Jon Coutts

2012-01-12T08:59:00.019Z

Hello. For six years this was the blog known as This Side of Sunday (see a best-of archive in the menu bar). Although I'll likely be back here again, at present the bulk of my blogging takes place with a group over at Out of Bounds: Theology in the Far Country. I'd love to chat with you there. Please feel free to browse my curriculum vitae (detailed resume) and get in touch with me either in the comments or at coutts dot jon at gmail dot com if you have any interests or questions. Thanks!

Catching Hell - 10/10

2012-01-04T16:10:00.002Z

Back when I used to keep up the blog I also kept up a sidebar where I ranked every movie I saw on a scale of 1-10. Because I'm a list guy and I'll probably come back to blogging one day I'm still keeping this list active (though hidden for the time being). Anyway, all that to say I've done something relatively rare, and seen a film I'd call a 10. It is the ESPN Films documentary Catching Hell, and you can see it here.

It is the story of Steve Bartman, a long-time fan who innocently reached for a foul ball at a Chicago Cubs playoff game and ended up being the scapegoat for their disastrous collapse. Along with it we get the story of Bill Buckner, who missed a routine grounder for the Red Sox and likewise took the blame for their World Series loss. In there you get a whole lot of humanity and as I watched it with my sons we were literally on the edges of our seats. My eldest had his mouth dropped open and even walked out of the room at one point because he couldn't bear to see what would happen. When it came around to talk about scapegoating and then showed Buckner's pseudo-redemption it occasioned a brief chat with my sons that I don't think I'll soon forget (even if they do). I realize that my subjectivity comes in to play because I'm a sports fan and I like a good real-life documentary, but I still think this is one that everyone will appreciate. For me it is a 10/10, and easily the best film I've seen in awhile.

Helplessness Blues - The Anthem

2011-11-02T18:32:00.002Z

Coming to grips with this Occupy Wall Street thing has been frustrating for some and intriguing for others. Here's a group seemingly so interested in being heard and yet either unable or unwilling to spell it out; so interested in influencing change and yet perplexingly uninterested in serving up a leader or a plan. Perhaps those will come. Much could be said on this indeed. I just thought I'd use this space to say that if you want to understand someone it helps to listen to them in their own language. And when there is a diverse group involved you may need to listen for awhile, and listen for a chorus. In fact, in this case I mean that quite literally: Every time I hear the following song I think that at this point it just might be anthemic.

The Fleet Foxes - Helplessness Blues

I was raised up believing
I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes
Unique in each way you can see

And now after some thinking
I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery
Serving something beyond me

But I don't, I don't know what that will be
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

What's my name, what's my station
Oh just tell me what I should do
I don't need to be kind to the armies of night
That would do such injustice to you

Or bow down and be grateful
And say "Sure take all that you see"
To the men who move only in dimly-lit halls
And determine my future for me

And I don't, I don't know who to believe
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

If I know only one thing
It's that every thing that I see
Of the world outside is so inconceivable
Often I barely can speak

Yeah I'm tongue tied and dizzy
And I can't keep it to myself
What good is it to sing helplessness blues?
Why should I wait for anyone else?

And I know, I know you will keep me on the shelf
I'll come back to you someday soon myself

If I had an orchard
I'd work till I'm raw
If i had an orchard
I'd work till I'm sore

And you would wait tables
And soon run the store

Gold hair in the sunlight
My light in the dawn
If I had an orchard
I'd work till I'm sore

If I had an orchard
I'd work till I'm sore

Someday I'll be
Like the man on the screen

36

2011-09-27T03:39:00.003+01:00

Back when I used to keep up this blog I had an annual tradition where I'd add another entry to my 'life lists' of books, film, and music. (If you are seeing this it probably means you still check in and, thus, already knew that!). Someday I just might fire up this blog again, so I figure I'll keep those lists active. So without much fanfare or further adieu, here are the 36th entries on my lists. Just my way of expressing gratitude to those things which have been a big part of my 36th year.

Albums I've Lived By

Arcade Fire - Funeral

This will forever be remembered as the year I (along with many) discovered Arcade Fire (a little later than most). I got the whole discography at once and though I loved them all and really enjoyed 'The Suburbs' it was 'Funeral' which resonated with me most both lyrically and musically. Already this album has ingrained itself upon my psyche to such a degree that I can hardly believe I hadn't really heard it until this year. When I saw the band live in Glasgow it was unforgettable. Between Laika and Wake Up, Rebellion (Lies) and Power Out, this album's songs carried the night for me.

Favourite Fiction

Richard Adams - Watership Down

For some reason (I don't know what compelled us) I picked this up and started reading it to my oldest this year. We were absolutely enraptured with it. One of the best books I've ever read, hands down. One day I was sick but he wanted to read it so bad he worked his way through a whole page reading to me aloud in bed (this book is full of very big words and he did very well).

Influential Non-Fiction

Willie James Jennings - The Christian Imagination

I wrote about this book at length in various places on the blog, such as here. I read a lot of great books this year, but this one triggered my thinking in new ways the most.

Possible runners up this year:
Karl Barth - The Epistle to the Romans
John Howard Yoder - Body Politics

Films that Stuck With Me

Gone Baby Gone

I would love to write about this more one day. I did so on facebook one time but can't figure out how to find it. The acting was brilliant. The story had twists and turns but still felt real and was gripping without being over the top. The sense of place was profound, and the storyline tugged at the mind and heart. I thought the end was poignantly filmed. Casey Affleck's character turns out to be something of a Christ figure, I think, and as he gives of him self one more time for this forgotten young girl the camera pans behind the TV that he's watching and we sense that the onus is on us if this world is going to get any better.

An Announcement

2011-06-27T01:07:00.000+01:00

I am pleased to announce the launch of a new conversational theology blog where three friends/colleagues and I will be now diverting our weekly online energies. As you can see, 'this side of sunday' is now more of a personal website and reference archive. I may pick up the blogging here again someday, but at this point I invite you to bookmark us, link us, add us to your RSS feeds, or just plain join us over at Out of Bounds: Theology in the Far Country.

The Other Side of Sunday

2011-06-25T12:36:00.008+01:00

After six years and a number of re-evaluations leading to renewed efforts on this blog, I am ready to call it off, or at least go into hibernation for awhile. This is different than dry spells I've had in the past. I just don't have a motivation or purpose for the blog at the moment which warrants taking time away from other projects and demands just to tinker and publish my random thoughts. Now that it has become more of a tinkering and less purposeful, I think it is time to put it to bed, at least for the coming year.

That isn't a slight against what this blog has been in the past, or against blogging in principle. In fact I have another online project in the works, a group conversation, the launch of which will be announced here very soon.

What to do with this blog remains the question. At first I thought I might import the best bits of it into a wordpress site under a new name and leave it for another day, but now you may notice that I am simply revamping this site into more of an archive and a platform for my CV. If I ever pick up the blog again I will simply do so here.

I do want to thank all those who've thought and commented along with me these past six years on this blog. Those I've known for years and those I've only ever met online. Thank you so much for your interest, your challenges, your encouragements and your interactions. I have really learned a lot from conversing with all of you here, and am grateful that you took the time. It would take too long to recount all the paths that have crossed and arguments that have transpired - it has been richer than I ever thought it would be, mainly because of those who met me here. I look forward to meeting you again in other forms and contexts.

Speaking of which, stay tuned for one last post which will explain the new site and will also give direction to a brand new conversation blog, coming very soon.

After the Riots: Shame, Shame, Double Shame

2011-06-20T14:16:00.007+01:00

See the comments for an update and further thoughts on this post as of June 23.

There have yet to be any criminal charges laid for the riots in Vancouver following game seven of the Stanley Cup, but I am sure there will be. Up to a million photos have been submitted to evidence. Some real life good people showed up the morning after to clean up. Stories have circulated about people who protected local businesses from further looting and damage. A number of guilty parties have come forward to confess responsibility and apologize.

As the city grappled with the embarrassment and horror of the seemingly meaningless and thus all-the-more-disturbing event there has been no small amount of public opinion and denouncement of the perpetrators. This seems to me to be largely appropriate. What else should people do but try to understand what occurred and seek a measure of justice? What else should take place in the public sphere than designating what is and what is not honourable and appropriate and acceptable in society?

However, you have to wonder at what point such declarations of honour and searches for justice become blatant shamings and quests for sustained self-righteousness. I heard one sports talk radio host raise the issue of our societal complicity in such acts. I listened at work as he and his co-host went back and forth from simply calling the rioters "idiots" and trying to probe into the societal conditions (in which we all have a hand) which make such an event so evidently possible. They seemed to be on a healthy thought-process.

Few would want to defend the rioters, and indeed I think it incredibly important to try to seek to hold them accountable and also to reflect on what kind of society we wish to promote. But is the setting of honour codes and their enforcement by shaming the way to do it? Can it not get to the point where the shaming ritual actually serves to detach perceived do-gooders from wrongdoers in a way that is naive at best and insidiously self- and society-destructive at worst?

I was in Vancouver in '94 and could imagine that, in the right conditions, I could have become caught up in the riots. Had alcohol and a lack of accountability been present in my life at that age I might easily have participated, at least as a snickering bystander. If I had undealt-with emotional problems or simply lacked any kind of modeling for how to deal with anger or disappointment I might well kicked over a garbage can or two. If I had been brought up in a "me-first" society with little mentoring that taught me to respect the property of others or the authorities at all then I might well have cheered those who did damage to the infrastructure in a moment of passion. This doesn't excuse any of it, but it does serve (I hope) to illustrate that shaming people simply as "idiots" is way too easy.

Consider the story of Nathan Kotylak, a 17 year old water-polo player who has confessed his part in the riots and faced up to consequences that many who were involved will find it easy to escape. He has submitted himself to the disciplinary processes of school, family, team and society. And well he should. But he has also submitted himself to further shaming, not to mention providing a face and a name for all the anonymous shaming being done already. As the CBC story reports:

The online venom reached a point where Kotylak's father, who is a doctor in Maple Ridge, suspended his medical practice and the family made a decision to leave their home temporarily, said Findlay.

"The family has been concerned for their safety," he said. "It's kind of odd because we see the mob mentality that's been shown on TV through the riot, we're experiencing very much the same thing online."

Surely we've got a mixed bag of responses to the riots and just like the sports talk radio hosts we have a lot people processing things slowly from initial rage to later more mature and compassionate and even merciful approaches to justice and restoration. Many Vancouverites have in fact responded quite admirably. We should definitely be having these "code of honour" discussions and assertions in society. But we should also note a difference between grace-based and shame-based approaches to public morality. Indeed there is no shortage of cause for self-reflection after these riots, and this is one more area where that might be appropriate.

The Problem with NHL Hockey

2011-06-17T12:53:00.002+01:00

As someone who grew up on NHL hockey and played hockey in multiple different settings and yet fell out of love with it a few years back, I was pulled back in this past Christmas as my boyhood team reached the top of the standings and garnered my (af first) passing interest again. In the months that followed I was surprised both by how emotionally invested in the team I could still be and also by how captivated by the sport I could still become. Part of this re-interest had to do with the team philosophy, which was to play hard "between the whistles" and avoid all that silly stuff. They didn't always succeed at this, of course, but I appreciated the thought and it helped me to get back into the sport again.

And oh did I get back into it. So much so that I now face the decision of sticking with NHL hockey (and thus voicing my opinion about what I wish it would be) or leaving it be (only to be picked up again when my team nears glory). As I consider this I have a few complaints to register. I will group them according to three categories, and illustrate them with reference to the playoff season that just passed.

First of all, there is the culture of violence and retribution. Fighting. It is part of the game. It isn't just something that happens once in awhile, it is an accepted and even expected part of the game. In what other team sport is that the case? None. I think the best way to illustrate the problem is with reference to former NHL referee Kerry Fraser's comments on Brad Marchand's repeated shots to the face of Daniel Sedin at the end of Stanley Cup Game 6, to which Sedin did not respond:

“This is really a telling play, in my opinion, as to the series and moving into Game 7," Fraser said. "On that particular play, there is absolutely no question that the referee should have assessed at least two minutes for roughing for Marchand, and I probably would have given him a misconduct as well, to get rid of him.

"That being aside, the captain, the leader of that team, he's a skill player, tremendously skilled player, not a physical guy, but sooner or later you've got to throw the gloves down and you've got to defend yourself on a play like that, especially when you're looking at a guy that might be an inch or two shorter than you, you've got to step it up. I don't think Ray Bourque as a captain — he would never take that kind of abuse, personally.

"But beyond that, nobody came to the aid of Daniel Sedin. He's their captain, he's their leader. Where are these guys that would want to stick up and say, 'Hey, we're going home, we've lost this game, we're going back home, and they're not going to do that to us?' ... You don’t let your captain get a rag-doll treatment like that. Either he does it himself — steps it up with the game lost and going back home for the hammer, or somebody's got to jump in there and take care of business, and that never happened.

To add insult to injury, Daniel Sedin and his brother were repeatedly called the "Sedin sisters" for and castigated as "Europeans" because of this approach to the rough stuff. Putting aside the disgusting misogyny and ethnocentricity of these remarks, the underlying assumption at issue here is that hockey can't be played that way.

We are unable to imagine, it seems, an NHL where the referees took care of the penalties and the players just played the game without violently taking matters into their own hands. Call me a purist, fine, but I find the hockey ethos reflected by Fraser's remarks harder and harder to stomach. And I find my future as a fan hinging on how much I'll be able to stomach it.

Now, I know that the Canucks are not innocent in this regard, but if I'm to watch the NHL anymore it is going to be for players like the Sedins, and not for the players that Fraser insists they should be.

(Of course, I'm sure there are examples that could be named where the Sedin twins actually did punch back, but please bear in mind that I'm using them as a general illustration, not as pristine messiahs. That said, let's note that at the very least these are some pretty honourable athletes. Not only did they top up the franchise's $5 million donation to the local children's hospital with £1.5 million of their own, but check out Daniel Sedin's response to the charges against him that I noted above. When Mike Milbury called the Sedins "Thelma and Louise" Daniel replied: “We don't really worry about those kind of comments. He made a bad comment about us, calling us women. I don't know how he looks at women. I would be pretty mad if I was a woman.” Genius.)

Which brings me to the second problem: Media coverage and the sports cliche. The chest-thumping idiocy displayed by Milbury is commonplace. But that's an easy target. Let's acknowledge that this isn't happening as often as it once did. But we still have the problem of tired cliches passing for entertainment. I know this is a problem in all sports but in this past playoff series the problem was evident in a massive way, and in fact seemed to be particularly bad when it came to the NHL itself.

Of course, there is only so much you can say, so maybe sports media will always be rife with cliches. Maybe it tries too hard to get beyond this. Whatever the case, it seems quite prevalent that as soon as a player says anything interesting, the media jumps all over it and abuses it, takes it out of context, sensationalizes it all the more, and makes it stupid. Take, for instance, Roberto Luongo's "jab" at opposition goaltender and eventual Conn Smythe and Stanley Cup winner Tim Thomas.

After the Canucks scored a goal where Bieksa seemed to fluke the puck off the end boards so that Lapierre could put it into the abandoned net, Luongo was asked to give Thomas some props for his great goaltending by admitting what a happenstance series of events it took to score on him. The assumption in the question was that the play was a mistake, and the assumption was that Luongo should provide fodder for that reporter's admiration for his opponent. (That Thomas ended up being the better goaltender in this series is neither here nor there, the point is that under no circumstances should we expect that Luongo ought to go in for those assumptions.)

Knowing that it was a planned miss by Bieksa due to scouting reports on Thomas, Luongo made an honest and competitive comment (rather than a cliche, which is what we usually get) which called it like it was. To his credit, he didn't get nasty with it, and admitted that sometimes it would work out vice versa - sometime Thomas would make saves which Luongo didn't, simply because they play a different style.

But the media blew it up and Luongo was chastised for his "jab". Questioned later he pointed out that Thomas never says anything nice about him, and Luongo was mocked all the more. Why should Luongo care if Thomas praises him? The point is that the whole thing started with the press asking him to give Thomas kudos precisely where they weren't deserved. See how dumb the whole thing is? Luongo's comments got away from sports cliches, and then he was roasted for it. Sports is supposed to be entertaining and competitive. This can get stupidly over-competitive, but it can also get stupidly unintelligent. I found the latter very frustrating - and it seems pretty common.

The third problem I want to mention is all those scrums after the whistle. This is relatively unique to NHL hockey and quite closely related to the first. It isn't quite the same as the culture of fighting and retribution. It is the prevalence of instances where players jostle and slash and facewach each other to prove a point and assert each other's territory. Sure, it is always going to happen, but does it have to be such a part of the game? I'd rather it wasn't.

Referring again to the Stanley Cup finals, let's recall the two major controversies that ensued. The biggest one was Aaron Rome's concussion-causing late hit on Nathan Horton. The scene was ugly and even horrific. Rome was suspended from the rest of the series. The other controversy was Alex Burrows bite of the finger of Patrice Bergeron in one of these after-the-whistle scrums. Bergeron was giving Burrows one of the classic facewashes with his glove, and Burrows caught a stray finger in his mouth and bit down. No suspension.

Obviously, the bite is silly. I won't defend it. But what really gets me is the ire that was sent solely in Vancouver's direction because of it. Why does this bug me? Because as silly as the bite was, its silliness is a subset of the silliness of the scrum to begin with! Sure, the facewash is not as downright dirty as the bite, but they are on the same sliding scale of absurdity. Burrows was dumb to do that. But the whole thing is dumb. Though everyone was all over the Canucks for that one, when the team all but eliminated that after the whistle rough stuff the rest of the series, they were mocked for it (see above).

The thing is, when it is all said and done, Aaron Rome's hit is actually a more understandable part of the game than those after-the-whistle scrums. I genuinely believe it was a mistake on his part that he went on with the hit after the brief window where it would have been safe and legal. I think they should try to cut down on these eventualities with strict penalization and rules, but that this happens on occasion is more acceptable to me, in principle, than the silly perpetuation of hack-whack-and smack hockey and all that monkey-business after the play.

I know I sound like I'm just frustrated that my team lost and that my team was the butt end of some of this, and maybe that's true to a degree, but these things were genuinely bothering me even when it looked like my team might prevail. As long as that's what hockey is, I continue to participate with one foot out the door. Having said that, I have been impressed with some of the things the Canucks franchise have tried to put forward and I am pretty interested in seeing what they can do next year. But before this season is lost to memory, I thought I'd register some of the things that bothered me as I got swept up in it all again.

Post Game Dejection

2011-06-16T10:09:00.010+01:00

When it comes to Vancouver perhaps most of the postgame focus will be on a few hundred rioters. Its too bad because I thought the fans in the rink and the players on the ice (for both sides) were classy after the game. And Ryan Kesler pretty much sums it up for me.

Stay tuned in the future because I'm stewing over a post on what I think is wrong with the NHL. As one who grew up on hockey and yet hadn't watched a game in several years I have a few thoughts stemming from the hours spent following it so closely again this year. Don't worry, this is not going to be an attempt to discredit the Bruins (and I'll give it a few days to make sure). Congratulations have to go to the Boston Bruins, and especially to Tim Thomas, for winning the Stanley Cup.

Don't be so Cross-Centered that your Lord is Dead

2011-06-14T10:30:00.006+01:00

Although we water it down sometimes, evangelicals are to their credit generally the people who insist that on every occasion it is the cross of Christ - and not themselves - which must be preached. So much so, however, that evangelical churches can quickly forget that the cross itself has much to say for itself beyond the proclamation of justification by faith alone.

The cross was emptied and so was the tomb. But Pentecost reminds us that this emptiness speaks not of a vacuum left for the filling up of our piety and our proclamation but of the filling of the Church with the Spirit of the risen Lord. The emptiness of the cross before us is not one to be filled with timeless truths and moral principles but with the fellowship and decisiveness of a prayerful people thrown daily at the mercy of the promised presence and guidance of a living Lord.

We best be careful not to turn an evangelical strength into a weakness by so emphasizing the cross of Christ that we drain it of its power. I mention this because I think it is far too common for Christian churches to recede into a merely proclamational stance rather than take up the call to make concrete theological decisions (and act on them) together in the prayer for Kingdom come. Barth says it better than I have:

The community may very well forget that it has to hear and attest Jesus Christ as the Lord who is risen again from the dead and therefore lives as the Prophet of God who in the power of the Holy Spirit is not inactive but powerfully at work in the time between Easter and His final appearing both in heaven and on earth. On its own lips the eternal Word from His lips may well become timeless truth. The concrete meaning with which it speaks here and now may well dissolve in its presentation into an abstract signification. The specific point with which His Gospel, notwithstanding its identity in every age and therefore its universality, penetrates each specific historical situation with a specific intention to be specifically received and attested by the community, may be softened and blunted and secretly broken off or rendered invisible in its proclamation. The Gospel as transmitted by it may be changed into a dull impartation which says everything and nothing, proclaiming a supposed but not a real salvation.

Formally, such an impartation need not be lacking in a biblical foundation, biblical content and attachment to the best traditions of the ecclesiastical past, such as, for example, those of the century of the Reformation. It can have the appearance of a true message of Christ, a true preaching of the kingdom of God or true praise of free grace. It can ostensibly be a proclamation of justification by faith alone and a warming reference to the spiritual conversion and moral renovation needed by humanity.

And why should it not proclaim this with genuine emotion and true zeal? In this corrupted form only one thing will be carefully left out and therefore lacking. The impartation will not be intended nor go forth as an invitation to or demand for a concrete decision of faith and obedience, at any rate in the sense of a Yes or No which entails a distinction of word and act at a specific time and in a specific situation. In spite of all its profundity and eloquence, at the point where it ought to do this, it will come to a halt and become an inarticulate mumbling of pious words.

There will be talk of inward regeneration by faith, of the struggle for a new awakening by the Spirit of God, of the solemn prospect of a distant “world of Christ,” but there will be no demand to grasp the nettle and to make a small beginning of this regeneration and awakening in a specific act of will here and now. There will be prayer for peace, but prayer committing no one. When the time comes for steps to peace which commit anyone, there will be quick withdrawal into neutrality, into a safe avoidance of the fatal problems and the even more fatal freedom from problems of the existing present, followed by a new and powerful and sincerely meant but blunted and generalised and therefore impotent assurance that Jesus Christ is risen, that He will come again at the last day and put everything right, and that faith in Him is the victory which overcomes the world.

- Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/3.2, 813-814

Chris Tanev - A Short Story

2011-06-13T09:46:00.014+01:00

I was 19 when the Vancouver Canucks last played in the Stanley Cup finals and came one win away. Christopher Tanev was five.

Chris grew up playing hockey but by the age of 16 was still pretty short, and so he was cut from 7 minor league teams by the time he was old enough to drive.

Tanev played roller hockey for awhile and then managed to make the Rochester Institute of Technology Tigers in the NCAA before being picked up by the Canucks farm team just over a year ago.

His first NHL game was this January. He had one assist in 29 games.

He made his first appearance in the final series of the Stanley Cup playoffs on Friday night and played a poised 12 minutes where his team needed him dearly. He nearly set up a game winning goal.

I have been so emotionally invested in this Stanley Cup series that there have been times I could hardly sleep; could hardly sit still. When his teammates talk about Tanev the one word they all use is "calm".

He described his first shift to the Vancouver Sun as follows: "Their guy dumped it in and my legs didn't feel too well when I went to get the puck ... After that, I felt fine. I had a blast."

Tonight at 1am local time I'll be up watching my boyhood team trying to win their (our!) first Stanley Cup - on away ice. I'll be so anxious and excited I'll feel like I might throw up. But I'll have my eye on 21-year old Tanev and hopefully he will soothe my shattered nerves. It is weird that my childhood dream now rides on the back of people younger than me.

Part of what you hope to be able to do when you root for your team is actually like or identify with some of the players. Tanev is one of those. He could easily be the guy at footlocker who casually fetches me a different pair of adidas, all the while waiting for his shift to end so he can go catch a movie.

The promo videos will focus on the big name players and the microphones will swarm around them for sound-bytes that provide a series-narrative for those outside Boston and Vancouver to grab on to. But there are one or two microphones in front of Tanev and they produce the story that follows. Its a good story, but I prefer the raw footage. Nothing earth-shattering here - which is kind of the point.

Go Canucks.

Kids Awake My Soul - PS22

2011-06-09T09:26:00.009+01:00

Guess I'm a bit behind, but I just discovered the 5th grade choir of Public School 22 in Staten Island.

The songs are written by MGMT and Mumford and Sons.

See them also perform Coldplay and Phoenix.

Morning Bell

2011-06-08T12:45:00.004+01:00

Radiohead's incredible album Amnesiac turned 10 this month, and over at Stereogum you can hear covers for every song. My favourite is "Morning Bell" by Chris Thile:

'Machines of Loving Grace' and our Unwitting Commodification

2011-06-07T09:51:00.015+01:00

It has been a long time since I was as gripped by a documentary series as I am by this one that is running on the BBC right now. It is as thought-provoking and unsettling as it is well-made and even humorous. I have not yet completed this first episode, but I intend to follow it all the way through and highly recommend you join me. Hopefully it doesn't get taken offline. Here it is:

Adam Curtis's All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace:

One of the bits that struck me most from this first episode (besides the remarkable study with a group of people unwittingly playing Pong in a theatre at the 8.30 mark) was the point that the internet age has led many of us to commodify ourselves. Commodification is, simply put, the transformation of things that may not normally be regarded as goods or services into a commodity.

Seriously: watch this documentary. And let me know what you think.

Wilco on Coolness

2011-06-06T09:25:00.010+01:00

Over at NPR I was listening to the Wilco concert from last month's Sasquatch music festival in Washing State, and thoroughly enjoyed this seemingly impromptu soliloquy-of-sorts from band front-man Jeff Tweedy during one of their songs:

"The people that are clapping are the people that we like.

And the people that aren't clapping are the people that are more like me.

