Calvin & Hobbes

Using a word game that seems to be more at home in the Sunday comics, some philosophers and theologians argue that determinism is not inconsistent with free will.

They say that a person is free as long as he can choose to do what he wills.

(For more background, read this.)

This seems to make sense. But the problem is that the words don't mean what they seem to mean.

R. J. Rummel Professor Emeritus of Political Science from University of Hawaii explains:

What does it mean to say that we are free? One answer, proposed by Hobbes and Tolstoy and favored by the contemporary empiricist, is that we are free insofar as we may do as we wish without hindrance or constraint. If thus free the question about the will's freedom is meaningless, for freedom then refers to whether a person can do what he chooses, not to the choosing itself; it refers to the freedom of the action, not to the choice of act. A person's will could be enslaved by the passions, chained to Freudian complexes, bound to the body's needs, limited by heredity, and necessitated by environmental causes, and yet by this meaning of freedom, he could be totally free to do that which is determined.

Translation: Free will defined in this way is meaningless. In this definition, free will only means that I am "free" to do what I am compelled to do by my completely-determined will. This is a category mistake. It confuses the freedom to act with the freedom to choose. In this view, a brainwashed person is free.

Rummel continues:

Freedom thus defined may resolve simply and satisfactorily the determinism-free will controversy for some, but at the cost of ignoring its essence, for freedom as simply measuring a lack of constraint or opposition is not freedom as usually intuited by those posing the question. It violates common sense to call free a person who is determined in his course like an object thrown through the air and following its trajectory without opposition.

Translation: While this definition may allow people to win philosophical or theological arguments, in practical terms it is bankrupt. This "freedom" is not freedom. This is doubletalk worthy of Orwell's label of Newspeak. Inevitability is really choice. White is really black. Manipulation is really freedom.

Rummel again:

For Kant, freedom is an independence of the will of motivations, character, and external causes. It is more than just the power to choose. Freedom is the power to fulfill our moral oughts (ought implies can), to will as reason directs, to be a first cause of events.

At the heart of this doublespeak is a reductionist view of the human will.

Calvin and Hobbes reduce the will to nothing more than a calculator, one that can perform only one operation: determining which of two numbers is greater.

In other words, this view of the will makes a human being no different from an animal in acting on desires. An animal "chooses" to act in response to its strongest desire. Yet humans seem to have the capacity to choose between desires on the basis of values.

This view of the will also does not allow for second-order desires: desires to have or not have a desire. As humans, we can want a piece of cake, but we can also want not to want the cake. We can choose to act on our second-order desire instead of being a slave to our first-order desire.

A robust view of free will does not require that people always can choose to act in a different way. It only requires that in some cases a person could have chosen a different course of action.

The compatibilist would argue that a person's choices are determined by his or her character. The answer is that, while character influences actions, actions also shape character. And at least some of our choices are free in a libertarian sense. If all a person's choices are determined, then in what sense is he or she a person?

If no choices are free in the libertarian sense, then most the Bible collapses into nonsense.

In Genesis 4:6–7, Yahweh says to Cain,

"Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

Is this just a piece of theater, or does Cain have a real choice?

Joshua's call to choose (Joshua 24) is pointless pilling on, if the people really are "not able to serve the Lord."

Paul explains to the Christians in Corinth (1 Corinthians 9:16–18):

When I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, for I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! If I preach voluntarily, I have a reward; if not voluntarily, I am simply discharging the trust committed to me. What then is my reward? Just this: that in preaching the gospel I may offer it free of charge, and so not make use of my rights in preaching it.

He is saying that

• He has no choice whether to preach the gospel.
  
• He is compelled by God to do so.
  
• The only free act he can choose is to preach the gospel "free of charge," not to insist upon his rights to receive compensation from those to whom he preaches.
  

The compatibilist would turn this argument into gibberish.

If I were all powerful, I wouldn't make everyone believe in libertarian free will. But I would make people stop using the word choice to mean something that is entirely determined.

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

Scientific Literacy

One prevailing plausibility structure in today's culture is "Scientific Literacy."

Steven Pinker writes:

Today, no scientifically literate person can believe that the events narrated in the book of Genesis actually took place.

How would you answer Pinker from the plausibility structure of orthodox Christianity?

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

A Plausible Gospel

The Apostle Paul says, "The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Corinthians 1:18). "We preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles" (1 Corinthians 1:23).

According to the prevailing Greek plausibility structure, Jesus was a failure. According to the Jewish plausibility structure, Jesus was cursed by God and consequently a false Messiah.

But to those who have received the Good News, the defeated, humiliated, crucified Messiah is the power of God.

There are many who read 1 Corinthians 2:14 (The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.) as if the "man without the Spirit" cannot understand the grammar and syntax of plain language whenever the Gospel is communicated.

Rather, Paul is referring here to plausibility structures. (I'm not suggesting that he has this concept in mind or even was aware of the particular idea.) He is saying that according to the reigning belief system, the Gospel seems foolish and absurd:

• "Why would I want to trust in someone who couldn't even save himself?"
  
• "Everyone knows that the true Messiah could never have been crucified."
  

So what makes the Gospel plausible?

There are several factors involved, not the least of which is the Holy Spirit. But the primary reinforcement of the Gospel's plausibility is the community of believers.

It is only as we are truly "indwelling" the gospel story, only as we are so deeply involved in the life of the community which is shaped by this story that it becomes our real "plausibility structure," that we are able steadily and confidently to live in this attitude of eager hope. Almost everything in the "plausibility structure" which is the habitation of our society seems to contradict this Christian hope. Everything suggests that it is absurd to believe that the true authority over all things is represented in a crucified man. No amount of brilliant argument can make it sound reasonable to the inhabitants of the reigning plausibility structure. That is why I am suggesting that the only possible hermeneutic of the gospel is a congregation which believes it.

Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p. 232

This sheds a whole new light on the idea that participation in a Christian community (church) is optional. Living the Gospel is virtually impossible alone. The Gospel not only needs community to create a hospitable plausibility structure, but it also demands to be expressed in community.

The reigning plausibility structure can only be effectively challenged by people who are fully integrated inhabitants of another.

Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p. 228

Unfortunately, much of what is being proclaimed as the "Gospel" does not challenge the reigning plausibility structure or require a community to survive.

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

Why?

When tragedies such as the massacre at Virginia Tech happen, people want to know how a good God could allow such things.

Some respond with a defense of their particular theological view:

Even in the wake of such horrific terror and carnage, God remains sovereign. God remains holy, righteous, and just. God remains merciful and kind. God remains good.

The good that can come from this tragedy is this. Men and woman around the world may be brought to their knees in repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.

And this:

We serve an awesome God. A God who is in absolute sovereign control…

In God's sovereign economy, there are is no place for "what if's". Even in the midst of chaos, He is in ultimate control.

And believe it or not, this:

There is a very straightforward answer for the question, "Where is God when evil things happen?" it is the answer given by Scripture, "[He] rides upon the highest heavens, which are from ancient times" (Psalm 68:33). Where is God? God is in heaven, from whence he judges the heavens and the earth and will exercise his wrath upon men who will [not] turn to His only way of salvation, Jesus. It is that salvation, that answers the inevitable question as to whether God is loving or not. Is God loving or not[,] sinner? [Are] you worthy of judgment? Absolutely, just because these souls at Virginia Tech have experienced massive tribulations does not mean that they are being judged any more than the masses dying from any variety of evil things, or the most natural, death. The reason that these become so tragic, is that we are all likewise trying to avoid death.

And then there is the theological equivalent of a punt:

Many will ask, "Where was God in that?" Well, the answer is confusing, because we are incapable of fully understanding God and His ways (Rom 11:33-36).

We can say this for sure, He is either sovereign, or He is not God (Job 2:1-10). We can also attest to this fact--the tragedies of our world affirm the claims of scripture, not the opposite--namely, that our world is fallen (Rom 8:18-24). Lastly, we must ask the question, well, if He is not absent, and if our world is fallen, does He provide any hope? That hope is found in Jesus, His Son (Jn 3:16-18). The outward affects of the Fall are unfortunate outward expressions of our own corrupt nature.

For many who do not question if God really exists, a more disturbing question arises amidst these events-- does God care? The answer is yes! Read verses 17-18 of John chapter 3 very closely. If He did not care, then He would not provide a means of rescue and restoration in a glorious relationship with Himself. The world is fallen, but we can be redeemed. And only those who are redeemed can find comfort amidst tragedy (1 Thes 4:13-18).

I'd like to think that Christianity has better answers to offer than these.

So here's an attempt to sketch out a more satisfying, yet admittedly incomplete, response to this tragedy.

• God created a good world in which his creatures were given the freedom to submit to his authority or to rebel against it.
  
  
• Because God made humans in his own image and granted them a degree of freedom, they have the ability to make real choices with real consequences that affect others as well as themselves, for good or for ill.
  
  
• Yet in the midst of this creaturely freedom, God remains in control.
  
  
• He accomplishes his purpose in human history without fail.
  
  
• He accomplishes his purpose in the lives of those who trust in him and depend upon his grace.
  
  
• He showers his grace upon even those who are rebellious and temporarily protects them from the ultimate consequences of their choices.
  
  
• He even uses the very acts of disobedience and rebellion to accomplish his purposes.
  
  
• God does not remain distant and detached from human suffering, saying, "I told you so."
  
  
• Rather, he participates in our suffering, offering comfort and healing.
  
  
• Earthly life is about more than just "getting signed up for heaven."
  
  
• God opposes evil in every form in which it appears and calls his people to do the same.
  
  
• Our choices really matter. They affect us and the people around us.

(If you are wondering where the Scripture references are for each of these points, click here.)

So what do you think? Tell me what I left out. Tell me where I'm wrong.

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

Belief & Community

I've been exploring the concept of plausibility structures and how this insight can help us to think more clearly about the church's relationship with culture.

One important component of a plausibility structure is community:

A plausibility structure is not just a body of ideas but is necessarily embodied in an actual community. It cannot exist otherwise.

Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p. 99.

Every plausibility structure grows out of a community. There is no such thing as a disembodied plausibility structure.

• Scientists have their own community with its plausibility structure.
  
• Public universities and colleges have a distinct community and accompanying plausibility structure.
  
• The inner city minority community has its own plausibility structure which includes the idea that the police and the courts cannot be trusted.
  

This has several implications for the Gospel.

• The alternative plausibility structure of the Gospel cannot survive outside the community of the Church. If a person attempts to be a "Lone Ranger" Christian, the reigning plausibility structure of society will eventually swallow up the competing beliefs of the Gospel.
  
  
• There is no neutral, benign environment for the claims of the Gospel. These audacious claims need the community of the saints to survive.
  
  
• One cannot ossify a particular community and its plausibility structure as a timeless reference for "biblical Christianity" (e.g. 16th-century Geneva).
  
  
• Furthermore, there is no "pure" Christian culture. Every genuine expression of Christianity is always in the context of a particular culture at a particular time.
  
