NT Wright on anonymous blogging

Consider NT Wright’s rant on anonymous, nasty blogging:

It really is high time we developed a Christian ethic of blogging. Bad temper is bad temper even in the apparent privacy of your own hard drive, and harsh and unjust words, when released into the wild, rampage around and do real damage. And as for the practice of saying mean and untrue things while hiding behind a pseudonym – well if I get a letter like that it goes straight in the bin … I have a pastoral concern for such people. (And, for that matter, a pastoral concern for anyone who spends more than a few minutes a day taking part in blogsite discussions, especially when they all use code names: was it for this that the creator of God made human beings?) (Justification [2009], 27)

You could take his final remarks two ways: either we are not created to blog more than a few minutes per day, or we are not created to blog with a “code name” or pseudonym. I take it that he means the later, and I entirely agree.

To live as embodied human creatures is to “face” one another, to stand before another in all our limitation and potential. And I see no reason why blogging is any different.  Blog with your real name and put a picture with it. It reminds you that what you say in the blogosphere reflects on who you are; not the virtual you fashioned for the internet, but the embodied you with a face and a name.

Coming back to Torrance: a review of Incarnation

I was reading around in preparation for teaching on Christology last week and ended up spending time in T.F. Torrance’s collected lectures published as Incarnation:The Person and Life of Christ (Paternoster). Every time I come back to Torrance I am reminded just how significant a theologian he was.  His work is shot through with careful attention to the Scriptures, passion for the Gospel, and fluid clarity characteristic of a seasoned lecturer.

Take the following passage on Christ’s assumption of fallen flesh:

When the Word became flesh, he became all that we are in our opposition to God in our bondage under law – that is the amazing act of gracious condescension in the incarnation, that God the Son should assume our flesh, should enter a human existence under divine judgement, enter in the situation where the psalmist cried Eli, Eli lama sabachthani, so that the Word or Son of God himself gave out the same cry when overwhelmed with the divine judgement upon our flesh (61).

Incarnation comprises Torrance’s lectures on Christology and Soteriology delivered in his classes on Christian dogmatics at New College during the years 1952-1978. Torrance had gathered his notes during the years 2001 and 2002, but before they could be edited for publication he suffered the stroke that brough both his scholarly career to an end and the process of bringing these lectures to print. Thankfully for the editorial work of Robert Walker we, together with Torrance’s students who heard them first hand, can benefit from his immense learning, insight, and strength of faith.

The volume makes at least two contributions. First, it offers the most systematic and complete presentation of Torrance’s thought available. While he had hoped to do so, he had never produced a dogmatics. Second, it provides a fine introduction to Torrance’s theology that will surely open the way for readers to mine the depths of earlier publications. If you have read any of Torrance’s other works, then you know that for all its liveliness and depth, it is not light going; it is challenging – immensely rewarding to be sure – but challenging. One hopes these published lectures would give readers encouragement to engage Torrance’s other works, which undoubtedly will reward.

If they are anything like me, readers of Torrance’s lectures just may find a sense of home, a resonance with the Gospel long-proclaimed in the Church but rarely heard clearly resounding in the academy.

The stark actuality of Christ’s humanity, his flesh and blood and bone, guarantees to us that we have God among us. If that humanity were in any sense unreal, God would be unreal for us in him. The full measure of Christ’s humanity is the full measure of God’s reality for us, God’s actuality to us, in fact the measure of God’s love for us. If Christ is not man, then God has not reached us, but has stopped short of our humanity – then God does not love us to the uttermost, for his love has stopped short of coming all the way to where we are, and becoming one of us in order to save us. But Christ’s humanity means that God’s love is now flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone, really one of us and with us (185).

Amen indeed.

Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism

Contemporary evangelicalism, as I understand it, started out as a populist movement. It was, therefore, not primarily concerned with theology but with practice – and theology tended to be tacked on as something of a necessary evil. As a populist movement, its virtues were simplicity, repeatability and method. A specific kind of evangelicalism, forged in the revivals, has developed a value system that is primarily unbiblical, where savvy rhetoric, church competition and the ability to “rate” ministry based on numerical analysis have become the norm.

For many who grew up in this movement, they recognize both the great virtues as well as the vices, and seek to purify evangelicalism through a broader engagement with the Bible, church history, theology, etc. If my brief comments about evangelicalism are true, this, in a real way, undermines its very foundation. The problem, as I see it, is that those of us who seek greater biblical and theological clarity are still evangelicals. We still identify as such, except our vision for being evangelical means that we must continue to reform rather than simply circling the wagons.

The Future of Evangelicalism

I just read a characteristically helpful post by Steve Holmes on defining evangelicalism. Holmes wants to emphasize that evangelicalism is not simply defined materially, but also formally. What makes one an evangelical, in other words, is not only what they hold to, but how they hold to it (I encourage you to read the post after my terrible summary).

Since we have spent a lot of time on Theology Forum talking about the nature and boundaries of evangelicalism, being evangelical and all, I thought it might be helpful to take Holmes’ point to talk about the future of evangelicalism. If he is right, and I think that he is, we could see a lot of the fragmentation in evangelicalism as disagreements over the location of certain doctrines. The missional discussion is a certain material understanding of the Church-world relation as well as a specific understanding of the centrality of that doctrine to the nature and task of any evangelical church. Spiritual formation, likewise, entails a certain material understanding of the Christian life as well as the belief that spirituality is central, and therefore orders discussions concerning the Church-world relations (for instance). James posted earlier about the 9 Marks ministry’s concern about “liberalism” in evangelicalism (meaning something like, reading broadly, rather than theological liberalism), which specifically lays out 9 actual marks that are central organizing commitments.

That said, is this a helpful way to understand the various debates being had in evangelicalism? Can we use this as a way to talk about what could be defining debates in the near future (I tend to think that theological interpretation, Church-world relation and anthropology will be those kinds of debates)? Any thoughts?

United Against Theology

I’ve been puzzled a bit about Jamie Smith’s new volume (reviewed in several posts) and its popularity. In one sense, it isn’t surprising – he is a great writer, a deep thinker and he addresses concrete problems in our congregations and lives. But there is another sense where it is downright shocking that his program is so universally well-received by American evangelicals (my focus is on North American evangelicals in this post). First, his conversation partners are not the conversation partners evangelicals typically turn to (e.g., Yoder, Hauerwas and Radical Orthodox). Second, his emphasis on liturgy is not something (sadly) that evangelicals are typically excited about. Third, his exposition of practices, particularly the ex opere operato nature of liturgical practices runs directly against the sensibilities of evangelicals who fear, almost above all else, rote practices. So why such enthusiasm?

I have a theory. Evangelicals hate theology.

David Bentley Hart on the Nihilism of Calvinist Determinism

Hart expresses well what is at the heart of the complaints against Calvinist determinism, that it ultimately amounts to the collapse of God into the world and therefore to nihilism writ large:

[...] there is a point at which an explanation becomes so comprehensive that it ceases to explain anything at all, because it has become a mere tautology. In the case of a pure determinism, this is always so. To assert that every finite contingency is solely and unambiguously the effect of a single will working all things – without any deeper mystery of created freedom – is to assert nothing but that the world is what it is, for any meaningful distinction between the will of God and the simple totality of cosmic eventuality has collapsed. [...] Even if the purpose of such a world is to prepare creatures to know the majesty and justice of its God, that majesty and justice are, in a very real sense, fictions of his will, impressed upon creatures by means both good and evil, merciful and cruel, radiant and monstrous – some are created for eternal bliss and others for eternal torment, and all for the sake of the divine drama of perfect and irresistible might. Such a God, at the end of the day, is nothing but will, and so nothing but an infinite brute event; and the only adoration that such a God can evoke is an almost perfect coincidence of faith and nihilism. (Doors of the Sea, pp. 29-30)

Theological Interpretation & Sola Scriptura—Is it even Possible?