Because I wouldn't be clapping. I would be thinking that I was too cool to clap.

And I would be wrong! I would be so wrong.

Don't be like me. Be like the people that we like.

That sounds terrible. It sounds like I don't like myself.

I do! Just not the part of me that doesn't like to clap.

So let's clap. Let's clap together. Let's clap together people. Let's clap together."

Reminds me of a realization I had after high school (thus too late to be of much good), which was that the coolest people are the ones who think least about how cool they might be. I wonder how many good things we refrain from for fear that it might seem cheesy. I say own it. If it is good then clear away the cheese rather than leaving it to the fate of the cheese-balls. Self-consciousness and obsessive self-projection are the modern gods we cast off in freedom.

The Search for the Historical Adam

2011-06-03T13:14:00.009+01:00

The June issue of Christianity Today has a lead article called "The Search for the Historical Adam" which brings evolutionary theory and recent research in genetics back on the biblical interpretation of Adam as an actual historical person (rather than a representative literary figure). This issue has been around a long time, but the appearance of this issue in this well-read magazine combined with the content of the article itself show that this is likely to be a hot-button issue for evangelical Christians -- and probably for good reason.

I don't think I have a full-formed opinion at this time, but I am pretty curious about it and do have some preliminary reactions.

1) I do not feel like my faith in Jesus or confidence in Scripture is undermined by scientific theories to this effect, but definitely want to give the theological and hermeneutical ramifications much further thought. This issue is certainly going to expose our commitments regarding biblical interpretation isn't it? Seems like every issue does that, but so often we end up talking about the issue but not the hermeneutics. The day needs to come soon, I should think, when evangelicals from academia to local churches come to grips again with what they mean when they say "the Bible says."

2) The theological issues that the article flags as most immediately effected include:
- The reliability/interpretation of the Genesis account of creation,
- the undesrtanding of the image of God,
- the doctrine of original sin and the fall,
- and the New Testament references to Adam as a historical individual.
The texts in question in that regard include Luke 3:23–38; Acts 17:22–31; Romans 5:12–19; and 1 Corinthians 15:20–23. I actually tend to think the most pressing theological question has to do with the issue of when death entered human existence and how/whether it is related to sin, but I suppose that is included in the question of the fall. At a first glance, I don't see the texts referred to here as irreconcilable with the possibility of 150,000 first-humans rather than one or two.

3) The CT article talks about firings related to this issue at major Bible Colleges and Seminaries. Even though I am undecided on all these issues, I want to say that we should not support these actions. There needs to be freedom for real study here, not clamp-downs on what one can consider and inform students about. What kind of schools are these that would just run the party line rather than prepare students for the issues of their time with thoughtfulness and humility?

4) The article links to a Bible study which asserts some "eternal principles", including among them the claim that "God’s Word presents Adam as no less a historical figure than Jesus." Not only do I find the term "eternal principles" tantamount to idolatry, but I find this particular claim unnecessary and untenable. I actually think the Bible's level of investment in Jesus as a historical figure is far higher than in Adam. In other words, my initial thought is to balk at that statement. I mean, take those four passages listed above (with all their interpretive possibilities) and compare them with four whole gospels and a bunch of epistles which stake their claim entirely on the historicity of Jesus.

5) I understand the caution, here, and I will ascribe to a good degree of it myself, but I find the theological bastions being laid down in advance a bit sloppy and the rhetoric being lobbied forward (even by someone as respectable as Tim Keller) a bit heavy-handed. Is it not possible that sometimes we have questions arise which we have to think about for awhile with our presuppositions on the table? Doesn't faith free us to think after the truth which is by us not contained? Doesn't faith in a Creator who could also be Incarnate in creation lead us to promote rather than shut down such rigorous engagement between divine revelation and the findings and theories of scientific discovery? Let's consider this carefully without letting carefulness squash consideration in our attempt to keep consideration from squashing carefulness.

All this I offer in the spirit of preliminary observation intended to aid further thought and to indicate my desire to give it plenty of my own. What about you? Any initial observations? Can you direct me to some better thoughts and deeper issues?

PS. By the way, one of the featured scientists in this article is a friend of mine from elementary school and has commented on this blog in the past. Congrats Dennis Venema for what seems like some important work and may God give you grace, humility, and wisdom as you in faith seek (and promote) understanding among both colleagues and churches.

Beautiful Goal

2011-06-02T10:30:00.008+01:00

This is the winning goal in game one of the Stanley Cup finals between the Vancouver Canucks and Boston Bruins. It may look a bit haphazard at first, but this is exactly the kind of speedy transition game that the Canucks were pulling off all night long - forced turnover, speed, quick pass, scoring chance. Watch that replay as Kesler adeptly pokes the puck off the defender's stick, spins with agility to collect the puck and stay onside, takes a moment to find Hansen streaking into the zone, and delivers a crisp lead pass to the trailing winger who then puts it forward to Torres for an earned empty netter. A winning goal for my team, with seconds left in the game. In sport, you can't get much better than that.

The goal was scored at nearly 4am local time, and I could hardly contain myself. My eldest son was up with me and we were relieved not only that this goal won the game but also that it eliminated the possibility for overtime - thus affording us the opportunity for some shut-eye (after a brief skype conversation with my brothers in the Vancouver area, of course). As a long time fan who has learned to get used to losing, I was so nervous for this game. But these poised and speedy Canucks instilled confidence and injected an excitement for hockey I haven't felt since 1994.

It's Not About You (from the NY Times)

2011-05-31T10:30:00.002+01:00

A friend on facebook just linked me to a poignant article from the Opinion Pages of the New York Times online, and highly recommend you go and read it here.

"Worst of all, they are sent off into this world with the whole baby-boomer theology ringing in their ears. If you sample some of the commencement addresses being broadcast on C-Span these days, you see that many graduates are told to: Follow your passion, chart your own course, march to the beat of your own drummer, follow your dreams and find yourself. This is the litany of expressive individualism, which is still the dominant note in American culture....

Fulfillment is a byproduct of how people engage their tasks, and can’t be pursued directly."

- David Brooks, NY Times, May 30, 2011

I'm looking at another day of work lost due to a sick family at home, and I have to admit I've been begrudging it. When one of my chicken-pox-covered kids was whining in his bed every 5 minutes last night I was not pleased with his interruptions of my preferred evening routine and my desire, later, to sleep. David Brooks is right in what he says about society, and he is right in what he pinpoints in us personally. Well, in me, at least. This selfishness is not simply "culture's" fault nor the fault of any one generation, of course, but let's face it: We are not helped one iota by the climate in which we live. Heaven forbid our churches contribute to this climate. Heaven help us to serve when called upon, and even to do it joyfully. This just might be the hardest thing in the world. Even as I agree with this article, I find it hard to get up from this and go and truly serve rather than go my merry way.

Barth's Tirade Against 'Holy Selfishness'

2011-05-30T14:42:00.005+01:00

I recall promoting a spiritual gifts discovery program in my church with the Willow Creek mantra that this was the way to be all you can be in Christ. Only as an aside did I mention that this was to be to the benefit of the community. I have read countless books that spoke of the miracle of forgiveness as something firstly meant for the forgiver. I have stood through myriad worship songs which, if we were lucky, tagged on and "us" and a "we" at the end of five minutes of "I" and "me".

Don't get me wrong, in my own life I am also mainly focussed on these things, so this only strikes me as odd when I compare it to the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. Thus when it comes to describing Christianity (rather than my own desires writ large), I think there are some challenges to be issued. Consider Barth's tirade toward the end of the Church Dogmatics:

Can it really be the inner end, meaning and basis of my Christian existence, and therefore the goal and end of the ways and words of God to me, that I should be blessed, that my soul should be saved, that I should participate in all the gifts of reconciliation, that my life should be one of reception, possession, use and enjoyment of these gifts, that I should finally attain to eternal bliss, that I should not go to hell but to heaven, and that each of the few or many others who might accompany me should also know the extraordinary exaltation of his human existence mediated in the benefits of Christ, and therefore the satisfaction of his deepest needs and the fulfilment of his most lofty and necessary desires?

Does not this wholly possessive being seem to smack of the sanctioning and cultivating of an egocentricity which is only too human for all its sanctity, of a self-seeking which in the light of what is at stake renders every other form of self-seeking quite innocuous? To be sure, there is a very legitimate and necessary Christian "I" and "mine." But does this mean that it can be made the last word on what makes a Christian a Christian?

It gives us a very strange relationship if on the one side we have the selflessness and self-giving of God and Jesus Christ in which the salvation of the world is effected and revealed, and on the other the satisfaction with which Christians accept this and are thus content to make use of the very different being and action of their Lord.

Can this be really all, can it be the true and essential thing which distinguishes them, that within a world which in all the folly and impotence of its pride, sloth and falsehood already hastens through such indescribably great suffering to its end, there is a handful of men whose particular existence has only the meaning and basis that, called, illumined and awakened thereto by Jesus Christ, they may rejoice in the little faith, love and hope of their being in the light of His grace which He has given them, which is so superior to their prior being, which is so glorious in the surrounding darkness, and in which, snatched from themassa perditionis [doomed mass], they have simply to move on to heavenly felicity?

Did the Son of God clothe Himself with humanity, and shed His blood, and go out as the Sower, simply in order that He might create for these people - in free grace, yet why specifically for them and only for them? - this indescribably magnificent private good fortune, permitting them to obtain and possess a gracious God, opening to them the gates of Paradise which are closed to others? Can this really be the goal of His calling and therefore of His ongoing prophetic work? Can it really be the goal of the work once and for all accomplished in His death? Can it really be the meaning of His election and sending?

Is it legitimate and even imperative for Christians to be content that they may thankfully understand themselves as those who are reconciled, justified, satisfied and blessed because elected from eternity and called in time in Him? Can the community of Jesus Christ-we shall have to take up this question in the next section-really be only, or at any rate essentially and decisively, a kind of institute of salvation, the foremost and comprehensive medium salutis [means of salvation], as Calvin self-evidently assumed and said?

Is not every form of egocentricity excused and even confirmed and sanctified, if egocentricity in this sacred form is the divinely willed meaning of Christian existence and the Christian song of praise consists finally only in a many-tongued but monotonous pro me, pro me [for me, for me], and similar possessive expressions?

(Barth, Doctrine of Reconciliation IV/3.2, 566-568)

Sermons on Forgiveness and Reconciliation

2011-05-27T16:48:00.005+01:00

Earlier this year I was grateful that the leadership at my church in Aberdeen allowed me to do a three part sermon series related to my topic of study, affording me a good opportunity to do some exegetical work for congregational articulation alongside my theological work for my dissertation. Even though I commented recently on the limitations of podcast sermons, I am going to go ahead and link to our church website where a few of these homiletic events have been translated into audio files for selective, private consumption ; ) .

Click here to find them at The Mission website under the "Sermons" tab.

If you ever do want to listen to any of these, I'd recommend "Forgiveness 2" over the others, as I think it has a bit more staying power for other venues and mediums. However, you'll also find parts 1 and 3, and in the archives a sermon on reconciliation from the Sermon on the Mount which I previously posted textually on the blog. "Forgiveness 1" is a romp through Genesis not unlike the blog post I did in January, and "Forgiveness 3" is a sum-up more difficult to listen to because it includes quiet gaps involving congregational participation.

As is often the case, in my experience, a debt of gratitude is owed to my local church family. In countless ways these people have been a big part of my PhD experience.

Clarence Campbell Bowls: A Life

2011-05-25T11:05:00.016+01:00

Some of my earliest memories are of Ivan Boldirev, King Richard Brodeur, Rick Lanz, Harold Snepts and Stan Smyl in their run to the Stanley Cup finals in 1982. I was 6 years old, watching those games on the couch with my dad. Smyl and Snepts are pictured hoisting the Clarence Campbell Bowl here.

That playoff saw the birth of "Towel Power", and I remember it vividly. Lifting this trophy was the last moment of sheer joy for Canucks fans, however, as they went on to be swept in four games by Mike Bossy, Denis Potvin, Billy Smith, and the New York Islanders.

In 1994 Trevor Linden hoisted the trophy after Greg Adams scored in double overtime of the fifth game to beat the Toronto Maple Leafs and get the Canucks to the Stanely Cup finals for the second time. I was 18 years old. It was mayhem. I attended two games live, took part in many victory parades, and watched most games with brothers and a group of a dozen friends from high school. It was unreal. There would be some big wins in the final series but - coming up one goal short in game seven to the New York Rangers - the Clarence Campbell Bowl would prove to be the Vancouver Canucks' only prize.

Quite memorably, when Linden lifted the trophy that year the lid came off. Sometime since then there began a tradition of not even accepting the award, since the real goal was the Stanley Cup. A few have not gone along with this superstition, but I kind of enjoyed the fact that, last night, after another double overtime game five winner, 17 years since the Canucks were last in this position, Henrik Sedin did not even touch it.

The Canucks are 40. This year I will turn 36. There have been many uniform changes over the years for both of us, and now I have a family of my own to help me cheer. Somewhat sadly, however, we'll be watching these finals in the middle of the night on spotty internet feeds an ocean away from fans, family, and friends from seasons past.

But such is life. I'm just glad they are not playing anyone from New York.

The End of Tolerance

2011-05-20T11:30:00.000+01:00

The battle is between what is supposed to be good and what is supposed to be evil, but in this battle all parties-how can it be otherwise?-think that they are the friends of what is good and the enemies of what is evil. Therefore, quite contrary to the purpose and intention of those who take part in it, the more seriously this battle is waged, the more certainly it will lead to pain and tears and crying, so that at the end we have to ask seriously whether the upshot of it all is not a fresh triumph, not for a supposed evil, but for one which is very real. From this final result the theory and practice of what we call tolerance seem to be the final refuge and one which we have to discover again and again-a general lassitude to which men surrender for a time, only to break out again sooner or later in new dogmatisms and acts of judgment and conflicts and mutually caused troubles and well-intentioned wrongs.

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/1, 447

Podcast Sermons: Preaching out of Place?

2011-05-17T11:11:00.012+01:00

A letter written by Karl Barth in 1962 offers me the occasion to reflect on the proper context for preaching. For some time I've wondered if there may be a sense in which publicly available sermon manuscripts or recordings take the preaching of the Word out of its intended home, perhaps diminishing its status as an event and leading to its misuse and misunderstanding. See what you think of Karl Barth's letter to Berlin Church Councillor Wolf-Dieter Zimmermann upon request to air his prison sermons on public radio:

We are dealing here with what is a matter of principle for me. Only in the context of its delivery is a sermon, strictly, what it is meant to be. If its context in the narrower sense is bypassed to give it a wider audience through print or radio or on a record, then for decades - so far as printing is concerned - I have thought I should insist that it appear only with the preceding and following prayers (both composed ad hoc), because for me this threefold middle portion of an evangelical service constitutes and inseparable whole. Even better, when it is possible on the radio or on a record, we should have the whole service, including the introduction, congregational singing, and the benediction.

Thus the sermon (which is not a lecture) should be kept in its context for the listeners when it is played again. I do not see this as a questionable procedure, but a good one. And I have been assured by many who play the records of that sermon how pleasing it is to them - even if only in imagining the real action - to range themselves with the prisoners, to pray with them, and ... to join in their singing.... At any rate my own view is that if we are to have recordings at all, then we should record sermons with as much as possible of their natural setting.

- Karl Barth, Letters 1961-1968 (T&T Clark, 1981), 37-38

As a child of the technological age (and not one who is simply suspicious of it), I find myself agreeing with this. I don't want to condemn or abstain completely from listening to or publicizing sermons, but I do think that if we are going to make use of this medium we do well to keep some questions in mind so that the practice is kept in its proper perspective.

At what point might the publicized sermon usurp or transpose the role of preaching in the local church? How much does preaching taken from a congregational setting lose its meaning or open itself to misunderstanding and misuse? How might congregation-intended sermons change for the worse (or the better) when the preacher knows they will be heard by unknown and loosely connected masses listening in? What happens when preaching is not respected as a one-time event in the context of a community seeking to follow Jesus Christ together, and is ripped from the context of prayers, fellowship, mutual service and local mission?

(See also "All Theology is Local", posted almost simultaneously on another blog, but incredibly resonant.)

Trent's Last Case and the Remarkable E.C. Bentley

2011-05-15T20:00:00.021+01:00

Ever since G.K. Chesterton's The Man Who Was Thursday I have intended to find and read E.C. Bentley's Trent's Last Case. The reason? Because Chesterton dedicated Thursday to Bentley, and Bentley wrote this saying "I owe you a book in return." I'm not a huge fan of detective novels (is this one of those genres better suited to film?), and so it wasn't much surprise that this one never really grabbed me. However, there were points where this was quite a delightful read, simply for the turns of phrase and the recognizable echoes of that Chestertonian spirit. Most notable among these was this simple paragraph toward the end, coming in the denouement before the final twist:

"All I mean is, my dear Trent, that there are really remarkable things going on all around us if we will only see them, and we do our perceptions no credit in regarding as remarkable only those affairs which are surrounded with an accumulation of sensational detail."

- Trent's Last Case (Garland, 1976), 307

Bentley and Chesterton were childhood friends who started a debate group at their secondary school which was dedicated to the discussion of politics and literature as well as the publication of poems and essays. It was these friends who turned G.K.C. from apathetic schoolboy to confident literate. It was also these friends who were the first to hear the now famous form of poetry named for the "C" in E.C. Bentley.

The Clerihew is a four line poem about a person, which often has a witty twist or a poignant summary of something notable. You can see some recently written clerihews about theologians here, but here's one of Bentley's own, which he wrote about he and Chesterton's mutual friend and political agitater:

Mr. Hilaire Belloc
Is a case for legislation ad hoc.
He seems to think that nobody minds
His books being all of different kinds.

I don't have anything sensational to say about Bentley's novel, but perhaps that's the point. He certainly seems to have given much in terms of the excerpt given above. Thus while I would hate to trivialize the man (he seems to have had quite the career of his own), this clerihew is my tribute to his spark:

For me E.C. Bentley
will always be
the fresh air for G.K.C.
that was in turn breathed to me.

Complicity and Change

2011-05-10T11:55:00.008+01:00

In our judgments of others - or even of the societies in which we live - it is all too easy to relegate the call to humility to a conjured up reminder of our own general depravity or some unrelated secret sins of our own. But what if it is precisely in our judgments of right and wrong that we are to think about and confess our part in that evil to which we point? Perhaps in certain cases we may have no part at all, but I wonder just how often we could put a finger on our complicity in the evils and the enmity of the world, even in our attempt to critique it and call for change. What is complicity?

It is our part, our responsible co-operation, in world history.

But if we are guilty of withdrawal, i.e., from our fellow-men, in this history, what are we in our time? What is the meaning of our life? Why have we been given time to live and work? How shall we stand before God and in His judgment? Will this not be brought against us? Will we not be accused? You were no help to me in my history which was interwoven with yours. You ignored me. I was of no interest to you. You disappointed me when I waited for you. You had no time for me. You merely played with me.

Or again, you only appeared to help, but in reality harmed me. You led me astray, so that it was only with the greatest difficulty, if at all, that I was able to get back to the right path. You confirmed me in that from which you ought to have kept me. And you kept me from that in which I needed confirmation.

Or again, you would not yield to me. In your great righteousness, or simply because you were the stronger, you pushed me to the wall. You humiliated and wounded me. You trampled over me contemptuously and perhaps even derisively, pursuing your own ends. For some reason which I cannot understand you blocked my path. You surrendered and betrayed me. You took from me the dearest that I had. The encounter with you cost me my life.

Yes, we shall certainly have to render our accounts in relation to others, and we must see to it that they are in good order. But who of us will have any real advantage over the rest? Will we not all have our own burden of accusation? And what will be the net result for us all if the only upshot is an awful conflict of mutual recriminations?

(Karl Barth, The Doctrine of Reconciliation 2, 444-445)

All evildoers and reprehensible actions may not be equal, but neither are any of us innocent, or even wholly lacking in complicity with the evils around. Much focus is put in Christian thinking on the depravity of humanity and the inheritance of the original sin, but leaving it in this mysterious ambiguity we perhaps resist putting any thought into our ongoing embeddedness in the evil structures and systems and contagions of our time and history.

Today's über-concern with ecology has perhaps driven home this point. We all realize that our carbon footprint, our patterns of consumption and waste, and our participation in the economy of the globally advantaged is a small contribution to the degredation of the earth and the unjust dispersal of its resources. Though each of us as individuals may not be able to stem the tide, we recognize that by our actions we either take part in this degredation or we contribute (however minutely) to reform. Many of us stand paralyzed at the question of what we can do, but we also sense that we are nothing but implicated if we do not make a start somewhere.

We know the concept of complicity when it comes to the environment, now what about if we recognize it in other areas as well? This complicity does not render us unable to make judgments about what is right or wrong in this world, but it does remind us to come under that spotlight ourselves, to not make those judgments in self-righteousness, and to take to heart our own calls for reform in the concrete context of our own capabilites.

Rick Mirer may be the worst NFL quarterback ever, but every Monday morning quarterback who ever mocked him would stand to learn much about playing football with him as their tutor.

When Jesus reminds us of the planks in our eyes, is he thinking of our abstract "sinfulness" or of the complicities we'd find if we paid attention? Is not the truest prophetic word the one that comes in confession? Does it not ring hollow if we pray for peace on earth without getting up in mercy and beginning to love our neighbour?

The Thrill of Victory!

2011-05-10T08:44:00.008+01:00

I haven't really been into hockey much the last few years. Aside from the fact that plenty of people make a living at it, in itself I tend to think the sports phenomenon a rather trivial (and thus vastly overblown) distraction. I enjoy it, but with some perspective, I think.

But then the team of your childhood makes it deep in the playoffs. And you are suddenly, even deeply, connected with all manner of strangers, friends, family, neighbours and rivals in a way you'd forgotten or didn't even think possible. Now you are going through ups and downs together, mourning and blaming and repenting of your doubts and celebrating together, and you remember that sports is sort of fun, and somehow even good.

I remember taking part in this exact scene on this exact street in 1994.

Mind you, I could only watch this for a couple minutes. I can't imagine anyone but a Canucks fan is going to watch it for more than 30 seconds. Outsiders may want to mute it to diminish the melodrama. It is one of those "had to be there" things.

Worth reporting, but its the wink and nod with the stranger in the circa 1986 Garth Butcher jersey that puts the smile on your face.

"The Fullness of Christ's Mercy"

2011-05-06T09:09:00.003+01:00

I found it hard to know what to think about the death of bin Laden. Couldn't pretend to be happy with all the ways Christians were throwing around the word justice as if that was all there was to it. Had to admit it was pretty easy to peer in from the outside and be altruistic about what should or should not be said. There are probably many editorials one could link to and you've probably read them yourself. As it is I think the best I can do is place a link into my archives that points to a reflection of a 9/11 survivor that is simple, raw, and poignant. Find an excerpt at Experimental Theology: "The Fullness of Christ's Mercy".

Interestingly enough, the post concludes with a postcript saying that "one of the best theological meditations on Christian forgiveness and the memory of wrongdoings" is Miroslav Volf's The End of Memory. I have a paper in the Oxford Research Archive which agrees somewhat but begs to differ in some important ways. Since I'm studying this right now I thought I'd mention that while Volf's End of Memory is a good evocative book on the subject, one would be better to read his Exclusion and Embrace, or Gregory Jones Embodying Forgiveness. There should be a dissertation on Karl Barth's theology of forgiveness coming out in a while too. ; )

Outside the Gospel Coalition Looking In

2011-05-05T19:32:00.010+01:00

I have been reading along and trying to interact with two blogs on the Gospel Coalition website for a while but will now be dropping them from my blogroll and, well, I thought I'd register my discouragement.

Thing is, I hate to say this because I really believe such efforts at dialogue and debate are worth the effort in the context of Christian community. I do believe that if we were in a church together we could talk to each other and find some common ground. Even in disagreement I would confess our communion in the Lord Jesus Christ and enjoy fellowship in a peace that passes our understanding. As it is I also think that in theory we could meet online and experience something of the same dynamic. I confess that this is probably easier to pursue in a blog like mine, where almost every commenter is an acquaintance and there is a history or a context to most of the conversations.

But as we are only connected by their celebrity and influence within a big thing called evangelicalism, and since I have found their blogs more discouragingly mystifying than helpful, and because they have not once interacted with my comments and questions, and since those of their followers who have interacted with me have not appeared to consider anything I've said, I have decided that their blogs are hardly worth the effort. I actually feel that my presence there has only served to solidify other commenters in their allegiance to their views.

Without downplaying my deep disagreement with most of what I've read there, I will chalk up the actual disconnect to the limitations of widely-accessed blogs and the anonymity of the interactions that go on there. I am also dropping a couple other more resonant but widely read blogs from my blogroll, simply because there doesn't seem much point in involving myself in such massive conversations at the expense of those contexts to which I have been called and invested. This would be different if I felt needed or called (or in the case of the Gospel Coalition, welcome) to those wider conversations, but I don't. I wish them all the best and trust them to the Christ we confess, but I'm done.

On Unity

2011-05-01T21:22:00.009+01:00

For this week's "Rally to Restore Unity" hosted by Rachel Held Evans (donate to Charity:Water), I'm digging up some old thoughts on the matter....

A couple years ago I taught a 9-week Sunday School class on a fairly controversial topic. I was very thankful for the opportunity to broach the subject in our church but was a bit nervous about how it would go over. At the first class it became clear that we had a good number of people willing to kindly debate rather than fearfully avoid controversy. I began praying every week that our discussion - even our debate and disagreement - would be an expression of our unity in Christ rather than a threat to it.

Once I started praying this prayer and thinking about this kind of unity, a few other things struck me, such as:

If we are united in a common fear, we are united by something very weak.

If we are united by conflict avoidance, we have false peace.

If we are united by mere tolerance, we are not united but gathered (which is a start, I suppose, but if that's all you've got have you really got a church?).