  
• Any community that does not embody the plausibility structure of the Gospel is not truly a church.
  

This concept of plausibility structures does not mean that there is no absolute truth. It is an observation about how people understand, process and practice truth. The idea that truth can be apprehended and adopted in an objective and detached manner is as much a fiction as the idea that people buy cars for entirely non-emotional reasons.

We are really not in a secular society, but in a pagan society—not in a society which has no gods, but a society which has false gods.

Lesslie Newbigin, Interview

Here's the assessment of Dave Chang:

Reading Newbigin's works is dangerous business. It puts fire in the intellect, courage in the heart and motivation for action for the universal mission of Christ to a despairing world. A modern-day prophet has walked amongst us. We would do well to rally to his call to leave our privatized ghettos and ride forth to engage our pluralistic culture.

So what do you think? What are the implications for individual congregations? What are the implications for denominations? What are the implications for how we do theology?

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

Misplaced Certainty

There's been a lot of hand wringing about the lack of certainty in parts of the contemporary church.

At issue is a number of amorphous "movements" within Christianity, the most visible of which is the Emerging Church. One of the distinctives of these groups is a relaxed attitude about doctrines perceived to be not at the core of the Christian faith.

But many see this relaxed attitude as a threat to the Gospel.

In fact, there are many Christians who see almost every doctrine as crucial. They have a long list of teachings that they consider essential to Christianity. In other words, if you don't accept these, then you are not a true Christian:

• A young earth and a 144-hour creation
  
• A Bible that is free of any inaccuracies (from a modern scientific perspective)
  
• A particular view of the schedule of the final days
  
• Restriction of certain ministries to men
  
• Total abstinence from alcohol
  
• A particular theory of the atonement
  
• A specific system of theology
  

There doesn't seem to be any lack of certainty here.

Unfortunately, these people cannot distinguish between

• Their idea of God and God himself
  
• Their interpretation of the Bible and the teaching of God's Word
  
• Their apprehension of the truth and the objective, ultimate Truth.
  

Newbigin had something to say about this situation:

Fundamentalists are often dismissed as obscurantist or crazy fanatics, and some may be. Whatever their defects, they recognize the problem. If we cannot speak with confidence about biblical authority, what ground have we for challenging the reigning plausibility structure?

Lesslie Newbigin. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. p. 97.

Their diagnosis is correct, but their solution is faulty.

But the fundamentalist case has been flawed. If the Bible is treated as a compendium of factually inerrant propositions about everything in heaven and earth, then it is impossible to explain both the contradictions between parts of the Bible and things we certainly know as the results of the work of science, and also the obvious inconsistencies within the Bible itself on factual matters. Even the most convinced fundamentalist who lives in the modern world has to rely at innumerable points on knowledge provided by science and not by the Bible.

Lesslie Newbigin. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. p. 97.

Part of the problem is that fundamentalists have tried to make Christianity fit into a modernist plausibility structure. If the Bible is true, then they assume that it must satisfy the definition of truth in the reigning plausibility structure. In this view, any inconsistency betrays a lack of veracity.

But this idea of truth is not "self-evident" except in certain plausibility structures. In fact, a degree of inconsistency is often an indication of veracity.

In a court of law, for example. If four witnesses tell exactly the same story, without a single variation in detail, a wise attorney will quickly recognize that the testimony has been tampered with. In the real world, witnesses have slightly different perceptions of what happened.

Statistics has a term for a model that explains the available data too exactly: overfitting. With limited data it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate the noise from the data. Our understanding of God's truth always involves a degree of "noise," because we must process revelation through our limited reasoning capacity.

But many Christians crave certainty. Andrew Sandlin calls this Hyper-Realized Epistemology:

It's certainty, not faith in Jesus, that they're really after. Jesus helps them with their certainty addiction; He's a means to an end.

Our commitment is to the Truth, not to our version of the truth.

Our commitment is to God, not to our theology about God.

Our commitment is to the authority of divine revelation, not to our analysis of that revelation.

Certainty and humility do not need to be mutually exclusive.

• We can be confident without being arrogant.
  
• We can be open-minded without being tentative.
  
• We can be gracious without being accommodating.
  

So what do you think? What would you put on the "short list" of essential Christian doctrines? What are some things that you think should not be open to debate? What do you think about the idea that the Bible might contain some "inaccuracies"?

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

That’s Impossible!

"Self-evident truths" are a reflection of society rather than a reflection of reality.

This is the argument of Peter Berger.

Every society constructs a plausibility structure through which it processes "reality." It is impossible to process experiences or information except from within a plausibility structure. There is no objective reference point from which to understand "truth."

This is not to say that there is no such thing as objective truth. But it is to say that there is no neutral authority to which we can appeal to determine what that truth is. All evaluations of "truthiness" and "realness" can only be made from the context of a community.

My first exposure to this concept of plausibility structures was in the writing of Tim Keller. He focused on the negative aspects of this phenomenon and referred to the "implausibility structure" and "defeater beliefs."

Recently, I have learned more about this from reading Lesslie Newbigin's book, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. He explains the key conclusion of Berger's model:

All use of reasoning depends on and is embodied in a tradition.
Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p. 53.

This has many implications for followers of Jesus Christ. It explains why so many efforts to present the truth of the Gospel fall flat. If a person's "implausibility structure" (to use Keller's term) considers something impossible, no amount of evidence will persuade that person to change his or her mind. This is what Paul was talking about in 1 Corinthians 2:14:

The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.

This doesn't mean that "the man without the Spirit" cannot understand the words that are used to communicate the truth about Jesus Christ. It means that "they are foolishness to him" because they are outside his plausibility structure.