Guest Post: Ben Witherington III

I was talking the other day to a person who had come from a ‘Word Only’ Christian Church.  These folks take the Bible alone as their authority—even the Holy Spirit has no independent voice in these circles, nor does the church and its traditions.  What is perhaps most striking about this extreme example of sola Scriptura is the lack of awareness by its practitioners that they themselves are violating this shibboleth all the time when it comes to theology and praxis.  For example, ‘Word only’ folks most definitely have a rather developed theology of baptism which cannot be found in detail in the New Testament.  Even more ironically, the theology they have of the New Testament being Scripture is not fully grounded in the New Testament itself.

For example, nowhere in the New Testament itself is there a canon list which delimits what is and should be included in the NT corpus and what books should be excluded.  Canon lists are external to the corpus of the NT itself.  There are of course many other examples that one could cite to make this point, but this one must suffice.   If ‘sola Scriptura’ means the Bible only as an authority for the church, then there are inherent problems that ensue.  If it merely means that the Bible is the final norm, the final authority of faith and practice, that is another matter entirely.  The latter approach does not rule out theological and ethical development of thought beyond, but consistent with, what is in the canon.

In my recent two volume work, The Indelible Image, (Inter Varsity Press)  I have argued at some length that what we have in the New Testament is theologizing and ethicizing into specific situations. In other words, what we have is the doing of theology and the doing of ethics.  We do not have any systematic theology books in the NT or any ethics compendiums in the NT.  All of the 27 documents in the NT are purpose-driven, to use a now well-worn and hackneyed phrase.  One conclusion that one has to draw from this is that responsible theological interpretation, like responsible ethical interpretation of the NT, requires development beyond what the Scriptures say, precisely because what is in the text is ‘partial and piecemeal’,  there is an incompleteness to it.

Take for instance the theology of Scripture itself, or even the theology of the Trinity or a theology of baptism.  What you find in the NT is raw data with which one can construct a viable theology of a three-personed God or a viable theology of the inspiration and authority of these NT books or a viable theology of baptism, but I use the word construct advisedly. 

Book Review: Desiring the Kingdom

For those of you who have been following, I have offered some interaction with Jamie Smith’s new volume Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview and Cultural Formation in previous posts (here, here and here). After these superficial looks, I do something closer to a robust book review here. I think Smith makes some important points, and deals with some strands of scholarship often ignored in evangelicalism, and for that reason alone I think his volume is a worthwhile engagement. Furthermore, in my own ideological moorings of spiritual formation, Smith raises language, concepts and issues that either need to be dealt with, accepted or engaged.

Importantly, as we look at Smith’s work, it should be kept in mind that this is only the first volume in a trilogy, therefore some of our interaction will simply be highlighting issues he has yet to address. In this volume, Smith seeks to primarily address the issues of Christian education, casting a new vision of what that entails, but hopes to secondarily (what he calls “collateral impact”) address church practices and orientation towards formation. In his words,

In short, the goal is to push down through worldview to worship as the matrix from which a Christian worldview is born – and to consider what that means for the task of Christian education and the shape of Christian worship. This doesn’t require rejecting worldview-talk, only situating it in relation to Christian practices, particularly the practices of Christian worship” (11).

The critique of worldview discussion is navigated by his employment of a counter-anthropology.

Theological Educator As…(Ruminations of a Novice, Pt. 2)

One of the roles of a theological educator is to model “theological discernment”: how one goes about theological reasoning with faith, hope, love, and not a little bit of joy.

Ellen Charry describes theology as above all “a discipline of discernment.” Whether one begins by examining the Biblical text,

the doctrinal tradition, a personal encounter with God, a sobering personal experience, or the culture in which one is located theology is thinking through and beyond these points of entry until deeper realization of God’s truth emerge (Inquiring After God, 53).