If we are united by a perceived target group's favourite way of doing things, we are not united but pandering.

If we are united by convenience, we are just people who happen to be in the same place at the same time.

If we are united by cynicism, be it bitter and crusty or cloaked in humour, we have a negative unity.

If we are united by a list of propositions that we claim to agree on, we are united by the force of our reason.

If we are united by default views that can't be questioned or discussed, we are simply falling in line, and could even be lying to each other.

Mere tolerance does not a communion make. Consensus-management doesn't either. GK Chesterton adeptly addressed these twin problems in a 1908 essay entitled "On Bluff," addressing the editorialists of his time:

The idea of fighting, of answering the argument by a suitable counter-argument, even if it be a sophistry, has evidently vanished from the editorial mind. Evasion and violence are the only expedients. . . . But both of these things are equally remote from the fighting spirit, which involves an interest in the enemy's movement in order to parry them. The good controversialist is a good listener....

Most current attempts at [debate] are full of timidity or of bullying; and these two are in truth the same ... habit of admiring Power rather than Valour. That word Valour, by the way, is in itself a stirring sermon. It means putting one's full value into the struggle or sentiment; the almost exact translation of valour is "being in it for all you are worth."

If he could make this challenge to the newspapers, how much more to the church? Neither evasive maneuvers nor manipulative words are becoming a people who are rallied around the One who taught us self-giving communion and speaking the truth in love.

Sometimes I hear people lament post-modernity as the denial of Absolute Truth. But that's not the take-away point from post-modernity, if you ask me. The point is that none of us should claim Absolute Knowledge of the Truth. But this doesn't mean we don't believe the Truth is out there. We may in fact believe that Truth is a Person, Jesus Christ, who wants to be known in time, and sends His Spirit precisely for this purpose. With this belief we can see good reason to love and to speak with passion, kindness, humility and patience. Listening helps too. I can't believe how important listening is and how rarely it seems to really happen.

Karl Barth pointed out that in the Apostle's Creed the "communion of saints" comes under "belief in the Holy Spirit" (and is followed by the "forgiveness of sins"). In other words, unity is a matter of faith. Which means that Truth and Unity do not depend on us, but do not seem to want to go on without us either. Barth summed up the challenge before us quite well:

If a man can acquiesce in divisions, if he can even take pleasure in them, if he can be complacent in relation to the obvious faults and errors of others and therefore his own responsibility for them, then that man may be a good and loyal confessor in the sense of his own particular denomination, he may be a good Roman Catholic or Reformed or Orthodox or Baptist, but he must not imagine that he is a good Christian (Church Dogmatics IV.1, p. 676).

God help us to celebrate communion in Christ, and then to speak the truth in love.

Questions about Franklin Graham and The Christian Social Imagination

2011-04-28T10:23:00.016+01:00

Franklin Graham's organization, Samaritan's Purse, is all about helping those in need. I have always been an admirer of Franklin Graham's ability to join consistent preaching of the gospel with an organizational concern for the poor and oppressed. It seems to me that such a thing enabled him to avoid the rather gnostic implications that are in play when we proclaim a gospel that is focussed mainly on 'saving souls' for 'eternal life' and not upon living the gospel bodily and socially here on earth. Thus his interviews this past week have been perplexing, even downright concerning.

I'm referring to the one with Sean Hannity in reference to the Easter interview with Christine Amanpour, but my main focus is his Christianity Today follow-up with Sarah Pulliam Bailey, since it is there that he defends his statements to his own evangelical folk. Here's a few excerpts from that interview, but by all means go and read them yourselves for fuller context.

SPM: Before you go, I wanted to ask you about your comments about Donald Trump. You said, "The more you listen to him, the more you say to yourself, 'You know? Maybe the guy's right.'"

FG: Not on the birth [certificate] issue. I'm talking about the economic issues, how to get our country out of the economic mess we're in.... No question, the guy's got a lot of baggage. He owns casinos. He's had multiple marriages. He's got a lot of issues. No question he is a very smart guy. I did not endorse him. Christiane Amanpour asked me if he could be the right candidate. He could, under the right circumstances, but we're still not there yet.... We have to look at the policies, are they consistent with the teachings of Jesus Christ?...

If a person says that they're a Christian and then they have policies that are against what Christ teaches, that's a problem. There are candidates out there other than who we have talked about who are very good people who I could support. Mike Huckabee is a great man. He is a preacher. No question this man is saved.... You have Sarah Palin, who is a fine lady, who has great experience as governor, as a mayor, a very successful author, good family. Her husband is a man's man. He is one tough guy. Her kids are nice... You do have Mitt Romney.... He's a Mormon, but he is a smart business guy, a good man. Mormons have very strong families, and I appreciate that about him.

I'm not going to get involved in the political process. There will be people who I like and dislike. It's obvious the policies that are governing our country right now are not working.... Economic issues are issues that affect the church because if the country is not strong, we're not going to be able to support the mission work that we do. We're not going to be able to get involved in social concerns in the community. If we have more and more people out of work, it's going to affect the churches in a big way.

SPM: Are there times when a reporter asks you a question and you decide not to weigh in on it?

FG: Again, if someone asks me a question, I try to answer it. I was on MSNBC and they came after me. I decided that I'm going to see how many times I can get the gospel in. I think I got it in three times. Of course, they were attacking me. The most important message is that there's no one politician that's going to save America. The only hope that we have as a nation is if we repent of our sins.

Asked about his politics, even though he emphasized family values (defined in regard to abortion, homosexuality, and being 'good people'), Graham made it pretty clear that, for him, economic issues are right now the number one priority. The social action of the church is somewhat dependent on what it has available to give. Fair enough point, but is it really the case that the church's abilities depend on its economic prosperity, and does it matter how that prosperity is achieved? Does the economic system itself come under the confrontation of the gospel, or is it merely a neutral means for gospel proclamation and good deeds?

To be more specific, for all his ability to make money, is Donald Trump really going to give the USA the economic policies that reflect Christian values? For all the legitimate concerns over how Obama has turned out, surely we don't see Donald Trump as more in line with the gospel?

It seems to me that Samaritan's Purse reminds us that the Christian gospel demands a self-sacrificial concern for the poor and oppressed both at home and broad. Certainly one can not legislate such self-giving sacrifice, but can one work for a country that does not legislate the opposite?

Franklin Graham knows that when he goes before an interviewer he is going to be pushed in the directions that they want to talk about. This is why I find it odd that he is willing to give them the sound-bytes they want, and in doing so to imply unquestioning support for the powers of capitalism just so that he can 'get the gospel in' a few times. It seems so counter-intuitive for a man who runs Samaritan's Purse. The only way I can make sense of it is if Graham sees the socio-economic system of the West as either morally neutral or gospel-consistent, thus making it an appropriate and relatively untouched tool in service of gospel proclamation and world mission.

I'm no economist, so maybe there are some arguments to be made there. But I'd like us to consider the contrast between Graham's words and those of Willie James Jennings' 2010 The Christian Imagination.

As my previous three posts on Jennings' book have indicated, I think it serves as an important reminder of the devastating ways that the church has harmed its witness by getting into bed with colonialist and capitalist impulses in the past. I see this book as something of a clarion call to a more socially appropriate enactment of the gospel in a world torn up by the divisions of race and greed. Hopefully by quoting at length from its final chapter I can illustrate the tension I'm seeing here between Graham's interview and the gospel he has heretofore been serving. Jennings writes:

I want Christians to recognize the grotesque nature of a social performance of Christianity that imagines Christian identity floating above land, landscape, animals, place, and space, leaving such realities to the machinations of capitalistic calculations and the commodity chains of private property.... Of course, our imaginations have been so conditioned by economically determined spatial strictures that .... imagining [change] is no small thing. Yet I am convinced that such a change is not only necessary but now stands before human communities as the only real option for survival in a world of dwindling natural resources and tightening global economic chains of commodification. To imagine along the direction I suggest in this book would be nothing less than a theological act, indeed, as I suggest, a Christian act of imagining. And if, as I believe, Christian life is indeed a way forward for the world, then it must reemerge as a compelling new invitation to life together....

Jesus entered fully into the kinship structure [of his time] not to destroy it but to reorder it -- around himself.... The kinship network in Israel would not be profoundly qualified. Jesus came first -- not husband or wife, not mother, father, sister, brothers, not familial obligations and demands, not cultural conventions, and not social responsibilities. If the strongest bonds of relationship were qualified through commitment of Jesus, then the entire socioeconomic and political structuring processes deeply woven inside these bonds came into qualified view and ultimately unrelenting challenge. Jesus drew a new communion together in Israel. This new communion carried of necessity the distinctive marks of his scandal....

[No doubt Jesus and the apostles expose] the tremendous challenge toward intimacy created by the presence of the Spirit of God.... [But if] the struggle toward cultural intimacy was not faced by the church as inherent to the gospel itself, despite the constant work of the Spirit to turn Israel and Gentile peoples toward one another, then over time the only other option was the emergence of a Christian segregationalist mentality....

Imagine a people defined by their cultural differences yet who turn their histories and cultural logics toward a new determination, a new social performance of identity.... This new cultural politic is a complex new configuration and social alliance and political allegiance bound up in life together with the many. The implications of this new space in which a new cultural politic emerges are breathtaking.

(quoting pages 293-294, 263-264, 270-271, 273)

Indeed! And perhaps they are entirely unrealistic! Perhaps they can only be striven for in community's confessing Christ as Lord. Perhaps such communities can only seek this out within the limitations of their societies at large at cost to themselves -- doing so in the self-giving and cruciform love of Christ. Jennings himself concludes exactly this. This is the place where such a Christian imagination hits the ground and plods forward patiently.

But what if Christians, instead of confessing that this 'can only be striven for', simply rest content with the status quo socio-political constructs? How can we be satisfed, even proud of ourselves, when we 'get the gospel in' to conversations that end up offering their support to the perpetuation of economical value systems which are (arguably) contrary to that gospel itself? This is at best a failure to take seriously the machinations of society and at worst a gnosticism of the gospel. Based on Franklin Graham's track record, I can't imagine he would want to support the latter, but given the politicization of everything American and the publicity such interviews garner, the trajectories recommended in these interviews is concerning.

Based on mainstream evangelicalism's zealous and immediate outcry against Rob Bell about his alleged break from the gospel, should we not expect even more concern about the misrepresentation of the gospel that has manifested itself so much more concretely and publicly here?

Correct me where I'm wrong? Push me in a healthier direction with this?

K'naan's "Take A Minute" (An Easter Reflection)

2011-04-25T09:01:00.017+01:00

K'naan is a Somali-Canadian from a Muslim family who moved to North America when he was thirteen years of age, thus removing him from the conditions of civil war. In Canada, before becoming a hip hop artist, K'Naan apparently spent time in prison and lost friends to murder, suicide, and deportation. This is the extent of my knowledge of him, other than the fact that he's written a song or two that my family enjoys. The song I want to share, however, is 'Take a Minute'. I find it remarkable.

How did Gandhi ever withstand the hunger-strikes at all?
Didn't do it to gain power or money if I recall.
It's the gift, I guess I'll pass it on,
mother thinks it'll lift the stress of Babylon.
Mother knows, my mother she suffered blows
I don't know how we survived such violent episodes
I was so worried, it hurt to see you bleed,
but as soon as you came out the hospital you gave me sweets.
Yea, they tried to take you from me,
but you still only gave 'em some prayers and sympathy
Dear Mama, you helped me write this
by showing me to give is priceless.

Yesterday on the way to Church on a sunny Resurrection Sunday we walked, as we always do, past a Mosque. I wondered what they think of Easter. Then I recalled K'naan and wondered what I think of this song.

This probably pressed on my mind because of a question a friend put to me last week: What should Christians think of the fact that in the world right now there are Muslims standing in solidarity with suffering and raising up for good causes? How should Christians engage with such Christ-like activities (where they happen) and self-giving impulses which are taking place outside its walls? I'm not getting into global politics in this post, but raising the general question. I think it relates pretty strongly to resurrection.

This Easter season held some firsts for me, as I thought back on the year past. This year I attended a Ramadan feast at the Mosque on the corner. I was invited and welcomed warmly. I have never invited, let alone welcomed, a Muslim into my home or my church. It is not that I wouldn't want to, it is just that I wouldn't know where to start.

This year my son's best friend in his class was a Muslim. He is a very well-behaved and smiley seven year old boy. A good influence. I love seeing them chum around. My son told me one day that his friend believes that if he lies or cheats he will go to hell. Asked what I thought, on the spot I said that we believed that Jesus had gone to hell to set us free from our sins by grace. I encouraged him to ask his friend what he thinks of the prophet Isa....

On the walk to church we also go past King's College chapel. Being Easter there was a large purple-robed choir waiting outside in the sunshine while we went by. It was a joyful scene. It occurred to me that it is easy to believe in Jesus' Resurrection on a beautiful day like this, and in company such as this. Surely that's partly what church is for - the edification and encouragement of believers and the communal acts of worship and Word-hearing.

But how different is Easter morning on a dark and cloudy day? How easy is it to believe in war-torn Afghanistan or in strife-riddled countries of Africa and the Middle-East? At home or abroad, how does one interpret the resurrection of Christ amidst the squalor of the poor and the oppressed?

I think one has to think also of the ascension. And Pentecost. Shortly after raising from the dead Jesus left it to us. To be honest, that sounds oppressively daunting. However, we believe He also left the Holy Spirit; the power of His resurrection; the promise of hope; the prompter and enabler for speaking truth in love. This is the Spirit who Jesus said was on him and anointed him and sent him

to proclaim good news to the poor.
to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

Perhaps what it means to celebrate Resurrection Sunday, no matter what the weather, is to take that to heart and live as if Jesus is alive in the world to reconcile it to God. This would mean recognizing that it was for the joy set before him that he endured the cross. It would also mean recognizing that it is for the joy set within and before us that we too find a willingness to endure crosses in this world for the sake of kingdom come. Heaven knows there are many corners of the world (not to mention our own hearts and minds and churches) which await the resurrection's revelation.

Which brings me back to K'naan's song and my friend's question. How does a Christian make sense of such self-giving mercy outside of Christian circles? We might presume such a thing is to be the monopoly of Christ followers, but what happens when the culture at large offers the church reminders of what it ought to be doing? How do we make sense of this?

Some go back to natural theology and say there is a moral law in human nature which, despite our fall into sin, shines through on occasion in human beings no matter where they are or what they know of Christ.

Another answer is that the Spirit is at work in the world, guiding people to truth. The Spirit is concerned to build the Church and is 'at home' among the worshipers and disciples of Christ, but is not constricted by our statements of faith and membership charters. The Spirit is active in the world. Jesus is alive. We who obey his command to go into all the world can not go anywhere or accomplish anything where His Spirit has not already beat us to the punch and stirred things up already.

I find this answer rather biblically resonant and missiologically stimulating. It tells me that our commission is not to go as the superiors with something to offer, but as confessors of Christ looking to take part in what the Spirit is doing and to witness to the risen Lord as the Spirit raises the opportunities. Sometimes this could mean hearing a rebuke or a call to action that comes from outside our walls, resonates with the Word of God that is sharper than a double-edged sword, and shows us our blindspots. But if we hear this Word we will engage. Undoubtedly we believe that as Christ-followers we have something to offer, but it will be as servants and not as lords.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
Hebrews 12:1-4

On the Mount of the Lord it will be Provided

2011-04-22T09:08:00.009+01:00

Today at morning prayer we read Genesis 22:1-18 and Hebrews 10:1-10.

It reminded me of this little powerpoint I put together for Sufjan Stevens' Abraham a few years back. I offer it here again as both a follow up to the last blog post and as a meditation for Good Friday.

"Through your offspring

all nations on earth will be blessed,

because you have obeyed me.”

- Genesis 22:18 -

Apocalypse Now: Sufjan's "John Wayne Gacy, Jr."

2011-04-21T10:20:00.015+01:00

I just ran across a video for Sufjan Stevens' "John Wayne Gacy, Jr." and I think it is a good example of how contemporary art (and perhaps preaching) can alert us to the tragic trajectory of sin and enmity by way of a dynamic paraphrase rather than a literal translation. The song is beautifully melancholy but when you pay attention to the lyrics and see the video it brings home (subtly and tastefully but all the more powerfully) the dark story that it depicts. It is a contemporary hell rather than apocalyptic imagery, but it has the potential to evoke awareness of what separateness from the life of God really amounts to. Perhaps for those with ears to hear it also amplifies our holy fear of the One who could just let us have it.

25 victims identified. 8 unidentified.

Found in the crawlspace beneath his home.

The last line of the wikipedia article on him says: "Examination of Gacy's brain after his execution revealed no abnormalities."

Having heard the song but not contemplated the lyrics, I wondered about Sufjan's tentative gasps of breath at the end. Now my voice is stuck in my throat too.

On one hand the imprecatory Psalms come right into focus with stories like this. It is unimaginable to me how the God who reconciles the world to himself in Christ could give us heaven on earth without also bringing justice with him. The biblical images assure me that God is more upset by injustice and evil than I am, and give me unimaginable pictures of the end of evil. How it all works out exactly is beyond my imagination and abilities to postulate (thank God), but I recognize that His judgement is good, am glad that there is justice rather than everlasting tolerance, and trust Him with it.

On the other hand, I also recognize my complicity with the broken conditions of the world and the different ways that evil drags on my own heart. And whilst this fills me with the fear of God I am also gratefully reminded of the Son of God's words to the penitent people thrown desperately at his feet. He said "do not be afraid," told them to get up, and sent them into the world as ministers of His reconciliation. Perfect love drives out fear and mercy triumphs over judgment, we are told -- though all around the world may crumble. Into this world we are sent to live.

We can paint our stark pictures of reality, and this is probably all the more necessary when we are bombarded daily with the self-soothing comforts of the globally advantaged. However: Ours is not a spirit of fear, but of love, and this is the love for which all creation groans. Our motive is not guilt, but grace; not fear, but love; not hellfire, but kingdom come. Fear and guilt just can't sustain the kind of cross-bearing self-sacrificing love that the gospel's trajectory of social justice requires, let alone the hope it holds out.

Rob Bell, Love Wins, and the C&MA View of Hell

2011-04-18T23:16:00.002+01:00

In order to offer a contextualized review of Rob Bell's Love Wins, the question I have been considering in recent weeks is whether its author could sign the statement of faith of the Christian & Missionary Alliance in Canada. Based on early reactions to the book I decided to focus mainly on article five of the statement, which states in part:"The destiny of the impenitent and unbelieving is existence forever in conscious torment." In the preceding posts I came to the conclusion that, however one might interpret this article, it intends to say that hell is a finalized God-enacted judgement of impenitent fallen humanity involving a state of being with infinite duration wherein persons are ever aware of their pain. Having dwelt at length on the C&MA's view (see parts 1, 2, 3a , 3b, and 3c), I turn now to Bell's book.

Before we begin we should note that Rob Bell says that he "believes in hell." (It's an odd phrase, but I guess we know what we mean). Undoubtedly aware that he is thinking against the grain in some ways, Bell himself does not think his book a "departure" from "the orthodox Christian faith." Indeed, while Love Wins claims to be about "life's biggest questions," it also claims that its more controversial parts concern matters that are "not that essential" (x). Thus on one hand I believe Bell might genuinely be stymied if he were refused membership in the C&MA.

On the other hand, however, this book is rather provocative in tone, and I think its at-times-haphazard imaginations bear considerable responsibility for the confusion that the it created. Although the UK title is a bit less misleading and incendiary than the US release, it is tough to deny that in its attempt to focus on "the heart of life's big questions" Love Wins does its fair share of sword-rattling speculation about "the fate of everyone who ever lived". That said, I think that a generous reader ought to recognize fairly early on the following:

Love Wins gives an extreme Arminian response to a certain brand of Calvinism in order to counter a caricatured view of God that Bell thinks has disenfranchised and confused too many people for what he considers to be all the wrong reasons. The book is an apologetic meant to re-emphasize the 'good' in Good News and the 'love' in God is Love. Bell does this rather sloppily and provocatively at times, but also clearly and creatively at others. In my view the book does not need to be categorically dismissed, but like much of the pop-theology genre it does require further thought, in some places more severely than others. Mainly, however, Bell wants to get first things first in our understanding of who God is and what God is about, and in doing so he is much more interested in the ramifications for discipleship and mission than with speculation about the after-life. To these ends I think he by-and-large succeeds.

But since we're talking about hell here, we better get on with it. As indicated, when Bell talks about hell he does not want to talk as much about its after-life component as its presence on earth in human history. The most prominent example of this is his creative reading of the fantastic parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus which claims it is not primarily about then and there, but here and now (74f, 107). Bell continually turns eschatology-talk into a consideration of the realities at stake in everyday life (67, 74). But on further reflection, isn't that what the New Testament itself is trying to do? For all the hiccups along the way, I do think that if we miss this we may not only get off on the wrong foot with Love Wins, but with many of the apocalyptic passages of the New Testament that are concerned.

But alternate emphasis is one thing, and contradiction another. Does Bell go so far as to flatly deny the eschatological implications which the C&MA has seen fit to categorically assert? To be sure, he is often rhetorically at odds with the common evangelical view. Most notably in this regard, Bell:

raises questions about the justice of infinite punishment for finite years of impenitence (4);
opts for a qualitative rather than quantitative rendering of the biblical words for "eternal" (31, 57f, 92);
steers away from the picture of heaven as only being "somewhere else" (23f);
exposes the scarcity of the word "hell" in the Bible and undermines common views based on some background context for the words "gehenna", "abyss", and "hades" (67f. He is right about these, but doesn't really give the whole story either, after all, people didn't invent the common view of hell out of thin air);
refers to statements (like ours) on church websites which announce that the "unsaved dead will be committed to an eternal conscious punishment," suggesting that this is a rather unwelcoming and potentially confusing message to offer online passers-by (96);
suggests that people will be free to get out of hell at any time in the future if they come to believe in Jesus because "love demands freedom, and freedom provides that possibility" (114, 155).

So far this doesn't sound very C&MA-friendly. However, let's also note the following point by point qualifications. In addition to the above, Bell:

returns to the eschatological vision and suggests that "there will be endless opportunities in an endless amount of time for people to say yes to God" (106-107);
allows that one of the words for "eternal" is "a versatile, pliable word" (92) and opts for a view different than either annihilationism or universalism (104-106);
maintains that the word "hell" and much of its connotations should be retained (93);
affirms the usefulness of "agonizing language" about "fire" in certain contexts to communicate the awfulness of injustice and sin, also noting the brilliance of a "nuanced, shocking story" about the "gruesome details" of good and evil when used in the Spirit of Jesus (73, 77);
resists declaring for certain that all will be saved and affirms repeatedly and clearly that God is a "God of judgement" who "says no to injustice" and acts "decisively" to "put an end to it," because heaven, he says, has "teeth, flames, edges, and sharp points" (34-36, 49)

No wonder people either love this book or hate it. You can find in it whatever you want. All this goes to show that Bell could have been more clear. But should he have been more clear? What is Bell actually trying to accomplish?

Let's keep in mind that by someone's count Bell asks 350 questions in this book, and I would venture to guess that most of them are meant to show he is not the only one whose views contain some tensions asking for resolution. I have to admit, I'm with him on this. The first issue he raises in the book is the issue of "double-predestination" and the next one has to do with the infinite torment of hell (2). The former is to me a highly unsettling and theologically problematic view and, as I discovered again in the last few posts of this series, the latter is not without its layers of perplexity either. The more literally we think about the "God behind the back of Christ" or the vivid descriptions of hell the more the vision seems ready to slip through our hands. We probably have to admit that we get into the realm of speculation pretty quickly with these issues, and my level of sympathy with Love Wins probably has a lot to do with Bell's willingness to confront them and paint a different picture.

Of course, this doesn't excuse Bell for adding further confusion. But let's note that he is less dogmatic about the picture he paints than some holders of these other views have tended to be about theirs. In fact, it occurs to me the more I reflect on this book that what Bell is trying to do is mine the tradition for that thread of material that opens up alternate imaginative space that helps people to recognize and trust that God is just and loving and good. Disturbed by overboard speculations into the after-life, Bell wants to bring us back to the basic point. In doing so no doubt reverts to overboard speculations on another extreme. There are some problematic theological tendencies that arise (such as in his account of freedom), but his basic point is well taken, I think, even if he doesn't really resolve all the tensions he raises.

"Hell is refusing to trust [God]," says Bell, "and refusing to trust is often rooted in a distorted view of God" (175). Bell's point here is not to describe hell in order to scare us out of it, but to get God right so that a few more might seek the kingdom of heaven on earth. "We do ourselves great harm when we confuse the very essence of God, which is love, with the very real consequences of rejecting and resisting that love, which creates what we call hell" (177). The problem is defining God by His No rather than His Yes: "Let's be very clear, then: we do not need to be rescued from God. God is the one who rescues us" (177, 182). "When your God is love," Bell says, "you are free from guilt and fear and the terrifying, haunting, ominous voice that whispers over your shoulder" and "you are free to passionately, urgently, compellingly tell the story" (181-182).

But what is this after-life thing called hell? "Hell is being at the party," and like the older son in the parable of prodigal, it is "refusing to join in the celebration" (169). "Hell is our refusal to trust God's retelling of the story" (170). Could it be that the C&MA statement, while being more specific, might still be reconciled with Bell's agenda? I'll try to assess this by tackling the statement in two parts and seeing what Bell has to say about it.

1) "Destiny"?

I think the C&MA statement means to say that the "resurrection of the unjust" entails their finalized judgment, from which there is no return. However, there are many reasons to believe that Bell would prefer the C&MA statement's "destiny" language than this "finalized fate" interpretation (see 102). For one thing, Bell suggests that hell may be a place of pruning rather than punishment. I don't recall seeing this in my research on the word kolazo [punishment], but Bell is able to find several passages to support this agricultural rendering and the implication that God's goal in discipline is always our repentance (86f, 90).