The gospel gives rise to a new plausibility structure, a radically different vision of things from those that shape all human cultures apart from the gospel. The Church, therefore, as the bearer of the gospel, inhabits a plausibility structure which is at variance with, and which calls in question, those that govern all human cultures without exception.
Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, p. 9.

This has several implications for evangelism, apologetics, biblical interpretation, theology and preaching. I'll explore some of these topics in subsequent posts.

So what do you think? Is Berger's model a good fit? Does it explain things that other ways of looking at the world can't adequately address? What are some of the implications of this perspective?

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Missional, Shmissional

There are many critics of the emerging church and the missional movement.

Many of them simply dismiss anything new or different as heresy. Many of them would have difficulty identifying their own cultural assumptions that have nothing to do with the gospel. Many of them misunderstand the issues to the point that is too difficult to try to straighten out all the misconceptions.

But I read something today that is worth responding to. Phil Johnson says,

"I'm starting to hate the word missional. Apart from the fact that it's useless jargon, I suspect it is often used to disguise a strategy that is actually anti-evangelistic, where the gospel never even enters the picture at all, much less becomes a focus of ministry."

He seems to conflate the Emerging Church movement and the missional movement. He implies that all they are really interested in is "how cool the Church is." He argues that the Church can stand apart from culture altogether: "How about let's forget trying to accommodate the fickle shifts of contemporary culture and worldly thinking altogether?"

He calls for the Church to discard all "vagueness, ambivalence, hesitation, wavering, apprehension, a cloudy message, fickle opinions, obsessive self-criticism, or any of the other qualities postmodernism falsely equates with 'humility.' " What we need is more "certainty."

He suggests that we recover holiness as a priority in the Church. But then he seems to equate holiness with being against "tattoos, cigars, beer, poker, and other stylish emblems of worldly culture."

Now I know Phil to be an intelligent man. Even when I disagree with him (which is rather often), I can usually respect his position. But this time…

• The emerging church and the missional movement are not the same thing. Sure there is some overlap. And there are many superficial similarities. But anyone who thinks they are the same just hasn't done his homework.
  
  
• If Phil understood what the word missional means, I'm sure he would not be saying that he hates it. He might as well say that he hates the gospel.
  
  
• With just a little more effort, Phil would have discovered that being missional is not about being cool, hip or even relevant. He might even have found out that it is not a reaction to post-modernism.
  
  
• Phil seems to think that he and John MacArthur
  
  • Are free of all cultural baggage,
    
  • Live in the same culture as Paul, or
    
  • Have some kind of timeless culture that all Christians in all places and at all times should adopt.
    
    
• Phil complains about "teachers who invent their own doctrine on the fly and see nothing wrong with the practice." He apparently thinks that theology is like mathematics. Our primary job is to learn our "sums." I suppose I can understand why he might view theology that way, but his "received theology" would not even exist if everyone had taken that view back in the 16th century.
  

I can respect Phil's passion for the Truth. And I agree with him that the Truth is absolute. But he seems to be confusing his understanding of the Truth with the Truth itself. He must have found a way to avoid the difficulties of 1 Corinthians 13:12.

But back to the essential meaning of missional.

Missional is primarily a shift in thinking about what it means to be the church.

• It's a shift from attractional ministry to incarnational ministry. Instead of putting on programs and trying to "bring them in," a missional view seeks to "go into" the community and live the Gospel. (This is not in place of proclamation. It is the context for proclamation.)
  
  
• It's a shift from a dualistic view of reality to a holistic view. A missional mindset does not divide life into sacred and secular "parts."
  
  
• It's a shift from a hierarchical view of the Church to a "flat" view of the Church. This was one of the emphases of the Reformation. All believers are priests. We all are called to real ministry.
  
  

[If I were as skilled as Phil I'd insert a picture here of a three-inch wide paint brush dripping with red paint.]

There are many foolish (even dangerous) things being said in the Emergent Conversation. But let's be careful to identify them specifically and carefully. It's a dangerous thing to attribute the work of the Holy Spirit to the forces of darkness (Matthew 12:24).

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

Monday, Monday

Many people find Monday to be a difficult day.

The Mamas and the Papas said, "Whenever Monday comes, you can find me cryin' all the time." Most people seem to hate Monday because it means the weekend is over and they have to go back to work (or school).

Some people have specific reasons to dislike Monday. According to Survey.com, IT workers hate Monday because they are swamped with support issues from the weekend. But pastors find Monday difficult for different reasons.

So what can be done to salvage Monday? Australian scientists say we should stop sleeping in on weekends. Someone at iPetitions is trying to get Mondays banned. Pastor Bob Hyatt responded to the aftermath of Sunday by not taking Monday as his day off.

The editors at DM Review suggest that IT departments implement self-service support to avoid the big backlog on Monday. Big Cheese Coaching suggests some positive thinking strategies to change Monday attitudes. Daryl Gibson posts Monday Morning Motivation every week for salespeople.

But I'm more interested in the weekly dynamics for pastors.

It seems that there are two main factors that cause such angst on Monday.

• Enormous importance is invested in Sunday.
  
• Enormous importance is invested in the pastor.
  

While these values are deeply ingrained in North American evangelical culture, I maintain that they are both misguided and dangerous.

Christianity is not about what happens on Sunday morning in a special building. This is one of the emphases of the missional movement. The Church is a community, not a crowd that meets once a week. What happens during the week is even more important than what happens on Sunday. The gathering on Sunday is more like a backstage pep talk than a big theatrical production. The congregation doesn't gather to be the Church, it assembles as people who have been acting as the Church all week.