Charry’s observation that theology is “a discipline of discernment” strikes me as altogether right. Theology, not as a body of knowledge but as a task or craft, necessarily involves the practitioner in a weighing and sifting that is certainly as much art as science: whether they are an everyday Christian confronted by a perplexing cultural text, a pastor preaching on a difficult topic, or one of us strange beings who make our home in the University or seminary and for whom theology very often takes place in preparation for classes or in the presence of students.

Learning theological discernment is certainly more easily “caught” than taught, but some intentional pedagogical strategies can invite students actively into the process. For example, I have my students in systematic theology wrestle throughout the course with Rowan Williams’ thoughts on theological method from the prologue to On Christian Theology.

James K. A. Smith on “Going through the motions”

I have mentioned in earlier posts that I think Smith overstates his case with practices, particularly with practices that are done without a real depth of meaning. Here is what Smith says:

I recognize that some might be uncomfortable with this claim, since it seems to suggest that there can be some sort of virtue in ‘going through the motions.’ On this point, I’m afraid I have to confess that I do think this is true. While it is not ideal, I do think that there can be a sort of implanting the gospel that happens simply by virtue of participating in liturgical practices (this is in the ballpark of the principle of ex opere operato)” (167 fn. 29).

I just don’t buy it. You can see my previous post for thoughts. I just don’t see how this meshes with Jesus’ comment, channeling Isaiah, that people honor him with their lips but their hearts are far from him. Any change that does take place in “going through the motions” is superficial. It seems to me that Smith gets a bit alarmist concerning practices, and sets up a philosophical discussion rather than a theological one which ends up naturalizing the topic, but I’ll leave that for my full review.

Desiring the Kingdom: Liturgical Orientation

I commented in an earlier post about my reading of James K. A. Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom and noted how much I’ve enjoyed reading it. I, for the record, am still enjoying the volume immensely, it being my holiday reading on airplanes, stuck in airports and on the occasional couch. I want to read the whole volume before offering any really critical interaction, but for now, I thought it would be fruitful to muse over one specific passage that highlights a central thrust of the work. In discussing the Pledge of Allegiance, Smith states:

What are the students doing when they recite this each day? Many will just be ‘going through the motions.’ However, given that we are liturgical animals who are deeply shaped by practices, I’m suggesting that a lot can happen when one just goes through the motions. The routine begins to inscribe habits of the imagination within us; the repeated saying of allegiance works itself into an orienting allegiance. What begins as a merely stated commitment begins to work itself into a functional commitment” (109).

It is at this point that I think Smith overplays the roles of practices as such, and offers something of an overly reductionistic anthropology. I will refrain from developing this critique until I’ve read the whole volume, and, I should add, I think his critique of a Cartesian anthropology as itself reductionistic is correct. Smith’s account of human persons as essentially lovers is, in my mind, the right way to go. But are we truly formed by practices, even when we are “going through the motions” as Smith suggests?

Musings on Reading the Bible Historically and Theologically with a Plea for Help

While I was learning Greek during my undergraduate, I remember undergoing with my fellow students a crisis. The crisis was simply this: having encountered something of the objectivity of the text, the Bible no longer seemed to be a devotional book. The discovery of its objectivity meant my becoming estranged from it, for no other reason than that now what controlled the meaning was no longer my questions or personal struggles, but those of the author, his language, the historical context and the original readers’ hermeneutical horizon. Moreover, the class’s impression, voiced to our professor, was that the Bible felt rather uninspirational, plain and mechanic, not like the living and active Word. Indeed, what determined the text’s meaning came to be expected and calculated once the reader had a sense for the cultural background and language.