Bell squirms at the idea that "God would have no choice but to punish [people] forever in conscious torment in hell" because this makes God out to be "fundamentally different" in the next life than He is in this one (174, emphasis mine). Note that Bell doesn't deny the possibility of an everlasting hell for the unbeliever - his issue is with the vision of God which makes this somehow necessary for Him.

Love Wins imagines a continued state of freedom wherein one could have life with God if one wanted. This second-chance post-mortem reality raises some serious exegetical red flags, and most certainly does not jive with the perceived intent of the C&MA statement. The word "destiny" might give a bit of wiggle room in this regard, but the move is definitely problematic.

Curiously, however, Bell asks: "Does God get what God wants?" And even though everything he has said points to yes, he refrains from answering. We can't answer it. We can't speculate, and we are in no position to make demands, even if they conform to our own logic and desires. The whole problem with the older son in the parable of the prodigal was that he thought the Father owed him (186). At the limits of our knowledge, Bell turns instead to the question we can answer, which is whether we want God (116). "Do we get what we want?" Bell's answer is yes, because "God is that loving" (117). Even if it means an infinite hell of separation from the life of God (113f). With this move Bell puts our free will atop the pile in an extremely Arminian way, and the problems with this would take a whole series of blog posts. Is God so bound by our freedom (see 103)? Is this even the best way to define "freedom"? Do we even have that kind of freedom (see 104, 106)? Has this account really answered the objections of theodicy? How could God let it get like this? Surely it is a "terrifying freedom," Bell admits (72f).

This is where all the questions of people who seemed to have no chance come flooding to mind. Those who die as young children. The people who got picked on in youth group and never went back. The unreached. It is not uncommon at this point to imagine an "age of accountability" to account for the children making it to heaven or to leave open the possibility of dreams or visions from Christ for those who have died without having heard the gospel. There are some proof texts for each of these ideas, but by and large we recognize that they are imagined scenarios which help us trust God with what is clearly the mystery of His justice. Our knowledge of God's love and mercy inspires them, but doesn't become an indifference-feeding dogmatism that takes away our desire to evangelize. For Bell's part, he imagines a "second chance". Hebrews 9:27 makes it pretty tough to go along with him, even if he does rally a few texts and some Prophetic themes to his support. Whatever we think of Bell's biblical backing, I think we can grant him a bit of imaginative ground-clearing, so long as he admits it is speculative (which he does). Indeed, Bell leaves the tensions "fully intact" and unresolved, and confesses that there will be many objections (115, 111). But what Bell wants to say is that the love of God is preeminent and it has no absolute need of a populated hell (let alone evil) in order to be seen glorious and good and true and right.

As many new questions as this opens up, it certainly does shift the tension to the right place. Rather than being left to contemplate the absurdity of a God behind the God revealed in Christ who actually elects people precisely in order to damn them, we turn our attention to the absurdity at the doorstep of hell (113-114). Evil is the unresolved paradox confronted by the death of the incarnate Son of God for humanity. We might think we know sin, but at the cross we see it for what it is (a point Bell would have done well to make, but didn't). There we see the impossibility of our situation if we are left to ourselves; the situation we need reconciled. However, we also see that Jesus rose from the grave.

The "destiny" seems clear. Life with God, or not. I'd venture to say that the C&MA is more interested in calling this a finalized fate at death or Christ's return, but if one allowed Bell to interpret it in terms of "results" or "pathway", there might be some room for him yet.

2) "Existence forever in conscious torment"?

At first glance it seems we have an even bigger problem here, but this is not necessarily the case. Although he does plenty of exegetical gymnastics with the word "forever", Bell ends up needing it to last plenty long, because "there will be endless opportunities in an endless amount of time for people to say yes to God" (106-107). This means existence, and it means it could last forever. It could be that Bell has some kind of "after-time" in which there is no real measurement of duration, but we don't get any specification along those lines besides the aforementioned undermining of quantitative translations of the words for "eternal".

If Bell does use the image of "burning forever" he usually does so in order to gain leverage against the idea in favour of what he considers to be more striking images of hell in the contemporary experiences of rape, genocide, abuse, and oppression (70-79). I think this has at least some rhetorical merit to it. After all, in many cases the Bible's hell-talk seems meant to startle us with the frank realities of evil and death and judgment. Thus it may be worthwhile bringing some dynamic equivalent translations to bear where the literal translations have lost some force due to the now-cartoonish pictures of medieval hell-scapes in the modern mind.

But that still leaves us with the question of the actual eschatological realities involved. Bell balks at the idea of infinite divine torture, but reckons at every point that God is actively the Judge (174, 36-38). As is seen in Romans 1-2, God can be wrathful in letting people have their way. There were some critics who said that Bell removed God from the equation, but I do not see how this is the case. Hell can be God's active judgment on human rebellion without being God's design for any of us. God can be active in such a way without being the author of evil or even the one to blame.

But what kind of experience is this post-mortem hell? Is it to be thought of in bodily, spatial, and temporal categories or is this where the "forever" question comes into play as a reconsideration of the kind of reality which is actually entailed? Are our attempts to describe full separation from God from within our life-span as fraught with difficulty as our attempts to imagine eternity from within time?

Bell is adamant that God is anything but "a cruel, mean, vicious tormenter who would ensure that [people] had no escape from an endless future of agony" (174). He adds that "no amount of clever marketing or compelling language or good music or great coffee will be able to disguise" the "glaring, untenable, unacceptable" construal wherein "your God is loving one second and cruel the next" and "will punish people for all eternity for sins committed in a few short years" (175). Not leaving us much guesswork here, is he? But not so fast.

For all its rhetoric, when it comes back to the descriptions of hell, Love Wins reminds us that Jesus himself told parables like the sheep and the goats "to wake us up" (197). These stories contain "strong, shocking images of judgment and separation in which people miss out on rewards and celebrations and opportunities," presumably because the choices we make "matter more than we can begin to imagine" (196). Thus, on page 93 Bell concludes:

[W]e need a loaded, volatile, adequately violent, dramatic, serious word to describe the very real consequences we experience when we reject the good and true and beautiful life that God has for us. We need a word that refers to the big, wide, terrible evil that comes from the secrets hidden deep within our hearts all the way to the massive, society-wide collapse and chaos that comes when we fail to live in God's world God's way. And for that, the word 'hell' works quite well. Let's keep it.

Of course, Bell is less disposed to speak of hell as a place of fire and brimstone, but he does seem to believe that it involves consciousness, and that the experience will be more in line with the hellish parts of earth than otherwise. Here again I think we are in more amicable territory with the words of the statement than with what the C&MA probably means by it. The statement doesn't describe Bell's view, but it doesn't have to exclude it. (It kind of depends how we interpret statements of faith.) "Torment" may not be the word he'd use, and "forever" would require some imagination, but on the face of it the statement might work for him if he really wanted to be in the C&MA.

Frankly, I think if he were looking for a denomination he could do a lot worse. Historically speaking, many in the C&MA will have shared Bell's Arminian leanings and most certainly his missionary impulses.While concern about hell-fire has traditionally played into the C&MA's motives for mission, these have historically been more conditioned by the compassion that springs from the good news of the gospel and the hope that Christ's kingdom might come on earth as it is in heaven. Indeed, the final article of the C&MA statement says "the second coming of the Lord Jesus Christ is ... the believer’s blessed hope, [and] this vital truth is an incentive for holy living and sacrificial service toward the completion of Christ’s commission," citing Matthew 24:14 in support. As mentioned before, Rob Bell is right in the spirit of A.B. Simpson here, and so there is plenty of common ground to be had.

But would the C&MA want Bell? Or would it (should it?) see his treatment of hell as a liability? I think it possible that the two could be reconciled if they so desired, although obviously there would be interpretive work to be done in both directions. I trust we would be willing to so engage one another. This brings us to the actual purpose of this series, which is obviously to ask not about Bell personally but about the sympathizers or opponents he may have in the denomination already. My conclusion is this: Those pastors and members in the C&MA who might be at odds in regard to Rob Bell and our statement of faith should be able to come to a mutual understanding, even if it involves some mutual theological sharpening along the way.

To this end I hope my series might be helpful, and yet my dissatisfaction with the extent of my own exegetical and theological work thus far employed tells me that I would have plenty to learn in the future myself. I only hope that in this matter my denomination will be willing to move from the communion table to the foyer and and the board meeting together, willing to open our Bibles and speak the truth in love. I said before that this doctrine of hell isn't a hill I'd personally like to die on, but something I would be willing to give my life for would be a church that can theologize together without fear of caricatured dismissals, ungracious labeling, or arrogant interpretation-thumping. I would need a church to help me avoid those things myself.

In that regard, let me close with Bell's own appeal, which is that we need to come to terms with the fact that we're going to have plenty to disagree about and react against, and so we are best to come to peace that passes our understanding rather than perpetually recoiling in hostility to those who tarnish our vision of God (194-195). Bitterness and reactionism aren't going to help. There is a downward spiral and there is a miraculous interjection of self-giving grace that has resurrection as its promise of peace and hope. Which do we celebrate at the communion table, and how much does it really depend on us?

We could define love a thousand different ways and make it our god and it wouldn't really get us anywhere. Such love may not win, but we do believe that Jesus does. So we pray for his kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, and we love our neighbours and even our enemies in the way that Christ has loved us from first to last.

Recently "Published"

2011-04-18T10:00:00.008+01:00

An essay I gave at an Oxford Postgraduate Conference last fall has now been published online as part of an e-book of sorts at the Oxford Research Archive. My friend Martin's essay is chapter seven, and mine is chapter eight, called "Once for All and New Every Morning: Forgiveness in the Theology of Miroslav Volf and Karl Barth." If you follow the link you can download it from the sidebar on the right. Since Volf got me into reconciliation theology and Barth has kind of taken over, this essay tracks a bit of that journey and shows me wrestling with some of the finer issues involved as they relate to the conference theme, which was "The Present Moment".

I continue to welcome your thoughts on the Rob Bell review. If anyone would like an unofficial but reformatted and slightly more succinct version in a Word document, drop me an email at coutts dot jon at gmail dot com, as I do have one available. I also would be willing to present these thoughts more formally or lead discussion on these matters in the Canadian C&MA context in the coming year.

You Scored as Neo Orthodox

2011-04-15T19:40:00.005+01:00

Just took a quiz on my theological persuasion. It is probably not far off. See my results below, and if you take it let me know what you get and whether you think it accurate.

Neo orthodox

75%

Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan

71%

Emergent/Postmodern

54%

Roman Catholic

46%

Modern Liberal

29%

Reformed Evangelical

21%

Charismatic/Pentecostal

21%

Classical Liberal

18%

Fundamentalist

11%

You are neo-orthodox. You reject the human-centredness and scepticism of liberal theology, but neither do you go to the other extreme and make the Bible the only issue for faith. You believe that Christ is God's most important revelation to humanity, and the Trinity is hugely important in your theology. The Bible is also important because it points us to the revelation of Christ. You are influenced by Karl Barth and P T Forsyth.

Liverpool 3 - Manchester City 0

2011-04-14T21:15:00.006+01:00

If you happened to hear the result from Monday night, or better yet saw the highlights, you'll know my trip to Anfield was almost everything I could have wanted. This isn't the greatest video footage, but it gives you the idea.

Besides the traditional anthem, before the game there was also a very moving minute of silence for the 96 who died in the Hillsborough disaster in 1989. I was glad to have had the opportunity to take part in the memorial.

This week: York, SST, and LFC

2011-04-10T16:43:00.017+01:00

Tomorrow I'm off to York with a large contingent of Aberdonians for the three day annual conference of the UK's Society for the Study of Theology. Last year the conference was in Manchester and it was a great time, even though the plenary papers were rather disappointing and it was up to the seminar papers to pick up the slack. This year, however, the conference theme is the doctrine of Scripture and not only do the plenaries look highly interesting but the seminars are chalk full of desirable options as well. There are plenty of intriguing papers, but below you'll find a list of those which have most immediately caught my eye.

First of all, having heard dry runs of several of the papers already, I can say that all seven delivered by my colleagues from the University of Aberdeen will be brilliant. They include:

~ Joe McGarry - "Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Scripture, and Formation in Christ"
~ Leon Harris - "The Bible as Relational Indwelling Knowledge: Colin E. Gunton's Pneumatological Approach to Inspiration and Revelation"
~ Justin Stratis - "On the Not-Necessarily-Odious Doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy"
~ Ben Rhodes - "Karl Barth on the Spirit of Scripture: The Miracle of the Circle of Inspiration"
~ James King - "The Meaning of Adiaphora"
~ Darren Sumner - "On the Dispensability (and Indispensability) of the Extra Calvinisticum"
~ Martin Westerholm - "Faith, Memory and Love: Augustine's Trinitarian Way of Knowing"

There are a few others going down to York University (pictured here) from Aberdeen University and I must say that, though I don't mention them much on the blog, being around these theologians week after week has had the double benefit of (a) making me realize how much I have to learn and (b) helping me hopefully learn some of it. Beside theirs, other intriguing papers include:

~ "The Offensiveness of Scripture" (Hugh S. Pyper)
~ "Reception History, HR Jauss, and the Formative Power of Scripture" (Anthony C. Thiselton)
~ "Scripture as the Voice of God" (Henk Van den Belt)
~ "The Role of Community in Scriptural Authority" (Josh Reeves)
~ "The Living Authority of Scripture" (Angus Paddison)
~ "Interpreting Psalms for the Church" (Ellen Charry)
~ "Words have become cheap" (Ian Clausen)
~ "Dragons, Darkness, Winds, and Spirits: How Bible Translators have dealt with Genesis 1:2" (Daniel King)
~ "The Nephesh Hayyah of Humans and Animals" (Kris Hiuser)
~ "Divine Animals: Imago Dei, human creatureliness, and the commonality of all creation" (Matthew Barton)
~ "Schleiermacher and the Doctrine of Scripture" (Paul Nimmo)
~ "Congregational Hermeneutics" (Andrew Rogers)
~ "Cormac McCarthy's The Road and the Book of Job" (Christopher Thornhill)
~ "Barth's Ethics of Responsibility" (Michael Leydon)
~ "Text of Submission or Text of Equality: Revisiting gender-biased scriptures and its impact on women's roles in churches in Hong Kong" (Jenny Wong)

And last, but certainly not least, seeing as I am in the area I will be skipping the Monday night session of SST, jetting west on the train, and fulfilling a (nearly) life-long dream:

Oh, and in the week to come I hope to conclude my series on hell, the C&MA and Rob Bell here on the blog, so stay tuned.

Karl Barth on the Question of 'Universalism'

2011-04-08T09:16:00.010+01:00

If you read my last excerpt from Barth (about the judgement of God carried out on Jesus Christ), likely the question of universalism (or the ultimate scope of salvation) came to mind. Well, about 1500 pages later Barth addressed this, not so much with a dogmatic answer but with a two-sided re-framing of the question:

"A final word is demanded concerning the threat under which the perverted human situation stands .... Can we count upon it or not that this threat will not be finally executed, ... that the sick man and even the sick Christian will not die and be lost rather than be raised and delivered from the dead and live? This question belongs to eschatology, but two delimitations may be apposite in this context.

First, .... To the man who persistently tries to change the truth into untruth God does not owe eternal patience and therefore deliverance any more than He does those provisional manifestations [of His grace]. We should be denying ... that evil attempt and our own participation in it if ... we were to permit ourselves to postulate a withdrawal of that threat and in this sense to expect or maintain anapokatastasis or universal reconciliation as the goal and end of all things.

No such postulate can be made even though we appeal to the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Even though theological consistency might seem to lead our thoughts and utterances most clearly in this direction, we must not arrogate to ourselves that which can be given and received only as a free gift.

Secondly, there is no good reason why we should forbid ourselves, or be forbidden, openness to the possibility that in the reality of God and man in Jesus Christ there is contained much more than we might expect and therefore the supremely unexpected withdrawal of that final threat, i.e., that in the truth of this reality there might be contained the super-abundant promise of the final deliverance of all men.

To be more explicit, there is no good reason why we should not be open to this possibility.... [in fact] we are surely commanded the more definitely to hope and pray for it as we may do already on this side of this final possibility, i.e., to hope and pray cautiously and yet distinctly that, in spite of everything which may seem quite conclusively to proclaim the opposite, His compassion should not fail, and that in accordance with His mercy which is 'new every morning' He 'will not cast off for ever' (La. 3:22f., 31)."

(Karl Barth, The Doctrine of Reconciliation 3, 477-478)

On my first read of Barth's theology I thought he was just a master at avoiding the question, but I've come to see that he simply did not want speculations about the future to crowd out what actually had to be said on the basis of Christ's revelation.

"In your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have." (1 Peter 3:15)

Basically I think Barth wants to say that universalism is a reasonable hope in Christ, and while it can't be more than a hope, it can't be deemed unreasonable either.

Karl Barth on God's Judgement

2011-04-07T10:21:00.019+01:00

In one of the online classes that I instruct the students are evaluated on their correct memorization of the Apostles Creed, and it so happens that someone lost a mark for forgetting the line "He descended into hell." To my chagrin, however, the student pointed out that the line did not appear in the course binder's copy of the Creed! So the mark was given back and we have corrected the situation. But it struck me: What is lost if we forget "He descended into hell"?

I don't know if I can answer that at the moment. However, before I get to the rest of my series I want to pause on two excerpts from Karl Barth that speak well to the kind of thinking I've had in the back of my mind lately. Tomorrow I'll post Barth's response to the question of universalism from the final volume of his Church Dogmatics. But first consider his account the judgement of God in his section on justification. Hopefully these excerpts speak for themselves, but let me know if any questions arise from reading them out of context.

[Christ] has therefore suffered for all men what they had to suffer: their end as evil-doers; their overthrow as the enemies of God; their extirpation in virtue of the superiority of the divine right over their wrong. They had to suffer this, but they could not suffer it, not one of them.

[And] even if it had been, or were to be, laid upon one of them really to taste and experience in his suffering and death the judgment of God on himself and his wrong, how could he experience it for others, for all others? And even if it were laid on all men really to taste and experience the judgment of God, even if they were willing and able to do so, how could they who have given offence, suffering merely what they have deserved, banish the offence from the world by their death, even their eternal death? For the offence would still be there. It would not be as though it had never happened. It would not be made good. As something which had been it would remain as an unerased blot on the world of God's creation, an element in its history.
And even if by their suffering of the divine judgment they were able to erase the blot, even if their suffering and death were costly enough for that, would not the will of God for elect and created man be given the lie by their destruction? To satisfy His righteousness they would have to perish genuinely and finally, to fall from His hand. But then God would not be the God who has sworn to be faithful to them. Or He for His part would not have kept His oath and covenant with them.

(Incidentally, this may explain why Barth would not have been an annihilationist. Not because of some abstracted Platonic belief on the irreversible immortality of the soul but because God made this covenant to be with people, and their total perishing would be his reneging on that covenant. God would be totally free and in His rights to wipe humanity out, but God has freely bound Himself to them, and therein lies our hope and our warning.)

Barth goes on to say that what we must suffer can be suffered for us only by God Himself as a human being, 'if it is to be suffered in accordance with the righteousness of God' and to 'the erasure of that blot from the world of God's creation':

And Jesus Christ was ready and gave Himself up to suffer and perish and die in that way—in accordance with the perfect righteousness of God. God judged the world in Him — and judged it in righteousness — by delivering Himself up in Him to be judged. To suffer validly and effectively for us His own judgment upon us, He condescended to us, He humbled Himself so profoundly, He was willing to be so lowly, and in our flesh the eternal Son, the man Jesus of Nazareth, rendered the obedience of humility to the eternal Father, thus fully satisfying the righteousness of God on its negative side, the side of wrath.

God identified Himself with man in Jesus Christ. In the person of this one man He set a term, an end, He was Himself the end which must come upon us all. And because of that our wrong has in fact become a thing of the past. It is no longer there. It is extinguished. It is present only as something which has been eternally removed and destroyed. And we men as the doers of it, as those who willingly identified ourselves with it, are dead and buried. We, too, are in fact a thing of the past. We are present only to the extent that our existence as such has this past. In Him our sin and we ourselves have perished....

Barth explains that this was not merely a matter of Jesus being the object of the Father's wrath. Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is also the acting subject, the Judge, in this event.

He was lowly where we are proud. He condescended to us where we arrogantly try to rise up. He the Lord became a servant. He the Judge became the judged. He accepted what was laid upon Him by the Father. He let the will of the Father be His will. He drank the bitter cup instead of putting it from Him. He suffered the shame of the cross. And all this in freedom, in free obedience, in the obedience of humility....

He has not merely suffered for us, but suffering for us He has done the right for us, and therefore suffered effectively and redemptively for us. Judged in Him we cannot be to-morrow the proud men we were yesterday. Those men are no longer there, for yesterday we were delivered up to the divine judgment. As those who are freed from our past in Him, we no longer have the freedom (the false freedom) to return to our old pride.

Between us and our past there stands positively and divisively the act of right which is His death.... On the other side, the justification of man in Jesus Christ is the establishment of his right, the introduction of the life of a new man who is righteous before God.

(Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/1, 532-534, emphases and paragraph breaks added for clarity)

I take from this an important clarification. If (if!) one were to hold a reasonable hope for universal salvation it would not be to the detriment of the justice of God or the diminishment of the biblical view of God as an active Judge. Why? Because the reason for the hope would be that God's judgement has been carried out quite actively already. This not only according to the Father's will but also the Son's, thus not only carried out from the divine side but also already on ours.

Now, hopefully we all know -- and hopefully we all believe -- the line of the creed that follows "He descended into hell."

The Coen Brothers in San Francisco?

2011-04-06T09:02:00.010+01:00

The deadline for paper proposals for the annual conference of the American Academy of Religion came shortly after I'd seen the new Coen brothers' film, True Grit. I was inspired. Unsure whether I'd be able to go to San Francisco in November or not, I pitched a paper. It has been accepted, and I need to confirm with them whether I'm going. See the short abstract below.

"Relative Grit: The Mutual Reshaping of Gender & Honour in Film"

Both the 1969 and 2010 cinematic adaptations of Charles Portis' True Grit portray a feminine infiltration of the masculine wild west. The result is not a conflation of the genders but the revelation of their mutual adaptivity, which has both negative and positive potentiality not only for men and women but for the honour codes of society. This paper will detail these insights based primarily on Joel and Ethan Coen’s recent film, including comparisons with Henry Hathaway’s adaptation and the original novel in order to highlight ways that honour codes, gender, and their dynamic of mutual reshaping have changed (or not changed) in America in the last forty years.

The subtitle needs a bit of work. Anyway, I'm interested in this on two levels. This would be my second essay on a Coen brothers film and I love doing such things. But I'm also always fascinated by societal gender role and identity studies and would love the excuse to go on a side trail from my dissertation for a couple weeks and make sure I get my sociology right. Then again, a couple weeks is a couple weeks, and going to San Francisco isn't cheap. Guess I should have thought of that before. This is a decent academic opportunity though, and I'm excited to have this decision to make.

Biblical Backing for the C&MA View of Hell, Part 3

2011-04-02T22:59:00.007+01:00

In this post I offer a four point summary of my provisional analysis of the Christian & Missionary Alliance in Canada's statement of faith as it concerns the doctrine of hell. To catch up on the series, see the intro, the examination of the statement, and the first two parts of my back-check on its biblical footnotes.

1. Article five's "destiny" of "existence forever in conscious torment"

Having examined the statement of faith I have little doubt that the framer's intent for the fifth article was to assert the following specifications on behalf of its members and workers: Though it goes unnamed in the article, hell is

the finalized God-enacted judgement of impenitent fallen humanity; involving a state of being with infinite duration wherein persons are ever aware of their pain.

The justice in this lies in the fact that all humanity has rebelled against the life of God, and if one wonders why one is saved when others are not, one has to (a) trust that God is just (see article 11) and (b) take this as a motive for missions.

2. The biblical backing

Although I do not wish to pretend that statement's footnotes are meant as comprehensive proof-texts, based on the biblical references provided I concluded that

the article seems to have support for (a) the notion of a finalized "destiny" but not necessarily for (b) the insistence that it entail "existence forever in conscious torment."

In the case of (a), what else can we conclude when Jesus tells those on his left to "depart" for "eternal punishment"? Whenever this takes place, be it many days of reckoning or one, the determination seems pretty binding. There doesn't seem in these verses to be any option left open for repentance (although neither the statement of faith nor the verses in question explicitly exclude further discussion that might be had on this matter).

In the case of (b), when we see that the punishment and the destruction are eternal, on the basis of these two passages we could leave open the possibility that, while it may involve (a) an infinite duration of self-aware suffering, it might also refer to (b) an eternally binding decision in which the person is separated from the life of God and either (b.i) destroyed or (b.ii) punished in some indefinite after-time with no duration of the sort we'd be familiar with.

3. Further thoughts on biblical interpretation

Although I am anxious to call it a day with this series, it does seem to me that there are a few open avenues of biblical interpretation on those passages that inform our view of hell. I am not sure exactly which of them I'd land on, if push came to shove (and I'd kind of rather it didn't), but I do see some initial credibility in each of them and would love it if our denomination either clarified the dogmatism of its own position or left some room (either temporarily or open-endedly) for a wider range of interpretation on these matters. I am sure there are others, but the three basic streams of interpretation that seem plausible to me are as follows:

(a) Apocalyptic:

The passages indicating "eternal fire", "eternal punishment", and "eternal destruction" could be seen to be utilizing the language of old- and inter-testamental apocalyptic literature in order to indicate ultimate realities. Perhaps the imagery is meant to garner a theological understanding of two kingdoms in competition; perhaps to hold two pathways at play in our moral character development and ethical scenarios; perhaps to depict the urgency and the severity of the stakes of daily life, especially where our comfort-level with the evils of our time threaten to dull our senses. Invisible realms are exposed and true reality is laid out for the reader. Every moment hell and heaven are at stake.