The pastor is not the Church. The pastor is not a CEO. The pastor cannot be a lone ranger. Too many pastors feel pressure to build the Church. They are expected to measure up to a business model of success. Pastors feel that they cannot afford to be transparent because they must be more advanced spiritually than their congregations.

And let's be honest. It's not just that high expectations are placed upon the pastors. Pastors place these expectations on themselves. They like being in control. They like being the star. They like feeling indispensible.

Here's a news flash: None of us is indispensible.

The only person indispensible in the Church is Jesus.

He's the only one who can build the Church. He's the one who is responsible for the future of the Church. He's the only reliable role model.

Jesus said, "My yoke is easy, and my burden is light" (Matthew 11:30). But you would never believe that by watching most pastors. There doesn't seem to be anything easy or light about being a pastor. Nor does there seem to be anything easy or light about being a member of one of their churches.

Seems to me that's it's time to change that.

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

Image of God

The Bible tells us that we are made in the image of God.

In another post, we can explore just what that means. But I've been thinking about how the image that we have of God shapes us. We tend to emulate the qualities we imagine God possessing.

At various times in the history of the Church, Christians have seen God as a harsh, judgmental overseer. And that led to embarrassments such as the Inquisition. If God is viewed as the ultimate warrior, that tends to spur movements such as the Crusades. (Though I must point out that the Crusades have gotten a bad press.) If God is seen as the Great Philosopher in the sky, that leads to Scholasticism.

Some Christians seem to think that God is obsessed with his own glory. They argue that he cannot be charged with arrogance because God is God. It would be wrong for him to love something more than himself. Since there is no good higher than God's glory, it is only right for that to be God's highest objective.

In other words, behavior that would be sinful in other people is holy because of who God is. (I know that this is not how they would describe their own position and that this is an overstatement. But I also think that this a fatal flaw of this position.)

Those who hold this view tend to behave in a similar way as they envision God acting.

They redefine love to include any action or attitude used in the service of the truth (as they see it). Because they are convinced that their particular brand of theology is the ultimate truth, they deny the possibility their attitudes could ever be arrogant. They are intolerant of those who hold differing theological views, even though those views are well within orthodoxy.

So that's my impression. What do you think?

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Test

Wiki-Sermon: Resurrection Sunday

God & Humility

One of this week's readings is Philippians 3:4–14, the classic "hymn" extolling the humility of Jesus Christ. Paul calls his readers to emulate this attitude.

But the view that many people have of God seems to be in direct conflict with the attitude of Jesus Christ.

Here's a sampling:

• God created the world exclusively to proclaim his own glory.
  
  
• Since God is sovereign--as well as infinitely passionate for His own glory--He will not let His passion to be glorified fail.
  
  
• "God glorifies himself in the eternal damnation of the ungodly men" (Jonathan Edwards).
  [More: "God glorifies himself in all that he doth; but he glorifies himself principally in his eternal disposal of his intelligent creatures: some are appointed to everlasting life, and others left to everlasting death."
  "When [the saints in heaven] shall see the smoke of their [the damned] torment, and the raging of the flames of their burning, and hear their dolorous shrieks and cries, and consider that they in the meantime are in the most blissful state, and shall surely be in it to all eternity; how will they rejoice!"]
  
  
• "Everything [God] does is motivated by His desire to be glorified…. He governs the world precisely to the end that He might be admired, marveled at, exalted and praised" (John Piper).
  
  
• God "causes" suffering and evil in the world so as to maximize his glory.
  
  
• "God's ultimate purpose in Scripture is to glorify Himself."
  
  
• "It is all about the Glory of God. It is about what gives God the most Glory. If it pleases God to save me, then that is the pleasure of God, if it pleases God to leave me in my sin then that is also the pleasure of God, so whether He has elected me to slavation (sic) or perdition is irrelavant (sic)."
  
  
• God "will not tolerate forever those who do not give Him glory" (John Piper).
  

I would argue that this idea, that God's primary concern is for his own glory, dishonors God. It makes God out to be petty and self-centered.

I know the arguments. For God, "self-exaltation is the highest virtue." Because God is "that which is most worthy of love," he "either loves Himself supremely, or He over-loves something lesser than Himself, which is the very definition of idolatry."

But these arguments ring hollow. They involve redefining terms and using them with revolving meanings. They involve circular reasoning.

"Some theologians claim that all God's desires culminate in a single desire: to assert and to maintain God's own glory. On its own, the idea of a glory-seeking God seems to say that God, far from being only a giver, is the ultimate receiver."

Miroslav Volf, Free of Charge, p. 39

Yes, God is concerned that we recognize his glory. But it is not so that he can bask in our praise. God wants us to know his true nature, because only then will we realize how much we need him.

But most of all, he wants us to know him.

So what do you think? Do you think God's ultimate concern is for his own glory? Do you think that we dishonor God with this kind of talk? Do you think it is a distortion of Scripture?

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

Law & Order: Specious Views Unit

Tuesday night, I was working on my computer with Law and Order: SVU running in the background. I am well used to the political and moral "soapboxing" by the writers of that franchise. (I have met one of them, and she is the same in person.)

But last night's episode, entitled "Sin," committed even more egregious transgressions.

The story was about an "evangelical" pastor who was openly opposed to the homosexual lifestyle and had (gasp) 10 children. As Detective Stabler quipped, "Even Catholics don't do that anymore." The promotional copy reads: "They seem like a loving family from the outside, but things are not what they seem."