Reflecting on it later in seminary, it became rather obvious that what I was experiencing was the breaking of the habit of domesticating the Bible, the happy coincidence of self with text. What I lost was the ability to think of the Bible as receiving a text message from God. It was not the Spirit’s work that made the Bible seem so dynamic and illuminating, I realized, but the inevitable excitement that attends the reading of oneself into something of ultimate significance. If one assumes that the Bible is a personal note from God about how to live your individual life and, further, that having this secret knowledge makes you better than all the people who don’t read the Bible, then one is bound to feel empowered and encouraged. What made the Bible seem so devotional in the first place was not its content, but simply the devotional style of reading itself; the devotional effects were due to the bliss that regularly accompanies ignorance. Whatever the demerits of grammatical-historical exegesis, it at least taught me to stop using the Bible as a means for self-affirmation and shallow piety. And this is why to this day I resist extreme forms of reader response interpretation and constructivism which deny history and its bearing upon meaning.

Ironically, one contingent of the burgeoning movement called ‘theological interpretation’ is, among other things, complaining about how grammatical-historical exegesis is itself guilty of domesticating the Bible in a different way, by making the Bible a historical artifact without present vitality.

Christian Education and Anthropology

I’ve been reading (and enjoying) James K.A. Smith’s new volume Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview and Cultural Formation, which is the first volume of three in a series he is doing entitled the “Cultural Liturgies” series. I’ve just started it, but I wanted to throw out what seems to be his main premise for discussion. In short, Smith wants to argue that in both Christian education (often focused on “worldview formation”) and evangelical church practice, pedagogy has sought to utilize a misguided anthropology. The focus, says Smith, has been on persons as thinking-beings or believing-beings, rather than, with Augustine, on persons as loving-beings.

By emphasizing persons as lovers, Smith wants to put more weight on the embodied reality of persons, pushing against the prevailing view in certain sectors that we are simply minds trapped in meat. It also means that Smith has grown allergic to Christian discipleship and education as simply information formation – helping people to think according to Christian ideals – rather than a formation of one’s loves to follow the sum of the commandments.

I want to focus on this argument more later, but I thought that this would be a good place to start discussion. I think Smith is right, and I think it is a particularly important point that we are not called to make people lovers, but to help form and direct their loves. In other words, the key question for education is what has formed the students’ love, and what is that love is directed towards.  Everyone loves an equal amount, as it were, but that love is often forged in the depths of self-love and cultural assumptions rather than Christian, and therefore necessarily kingdom, visions of reality.

Rowan Williams on Christmas Gifts

From a Christmas Day sermon in the collection, Open to Judgement: Sermons and Addresses (DLT, 1994).

It is only when we learn to give, not from a sense of debt but from an overflowing of joy, that we can have some share in the action of [God's] redeeming and recreating love. The useless gifts, of art and beauty, of ritual and music, are there to liberate our joy. And when our joy is liberated, so will our generosity and compassion be. [...] We are such bad creatures at loving that we need the shock of joy, just as we need the shock of pain, to set our love free. And that is why we need to continue to come again and again to this sacrament to have our shells broken open, our selfish habits and our self-obsession broken open, in the rememberance of the horror of Jesus’ betrayal and the glory of Jesus’ resurrection. Our love needs to be set free, to be pierced and shocked into action.

Now, of course, if you start cultivating joy for moral purposes – let’s have a good time so that we can be better people – then both the joy and the morals will dry up pretty promptly. Likewise, if you cultivate joy for the sake of nice feelings, the same sort of thing happens. The point is not, in a sense, about joy; it is about what causes joy. [...] And so, what we must do is yield ourselves to the wonder of God’s great gift and when we have made that basic surrender, then the joy and the beauty, and the transfiguring compassion and charity, will flow. Then, as we makes these helpless, childlike gestures of love and celebration [in the liturgy], then indeed we are truly brought into and immersed in the Father’s gift to himself of his Son.

The beauty of worship, the beauty of holy lives, the beauty of lovely objects