I'd be willing to entertain arguments that some, if not many, of the texts in question are to be read this way. There is some precedent for it: After all, we already take these passages in an ethical direction, as motivation for missions or holy living. Plus, we've dialled back the specificity of our statement of faith on eschatology before. The C&MA had its roots in postmillennialism before it landed on premillennialism in its statement of faith, but not long ago it took such specification out in order to leave room for a legitimate variety of interpretations. (Good thing too, since I've basically leaned toward amillennialism the entire time I've been a C&MA worker!) In some ways this apocalyptic reading of the hell passages reminds me of amillennialism. Hell and heaven are a bit different than the millennium, but the issue is not unrelated.

(b) Highly Metaphorical

In this view, one might say the passages describing hell serve the purposes in (a), and yet also signify in very image-laden ways a certain destiny that awaits the unsaved - doing so in words that are highly symbolic of something we simply cannot fathom. For instance, when the Bible describes God as having a giant body, we don't presume God is "super-big", but beyond "bigness". Of course, descriptions of hell are not the same thing as God Himself, but the language might be in that metaphorical ball park. The basic idea is that "eternal fire" indicates something, and yet the language and the warnings against over-speculation lead us to conclude that this something defies further description on this side of the spatial/temporal divide.

In this camp one might say that "eternal destruction" is a kind of intended oxymoron meant to point to a kind of negative-life of separateness from God which pervades in the indefinite after-time which follows our time on earth. Of course in some contexts it is much easier and more evocative to just say "eternal destruction", but if we do want to spell it out further we need to remain as ambiguous as the imagery and the canonical theology ask us to.

By the way, to take something metaphorically is not to say either way whether the reality being signified is any "worse" or "better" than, say, a "literal" rendering, but is to say that we do damage to it by specifying further in the mode of anything more than imaginative paraphrase.

In this view the biblical depictions of heaven and hell are to be taken as literally as possible. There may be metaphors, but even then they are pretty direct, one-to-one metaphors signifying precise outcomes. Thus, being "cast into eternal fire" means exactly that, necessitating a body that can burn (and feel the pain of it) without burning up. Or, it might be a fire, it might not, the point is: "existence forever in conscious torment".

This straight-across reading is often called the "literal" one and it is often assumed that it takes the Bible most seriously. But this is a bit of a misnomer, for two reasons. (1) Taking the Bible as literature (i.e., literally) ought to mean paying attention to metaphor- and genre-indicators rather than pretending the literature itself always means to be read "plainly" (i.e., woodenly). (2) As mentioned above, taking these things as highly metaphorical does not necessarily mean the are any less striking or serious. (In fact, where images of devil-horns and pitchforks and fire-caverns have decreased the effect of the apocalyptic language it may be that taking them as metaphors can revive some of the effect.)

It seems to me that even on the most literal reading possible, many of the texts in question ask us to be careful not to assume too much. Let the images do the talking and don't over-speculate about hell's geography or chronology. Obviously, the C&MA statement only gave a few texts to work with, but let me take a few examples from The Resurgence, a website fairly opposed to Rob Bell in recent months. In their article entitled "To Hell with Hell?", they translated the Greek aion to mean "unending" (which we considered in the last post and found to be open to debate), and used a summed-up list of passages to support their conclusion that "the Bible speaks of hell as conscious, eternal punishment." Some examples of how this all gets a bit misleading follow:

Revelation 14:11 is quoted to say that “the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image."

Of course, what lasts forever in this image is the smoke. There are indications that the torment itself may last "day" and "night" (i.e., forever), but in Revelation 20 it is just the devil and his angels who are tormented "forever", and in this current passage it may not necessarily mean an infinite number of days and nights. I mean, they are tormented in the presence of "the holy angels and the Lamb." Does the Lamb stand watching over this torment incessantly for infinity? It is a stark and frightening image that ought to drive home the seriousness of rebellion against God. But I'm not sure it needs speculative elaboration - the images are powerful enough on their own.

John 5:28–29 is referenced to say: "Those in hell suffer intense and excruciating pain. This pain is likely both emotional/spiritual and physical."

These verses actually just say that a day is coming when all in the graves will rise for judgement, some to life and some to condemnation. Jesus is talking, and his point is that his judgement is just (v. 30).

Matthew 25:41 and Mark 9:48 are referenced to say, "The suffering never ends," and Matthew 3:12 to say: "The wicked will be 'burned with unquenchable fire.'"

In these verse we have an "eternal fire", a "fire [that] is not quenched", and a "worm [that] does not die". Even if the fire is literal and the eternal is unending, it is the fire and the worm that never die. In the Matthew 3 reference John the Baptist says the chaff are burned at the judgement. Surely they represent the unrepentant but, again, it is the fire that is unquenchable, and in this case the chaff gets "burned up".

We could go on, but I've probably made my point and I don't want to be cynical. It just seems to me that that the passages are asking both more from us and less. More in the way of getting the point, and less in the way of raising the imagined and speculated details to the level of dogmatism.

4. A Modest Proposal:

In my first post I suggested that upon further inspection I would hope to come to a provisional conclusion along one of the following lines. The Statement of faith could either be:

(1) Left as is, thus excluding certain views.
(2) Expanded to include an alternate view.
(3) Amended so as to allow more variance.
(4) Left as is, with ample room for local interpretation.

I had intended to defer this until after I'd read Rob Bell and compared his view, but I'm prepared to say already that if I had the opportunity to vote on it today I would vote #3. I wouldn't mind if the C&MA amended its statement of faith so as to allow for more interpretive variance on this matter. I say this not because I have a solid, dogmatic view I wish to hold up against it, but because I don't. That said, I do not feel the currently asserted specifications are necessary for a statement of faith.

Alas, as much as I'd love our statement to be more minimalistic in some areas and to be vitally debated every half-decade or so, I'm not sure this is a hill I want to die on at the moment. If the fifth article is left as is, I think it is likely to be highly problematic for some, but it may also be possible for local congregations and districts to interpret the statement in conversation with their members and official workers and come to an amicable understanding. If you are eavesdropping here from the C&MA I encourage you to chime in an dialogue with me about this rather than hold it against me or leave me in the dark on what you think I'm missing. Let me know if you (a) think I'm out to lunch or (b) think this one needs to be taken to General Assembly. (You can do so by email if you like).

In the next post I ask: Could Rob Bell sign the C&MA statement of faith?

Biblical Backing for the C&MA View of Hell, Part 2

2011-03-31T11:34:00.014+01:00

The destiny of the impenitent and unbelieving is existence forever in conscious torment, but that of the believer is everlasting joy and bliss (Matthew 25:41-46; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10).

This analysis will be the context for my own response to Rob Bell's Love Wins. Check back for the intro, an exploration of the statement, and the first part of my assessment of its biblical backing. What follows are my reflections on the last two passages cited in support of the above article.

Matthew 25:41-46

(41) Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. (42) For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, (43) I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’ (44) They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ (45) He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ (46) Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.

This is from the end of Jesus' famous parable of the sheep and the goats, in which Jesus tells the story of a King who divides the nations up and then tells those on the right: "Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world." The parable is referenced in the third article of the C&MA statement of faith to support the affirmation that Jesus "will come again to establish His kingdom of righteousness and peace" (referencing his promise at the ascension as well). In the fifth article the concern appears to be a bit more for the people on Jesus' left (since only verses 41-46 are referenced).

Missing from the first footnote but implied in the second are the above verses which tell us that those "blessed by the Father" are the ones who give food, drink, clothes, and visitation to those in need, because basically they did so to Jesus himself. In the parable Jesus (once again!) identifies with those who are suffering and makes the blessing of His Father's Kingdom dependent upon those who show mercy and compassion. I tend to think that Jesus is giving this parable not to add fodder to end-time speculation but to call out a certain discipleship and mission in this world. He is calling for the life that lives in accord with this apocalyptic vision of reality. People are broken and needy. God is about overcoming that fissure. We are either for Him or against him.

By referencing this parable in support of the fifth article, then, the C&MA (at least subconsciously) holds in mind a thicker concept of the type of "believing" that corresponds to "everlasting joy and bliss." Once again, the C&MA's roots as both a holiness and a social gospel movement are shining through the white spaces of the text. Of course we would say that one is not saved by works but by faith. However, it is clearly part and parcel of belief to turn in love to one's neighbour. This puts some focus on what eternal life (and everlasting destruction) look like in this space and time.

Narrowing in on the specific topic at hand, however, in the verses cited above we are told that those who did not help the hungry, thirsty, naked or imprisoned would be the ones to "go away to eternal punishment". This in support of the statement that the "destiny of the impenitent and unbelieving is existence forever in conscious torment." Do the verses support this?

In verse 41 we have Jesus saying "depart from me you who are cursed" and the description of their destination as the "eternal fire" which is "prepared for the devil and his angels." This is filled out further in verse 46, where we are told that "they will go away" into "eternal punishment" (κόλασιν αἰώνιον) rather than "eternal life" (ζωὴν αἰώνιον). What is all this telling us?

A lot seems to hinge on how we interpret the word αἰώνιον (eternal). Would Bell be right to lean harder on a qualitative rather than quantitative interpretation, taking it as an indefinite time period rather than one which is necessarily of an infinite duration? (I'm not sure he denies the latter, but he definitely stresses the former). And if this is one of the legitimate renderings, does the C&MA statement of faith nonetheless mark it out of bounds?

Other important words are the nouns for which αἰώνιον is the adjective: κόλασιν (punishment) and πῦρ (fire). Assuming "eternal" refers to a quantity of time, is the punishment eternally experienced or eternally binding? Is the fire literal or metaphorical? Since the statement of faith takes a step back and talks about "torment" in general, it clearly does not wish to make the literal/metaphorical question one of dogma. However, it does suggest that the punishment is experienced over an infinite duration, whether the fire is literal or not.

We'll deal with αἰώνιον (eternal) in the next passage. What about κόλασιν (punishment)? The word appears in this form twice in the New Testament, and a good smattering of times elsewhere in ancient literature. On its own I don't see it requiring a necessity of duration, but it could certainly do so with the adjective "eternal". In 1 John 4:18 the word makes an interesting appearance: "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." Not sure what to do with that at the moment so I'll leave it there.

If we expand our search of NT usages to include other forms of the word we also find the religious leaders trying to figure out how to "punish" the early Christians in Acts 4:21, and we find the Lord keeping the "unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment" in 2 Peter 2:9 (NASB). In the latter reference it seems that the punishment ends rather than begins at judgment, but I am not sure how much to make of it. The context is a reminder that if God sent sinning angels to hell (ταρταρόω, the underworld), sent the ungodly ancients a flood, and burned Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes, then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly and punish the false prophets. Reference is also made to the rescues of Noah's family and of Lot, who, curiously enough, was "tormented" during his life in Sodom by all the lawless deeds around him. All this 2 Peter uses to encourage the readers that they can trust God to preserve them in their trials and to administer justice in time.

2 Thessalonians 1:7-10

(7) This will happen when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. (8) He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. (9) They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might (10) on the day he comes to be glorified in his holy people and to be marveled at among all those who have believed. This includes you, because you believed our testimony to you.

This passage does double duty for the C&MA statement as well. Article ten talks about "a bodily resurrection of the just and of the unjust" which is "for the latter a resurrection unto judgment," and it references these verses again.

The verses cited come in the context of Paul's encouragement of a church in Thessalonica which is suffering at the hands of its "own countrymen" what churches in Judea were suffering from the Jews (1 Thess. 2:14). Acts 17 tells us that Thessalonica is the place Paul and Silas had to escape from because their initial preaching started riots and got church members thrown in prison. Paul did not leave for his own safety but for the sake of that church. They were safer if prominent members of the Christian mission were not in their midst throwing the city "into turmoil" (Acts 17:8). Paul later sends Timothy to check how the Thessalonian church is doing under persecution, and 2 Thessalonians is Paul expressing both his pleasure at the news of their resolve and his encouragement that they not lose heart.

Thus in verses 7-10 we see Paul assuring them that, despite appearances, when "the Lord Jesus is revealed" there will be "punishment" for "those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of the Lord Jesus." The word translated "punish" here is δίκη, which refers more to the sentencing than its result. Despite the doubts and discouragements disheartening the faith of the Thessalonians, they should expect that the cause of Jesus in the world will be vindicated. Verse 6 assures them that "God is just."

Verse 10 says that one day Jesus will "be glorified in his holy people" and "marveled at among all those that have believed." With that Paul turns his attention to the present day and prays for Jesus to be "glorifed in" the Thessalonians so that "he may fulfill every good purpose" and "act" which has been "prompted by" their faith (11-12). He wants them to keep on in faith, hope and love even though their movement in the city is met with harshness and oppression.

In verse 7 we see that God will pay back the oppressors and give relief to the oppressed "when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels" (v. 7). The literal translation of verse 6 indicates that their "pay-back" is commensurate with the affliction that they have been inflicting. The image provided calls to mind a second coming with judgement and wrath for that which is opposed to Christ's purposes for creation.

Interesting that Jesus is "revealed (ἀποκάλυψις) from heaven" in verse 7 and "comes to be glorified in" people in verse 10. This doesn't necessarily contradict the images of descent from the sky that take place in other passages, but the image is, here at least, more a matter of revelation, apocalypse, or perhaps realization. The NICNT notes that the retribution that the verses talk about is not necessarily subsequent to but part of the revelation of Jesus Christ. It also notes that where other apocalyptic literature would have gone on in gory detail, this account seems more reticent, preferring instead to talk about this apocalypse coming "from heaven", "with the angels", and "in blazing fire" (NICNT 1991, 201). Some hold that the 'blazing fire' describes the punishment, but this commentary reminds us that it more directly describes the revealing of the Lord Jesus. These may not be mutually exclusive, mind you, but this verse is not giving us a literal description of hell. Fire is not uncommonly a "symbol of the divine presence" (202).

Basically I think Paul is paraphrasing Jesus' saying in Matthew 10:28: "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell."The contrast between the immediate threat of death and the ultimate destruction of hell gives a Buckley's-dose of perspective, but the fear is reserved for the Person on whom such determinations depend. Paul encourages the Thessalonians to keep on with grace and love (presumably even to their enemies) in the faith that justice is in the hands of God, and will supersede any suffering they may be undergoing now.

But let's deal with the description of judgement that is given (v. 8). The word used here does not imply "vindictiveness" but "unwavering justice" for those who "do not know" and "do not obey God"; who are "culpably ignorant" of the Lord Jesus (203). Their sentence is "everlasting destruction" (ὄλεθρον αἰώνιον) wherein they are "shut out", or "away" (ἀπὸ) from the presence of the one they oppose.

When we read of "eternal destruction" we get the point that it is the frightful alternative to "eternal life". The word used for destruction is ὄλεθρον, and at first glance the word seems to be repeated in the next chapter of Thessalonians, but there the word is καταργέω, which can mean to bring to an end. Here we have a word implying utter ruin. What kind of duration it has is perhaps not a point for speculative detail about end-times scenarios, but we have no reason to doubt that it wishes to carry all the force of a heavy indication of the life-paths open before us. The point is that "life here and now has a high and serious dignity" and "facing up to the gospel invitation is a choice fraught with the most solemn and lasting consequences" (205). But what do we mean by "lasting"?

Let's get to this word αἰώνιον (eternal). The NICNT says that here, as elsewhere, it is an adjective meaning "age-long", recalling that the New Testament doesn't ever really bother saying whether that age has an end (204). The Greek-English Lexicon of the NT and Early Christian Literature indicates that αἰών is often used to refer to "a long period of time without reference to a beginning or end" (32). However, the word can also refer to a specific age of history and be taken to imply an infinite span of time. So I'm not sure how to decide which meaning applies here, aside from context. The lexicon places both the texts we're dealing with in the category of a "period of unending duration" (33). But if Rob Bell wants to suggest that the word does not necessitate a picture of infinite duration (which I'm not sure he does), I suppose he has some license to suggest it just refers to an frightfully indefinite "after-time" (my words). The C&MA statement of faith does not seem to leave this option open.

Whether the word study leaves us with the idea that a period of infinite duration is in mind here, we still have to ask whether it is being literal or metaphorical. What if, when it applies to that which follows our time on earth, it is using a time-bound analogy to represent that which is unmeasurable according to time as we know it?

Let me put it another way. 1 Timothy 1:17 says: "Now unto the King eternal (αἰών), immortal, invisible, the only wise God, [be] honour and glory for ever (αἰών) and ever (αἰών). Amen." I get the impression that these are apophatic rather than kataphatic descriptions of God being given here. We are being told that God is not bound to mortality, visibility, or time as we know it. God transcends these things. I doubt we want to say that alongside God there is this thing called "time" by which He can be measured. God created time as we know it when God created the world.

Difference is, there we're talking about God and here we're talking about people. People who are, according to the statement of faith, raised bodily for the judgement incurred. If they can have bodies, presumably they can have time. Nonetheless, if the New Testament is in any case using spatial/temporal images to convey realities that are beyond them, and if ancients and medievals pictured hell according to notions of immortal souls or subterranean underworlds, I wonder how legitimate it is for moderns to translate that into contemporary cosmology or metaphysics? Or, considering the amount of speculation this would involve, perhaps to let it stand as a mysterious and staggering apocalyptic imagery meant to convey theological truths about ultimate reality?

I don't know. But I also don't think I'm being unfaithful to the biblical text by asking. On its own it kind of seems to beg such questions, doesn't it? I mean, imagine a "destruction" which never ends. Isn't that kind of an oxymoron? What if it is meant as a metaphorical hyperbole? We seem happy to take some of Jesus other statements that way. Couldn't the point be to drive home the seriousness of the path-ways before us without engendering speculation into geography or chronology of the after-life? One would be wise not to give either a hard-sell or a soft-sell to that apocalyptic imagery. The language kind of speaks for itself. Does it need the C&MA's "existence forever in conscious torment"? What does a doctrinal statement of faith need to specify, and leave unspecified?

However we answer that, the take-away point of the passage seems to be that those doing the afflicting are ultimately returned to the source and end of their own afflictions. When Jesus is revealed they will be away from (rather than enfolded in) "the presence of the Lord" and "the majesty of his power" which "comes to be glorified in his holy people and marveled at among all those who have believed" (v. 9-10). Other apocalyptics may have dwelt on or marvelled at the destruction to be avoided, but here it is the glory of God's majestic intentions that is the marvel. So we see that there is a new creation coming in Christ and that you have to believe it to see it. The point is, Thessalonians, don't stop believing! This particular passage is not one which was preached on the street corners of Sodom or Ninevah, but a letter to the persecuted from their pastor-at-large. Paul has given his fellow-sufferers reason to hope for the victory of Jesus, despite present appearances.

What shall we say then?

Based on these two passages, does the C&MA statement find the support it needs to affirm (1) a finalized "destiny" which entails (2) "existence forever in conscious torment"? In the first case it seems the answer is Yeah, it seems like it. In the second, Not necessarily.

What else can we picture in terms of "destiny" when the one passage has Jesus tell those on his left to "depart" for "eternal punishment"? Whenever this takes place, that seems pretty binding. In the other passage, I think it entirely possible to read it in terms of a day of reckoning amongst other possible days of reckoning during our time on earth, but even then there doesn't seem in these verses to be any option left open for repentance, as Bell has been reputed to suggest. We'll have to deal with that later. Suffice it for now to say that the C&MA has indeed pointed to passages which seems to support its rendering of things in terms of a sometime-finalized 'destiny'.
However, when we see that the punishment and the destruction are eternal, I think based on these two passages we have to leave open the possibility that, while it could involve (a) an infinite duration of self-aware suffering, it could also refer to (b) an eternally binding decision in which the person is separated from the life of God and either (b.i) destroyed or (b.ii) punished in some eternal "moment" with no duration of the sort we'd be familiar with. I'm not saying I know what interpretation to land on (if any), but I am saying that these particular verses alone do not themselves necessitate a belief in "existence forever in conscious torment".

Where does this leave us? I think another post is merited to tie up some loose ends and transition to an assessment of whether Rob Bell's Love Wins really asks for anything different from what the C&MA would have its members and pastors affirm. Thanks for reading this lengthy post. I would value your feedback thus far.

Biblical Backing for the C&MA View of Hell, Part 1

2011-03-30T11:31:00.012+01:00

This is part three of a series investigating the statement of faith of the Christian & Missionary Alliance in Canada (my home denomination) specifically as it regards its fifth article regarding hell. This will be the context for my own response to Rob Bell's Love Wins. The book is still out on whether I will prefer his interpretation to the C&MA's or vice versa, but I do want to explore their compatibility. If you are just joining me, please observe the instructions to the reader in part one, and catch up with my exploratory ramblings in part two.

In this post I am going to analyze the biblical passages referenced explicitly by the statement of faith in order to assess not only the accuracy of my prior interpretation of it, but also to get a sense of its biblical credibility. I do not pretend that the biblical passages footnoted by the statement are meant to provide comprehensive proof, but they seem the best place to start. If I am unsatisfied with the biblical support I may have to delve deeper. We'll see.

So, without further adieu, here again is the fifth article of the statement, followed by some inquiry into the texts which it cites:

Humankind, originally created in the image and likeness of God (Genesis 1:27), fell through disobedience, incurring thereby both physical and spiritual death. All people are born with a sinful nature, are separated from the life of God, and can be saved only through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ (Romans 8:8; 1 John 2:2). The destiny of the impenitent and unbelieving is existence forever in conscious torment, but that of the believer is everlasting joy and bliss (Matthew 25:41-46; 2 Thessalonians 1:7-10).

In the last post my preliminary exploration of the plausible interpretations convinced me that the most probable intent of this article was to say that the God-enacted destiny of impenitent fallen humanity involves a state of being with infinite duration wherein persons have the ability to be conscious of pain. But let's look up those passages, shall we?

Genesis 1:27

So God created humankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

When utilizing this verse to describe humanity, why does the fifth article insert the word "originally"? Because this part of the statement is about our broken condition. I doubt the statement wants to say that humanity no longer bears the image of God or is no longer God's good creation. I think it means that humanity no longer images God as it once did or ought to do. Things are not the way they are supposed to be. What the statement indicates is that this fall from grace occurred "through disobedience", which has incurred a seismic disruption in the proper Creator/creature relationship.

We might fill this out by saying that the mutual fellowship between humans (and between humans and creation) has hopelessly spiraled into discord. Everything needs restoring and reordering. And the Son of God is the one who brings the image of God in its fullness by his incarnation, death and resurrection in human flesh as the prophesied Son of Man who fulfilled the hopes of Israel. There is yet life for humanity (and creation), and it is according to the work of Jesus Christ. This is how I describe what the statement of faith is tersely indicating.

Romans 8:8

Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.

1 John 2:2

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.

Two short verses are footnoted to support the line: "All people are born with a sinful nature, are separated from the life of God, and can be saved only through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ." This should tell us that the footnotes are not meant as full depictions of the statement's intent or comprehensive detailing of its biblical support. We proceed toward tentative conclusions.

These verses continue the theme of humanity's problem and its salvation. The problem is that it has fallen victim to a disobedient sinful orientation. The 'nature' language of the statement is a bit more static than I'd prefer, but I see no problem reading into it the dynamism in the NIV of Romans 8:8 - emphasizing the verbs "controlled" and "please" in order to talk about the problem in terms of the aforementioned "disobedience". The problem is that our human disposition is out of communion with its Maker and "separated from the life of God." Of course, the NASB says "those who are in the flesh cannot please God." So it isn't like we can get out of this on our own, whether we think of it in static or dynamic terms. No one is born immune to this problem or able to overcome it, as the statement makes clear.

Coming to the second part of the statement we see that humanity's salvation is provided by "the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ." The fulcrum of our shift from a hopelessly sinful situation is the saving freedom of a reoriented relationship to God provided by Jesus' "atoning work." Once separated, God and humanity are joined in this One. The problem of our sin is dealt with in what He does for us. But how exactly do we describe the atonement? The Bible gives us plenty of metaphors, many of them drawn from God's covenant with the Jews, in order to understand what Jesus accomplishes. And, as mentioned in the last post, the C&MA statement of faith doesn't go out of its way to spell out one atonement theory as more explicitly important than the others. That, I think it is a strength of the statement of faith.

Of course, the 1 John 2:2 reference to sacrifice does bring the typically evangelical emphasis on the penal-substitution theory front and center, and I'm comfortable with that. But the dogmatic focus is on Jesus is Saviour, not on the "mechanism" of salvation (to borrow Rob Bell's word).

In this regard it is worth noting here that the C&MA statement itself spends far more time on sanctification than justification. Without decreasing the importance of the latter, it does seem to want to describe the former - the new life Jesus brings - at greater length. Instead of speculating as to how exactly God does all this to us, it focuses more explicitly on what God intends to do with us now. And if we come back to Romans 8 for a moment, we see that the verses surrounding it support this sanctification-heavy emphasis. The emphasis there is on the fact that the Spirit of the risen Christ "lives in you" and can be "lived according to" despite the ongoing pull of sin. The life of God is breaking into the world even now. What an honour to be a part of it.

Getting back to 1 John 2:2, however, we note another really interesting bit, which is that right there in our statement of faith we have a verse which says that Jesus' salvation is "not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world." This is really important to the C&MA. It is a missions movement which believes that Jesus is for everyone. Its founders were, I believe, post-millenialists. This meant that they looked forward to an earthly reign of Jesus Christ wherein the kingdom of heaven came on earth in full. This view of the "end times" isn't written into the statement of faith - nor should it be - but we still do well to pause and reflect on the traces of the C&MA's "motive for missions".

As the eleventh and final article of the statement indicates, the C&MA has historically put a good deal of motivational weight on the "blessed hope" of Jesus' completed great commission. One finds in the old sermons and hymns of A.B. Simpson (pictured here) and others a good deal of mention of the perils of hell, but the statement of faith rightly references more assertively Matthew 24:14, which says "this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come." This ends up being a pretty important counter-balance to the insistence on hell-fire as a motive for missions. The Missionary Alliance has been mostly about seeking the just and loving reign of Jesus in the world.