Reverend Jeb Curtis (played by Tim Daly) is the pastor of the wealthy New Souls Church.

• The congregation has $50,000 lying around to put up for the pastor's bond.
  
• The pastor is paying $2400 per month in rent for the male prostitute. And this money comes from his discretionary account.
  
• Yet the auditorium of the church appears to hold only about 250 people. (They must be excellent givers.)
  

The young people of the church are depicted as vapid, mindless androids that "think AIDS is funny."

Dr. Huang, the police psychiatrist, said of Pastor Curtis thinking that he had been using the services of the male prostitute, "He repressed his natural sexual desires and channeled them into having as many children as possible. But the problem with repressed desires is they eventually explode." He also speculated that the Curtises were a part of the "Replenish Movement" since they had so many children. He told Detective Stabler, as if he were describing the inner thoughts of a psychopath, that these people "believe the Bible is the literal word of God."

Detective Benson reacts to attempts to "cure" homosexual inclinations with the same disgust that she reserves for child prostitution.

The wife of Reverend Curtis (played by Kathy Baker) jettisons her faith and her sanity attempting to murder her husband, the "only man I've ever kissed."

The Roman Catholic faith of Detective Stabler is shown in a good light, presumably because he doesn't take it too seriously.

The murderer turns out to be the administrative assistant at the church.

The producers tie this all up in a neat bundle, in effect, taking back all the accusations made against the people of the church:

• The father embraces the son acknowledges his homosexuality.
  
• The father admits that he was wrong to attempt to change the way "God made" his son.
  
• The pastor and his wife are reconciled.
  
• The pastor is completely cleared of murder and sexual misconduct.
  

But the image of the people of the church stands, a group without a single redeeming quality. They make no contribution to the community. Rather, they are a threat because of their narrow-minded views and mindless devotion to religious fundamentalism.

I have several reactions to this:

• The writers and producers of Law & Order have no idea what Christianity is really about.
  
  
• They see "evangelical" Christianity as a threat to society.
  
  
• Why did they think it was a good idea to do three shows in the Law & Order franchise with the same basic theme?
  
  
• The church has been its own worst enemy, providing the background material for nonsense like this.
  
  
• If Christianity is what is portrayed in this episode, then it is no wonder that people want nothing to do with it. I want nothing to do with it.
  
  
• It's time for the church to demonstrate what it means to be serious disciple of Jesus Christ.
  

So what do you think? Do you have other observations about the show?

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

It’s My Party

We have the idea that our spiritual lives are a private matter, between us and God. Our society talks about victimless crimes. And we tend to think that some sins have no victims other than the one who sins. But the reality is that all sin has wide-ranging consequences.

When a person sins, someone else is inevitably hurt. Sin always has social consequences, whether great or small, depending on the person sinning. One cannot sin ever so secretly without influencing the quality of one's relations with others, particularly those within his or her inner circle.

Arthur Glasser, Announcing the Kingdom, p. 55.

Pastor Rod

"Helping You Become the Person God Created You to Be"

Wright on Sacraments

Today I attended the Albert Cardinal Meyer Lecture Series by N. T. Wright at Mundelein Seminary.

First, I must say that the hospitality of the people at the seminary was remarkable. The lectures were offered free of charge to the general public. And they even provided lunch. These people were so friendly and generous that I felt honored to be on their campus.

The lectures focused on sacramental theology.

Wright was wearing his purple clerical shirt with his characteristic cross hanging from a chain around his neck, and read his notes from a laptop on the lectern.

He began by addressing the longstanding rift between Protestants and Catholics. He talked about the "cultural suspicions and alienation" between the two groups. He said that Protestants think that Catholics are caught up in idolatry and works righteousness. Even though the Catholics say it is not true, the Protestants don't believe them.

He said that Anglicans take fire from both sides. But possibly "this Anglican" can offer some words that will form a basis for the two groups to move closer together. He decried the emphasis on tradition, whether based on "papal pronouncements or protestant confessions," at the expense of the authority of the Scripture.

The key, he argued, to understanding the sacraments is eschatology, the movement from creation to the new creation. Everything must be understood in light of what God is doing in bringing the Kingdom to completion. He has called his people to be "the people of God for the world not the people of God away from the world." We must resist the dualist missiology of "saving souls for heaven" over and against building the kingdom here and now.

God's work can be understood in three dimensions:

1. Space
   
2. Time
   
3. Matter
   

"When God made space, time and matter, he made something good." Understanding these three dimensions can give us a richer theology of the sacraments.

Space

Heaven and earth overlap in many ways. The temple in Jerusalem was one such place. Jesus was the ultimate overlapping of heaven and earth. He was the "walking sacrament."

Jesus did not give his disciples "a theory of the atonement to be held in the head, but a meal."

We must make explicit the connection between Jesus' sacrifice and the observance of the Passover.

"When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem, the place wasn't big enough for both him and the temple."

The Eucharist is "a place where the bright cloud of God's presence engulfs us" as occurred on the Mount of Transfiguration.

Time

Eternal life is not a timeless existence. It is life of the age to come. "Time itself is part of the good creation." "God is very keen on time. He made plenty of it and likes it."

We have assumed that time is part of the problem, but it is, in fact, a great gift. God will remake and redeem time as a part of the new heavens and the new earth.

Jesus always seemed to be working on a different time scale.

The images of the coming age that are given to us in Scripture are "signposts point into a fog." They are not photographic images of what is to happen.

"Baptism is an encoded narrative" including creation, the exodus, the entrance into the Promised Land, the baptism of John and the death and resurrection of Jesus.

