinking, not smoking, and not cussing were the defining marks of the church.

As we return to this “attractional”, fortress-mentality model (“missional”, after all, is a hipster Christian buzzword), McCracken hopes we will be freed from the theological ideas about new creation, justice, and holistic transformation that define the Christian hipster world.

21st Century Hipster (Is that a PBR?!)

A final word of warning that McCracken speaks is worth attending to. He warns that Hipster Christianity is the theology of the white, urban elite. I found this critique “interesting” inasmuch as it was juxtaposed with the photograph of Shane Claibourne’s bible study in North Philly. This group illustrates the vacuousness of “hipster Christianity” for lower-class Latinos and Blacks by only having a half dozen African Americans in among the dozen persons pictured. Can there be anything in such a movement for the non-white urbanite?! Hmm….

In all, I find the thinking muddy. McCracken has some good points to raise, but does not have the mental clarity at this point to present them in such a way that they helpfully critique one set of practices. The only common thread that runs through the article is that “Hipster Christianity” is not identical to what came before us in the good ol’ 50s and 60s (before the cultural revolution of the latter decade). But to recognize difference from what came before, or cultural influence on current practice, is not the same as demonstrating why there is something amiss. The article depends too much on innuendo and suggestion of vacuousness by its categorization of things as “new”, “cool”, “shocking”, and “urban”.

Is the answer to the present trend really to critique everything that has happened not only in culture but also biblical studies, theology, and awareness of the larger world in which we live? I don’t think so. Leaving the article, I’m still not convinced there’s any such thing as “Hipster Christianity.” But if there is–may it thrive.

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