Interestingly, at Bell's webcast-interview promoting his book, it was the Dean of the Alliance Theological Seminary at Nyack who asked Bell from the audience about the "motivation of Christian mission" inherent in his view of hell. Bell seemed to satisfy him with his answer that awareness of the hellish reality of sin is an important part of what the gospel brings to light but it is the "great story" of what God wants for the world in Jesus Christ that is the primary impulse for the Great Commission.

Another thought in relation to all this: The way 1 John 2:2 is used here suggests that the C&MA believes that the scope of the atonement is unlimited. This is potentially more problematic for so-called "five-point Calvinists" in the C&MA (if there are any) than for full-fledged Arminians like Rob Bell (if there are any). Wherever a doctrine of limited atonement (the "L" in the famous TULIP anagram which says that Jesus atoned only for the sins of the "elect") is held, it may be in contradiction with the view of atonement implied by article five of the C&MA's statement of faith, at least if its footnoted verses are taken as indicative of its central impulses.

That said, even though I strongly lean toward a view of unlimited atonement, I would be willing to entertain a certain freedom of interpretation on this point since the statement itself doesn't spell it out explicitly, and since I think a statement of faith should leave some room for those views with which it can work. I say this as someone with deep reservations about limited atonement. Very deep. Which I hope tells you that I want a statement of faith that is generous to those of Bell's persuasion as much as to those of Piper's. I think we are better off having these people in the same congregation discussing their differences on these matters than having them dismiss each other from across an evangelical divide with the twitter-fingers of a million popes. I highly value each word of the name Christian and Missionary Alliance.

And with that, I'll take an intermission. This is already long, so I'll post it and pick up the second half of the biblical analysis in a couple days. Let me know if you've got bones to pick with what I've done thus far. I can't pretend that I've done a comprehensive exegesis here, but I do feel like I'm making some headway. Please comment if you can help me out or if you are tracking with me at all.

What has Lotso to do with Bashir?

2011-03-26T07:04:00.000Z

It is no secret that Rob Bell's recent re-picturing of the standard idea of hell has got a lot of people hot under the collar. One of the common refrains from Bell's critics has been that he has merely dressed up the gospel and hidden away all the uncomfortable parts about judgement and final justice. Whether that is totally true or not (and I don't think it is), what I find most interesting is the frequent charge that Bell is cavorting to the culture.

We see this when the Gospel Coalition's Justin Taylor approvingly quotes Christianity Today's Mark Galli to the delight of thousands of readers and hundreds of blog-commenters - denouncing Rob Bell's Love Wins as one more instance where "liberals have striven to make the gospel relevant." More famously, msnbc's Martin Bashir, in a tirade cleverly disguised as an interview, said to Bell:

"You’re creating a Christian message that’s warm, kind, and popular for contemporary culture. . . . What you’ve done is you’re amending the gospel, the Christian message, so that it’s palatable to contemporary people who find, for example, the idea of hell and heaven very difficult to stomach. So here comes Rob Bell, he’s made a Christian gospel for you, and it’s perfectly palatable, it’s much easier to swallow. That’s what you’ve done, haven’t you?"

This is a common evangelical trump card which is often quickly taken to mean someone's theology has gone to the dogs. It usually assumes that the work of discerning whether the culture is right or wrong is already done: The culture is wrong. Do not love the world. Argument closed.

That's another discussion. The crazy thing to me is that in this case I'm not even sure Bashir, Galli or Taylor are even right about contemporary culture.

Even if Bell said that there was no hell and no divine judgement (which he does not say), would this really be just a symptom of the stories our culture likes to tell itself? When the 'culture' tells its stories about good and evil - particularly when it comes to end of a long story arc and shows us the fate of either side - what kind of narrative does it weave? It wouldn't be hard to test this. Taking inspiration from Bashir's depiction of Bell's gospel, let's look at a widely popular, inter-generationally acclaimed, trilogy-finishing film which was nominated for best picture at the 2010 Academy Awards: Pixar's Toy Story 3.

Spoiler alert: In what follows I am going to ruin the ending for you. I assume if you haven't seen it by now you don't care. If it will help, you can see a six minute version of the film here.

The genius of the Toy Story series is the pleasure viewers get when they learn that when they aren't looking their toys have a life of their own. It is fun to watch. More amazingly, however, viewers also learn that despite these animated periods of autonomy, the toys' true freedom is found when they are putty in their owner's hands; weaved into his narrative and serving their created purpose. As the trilogy begins its finale we see that the owner is headed for college and the toys are headed for a melancholy, limbo-esque fate in the attic, where they will have years together to reminisce about the days they will always treasure most - the days of joy when they were living to their full potential as toys. Of course, things go desperately wrong.

The next thing we know Toy Story 3 is coming to its climax with this fellowship of toys stuck on a conveyor belt about to dump them into a flaming trash incinerator outside the city. When we watched it my kids were visibly gripped and on the edge of their horrified little seats. Fortunately, when death looms largest their leader shows himself willing to self-sacrifice for the sake of the group. In fact, when things are looking dour Cowboy Woody even tries to save the enemy - the one who had got them in this trouble in the first place - Lots-O-Huggin' Bear. Lotso, you see, was the oppressor who had ruled the other toys to his own advantage in the less-than-ideal state of life that had become the daycare environment.

Lotso is not pure evil, of course. He was once an innocent stuffed bear bringing joy to his owner, when tragedy sent him skidding. In a flashback we learn of the day he was lost. We see as he searches unsuccessfully for his owner his heart grows hard and cold. "Something snapped," we are told, and we empathize.

But the film and its audience still hold him responsible for his ensuing actions. Embittered and resilient in self-protection, Lotso manipulates the day-care toys to his advantage. Predictably, a small band of toys plans an escape with Woody at their lead, but they are caught by Lotso and he aims to have them destroyed. Things go badly for him, however, and he gets caught along with them in a conveyor belt headed for the flames. As he and Woody clamour for freedom, Lotso is shoved to safety by one he had tried to kill. Safe because of their mercy, Lotso has the chance to extend the favour and rescue them all. All eyes are on him - he could easily do it - but he does not. He leaves them there to die.

The film does not end sadly for the fellowship of the toys, of course, but has them pulled out at the last minute by three aliens to whom they are eternally grateful. Returned to their owner, they give us a touching denouement: The toys are not even put in the attic, but are given a new life of true toy freedom in a brand new home. Adults and kids alike have been known to leave the film with tears and happiness both. It is indeed a satisfying end to the trilogy.

But what about Lotso? Interestingly, we do get one last look at him.

The last we see of Lotso he is being tied to the front of a truck in the dump, where a bug-riddled toy advises him to keep his mouth closed because, it is implied, he could be there for quite awhile. The truck moves off and Lotso's fate is sealed. Annihilation in the incinerator would have been better than this.

Obviously, Pixar is too good to go with the cheesy ending. Or maybe it wants to leave kids with a sense of the consequences for evil or something. I don't really want to make too much of this finale, other than to point out exactly what kinds of stories the culture actually seems content to tell itself and its children. It seems pretty happy to have the oppressive villain judged indefinitely for his crimes, especially if he has been extended mercy and refused to have any part of it. It seems to me that the last thing it can bring itself to imagine is total justice and reconciliation. Or, where it could imagine it, it can only imagine it being phony and melodramatic.

I'm not trying to suggest that this proves anything, either way. It would be interesting to reflect on this further. I'm also not trying to advocate carte blanche for everything said in Bell's book. (I'm not done yet). My only point is that, at the critics prodding, when I actually look at the so-called 'contemporary culture' I find something other than what they seem to think I'll find.

I imagine I've made such generalities on my own blog before as well. But maybe we should call a moratorium on this evangelical trump card and actually talk about nuts and bolts.

Examining the C&MA Statement on Hell

2011-03-24T10:50:00.016Z

As explained at length before, I am setting out to analyze the statement of faith of my denomination, the Christian & Missionary Alliance in Canada, as it applies to the doctrine of hell. Although I haven't finished his book yet, I am doing this in order to ask whether one who was convinced by or open to Rob Bell's recent take on these matters could sign on the dotted line as a member in good standing.

This is where things get a bit hairy. Although I intended to begin by examining the biblical references provided in the statement itself (and beyond as necessary), I found myself mulling over the statement at great length just to understand fully what it could mean. Thus below, following the relevant point of the statement in question, you will find ten reflections exploring the range of interpretive options available.

5. Humankind, originally created in the image and likeness of God, fell through disobedience, incurring thereby both physical and spiritual death. All people are born with a sinful nature, are separated from the life of God, and can be saved only through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:8; 1 John 2:2). The destiny of the impenitent and unbelieving is existence forever in conscious torment, but that of the believer is everlasting joy and bliss (Matt. 25:41-46; 2 Thess. 1:7-10).

1) 'originally created' > 'sinful nature'

It seems to me that one's understanding of hell is going to be informed by one's understanding of what is entailed in sin and the fall. What happened here? The statement of faith deems it necessary to say that something did happen, and it was very bad. Humankind 'fell through disobedience'. And now, whatever the original 'image and likeness of God' might have been, all are born with a 'sinful nature'.

It is not specified whether the statement has in mind a change of the actual nature of humankind or the addition of the adjective 'sinful' to it, indicating a thorough tarnishing or self-contradiction or deprivation of some kind. In the one case you'd have a new kind of human born into the world by sin. Evil would have a radical kind of positive force to it. In the other case you'd have a good humanity but tainted to the core. Evil would have no force or being of its own, but would only have a privative, parastic kind of negation to it. The latter view is the preferred one, and I believe that orthodox Christianity for many centuries has born this out. The C&MA statement's further description of that fall in terms of people's estranged relation to 'the life of God' should probably lead us to think of the fallen sinful nature more primarily in these terms as well.

Whether the 'sinful nature' is inherited by physical genealogy, social contagiousness, or by virtue of an ontological separation effective for all is not clearly delineated by the statement of faith. It is now simply something we are 'born with'. That's okay, I think. Statements of faith should not be needlessly specific.

2) 'physical and spiritual death'

The human stands estranged from God and from its own humanity because of the state of disobedience into which it has fallen. Thus it has incurred both physical and spiritual death rather than 'the life of God' (characterized by free obedience) for which it has been made. This death is the result of the creature's deluded stab at an illusory autonomy. It is neither soul-death nor merely physical death. Both have been incurred.

[A note to Dennis pertaining to his comment on the prior post: It would indeed be tough to get around the statement's suggestion that physical death entered human experience at the fall into sin. Thus I imagine that one who believed in a divinely created evolutionary process would either have to (a) deny that physical death entered the human experience with sin, thus putting the emphasis on spiritual death as the real problem, or (b) say that physical death took on a new found finality or character because of sin, or (b) imply that the evolving humans were yet-to-be declared and constituted human in the image of God until the Spirit breathed that likeness into them at the alpha-point to which Genesis refers (i.e. some moment within the metaphorical 'day' six, after the creation of non-human animals).]

3) 'existence'

Having read about our 'physical and spiritual death', we might then ask what is meant by the 'existence' which follows. Is this form of existence physical or spiritual or both? The statement itself doesn't say exactly, although in what follows we get some indications of what it thinks is important to say about this existence.

4) 'forever'

Is 'infinite duration' the way to understand the word 'forever'? It seems pretty clear. If one wanted to say that conscious torment came to an end at some point, surely one would have left out the word 'forever'. Furthermore, if one wanted to say that it was binding forever but was not experienced as the passing of time in duration, then one would leave out the words 'conscious' and/or 'torment'. The statement has not wished to leave those options open to us, as far as I can tell.

The only way I could maybe see one reinterpreting this would be if 'forever' was defined as a placeholder for that realm which is outside of time as we know it. 'Existence forever' uses our earth-bound language to indicate a state of being which is outside our experience of measurable space and time. This is not outside the realm of interpretive possibility. (After all, when the Bible calls God 'Everlasting' does it really mean to say that there exists something called Time within which God lives and moves and has his being? No, God is the Creator of Time as we know it. 'Everlasting' indicates his transcendent quality as such.)

Even if the 'forever' refers to duration, perhaps one could imagine an existence in a state that lasts forever but is not felt as such by the one who is conscious within it. Just the way that for God a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like a day, perhaps a state of eternal torment could be to the one experiencing it (outside of time as we know it) no different than a moment.

I suppose one could read it one of these ways. However, it seems clear to me that the framers of this statement meant no such thing. We are to understand the maximal frightfulness of our destiny apart from the 'life of God' and we are to be mindful of the extremity of the situation for those creatures hell-bent on their inherited state of disharmony with God. When it comes to the details we are left with the question whether it is the authorial intent or the reader's intent that is authoritative on such matters. We will leave that question for a later time. Right now we are just exploring the interpretive options.

5) 'conscious torment'

What does it mean for that fall to end in 'existence forever in conscious torment'? Is physical death a temporary transition on the way to an everlasting existence in another mode of physicality? What are we to imagine here? If this existence forever is disembodied, or 'spiritual' only, what does one do with the biblical language ascribing to it a physical painfulness? We'd be in the realm of metaphor in that case for sure.

However, we might be in the realm of metaphor in the physical reading as well. Are we to imagine a post-mortem physicality that can withstand torment without ever succumbing or losing consciousness? Like Moses' burning bush, is the person burning without ever burning up? Is the body being somehow sustained at the brink of perishing in order to feel forever the pain of the fallen human condition? I'm not trying to dramatize the statement as either unsettling or absurd. As I look for what is deemed important, these questions arise.

The statement, here, doesn't spell out every detail. However, a later point in the statement of faith leads me to believe that the C&MA wants us to think of this as an embodied reality for which the person is resurrected by God.

10. There shall be a bodily resurrection of the just and of the unjust; for the former, a resurrection unto life (1 Corinthians 15:20-23); for the latter, a resurrection unto judgment (2 Thessalonians 1:7-10).

Taken together, these points suggest that the 'conscious torment' seems not to be simply the natural result of the impenitent's fall into sin but the reality for which God actively and purposefully resurrects them. Thus the statement pictures for us a divine granting of 'post-mortem' existence in which the eternally binding judgment is not only passed, but felt in all its eternality.

To sum up, then, it seems that the important thing for C&MA members to affirm is that the God-enacted destiny of impenitent fallen humanity involves a state of being with infinite duration wherein persons have the ability to be conscious of pain. I haven't investigated the biblical texts that are footnoted yet, but having grown up in the C&MA I have little doubt that this is how the statement is meant.

6) 'destiny'

Is the word 'destiny' meant to indicate 'final fate' or is it more of a descriptive word, connecting the fallen state with the 'after-life' that can be expected as long as that fallen state continues? As should be clear by now, I have little doubt that 'destiny' is meant to suggest 'final fate'. Not only that, but God is the active agent in passing judgment and issuing that final fate.

In other words, though the fall into sin has already incurred physical and spiritual death, the moment of physical death seems to imply passing the brink into that God-declared destiny from which there is no return. In that case the real sting of the physical death is that it represents the end of all opportunity for repentance.

Of course, one could, theoretically, read this statement as descriptive of the kind of existence that an unbelieving and impenitent person should expect to have as long as they remain impenitent and unbelieving. In other words, this is what fallenness looks like, when the turn to God is resisted ad nauseum. Again, I hardly think this is what the statement's authors meant. We will have to discuss the authoritative weight of authorial intent later on.

7) 'saved only through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ.'

Clearly there is an emphasis here on the need for Jesus' atonement of sin in order to save the human from this 'sinful nature', this 'separation from the life of God', and this 'destiny' of 'conscious torment'. Whatever the extent of salvation and the population of heaven, no one gets there apart from the saving work of Jesus Christ. Herein is not bad news, but good news. Indeed, 'all people ... can be' rescued.

8) 'impenitent and unbelieving'

Of course, the statement fills in the 'can be' with the requirement of belief. Interestingly, in the case of unbelief it qualifies it with the other descriptor of impenitence, but in the case of belief the penitence is either assumed or deemed too misleading to include. Does penitence bring too close to mind the legacy of penance and the Pelagian idea of salvation by works? Interesting that this door is reopened slightly in point 10 of the statement of faith anyway, where the parting of ways is not rendered according to 'believing' and 'unbelieving' but 'just' and 'unjust'.

The point is that one needs to repent and believe in Jesus, turning from the injustice of a humanity steeped in sin and enmity to the justice of a humanity reoriented to God. This is rather sensible, if you ask me. As per #1 above, if sin incurs a disorientation of the creature away from the free obedience to God for which it was created, then it makes sense that belief and penitence and justice characterize the reorientation of the human enabled by the atoning work of Jesus Christ. Belief and justice characterize a redeemed humanity, just as they would have an unfallen humanity. Penitence is, of course, required because of the fall into sin. Anyone who is unbelieving and impenitent is, by nature, still in that fall and experiencing all that it entails.

But here are some nagging thoughts. Why is the turn from God into disobedience and injustice sustained forever? What is the rationale or the purpose of that 'existence forever' in the 'conscious torment' of 'separation from the life God'?

Is it the case that being made in the image of God means being made to last eternally, whether one is born into a sinful nature or not? Is it the case that our inheritance of and participation in that sinful nature in time merits the punishment that lasts for eternity? There would be some who would scoff at such a thought, and yet in history there also have undoubtedly been some who have prayed for eternal punishment on their tormentors. In either case I think it best to trust justice into the hands of God. However, I have to admit that I am squeamish at some of the possible answers to these questions. I'm not going to answer all of these. But I do want to explore their importance for the statement of faith. What does seem clear is that the C&MA has felt it warranted and important enough to say that members and pastors must sign the statement that there is 'existence forever in conscious torment' for all of us who remain unbelieving and impenitent to the point of death.

9) 'joy and bliss'

Before we come to some final thoughts, I have to ask: What is the meaning of 'bliss' here? If there need be a second word besides joy, why not something like 'love' or even 'life'? These seem more biblical and more commendable alternatives. Perhaps 'bliss' makes a fitting opposition to 'torment', driving home the point that, despite the harsh words about the fate of the disobedient impenitent, it doesn't have to be that way.

10) Is there any variance of interpretation available here?

For instance, would a C&MA pastor or member be free to imagine or hope that there would be an annihilation of the impenitent unbeliever rather than an existence of unending suffering? Does the statement leave open the possibility that the fire of hell could at some point be 'consuming'? that one might actually perish, in the most final sense of the word? Whether or not this view can find exegetical biblical credence, on the statement's own logic it would undoubtedly be tough to support. I don't know how you could interpret 'existence forever in conscious torment' in a way that allowed for annihilation.

But there is another question, and it is the one which Rob Bell has apparently sent ringing in the ears of evangelicalism: Could one be a C&MA pastor and hold a reasonable hope for the possibility that 'existence forever in conscious torment' is conditional upon the 'existence forever' of impenitence and unbelief? In other words, would one be free to imagine a so-called post-mortem repentance? Again, this may or may not be tough to sustain biblically. However, in this case on the face of it I actually think the statement of faith would allow for such an interpretation, even if it would undoubtedly go against the grain of the original authors' intent.

Of course, we haven't looked at the verses which the statement footnotes. If they recommend to us an understanding of the statement which excludes any 'post-mortem hope' whatsoever, then I think we'd have to conclude that such a reading might be rendered highly questionable if not eliminated. We'll have to get into that in the next post, when we examine the biblical passages cited by the statement itself.

For the moment I am not sure what to think about all this. I would at least like to consider the possibility that the C&MA could have a statement which was more inclusive of either or both of these latter positions, simply because I feel like a good rule of thumb for a statement of faith is 'less is more'. But then again, I haven't done the textual background study all the way yet. Maybe there is warrant for the exclusive position that has been taken. I'm just saying that at this point I find the specificity on this point a tad uncomfortable. But I am sure I am missing some things. Can you shed light on any blind spots for me thus far?

The C&MA Statement on Hell

2011-03-22T09:34:00.011Z

Surely the world doesn't need one more blog about Rob Bell's Love Wins but, given the controversy it instigated within evangelicalism, once I've read it I'm probably going to want to say something about it. We can always theologize about headlines, but it isn't every day that theology itself makes headlines!

However, for reasons mentioned in the last post, I want to have some contextualized purpose to my reflections. No sense one more person deciding (on what authority?) on the internet whether Bell is or is not a heretic, evangelical, or what have you. What I want to ask is whether someone convinced by his book could sign my denomination's statement of faith. I have not read the book yet, but this and the next post are my re-familiarization with that statement. Although Bell reputedly touches on a variety of issues, I am going to focus primarily on the doctrine of hell (with sideways glances at other things as they come up).

Before I get fully into it, however, let me set out some guiding rationale, declare my (rather ad hoc methodology), and give some guidance on how I'd like this to be read.

1. Rationale and Approach:

In the preamble to its local church constitution of the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada, the spirit of the guiding document is tied back to its founder, A.B. Simpson, whose charge to the General Council of 1912 is considered "as relevant today as when he gave it in his address." In the few short lines which are quoted, Simpson says the following about his wishes for the movement that would build upon his work:

"God grant that this work may never lose its old simplicity, self-sacrifice and separation, not only from the secular but from the religious world in its spirit and practice. But at the same time, we must keep abreast of the progress of our age and be men and women of today in our message and ministry to our generation."

Much could be said about this quote alone. (Surely "progress" is not assumed in every age? How does one decide when to be separate and when to adapt? What is the "religious world" that he has in mind? And so on.) But the point is that Simpson thought the movement should stay simple, unbound, and self-giving in its spirit and practice, but not that it should at any point lose touch with or be uninvolved in the society in which it moves and ministers and speaks. Thus, I would suggest, it must always be about the work of both theological communication and re-appraisal -- not so as to stifle but to free and to assist the church in its service to the others in the love and grace of Christ. Theology serves the mission, and it does so not oblivious to but right in the thick of each generation.

It is with this spirit in mind that I take to heart the questions Rob Bell has raised (but not invented) and I inquire not simply into the general appropriateness of his answers but into their appropriateness and/or usefulness within my particular stream of the wider evangelical 'tradition'. If this is to be fair I must both scrutinize Bell's answers as well as the answers that have tended to be the denominational default. Having not read his book, I am yet unsure how much I'll agree with Bell, but I can state up front that I begin with the agreement that his questions are not irrelevant, unimportant, or finally settled. In fact I find them to be intriguing and even in the best sense nagging questions in their own right. I think this is so not simply for curiosity's sake but for the sake of understanding the gospel and the biblical witness as a whole.

In coming to our statement of faith with this sort of open-ended questioning I am contradicting neither the original spirit of our denomination nor the letter of its policy. Indeed, written right into the local church constitution of Canada's C&MA manual, which includes the statement of faith, it says: "This constitution may be amended at any regular business session of the General Assembly of The Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada by a two-thirds majority of the votes cast, written notice having been given prior to the General Assembly."

Thus isn't just lip-service either. I was present at the C&MA General Assembly of 2004 when this document was amended to remove the insistence on believer's baptism from the statement of faith. Interestingly, this was not a turn to the practice of infant baptism, since the constitution elsewhere asserted that it was C&MA policy to practice believer's baptism; rather, the amendment was passed because the denomination did not wish to have the exclusion of infant baptism written into its statement of faith, thus implying that it regarded such a thing totally unorthodox and ecclesiastically unacceptable. It was an ecumenical and practical move for which I heartily voted. Statements of faith should not be too long, if they are to exist at all.

I take this as precedent, then, for the kind of analysis I want to explore. Although my exploration will be not exhaustive, it seems to me that there are four provisional conclusions one could reach. The Statement of faith could either be:

(1) Left as is, thus excluding certain views.
(2) Expanded to include an alternate view.
(3) Amended so as to allow more variance.
(4) Left as is, with ample room for local interpretation.

I operate under the assumption that if our statement of faith means anything then we actually want it to say what is of necessity in order to be a member of the Christian & Missionary Alliance in Canada, and nothing more.

Basically, I'm trying to figure out whether a person with Rob Bell's view of hell (presuming it can even be known and articulated) could with good conscience sign the statement of faith. Put the other way around, I am asking whether such a person could be refused membership or credentialing in the C&MA on such a basis. As I write this I have neither read the book nor formed a solid opinion in any direction.

2) Methodology:

There isn't much to tell here. Essentially, in the next post I intend to take the immediately relevant portions of the statement of faith, look at the biblical passages they footnote, and get a good sense of the rationale and the credibility of the statement on its own terms. After this I may do some further exegetical and theological reflection in order to determine whether I've got a handle on what the statement is saying and how it might possibly be interpreted. By then I should have finished Bell's book and will likely have some things to say about it by comparison. In particular I will look at its view of hell (and its potential population) and try to determine how well this fits with my denomination's stance, if at all. Depending on how things go, I imagine I will either have a critique to levy against Bell's book or an amendment to consider proposing to the family of churches to whom I belong.

3) To the reader:

I will say here what I say on my page devoted to the issue of gender roles in the C&MA: I will gladly accept critique or input from an outside perspective, and indeed truly hope that this blog can help its interested readers to think through the issues involved, but I do not wish to drag my denomination's issues in the public simply to make a spectacle of them. Please don't take it like that and, if you have your doubts about us, assume the best until you know otherwise.

Furthermore, my goal in this is not to set myself apart from or above the particular church context which is my home. Anyone who reads out of or into this a spirit of division should please note that my desire is to contribute to my denomination's ongoing work of theology and biblical interpretation and application, not to detract from it. I believe we are enabled by our common convictions in the grace, love, and truth of Jesus Christ to discuss and re-evaluate the things that we believe. We do so not in a spirit of confusion or fear but in truth spoken in love - operating under the trust that ours is a living Lord.