We don't come to the Eucharist to be justified by faith. We come because we are justified by faith.

Matter

The miracles should not be understood as Jesus transcending matter. They should be understood, rather, as "Jesus doing things that manifested the new creation."

We should not frame our understanding of the Eucharist in terms of a dated ontology and epistemology.

Sacraments

We should not think of the sacraments as "theological meteorites" that have randomly fallen to earth. Rather, we should think of them as "outcropping of rock" that give us a hint at what is underneath it all.

These are just a few of my notes from these lectures. I've tried to be as accurate as possible.

Let me know what you think.

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

Update: Here’s Helen Mildenhall’s much more detailed notes.

Missional Reading List

Today I got an e-mail from my District Superintendent about a regional meeting that he attended. He and five other District Superintendents met with one of our General Superintendents. (We don't have bishops for historical reasons. The three General Superintendents are peers and together are the highest executives of our denomination.)

Anyway, my DS mentions that the regional group read Velvet Elvis to help them understand "the new emerging generation and their thoughts about the church."

Now I don't want to insult anyone, but my forehead has a bruise from where I was pounding it on my desk.

I think it is a mistake to reduce the current movement to a generational thing. This is not the Baby Bombers redux. Besides, "emerging" is not the real movement. (More about this later.)

Is Velvet Elvis really a good book? Ben Witherington has a few reservations.

Why would church leaders need to be given a book to read to get current on what is happening in the church? Isn't that an important part of their job? Unfortunately, we've turned this job into an administrative and managerial position.

I think Rob Bell might be disturbed to hear his book characterized as an expression of young people's thoughts about the church. His purpose was, I believe, to get everyone to rethink what it means to be the church in today's world. This is something completely different.

Is Rob Bell the right spokesman for this movement? I suspect that there are many other authors who are more thoughtful and better informed theologically.

I'm afraid that this is an exercise maintaining distance. "What makes these emerging types tick? What kind of music do they like? How can we attract them to our churches?"

Emerging is not the future. I must admit that I got caught up in the freshness and energy of the emerging conversation/movement. But I soon realized that the things that really attracted me were those that it had in common with the missional movement.

Missional transcends any specific cultural expression. It is not about candles, blue jeans or coffee houses. It is about an incarnational expression of the Gospel in whatever culture it finds itself in.

Missional is not about being trendy. It is about understanding what it means to be the church and paying the price to do that.

So here's my reading list for anyone who wants to understand the missional movement.

• The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, by Lesslie Newbigin
  
• Open Secret, by Lesslie Newbigin
  
• Free of Charge, by Miroslav Volf
  
• Exiles, by Michael Frost
  
• The Shaping of Things to Come, by Michael Frost & Alan Hirsch
  
• The Missional Leader, by Alan Roxburgh & Fred Romanuk
  
• The Present Future, by Reggie McNeal
  
• Breaking the Missional Code, by Ed Stetzer & David Putman
  
• Embracing Grace, by Scot McKnight
  
• Ministry in the Image of God, by Stephen Seamands
  
• A Passion for God's Story, by Philip Greenslade
  
• Kingdom Come, by Allen Mitsuo Wakabayashi
  
• The Forgotten Ways, Alan Hirsch
  

In my opinion, all these are better books than Velvet Elvis. And they certainly are more important.

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

Job & Gift Theory

Gift theory seems to have a great deal of explanatory power. It makes explicit much of the unspoken assumptions and expectations we have when giving and receiving gifts.

It also accurately describes the confusion many people have in their dealings with God. They can't imagine that God's love, mercy and forgiveness could be real gifts. And they certainly don't understand that their worship and service are worthless unless they are offered as true gifts.

Wing-Chi Ki has applied this to the Old Testament book of Job. Her essay, Gift Theory and the book of Job, appeared in volume 67, number 4, of the journal Theological Studies. (You may be able to read the full article here.)

Here's my summary of her article:

• God operates as a giver of true gifts.
  
  
• He offers Job as an example of one who offers his love and worship as a free gift.
  
  
• Satan takes a more cynical position. He claims that Job serves God out of self interest.
  
  
• This is not only an attack on Job's devotion but also an attack on God's integrity.
  
  
• God allows Satan to remove all the "benefits" Job receives by serving God (short of his health).
  
  
• When Job remains devoted in the face of tragedy, Satan charges that Job's good health is benefit enough to render God's gifts little more than bribes.
  
  
• Job loses even his health.
  
  
• His friends show up to offer encouragement, but they cannot remain silent in the face of Job's stubbornness.
  
  
• They argue (from three slightly different perspectives) that God's blessings are directly tied to a person's righteousness.
  
  
• They try to convince Job to ask for forgiveness for whatever sins he must have committed.
  
  
• Job refuses to submit to the "market economy" view of his relationship with God.
  
  
• Job loves God for himself, but he is dismayed by the treatment he is receiving from God.
  
  
• God speaks to Job out of the whirlwind and silences his complaints.
  
  
• He delineates many of the "hidden" gifts he has given to mankind.
  
  
• He criticizes Job's friends and vindicates Job.
  
  
• God then restores his "gift economy."
  

Wing-Chi Ki does a much better job of explaining her analysis. (But she also takes 27 pages to do it.)

So what do you think? Does this perspective seem more satisfying? More "true"?

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

Gift Mode

Last week, I was watching and reading Miroslav Volf to find material about reconciliation that I could use for Sunday's sermon. In one of the articles, He mentioned Natalie Zemon Davis and her book, The Gift in 16th Century France. She says that people can operate in one of three modes: coercion mode, sales mode, or gift mode.