Also, anyone in my denomination who is looking to eavesdrop on my thought process so they can fade away quietly having labelled me according to some preconceived notion of orthodoxy should please communicate any reservations to me personally. I would like to work in the denomination upon completion of my PhD and this is a place for me to publicly work through some things which I think important. It does not mean that my mind is made up or that I would not welcome conversation. If you are hear to blacklist me, please tell me so and be ready to back up your claims.

At this point I will declare my prior leanings openly: I found Bell's promotional questions to be over-the-top provocative but still important and even good. Turned out I was hearing them a little different than others, and so I have been in the odd position of defending the questions in principle for a couple weeks even before having read Bell's answers for myself. I have been able to piece together a sense of the book from the many excerpts I have read, and gather that I will have some reservations of my own. However, I also grade enough papers to be able to tell when someone is being misused or even misrepresented in quotation, and so I remain skeptical that Bell has been given a fair reading. As mentioned before, I also don't think that the hastily applied 'universalist' label necessarily made Bell a heretic. But my book comes in the mail today.

4) The statement:

For now, I leave you with this. Though other parts of the C&MA's eleven-point statement of faith will be relevant, the primary point in question is #5:

Humankind, originally created in the image and likeness of God, fell through disobedience, incurring thereby both physical and spiritual death. All people are born with a sinful nature, are separated from the life of God, and can be saved only through the atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ (Rom. 8:8; 1 John 2:2). The destiny of the impenitent and unbelieving is existence forever in conscious torment, but that of the believer is everlasting joy and bliss (Matt. 25:41-46; 2 Thess. 1:7-10).

The Best Response to That Book

2011-03-20T12:10:00.009Z

Last time I posted about Love Wins I had not yet read the book (and still haven't), and was commenting more about the instant reaction to the book than anything else. Turned out my post was pretty opportunistically titled and tweeted and it got me ten times the readers I usually get, even putting my blog atop the google searches for about a day or so. That was kind of fun, but I have no such ambitions.

(I mean, have you seen the comments the popular bloggers have to weed through? I wouldn't mind a bit more interaction on my blog, but I prefer to keep it kind of manageable, and I like that I tend to have some kind of personal or contextual connection with pretty much anyone who is dropping by. That's not to say I don't invite the interaction of strangers, but I don't really relish the thought of refereeing mass disputes unless it is my full time job!.)

Anyway, now that it is has been a couple weeks, my readership is back to normal, and my copy of the book is currently waiting at the post office to be picked up, I have to ask myself if there is any reason to add one more blog-review to the mix. Certainly I had this in mind when I talked about "occasions for theological self-absorption" last week. Indeed, I've not only been holding off from commenting further on this platform because I want to read the book first (what a novel concept!), but also because I want to stifle the reactionary mode of theology that I find so tempting. With that in mind I've been reading the many reviews hoping someone else would do the job necessary and leave me with nothing more to say than to offer a link. Considering the incredible amount of response that the book has garnered, I thought I'd find it a bit sooner than I did. But alas, it did come! I will link to it below. But first let me say a few more things, and also explain why it is (so far) the best review going.

First, a few more thoughts. It will be no surprise to some of you that I have spent far more time writing comments on people's facebook statuses than my own blog (and unfortunately, maybe even my own dissertation!). Which reminds me: In the last year I've also done just as much if not more theological conversation via email and even handwritten letter than ever before. I don't wish to sound a death-bell for blogging, but I will say that I'm more and more attracted to and interested in theological conversation that is tied to a context -- be it relational, denominational, situational, or what have you. In my blog, too, I want to take to heart the fact that, even if I garner a wide audience somehow, I might do the ideas their best justice if I address them with at least one eye on how it matters in a particular context.

We all have contexts in which we have our part in the discussion, and I think it defensible to want to have that discussion where it hits home rather than always in the abstract and unconnected. Honestly, I'll be just as happy if I read the book and feel like the link below has done the work for me. I sure hope the guy sees the thing through.

Thus, at the very least I think I'm going to do a post or two on my denomination's statement of faith concerning hell, since I'd like to think through and address the degree to which the Christian and Missionary Alliance in Canada could or could not be okay with its pastors adhering more or less to the view Bell espouses. At the very least I owe it to myself and the church to which I belong to think seriously about such a thing. I don't think it is my place to deem Bell or his opponents heretical or to make a claim to the deposit of evangelicalism, but I think I can seek a responsible conversation within my church movement that tries to assess itself properly in its time. So look for that in the near future, and by all means come and take part in the discussion, if indeed there is one to be had. I will welcome your input from outside the C&MA, and would indeed welcome new readers from within the C&MA who could care less for my blog but would like to think this through along with me.

Okay, I think I'm done with that part. Now let me move on to the reason why the link below is the best review going. Until I saw it I was leaning toward David Congdon's five part response to the Christianity Today article about the book in question. I still recommend you read it, because it is excellent, but what I'm looking for is a review of Bell's book itself, and in that vein I think the link below is just the thing. So now let me (finally!) explain why. (I'm basically cutting and pasting this from a facebook conversation. Thus a few poor souls will recognize it from a previously hijacked status update, but they can rest assured that I'm not dragging them into my blog by name.)

I think the best way to approach this Bell episode is not by way of an Emergent Church/Gospel Coalition polarity. Now, from what I can tell (still having not read the book myself), Bell contributes to this polarization with some of the ways he communicates himself. But nonetheless, I really don't think that the reaction to him should play along 'party' lines, even if Bell does it himself (which, for me personally, remains to be seen). Here's why:

1) Bell's answers may or may not end up being entirely orthodox, or, where they shift to the area of interpretive variance and not core doctrine then maybe they will be highly critique-worthy. However, his questions have a long long history and I would suggest that his questions are indeed orthodox in the most important way possible (if a question itself can be considered orthodox). Throughout church history there have been tensions that have had to be held in play, and perennially re-brought up, in order for the doctrine to do justice to the revelation of God which is from beyond us all and confronts us in our worldviews and our interpretations. Bell's questions need to be addressed with something more than reassertion of the original position, even if the original position is still held. I do not see this happening and that is why even before I've read the book I have been quite vocal in calling for a better hearing and a better response.

2) Bell may have positioned himself against a certain reading of the Bible which may or may not coincide with Gospel Coalition commitments, and thus may have pushed this into a 'competitive' mode himself. However, from what I gather he has not named names but has dealt with the ideas that he is questioning. Thus there is opportunity to transcend the us v. them mentality and actually give a constructive response. This is what I think is called for, not because I think it is more culturally palatable or because I am a big fan of tolerance and fluffy sentiments, but because the very gospel with which we wrestle calls for it. We are one church by one spirit. We need to act from that belief for as long as is humanly possible. And then we can act from it for as long as is Christ-ianly possbile too.

This is why I found DeYoung's review so unhelpful. And I read stuff on the other side, like at Patrol magazine, and find it highly unhelpful too. And if Bell has been overly polarizing in his approach then we can say the same. But whatever the case, we can do better than that. Jesus says so.

So, in that vein, I highly recommend a response to Bell that comes from neither 'camp', but from a British theologian who is as readable as he is knowledgeable (and relatively aloof to the whole American side-taking). I won't pretend that he is simply a dispassonate and neutral observer (nor that I am either), but I sure hope he carries it through because I think it has a lot going for it that will be helpful for us all.

Now go read See Steve Holmes' Shored Fragments.

Leadership and the Christian Imagination: Always the Host and Never the Hosted?

2011-03-17T11:07:00.003Z

In The Christian Imagination, a book I've been reading and blogging about lately, Willie Jennings talks about the problem that can arise when we treat every instance of engagement with another person as an opportunity to underline (or even modify) our own views rather than to really engage. I have been thinking about whether I am guilty of this when I treat current affairs as little more than "occasions for theological self-absorption" (150).

Jennings tells the story of a 19th century English bishop to the colonialist settlement of South Africa named John William Colenso who set out on a mission to translate the Christian gospel into the language of the African tribes with the added motivation (and this is crucial) of bringing them "civilization" as well. Hopefully we've all considered the problems of this colonialist attitude already. What I'm interested in here is the way Jennings probes deeper.

In his book Jennings suggests that where Colenso's translation efforts were to be all one-way the very dynamic of the Christian gospel was subverted and ultimately all but lost. When push came to shove, the greedy and arrogant colonizing impulse won the day. What is remarkable about this story is that when push finally did come to shove, Colenso himself realized this and sided with the African, at great cost to himself (159-165). The gospel he meant to translate ended up translating him.

With this inspiration, Jennings digs deeper into the problem. Theologically speaking, it seems that the Christian European had inserted himself into the gospel in the role of the Jew, so that those in the new world were now perceived as the Gentile. This forgot the fundamental point that in fact they were all Gentiles grafted into God's people by way of the Jewish Messiah, Jesus Christ (160). The Gentiles ought to be engaging each other under the ministry of Christ and discovering more and more how the gospel is not only for all people but actually reconciles them as well (166).

Though Colenso had himself contributed to the violence of South Africa's colonization, it was the very impulse of the Christian gospel which, despite being utilized for colonialist purposes, ended up leading him into self-giving communion with those he had been unwittingly sent to oppress. As Jennings puts it, Colenso came to discover that colonialist Christianity offers "a gospel that is for everyone of necessity but joins no one of necessity" (166-167).

It is easy to criticize the past and assume we'd have been different. The point here is to learn from it. So I am left to wonder how much I do this. For all my talk of the gospel of Christ and the community it creates and the kingdom for which it strives and hopes, is it the case that what I really have in mind and at heart is the spread of my own ideas and the validation of my own perspectives?

Is the gospel a detachable thing we can possess and pass on, or is it in the very dynamic of our engagement with one another and the heart of our discussion?

I am reminded of a time when my wife and I were privileged to have over for supper a leading thinker in the church "leadership movement" that captured so much of the attention of evangelicalism in recent decades. This kind and eloquent man was in town to speak to our Bible College students, and did a really good job describing a leader as one who was able to be hospitable in the best possible sense of the word. In pastoral situations this meant that a leader would seek to effectively"host" the discussion for the common good of those gathered. Sounded good to me, and much of it still does.

Anyway, of course around our supper table this warm and friendly and engaging man illustrated all of this beautifully with his charisma, self-confidence, and indeed his graciousness and his friendliness. Even though he was in our house around our dinner table he was able to "host" the conversation in a very amicable and enjoyable way - and if I recall correctly we all would have left that dinner table feeling that he had done so (more or less) to our common benefit.

What sort of stuck with me, however, is that it had actually been my wife and I who were the hosts. I'm not speaking from petty jealousy here. It has been ten years, and I was honestly more than happy to have someone else carry the conversation. But it struck me then and it strikes me now that there is a danger in such a "leadership" posture and such a "host" mentality. I think it has something to do with what Jennings is talking about.

It was this constant "host" mentality which was precisely what Colenso had to overcome. Jennings pushes us to consider the possibility that whenever the Christian assumes the role of host only, even if it is for the spread of the gospel, perhaps that Christian is in danger of subverting and usurping that very gospel! All this for the sake of modes of communication, understanding and living in which the gospel has become (legitimately or illegitimately) enshrined!

This leads me to wonder: Perhaps when I am merely a proclaimer of the good news and not also a minister of reconciliation who is in turn open to being ministered to, then I let the good news be "for everyone" without actually let it "join everyone". Do I stall out Christ's new creation if I package it and pass it on rather than carry on as if I am a co-recipient of its work in the world?

To go back to our supper table that evening, I must say that I don't think the whole "hosting" or hospitality idea presented by this dynamic Christian leader was completely wrong. Indeed, where it aimed at the common good it probably got at one of the key things that Christian leadership ought to do. But didn't Jesus, by calling disciples and birthing a church, implicitly (if not explicitly) also call for a mutuality befitting the gospel that was to be preached?

How does this change the way I go forward, not only as a theologian of sorts but also (potentially) as a pastor and leader? Surely I have not done 9 years of education in order to sit at every supper table and stand at every pulpit and teach nothing; or lead nowhere? Ultimately, no. But at any given moment should I not be willing to let that be the case? When I accept a church's call to lead or to minister or to preach, I take seriously the notion that God has asked me to bring something to the table. However, I can never assume that I am always the bringer and not the accepter, or that I have something to pass on that is for us without joining us, something we can exchange like a consumer good without being changed by and participant in.

What am I leading, if I am always the leader and never the servant; always the host and never the hosted? I may be leading a movement, but I have to always ask myself whether it is the movement of God's kingdom in this world.

Multi-culture and the Christian Imagination

2011-03-11T10:29:00.011Z

As previously mentioned, I've been reading Willie James Jennings' The Christian Imagination: Theology and the Origins of Race for a seminar here at university, and have been finding it very thought-provoking. In a chapter following the trail of a Jesuit missionary and theologian named Jose de Acosta Porres in his travels to the "new world" of 16th century Peru, Jennings tells us some of the ways that the seafaring Europeans altered the landscape of South America. Despite the fact that they thought they brought civilization and salvation to these aboriginals, we see that the new settlers and colonizers brought a lot more:

'By the end of the sixteenth century, only eight decades after the Spaniards arrived, the picture had changed. The Indian populations were decimated and their fields reduced... The processes by which sheep grazing displaced agriculture, and sheep displaced humans, resulted in the formation of a new and far less hospitable landscape within which the indigenous populations were marginalized and alienated, their traditional resources degraded or lost, and their access to the means of production restricted.'...

This meant that the skills and abilities of native peoples to work the land were rendered null and void even as the Andean peoples tried to continue their own pastoral practices. It also meant that they were forced to place their 'products' into new economic networks alongside new alien crops and produce. The reputation created by this transformation meant that the native peoples' agricultural practices were perceived as backward at best or of poor stewardship of the natural resources at worst.

This gives a bit of an insight into what happened when the assumption was that it was the settlers who could teach the aboriginals a thing or two about how to use the land rather than vice versa. The settlers may win the day, but at what cost? And why the assumption that all the learning is one way? Here the aboriginals are going out of their way to be hospitable, and are being extinguished for it. All under the settler's assumption that it is they who are the hospitable ones; it is they who must civilize and convert these barbarian hordes. As we see next, even in the face of the dreadful results of these assumptions, the settlers could not seem to rise above this basic premise: That it was they who brought salvation and civilization, and it was the aboriginals who were the problem. Even the theologian Acosta was pulled into this colonialist frame of mind:

Acosta failed to acknowledge the [aboriginal] miners' humanity because his theological vision was overdetermined, drawn into a circular logic energized on the one side by [new problems] and on the other side by the need to assert [presumably Christian, European solutions]....

In an astonishing statement in the Historia, Acosta ... speculates that the reason for the rapid depopulation of many areas and the massive deaths of natives is their own fault:

'In our time the population of these coasts or plains is so much diminished and impaired that twenty-nine out of thirty of its inhabitants have disappeared; and many believe that the remaining Indians will disappear before long. People attribute this to various causes, some to the fact that the Indians have been overworked, others to the changes of food and drink that they adopted after becoming accustomed to Spanish habits, and others to the excessive vice that they display in drink and other abuses. As for me, I believe that this latter disorder is the chief cause of their reduced numbers.'

I am not sure what is more shocking: That 29/30 aboriginals were dying, or that it was blamed on the fact that they drank too much.

Of course, Jennings' argument is not for the complete innocence of the aboriginal population, nor is it for the untruth of Christianity or evil of the church. Things are undoubtedly more complex than all that. The argument is basically to show that when the social imagination is not intent on seeking to be truly Christian, it can be usurped by a great many of forces. In this case the assumptions of "civilization", racial superiority, colonial progress, the logic of the "free" market, and so on. The theological assumption that gets into bed with all these other assumptions is also quite intriguing.

Faced with differences in this new world, rather than look for ways that the Creator God and Holy Spirit might have been present among the indigenous population all along (perhaps preparing them to learn of Christ), the Christian settler

imagines the demonic work to be far more extensive, expressive, and operative than the work of God could ever have been had the Spanish not been in the new world.... Acosta is cut off from a simple Gentile remembrance [i.e., the recollection that he, too, had been grafted into the one people of God in Christ] that would enable a far more richly imagined possibility of movement toward faith from within the cultural logics and spatial realities of Andean life.

The point of all this is not to raise the guilt-level, but to ask how the Christian imagination could be corrected, especially in an exponentially increased multi-cultural society. We encounter difference all the time. What do we do with it? Are our assumptions the same as those taken on by Acosta? How many of our cultural norms get thrust into the heart of Christianity when in fact they are simply activities and ideas that Christianity was able to work with (both in subversion and redemption)?

I am reminded of a paper I wrote in seminary examining the residential schools in 19th and 20th century Canada and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission that has been set up to come to grips with this dark history. I had always suspected that the usual rhetoric about the problems faced within Canada's aboriginal population (which sounded much like Acosta's above) were misguided, but did not realize to what an extent this was the case. In research I learned that the United Nations had actually determined that the Canadian government (with the assistance of some of its churches) had committed decades of 'cultural genocide'. I saw that the ramifications of this were not confined to past decades but continued to live on and affect future generations, not only of aboriginals but of non-aboriginal Canadians. I realized that though we had not committed the original crimes we could later still be complicit in past evils simply by (ignorantly) perpetuating the myths that allowed those evils to take place.

So it was that I was faced with the possibility that the only way to true healing would be to face up to the truth of our past and take responsibility not only for the conditions of society but for the reshaping of our social imaginations for the future. Furthermore, I was convinced that it is indeed the Christian social imagination that is best equipped for such healing and reconciliation, and yet convicted by the fact that in many cases it probably has not troubled itself to wrestle with such possibilities and has considered this either a past or a political problem that did not touch its own missional goals.

So I post this as a challenge to myself and my churches. What do we actually think is our mission? Are we merely about the salvation of souls or are we also (and more fully) about the ministry and the ambassadorship of reconciliation? Are we always the teachers, or do we ever have something to learn? Might we witness to Christ not only in proclamation but also in confession? What posture does the gospel require of us? What social imagination does it inspire?

What has Pentecost to say to Babel?

How much of what we equate with Christianity is actually a product of cultural assumptions? How often do we guard against going along with 'culture' in its present and future trends without analyzing the ways we may have already (and wrongly) gone along with it in the past? Is it possible that sometimes there is a 'cultural' repentance in regard to the past that is more Spirit-led than our own resistance to such a thing?

It occurs to me that what our multi-culture needs from the church (and what God asks of it) is neither a bed-fellow nor a strict-resistor but a community of people who confess the Lordship of Christ and endeavor to follow His ministry of reconciliation in the world - even where it calls for our own repentance and our full engagement with the problems of our society in a posture of truth-seeking, justice-seeking, graciousness, and love. Truth is, I can hardly imagine such a society or such a posture, except for the revelation of God and humanity that has come to us in Jesus Christ.

(Excerpts from Jennings, Christian Imagination, pp.. 77, 94, 98, quoting Elinor G.K. Melville, A Plague of Sheep, pp. 39-40.)

What Wins in your Doctrine of Election?

2011-03-08T11:25:00.002Z

When it comes to the doctrine of election, Barth says, 'the first and last word is Yes and not No.' In this insistence Barth recovers an understanding of God's grace that does not need sin to be appreciated, and of God's glory that does not need hell in order to be perceived. I suppose this is little more than a teaser, but here's a excursus (or footnote) that Barth provides at the beginning of his treatment:

We must establish this at the outset because, as the “doctrine of predestination”, the doctrine of the divine election of grace has fallen under something of a shadow during the course of its history. The shadow has become so pronounced that when one mentions the terms “election of grace” or “predestination” one must expect to awaken in one's hearers or readers associations which necessarily confuse and thus make impossible the necessary recognition of the great truth with which we have to do at this point.

The association may be resentment against the “pathetic inhumanity” of the doctrine (as in Max Weber...), or perhaps against the danger of dialectical ambiguity, or worse than both these, against what we mentioned earlier: the idea that in this matter we are dealing only with an abstract and neutral theorem.

If we glance at the history of the doctrine, even as presented by its greatest and profoundest exponents, we cannot simply dismiss these associations as completely without foundation. Everywhere this shadow is in the ascendancy.

A good deal has, in fact, been said in such a way as to give rise to confusion, to savage hostility, to well-meant but fatal misrepresentations of what ought to be received, indeed to a whole mass of misunderstanding and indifference with regard to the doctrine.

“I may go to hell, but such a God (as that of the Calvinistic teaching) will never command my respect” — that was the cry of John Milton..., and openly or secretly how many others have made some similar utterance...?

The task which confronts us is rather a critical one, even in face of the very best tradition.... If the doctrine is to shed forth its light, then the shadow must be dispersed. The dispersing of this shadow will be our definite objective in the polemical discussions throughout this whole chapter.

We cannot be too soon, or too radical, in the opposition which we must offer to the classical tradition, or rather in the attempt to do justice to the particular and justifiable and necessary intention which underlies that tradition.

And we introduce the first and most radical point with our thesis that the doctrine of election must be understood quite definitely and unequivocally as Gospel; that it is not something neutral on the yonder side of Yes and No; that it is not No but Yes; that it is not Yes and No, but in its substance, in the origin and scope of its utterance, it is altogether Yes.

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics II/2, 15, citing M. Weber

Notice that this is not about universal salvation, but about what takes logical (or better, theological) precedence in our understanding of things. It has been all too common in evangelical rhetoric for the doctrines of election and the doctrines of sin to react so strongly to the rhetoric of pluralism and moral relativity that they in turn emphasize judgment and sin to such an extent that sin and damnation become not just realities we must face up to but integral and necessary components of God Himself. It is as if God's glory could only be known if there were an opposition to it. It is as if sin were authored by God so that grace could abound. Barth does not want to say there is no sin or judgment, but wants to get first things first.

God's 'No' is known in light of God's 'Yes', and not vice versa. There is a 'No', but the 'Yes' is before it and after it, prevailing on both sides in the 'Nevertheless' that comes in Jesus Christ. And if Jesus indeed reveals God to us, we need to not go looking for another God behind His back.

Whatever the doctrine of election entails, it does not ask us to picture a God behind the one revealed in Jesus who elects some to damnation so that His glory may be appreciated by those elected to salvation. God needs no such thing for His glory to be known or appreciated. In fact, from Jesus we get the sense that His glory is in that He wants no such thing either.

Seen in this way, we begin to wonder what 'wins' in our doctrines of election? If the 'No' is somehow necessary for the 'Yes' to be known, then are we not stuck in a doctrine that puts evil alongside God, or worse, puts it above Him?

I would be curious to know if prominent 'new calvinists' have ever read Barth on this, because they often seem unaware of the fact that something close to and yet surpassing Calvin doctrine of predestination is actually out there.

Rob Bell, Love Wins, and Karl Barth

2011-02-26T23:07:00.013Z

UPDATE: I don't want to add another post to the phenomena, but if you do want to see the latest comment I've put on one of the blogs of Bell's detractors, see comment 20 below. I'm happy to talk about this more in the comments if anyone wishes.

Rob Bell has a book coming out March 29th called Love Wins: Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived. It has already met with considerable suspicion by some prominent evangelical figures. You can see the video teaser for the book and a (what I consider to be rash) blog reaction here.

First of all, come on. We are none of us perfect, but we can do better than this blogger. Based on the trailer we ought to have questions, not condemnations. Let's stay out of the pre-emptive anathemas and ism-hunting and hear the brother out.

Secondly, Bell's teaser is provocative, no doubt, but none of the theological questions asked in it are new. In fact they are important enough that they have been discussed and debated with varied results within Christianity for centuries. Bell may be worthy of critique, but we will have to see. And "worthy of critique" is a far cry from "servant of Satan" (a charge made explicit in the first run of the blog post and then amended to be merely implicit).

Thirdly, this reminds me so much of what I've been researching in Karl Barth the last couple weeks it is uncanny. Readers may recall the letter I posted a little while back in which Barth was responding to a request from Christianity Today (put to him through a friend) to defend himself against theological suspicions. What were they? You guessed it: He had been labeled a "universalist". I'll re-excerpt the letter below (and give something of Barth's actual, theological reply below that), so you can see how Barth responded to this blogger's ilk in his day:

Dear Dr. Bromiley,

Please excuse me and please try to understand that I cannot and will not answer the questions these people put. To do so in the time requested would in any case be impossible for me. The claims of work in my last semester as an academic teacher (preparation of lectures and seminars, doctoral dissertations, etc.) are too great. But even if I had the time and strength I would not enter into a discussion of the questions proposed.

Such a discussion would have to rest on the primary presupposition that those who ask the questions have read, learned, and pondered the many things I have already said and written about these matters. They have obviously not done this, but have ignored the many hundreds of pages in the C.D. where they might at least have found out — not necessarily under the headings of history, universalism, etc. — where I really stand and do not stand. From that point they could have gone on to pose further questions.

I sincerely respect the seriousness with which a man like Berkouwer studies me and then makes his criticisms. I can then answer him in detail. But I cannot respect the questions of these people from Christianity Today, for they do not focus on the reasons for my statements but on certain foolishly drawn deductions from them. Their questions are thus superficial.

The decisive point, however, is this. The second presupposition of a fruitful discussion between them and me would have to be that we are able to talk on a common plane. But these people have already had their so-called orthodoxy for a long time. They are closed to anything else, they will cling to it at all costs, and they can adopt toward me only the role of prosecuting attorneys, trying to establish whether what I represent agrees or disagrees with their orthodoxy, in which I for my part have no interest! None of their questions leaves me with the impression that they want to seek with me the truth that is greater than us all. They take the stance of those who happily possess it already and who hope to enhance their happiness by succeeding in proving to themselves and the world that I do not share this happiness.

Indeed they have long since decided and publicly proclaimed that I am a heretic, possibly (van Til) the worst heretic of all time. So be it! But they should not expect me to take the trouble to give them the satisfaction of offering explanations which they will simply use to confirm the judgment they have already passed on me.

Dear Dr. Bromiley, you will no doubt remember what I said in the preface to CD IV/ 2 in the words of an eighteenth-century poem on those who eat up men. The continuation of the poem is as follows: “… for there is no true love where one man eats another.”