This intrigued me. So I did some research into gift theory.

This field was established in 1925 by Marcel Mauss. "Gifts are thought to be voluntary and altruistic, Mauss argues that they are obligatory and selfish" (Irven DeVore, Harvard Anthropologist). Gifts can even be used to manipulate and control others. Some economies appear to operate on the basis of obligatory gifts.

This raises the question of whether there can be such a thing as a true gift, a "free gift."

Jacques Derrida argues that four criteria must be met for there to be a "free gift":

• There is no reciprocity. The receiver of the gift does not return a gift to the giver.
  
• The recipient does not realize that he has received a gift. This way there can be no sense of debt caused by the gift.
  
• The giver must forget that he gave the gift. Otherwise, he would be able to benefit from the gift by thinking well of himself.
  
• The thing itself cannot appear as a "gift." As soon as the thing given is seen as a boon, it imposes a sense of obligation.

Clearly, Derrida believes that a real gift is impossible. Others (Russell Belk) have suggested more realistic criteria for true gifts:

• The gift must involve sacrifice by the giver. The giver gives of himself. A gift that cost nothing is not a true gift. King David said, "I will not sacrifice burnt offerings to the Lord my God that cost me nothing" (2 Samuel 24:24). This is behind the moral discomfort of "re-gifting."
  
• The gift must be given for the pleasure of the receiver. If the "gift" is given for some selfish purpose, it is not a gift. Husbands should take note, giving your wife something that you want is worse than no gift at all.
  
• The gift must not be a basic necessity. While a box of chocolates would make a suitable gift for most people, a bag of potatoes would be inappropriate. Another mistake husbands often make.
  
• The gift must be uniquely appropriate to the person. This is why giving money seems so "cold."
  
• The perfect gift surprises and delights the recipient. If the gift is expected, it ceases to be a gift.

Marshall Sahlins said rather cynically, "If friends make gifts, gifts make friends" (page 10)

Sometimes when people appear to be giving a gift, they are really operating in manipulation mode or transaction mode. A true gift is free of any obligation. But it is not just the giving end where there can be a problem.

The recipient of a gift can turn a true gift into a "transaction."

For most people, religion is a combination of transaction mode and manipulation mode.

In some forms of religion the worshipper uses the rites and ceremonies to manipulate the diety. Christians sometimes fall into this error. They think that if they are good that God owes them a good life. They try to put God into their debt.

Others have a higher view of the process. They don't stoop to manipulating God. They simply expect "what is fair." For them religion operates according to quid pro quo.

Now most Christians "know" that grace is the "unmerited favor of God." They "know" that salvation is a gift. They "know" that nothing can be done to earn God's love.

Problem is, they don't live that way.

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"

Web 2.0 & Wiki-Sermon

Great ideas are not as rare as you might think. Most people are filled with them.

But a great idea that is never implemented is worthless. And a great idea that is implemented weakly is of little value.

I had a reasonably good idea of harnessing the power of Web 2.0 to enhance the development of sermons based on the lectionary readings.

(There are several different ideas about what is at the heart of Web 2.0. I believe that the key component is that the users are also the developers. I think Wikipedia is an excellent example of the power of Web 2.0.)

But here's the problem. My implementation of this idea has been clunky, at best.

So let's use the Web 2.0 paradigm to refine (or completely redo) the way this concept is implemented. In other words, let's work together to decide how to make this work for all of us.

Let me explain some of my thinking behind Wiki-Sermon.

• I am not trying to replace exegetical commentaries. There are many resources already available to help in understanding the basic meaning of the text.
  
  
• I am not looking for a shortcut to getting at the "meaning" of a text. The Bible is not a mathematical formula to be computed so that we can arrive at the "correct answer." Much of the value of exegesis is in struggling with the text itself. It is no more possible to understand the meaning of a passage without some hard work than it is to learn a foreign language without focused concentration.
  
  
• I am looking for a way that each person's unique experience can contribute to the collective understanding of the text. The Bible speaks to us as people, not computers.
  
  
• I am not trying to trick people into doing my work for me. If this is a one-sided project (where the readers do all the work and I reap all the benefit), then it will never work. Everyone must benefit.
  
  
• I am looking for creative ways to connect the message of the text with the culture we live in. It is of little value to keep repeating the same tired clichés. Even profound truth can become boring through familiarity.
  
  
• I am looking for resources that can be used to "preach to the imagination:" stories, books, movies, songs, art, etc.
  
  
• I want this to enhance the preaching experience for listeners. My idea is that someone who participates in the development process will find listening to a message from the lectionary readings much more engaging. A good analogy is classic music. Those who appreciate the nuances of a Bach composition will find a concert more enjoyable. Those who understand what's going on in jazz have a much richer experience than casual listeners.
  
  
• I want to change the dynamic of preaching from conveying information to creating an opportunity for people to know God more intimately. Christians generally have plenty of information. They don't need to know more facts. They need to know God better.
  
  
• I want build in a "feedback loop" before the sermon is given. It is good to find out what people think and feel after hearing a sermon. (Communication is not a precise process.) But it is even better to get "feedback" in advance.
  
  
• I want to change the sermon from the product of an individual to a product of a community. The sermon is too important to leave its development to a single person.
  
  

So I need your help.

• Do you see value in this idea?
  
• Do you agree with my assumptions?
  
• Do you want to add a few of your own?
  
• Do you have some ideas how the process and result might be more useful for you?
  
• What suggestions do you have for how to implement the idea?
  

Thanks for taking the time to think about this.

Pastor Rod

"Helping you become the person God created you to be"