These fundamentalists want to eat me up. They have not yet come to a “better mind and attitude” as I once hoped. I can thus give them neither an angry nor a gentle answer but instead no answer at all.

With friendly greetings,
Yours,
Karl Barth

P.S. I ask you to convey what I have said in a suitable manner to the people at Christianity Today.

To be sure, I think this debate is closer to home for Bell and so he will probably be best to carefully and gracefully enter the fray - but I wouldn't blame him for finding some resonance with Barth's feeling at this point!

Now, of course, Barth did answer the questions about his seeming "universalism", and he did so in print. The question was put to him best by G.C. Berkouwer, in a book called The Triumph of Grace. Here is something of Barth's reply:

‘If I am in a sense understood by its clever and faithful author, yet in the last resort cannot think that I am genuinely understood for all his care and honesty, this is connected with the fact that he tries to understand me under this title....

Grace is undoubtedly an apt and profound and at the right point necessary paraphrase of the name Jesus,’ but ‘the statement needed is so central and powerful ... it is better not to paraphrase the name of Jesus, but to name it’ lest we become concerned with a principle rather than a living person at precisely the place where that person matters most (Church Dogmatics IV/3.1, 173). God is love, but ‘love’ is not God.

Furthermore, 'universalism' is an -ism that doesn't get us very far. You have to say more. Barth didn't go in for a lot of -isms and neither should we. In fact, he quite famously and aptly remarked: "I don’t believe in universalism, but I do believe in Jesus Christ, the reconciler of all."

Undoubtedly this is one of the more difficult questions in theology. I am not sure if I admire Bell's boldness or find his promotional teaser a bit flippant. Regardless, this is not an open and shut theological issue - it deserves careful consideration and gracious dialogue, and I imagine that is what he'd hope for. Please let's not reduce everything to principles, label everyone by those principles, and then proceed as if we are protectors of a point of view rather than persons in communion with faith seeking understanding.

At this point Bell raises questions, but does not merit condemnations. If anything, the main question we might ask is why it isn't called "Jesus is Victor"? But we aren't going to be legalistic about book titles. The least one can do is read the book before leveling a full-bodied critique (let alone anything worse).

Barth on Christian Knowledge of God

2011-02-24T13:41:00.009Z

One of the things you have to know about Barth is that he will rail on this point time and time again: That God could only be known if God revealed Godself to humanity. This is precisely what the Christian believes is happening in the incarnation; in Jesus.

What I think is really interesting about Barth is how he goes on to talk about the nature of Christian knowledge of God in the time after Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension, when He has promised to send His Spirit into the world and called the church to be his witnesses; to testify to His accomplishment and His revelation.

What does that mean? What is the character of that witness? What does it look like? This is where Barth really corrects some of our attitudes, both in and out of the church setting:

We can never control our knowledge of this fact and therefore our authority to speak of it. It is not our own product, but the work of that fact in its character as revelation. It does not become our possession. We cannot put it in our pocket and carry it round with us. We can only use it at once as its work takes place in its character as revelation. We are not to hoard it, any more than the Israelites could hoard the manna in the wilderness.

We can and may know that fact when it is revealed - and know it with the self-grounded certainty which corresponds to its self-grounded being and occurrence. But we should be fools - real fools in the biblical sense of the word - if either to ourselves or others we pretended to be the expert bearers of revelation, appealing for our authorisation (in our own eyes and those of others) to a knowledge of revelation which is either transmitted to us institutionally or infused personally, like the Roman Catholic to the authority of his Church, the 'Fundamentalist' to the biblical texts, and the sectarian to his inner voice.

We can and must act as those who know. But we must not claim to be those who know. For if our knowledge of this fact from its self-revelation is not new every morning, if it is not newly received from it, with empty hands, as a new gift, it is not this knowledge at all.

And its flimsiness will be quickly and radically enough exposed. Its power consists in the divine act of majesty in face of which those who really know will always find and confess that they do not know. The attitude of those who know in this power can only be one of the greatest humility. It is the necessary converse of the resoluteness with which they make use of their knowledge. It distinguishes this resoluteness from the arrogance and timidity of mere opinion and hypothesis. It respects the freedom of God, and is therefore the root of the freedom in which they make actual use of their knowledge. It leads them to pistis [faith], and therefore to gnosis [knowledge], to unceasing prayer and therefore to knowledge.

It is just because they can have no doubt as to the liberation which is quite outside their own control that those who are really free to know this matter can never lose a sense of humour in relation to themselves.

Church Dogmatics IV/2, 124-125

Indie Can Be Popular. Meet The Walkmen.

2011-02-22T09:51:00.023Z

Hailing from New York City,

The Walkmen are:

Hamilton Leithauser (vocals, guitar)

Paul Maroon (guitar, piano)
Walter Martin (organ, bass)
Peter Bauer (bass, organ)
Matt Barrick (drums)

As a relatively new but hugely appreciative Arcade Fire listener, it was somewhat gratifying to see them receive widespread public recognition at the Grammy Awards last week - even though a Grammy is pretty much meaningless to me as an indicator of good music. It was ironic to see them play their 'corporate-angst' rock - complete with the line 'businessmen will drink my blood' - while a voice-over for Delta airlines took full advantage of the high viewership moment. It was also interesting to see how at peace the band seemed with such irony. Whatever other trappings there are, they seemed genuinely pleased.

Surely music can in some way be subversive of the very medium in which it is shared, and one can be glad that people are connecting with it. Period. I think it is a bit disingenuous when a band pretends it doesn't care whether anyone likes it or whether, indeed, a lot of people like it. Sure, I like bands that aren't caught up in such efforts at popularity, but there is no sense denying that you make music to be heard.

In that vein, I find the Walkmen interview below pretty insightful as well. They talk about wanting lots of people to like their music, wanting to play bigger and better shows, and so on - but they also (clearly) think it really important to themselves also like the music they play (see 13:50). Implicitly, they are saying that this would go away if they were simply making music for a broad appeal. Such is the bind of an artist.

I think The Walkmen are one of the most gifted bands around. The vocalist can soar, the guitar and bass are unique and yet not inaccessible, and the drummer is amazing (and entertaining to watch). Recently we were going around the table naming our top 5 musicians of all time and The Walkmen made my list. I was surprised that several had not heard of them (of course, neither would I if not for my brother). So I invite you to become familiar with them.

Here they play some stuff from the 2010 album Lisbon and answer a few quick questions:

Here they play a song from the 2004 album Bows + Arrows called "The Rat" - maybe one of my favourite songs of all time:

And here is a really cool video for the song "Four Provinces", from the 2008 album You & Me (which I think is their best):

Barth: Cannibalistic v. Communion-based Theology

2011-02-17T09:08:00.019Z

In the personal notes that follow I think we get a great insight not only into Barth's personality but also into his approach to theology as an open and communal endeavour. I'll come back to some of the more telling lines in that regard below. In the meantime, enjoy these (by now rather famous) remarks from the pen of Karl Barth, first from the 1955 preface to volume IV/2 of his Church Dogmatics, and then from a 1961 letter written to one of their translators, Geoffrey Bromiley.

As I hurry to the end of this Preface, I must not forget to make some necessary amends. I am not referring to the strange (but not entirely novel) confusion which caused me (somewhere in IV, 1) to transport the land of Israel to the western shores of the Mediterranean. I am thinking rather of the fierce attack which I made on Dutch Neo-Calvinists in globo in the Preface to III, 4.

The wrath of man seldom does that which is right in the sight of God, and never when it is in globo. I have to acknowledge this now that I have come to know the great book on myself and the Church Dogmatics by a representative of that group, G. C. Berkouwer (De Triomf de Genade in de Theologie van Karl Barth, 1954). For all its reservations and criticisms this work is written with such care and goodwill and Christian aequitas [fairness] that — in the hope that there are others like its author — I should like to withdraw entirely the generalised and therefore ill-founded words which after many years of provocation I then suddenly unleashed.

There are obviously “Fundamentalists” with whom one can discuss. Only butchers and cannibals are beyond the pale (e.g., the one who summarily described my theology as the worst heresy of any age), and even they only provisionally, for there is always hope that they will attain to a better mind and attitude. Those who were wounded then can take comfort in the fact that I myself have now come under the charge of “Fundamentalism,” and indeed of an “existentialist Fundamentalism” (whatever that may be).

And if in the future they do not say any more unseemly things about Mozart, they need have nothing to fear from me (CD IV/2, xii).

Five years later, Barth was contacted by his friend Geoffrey Bromiley with a request from Christianity Today that he respond in the pages of their magazine to some of the charges that had been levied against him by prominent evangelical theologians (one of them the heresy-hunter referred to above). As it turns out, the harshest critics of Barth's theology were going to be given the last word. Again, I find Barth's letter of reply as insightful of his approach to theology as it is of his personality.

Dear Dr. Bromiley,

Please excuse me and please try to understand that I cannot and will not answer the questions these people put. To do so in the time requested would in any case be impossible for me. The claims of work in my last semester as an academic teacher (preparation of lectures and seminars, doctoral dissertations, etc.) are too great. But even if I had the time and strength I would not enter into a discussion of the questions proposed.

Such a discussion would have to rest on the primary presupposition that those who ask the questions have read, learned, and pondered the many things I have already said and written about these matters. They have obviously not done this, but have ignored the many hundreds of pages in the C.D. where they might at least have found out — not necessarily under the headings of history, universalism, etc. — where I really stand and do not stand. From that point they could have gone on to pose further questions.

I sincerely respect the seriousness with which a man like Berkouwer studies me and then makes his criticisms. I can then answer him in detail. But I cannot respect the questions of these people from Christianity Today, for they do not focus on the reasons for my statements but on certain foolishly drawn deductions from them. Their questions are thus superficial.

The decisive point, however, is this. The second presupposition of a fruitful discussion between them and me would have to be that we are able to talk on a common plane. But these people have already had their so-called orthodoxy for a long time. They are closed to anything else, they will cling to it at all costs, and they can adopt toward me only the role of prosecuting attorneys, trying to establish whether what I represent agrees or disagrees with their orthodoxy, in which I for my part have no interest! None of their questions leaves me with the impression that they want to seek with me the truth that is greater than us all. They take the stance of those who happily possess it already and who hope to enhance their happiness by succeeding in proving to themselves and the world that I do not share this happiness.

Indeed they have long since decided and publicly proclaimed that I am a heretic, possibly (van Til) the worst heretic of all time. So be it! But they should not expect me to take the trouble to give them the satisfaction of offering explanations which they will simply use to confirm the judgment they have already passed on me.

Dear Dr. Bromiley, you will no doubt remember what I said in the preface to CD IV/ 2 in the words of an eighteenth-century poem on those who eat up men. The continuation of the poem is as follows: “… for there is no true love where one man eats another.”

These fundamentalists want to eat me up. They have not yet come to a “better mind and attitude” as I once hoped. I can thus give them neither an angry nor a gentle answer but instead no answer at all.

With friendly greetings,
Yours,
Karl Barth

P.S. I ask you to convey what I have said in a suitable manner to the people at Christianity Today.

Although I read these for the first time a year or two ago, now that I've spent some time deeply considering Barth's approach to Christian community and the theological endeavour, at the risk of making too much of these off the cuff remarks I do wish to utilize them in highlighting some things that I think are pretty indicative.

There is a difference between expressing "reservations" and making "criticisms". In either case one should be "fair" and with "seriousness" try first to understand the other person and second to communicate one's critiques clearly.

By his own confession Barth considers the words of his prior "generalizations" to have been "ill-founded". Time might have told whether his generalizations would have rung true, and so perhaps Barth isn't apologizing for them. But he leans toward a more cautious approach when he withdraws those comments and mentions that he only levied them after much provocation. Even then, of course, he confesses that they were "unleashed" more on a "sudden" impulse than a thoughtful desire for mutual edification. This is pretty relevant today, where we love to characterize "the church" or "evangelicalism" or "conservative" or "liberal" in globo rather than speak about the issues at hand. I've been guilty of this myself and have been consciously trying to be more pointed than blunted.

The reason Barth will not respond to the questions lobbed at him is because he feels they are hand grenades and not communiques. The critiques from these prosecuting attorneys, these protectors of the truth, have shown that they have been more intent to deal with Barth under predetermined "superficial" labellings rather than actual interaction. To be fair, in cases where we don't understand each other we probably have to come at each other with our prior categories open on the table. But if we aren't listening to the way the other person wants to explain things, we are head-hunting rather than truth-seeking together. Barth might recommend we be willing to work through such blockages if the context is our own local church, but in this case he is too tied down locally to play this game with those people across the pond who have shown no willingness even to meet him halfway.

Even the harshest fundamentalist can be considered "beyond the pale ... only provisionally, for there is always hope that they will attain to a better mind and attitude." By this Barth does not mean we talk to them again once they share our point of view. He is referring to the lack of openness to discussion. While there is no writing anyone off completely, sometimes for the sake of discussion one must actually end the discussion. The first thing one has to do when one is in a pretended discussion is call a spade a spade and ask that the person come back when they are willing to actually discuss. Until this is confronted, "neither an angry nor a gentle answer" will be much help.

When Barth calls for people to be open rather than closed, is he simply a pluralist preaching a shallow gospel of wishy-washy tolerance? What would he think of Chesterton's adage that the purpose of an open mind is to close it on something solid? I think he'd agree that there is at the goal of thought and dialogue a certain conviction about what one considers true. However, here Barth isn't talking about an "open mind", he is talking about people being closed to other people. This is about a posture for discussion that actually allows someone to speak and actually endeavours to understand and seek commonality.

6. But how can there be such a thing when we have no reason to believe we will find commonality? Is such openness merely naive? Perhaps this is the case under other belief systems (or lack thereof), but it should not be so in Christianity. Our discussions stem from a common faith that there is a "truth that is greater than us all" and that He actually wishes to be sought! Barth made quite famous the old phrase about Christian theology as "faith seeking understanding", but here I think we get a window into the fact that he really believes in "communion seeking understanding". One can take the "faith" platitude quite individualistically, thus easily taking "the stance of those who happily possess" understanding and are simply "proving to themselves" that they are on the right track. But Christ calls people into communion in order to seek truth together. With the Word in the church the Spirit guides us into truth together. And since the Spirit can be heard in the world we are best to be listeners. Christians do not believe that understanding establishes peace, they believe in a peace that surpasses understanding and guides us into truth from that peace which is already there. It may be this peace and not some shirking of the question which leads Barth in his P.S. to entrust to his friend Bromiley the "suitable" communication of his answer.

And though I've used a picture of Daniel in the lion's den to depict this, it is interesting that Barth chooses the metaphor of cannibalism. This isn't a redrawing of battle lines on an in/out distinction, but the recognition that it is possible within a false unity to begin to eat our own.

Solzhenitsyn's Speech and Our Fragmented Stories

2011-02-13T08:05:00.034Z

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn was a Russian writer whose two most famous novels exposed the Soviet Gulags (state labour camps) and revealed something of the lives and pains of the people forced to work within them. I have been meaning to read him for quite some time, and have already told you the extent of my knowledge of the man. But at a used book sale this week I picked up a copy of the speech he gave upon reception of his Nobel Prize for Literature, and am finding it fascinating. Here's an excerpt:

I have mounted this platform from which the Nobel Lecture is delivered - a platform made available to by no means every writer and that only once in his lifetime - not by means of three or four well-carpeted steps, but by climbing up hundreds, even thousands of steps, unyielding, steep, slippery with frost, steps leading up from the darkness and cold where fate decreed that I should survive, while others - perhaps more gifted and stronger than I - perished. Of those who perished, I myself me only a few in the Gulag Archipelago, a scattered, fragmented multitude of islands; under the millstone of surveillance and mistrust I could not speak freely with everybody, some I only heard about, others I only guessed at.

Those who already had a literary reputation when they sank into that abyss are at least known - but how many died totally unknown, never once publicly named? And hardly any of them ever returned. A whole national literature has been left there, buried without a coffin, without even any underclothes, naked, just a name-tag tied round one toe. Russian literature continued its uninterrupted flow, while from outside it appeared a desert. Where a healthy forest might have grown, after all the felling nothing remains but a couple of trees overlooked by accident.

And how am I today, accompanied as I am by the shadows of the fallen, bowing my head as I stand aside to let those other men who deserved this honour before me take their place on this platform - how am I today to guess and put into words what they would have wanted to say?

This obligation has long lain heavy on us, and we have long known it. In the words of Vladimir Solovyov:

But e'en in chains, ourselves we must complete
That circle which the gods have fore-ordained.

During the painful marches of our camp life, in the convicts' column, in the midst of the evening frosts with the strings of lights shining through, the words we would have shouted for the whole world to hear, had the world been able to hear a single one of us, often rose to our throats.

At that time it seemed self-evident what our lucky ambassador to the world outside would say, and how the world would immediately respond in sympathy. Our field of vision was peopled with distinct physical objects and distinct spiritual forces, and in an unambiguous world we saw nothing to counteract them.

Those thoughts did not originate in books, they were not selected for their attractiveness: they were born in prison cells and by camp-fires in the forest, in conversation with people now dead; they have stood the test of that life, they grew in that environment.

But when the external pressures slackened, my horizon and all our horizons widened, and gradually, if only through chinks in the fence, we saw and got to know the 'world outside'. And we were startled to find that the 'world outside' was quite different from what we had hoped: it lived by the 'wrong' rules and values, it progressed in the 'wrong' direction; it exclaimed 'What an enchanting lawn!' at the sight of a boggy swamp, and 'What an exquisite necklace!' on seeing the concrete stocks imprisoning people's necks; and while tears ran unchecked down the faces of some, others tripped along in time to a carefree hit-tune.

How did this happen? What caused this yawning abyss? Were we the insensitive ones, or the world? Or was it all due to the difference in our respective languages? Why are people unable to understand every word distinctly spoken by others? Words die away and run off like water - tasteless, colourless, odourless - without trace.

As I came to understand this over the years, the content, the sense and the tone of my potential speech - my speech of today - changed. And now it scarcely resembles the one originally drafted during those freezing evenings in the camp.

This reminds me of the Genesis story of the Tower of Babel, in which the world is fragmented into languages (and thus cultures) by God in order to restrain its own unified plundering of earth and heaven for personal gain. Unsure whether to consider Babel a blessing or a curse, I imagine we see in globalism the opportunity to reverse Babel, retreat from it, or find some other resolution to its fragmentations.

To my mind it seems that from Prophets to Pentecost to Revelation we are getting a vision of a reconciliation which celebrates and understands diverse communion under the bonds of a peace which surpasses understanding but comes to the world nonetheless. Stirred by this the Christian imagination ought neither to presume itself capable nor cease to pray (and strive) for the kingdom of heaven to come on earth.

Solzhenitsyn's speech reminds me of the complexities of all this in an as-yet broken world. And yet it also tells me of the importance of telling and retelling and listening to and reflecting on one another's stories. It is here that we not only encounter the other but also begin perhaps to understand ourselves. As Solzhenitsyn indicates, we can imagine this, often only vaguely, only to be frustrated when we try. But I do think that when our stories are enfolded in Christ's we have more hope in that regard. In fact I think it is at the heart of the Christian imperative to greet, and really meet, one another in Jesus' name.

Why Violent Video Games?

2011-02-11T10:01:00.010Z

When I was a kid I used to play video games where 'killing' was involved, and they ran the spectrum of 'innocence' from Super Mario Brothers (where you are simply squishing mushrooms and strange creatures into invisibility) to James Bond (where the whole game is geared around shooting people for some reason that you have bought into for the purposes of the adventure). Probably there are extremes further on the spectrum on either side, but that's my range of personal experience. I don't recall that these made me particularly more violent than I would have been otherwise (although I'm not sure), nor do I remember being all that cognizant of any moral issues involved in what I was doing (but perhaps it is because no one prompted me to). All in all, it was fairly 'innocent', I suppose.

Nowadays I simply don't play video games at all anymore. There came a point where I couldn't keep up with the gamers and simply wasn't good enough for it to be fun. Fine. This isn't about me.

We have a seven year old and a six year old who play video games and who are increasingly aware of the options available to them. More and more the attractive options are the games their friends talk about at school, and more and more these involve violent scenarios where the player is mainly interested in shooting others.

What I want to know is this: Does anyone actually consider this a good thing? Does anyone think about it? Or has everyone thought about it and come up with a better rationale for it than I have been able to come up with?

Now, to be clear, I am not a Luddite nor a home-schooler. If you want to argue for something in that direction I'm open to hear it, but you should know that (while I imagine there are scenarios where home-schooling is the best option) I am heavily resistant to the general idea that Christianity recommends we shield our kids at all costs from the messiness of their societal context. As the kids grow in discernment I want to give them an increasing range of freedom to meet the world and to exercise those muscles of (preferably Christian) discernment further; even to be positive influences in their respective realms. Thus, while I can't think of any good reason for the existence of Lego Star Wars on the Nintendo, I have been able to come up with good reasons to allow our kids to play that game (albeit not others).

They know we don't think violence is the answer. They know we think shooting is a very-worst-case scenario. I think they even know why we think that. They know we let them play this particular game if they want to because it is fictional robots and lego characters rather than real people. They know that the moment we get the sense that it is transferring into a violent approach to real people they will have to take some time away from the video game to restore some sanity.

They know all this, I think, and we haven't even had to nag them (much) - just return to it from time to time. We are making a concession, but I hope we are doing so in a potentially redeeming way that turns it into as a discernment exercise and a teaching opportunity (hopefully without being overbearing).

Of course, I am fully aware of the fact that when I was a kid I didn't really think much about the killing that was going on in video games so I should probably not make a big deal out of it as if the kids are bloodthirsty for wanting to play them. There is, admittedly, a kind of innocence about kids that can actually make the games themselves sort of innocent.

But, let's face it, we'd be pretty naive if we dismissed the possibility that the movies and video games that children spend hours on may in some way effect reactive and instigative outbursts of violence in child-play and relationships. We'd also be pretty naive if we pretended that the hours they spend now aren't in some way shaping their worldview.

Certainly, 'rough-housing' and so on is probably a natural part of growing up, and so I think there is a mode and an extent to which this is appropriate on the playground and maybe even on-screen. But how we could then turn around and argue that a shoot-em-up video game is healthy in that regard is beyond me. And what unhealthy habits and approaches are spurred on unnecessarily and undiscerningly by such brain-feed?

I don't mean this as a criticism of other people's parenting decisions. I am asking an open question. Is there something good (or neutral) about violent video games that I am completely unaware of? Let's not pretend this is just a parenting question, either, even though in my case that's all it is. I know plenty of adults play these games.

My question is: Why? Without going all the way back to moral viewpoints and Christian values and such (since I imagine you can guess what they are), I've given some perspective on where I'm coming from and what my concerns and my leanings are. But I do want to make it an open question and hear out the possible answers. How is it enjoyable in the least to commit 'virtual murders'? And even if it is mildly enjoyable, how is it good? Is it neutral, harmless, or otherwise justifiable?

To be fair, I watch plenty of films and read plenty of books that contain violence. To me discernment means avoiding those films which are more interested in glorifying violence than telling a story that involves it (even depicting it rawly and brutally where necessary). My greatest respect goes to those films that can capture the disturbing effects of violence and the complexities of conflict without showing us every drop of blood and passing sword-swipe to the gut. But I've seen some garbage, I'll admit. I'm open to rebuke in that regard.

But I do think the discussion happens on another level when we move from hearing/seeing/reading a story and actually playing a part in it - in the role of a violent aggressor no less. Thus I raise the question. I don't know if anyone wants to help me with this or not.

(By the way, I've had this question in mind for a long time. Nothing has really triggered it for me recently other than the fact that what was a moot point for me personally has through my children become a live issue to think about again.)

give your cloak as well

2011-02-11T09:42:00.002Z

It's not very often where I spend a post simply linking elsewhere, but this blog on 'turning the other cheek' is absolutely fascinating.

How to Treat People Like Tax Collectors

2011-02-08T01:55:00.011Z

It is probably more indicative of my interests than anything else, but I come back to two passages in the Bible more often than any others: Genesis 1-3 and Matthew 18. In the latter passage we have what I think is one of the most important pieces of practical and ideological ecclesiology going - straight from the mouth of Jesus.

Your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones [lost sheep] should be lost. If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that 'every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.' If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church; and if he refuses to listen even to the church, treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector. I tell you the truth, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again, I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven. For where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them (18:14-20).

Right in the middle of all that, but not to be separated from the rest of what Jesus was talking about, is this bit about what one does after attempts to make things right have failed. When every attempt has been made and a person "refuses to listen even to the church," at that point, Jesus says, you "treat him as you would a pagan or a tax collector."

This raises a question, and I'm not convinced that the oft-assumed answer is the right one: How does a Christian treat a so-called "pagan" or "tax collector"?

In his Commentary on the Harmony of the Evangelists (vol. II, pp. 357-358), John Calvin figures that Jesus is here borrowing a Jewish "mode of expression" - meaning that "we ought to have no intercourse with the despisers of the Church till they repent."

This seems a bit off to me, but maybe it is because I am born in an age leaning back from a perceived over-emphasis on accountability and leaning into an emphasis on tolerance. But as much as I prefer it to legalism, tolerance has been searched and found empty. Surely there can be some other option between strictly asserted self-righteousness and a socially shallow live-and-let-live?

A sympathetic reading of Calvin hears him saying simply that one does not make an ally out of someone that does not share one's goals and concerns. Refusing those who refuse is, for him, like calling a spade a spade. If someone refuses the church, why pretend you are on the same page? Makes sense.

Problem is, we get it in our head that the scenario Jesus speaks of involves someone who is 100% right and someone who is 100% wrong on some obvious sin or doctrinal issue. Surely there are those. But more often it is quite simply not that cut and dry. Even where there is a clear victim and a clear offender, we know that a third party and a discerning church leadership will often be able to tackle the trickier interpersonal squabbles and not only (a) help the offender to see and repent of the wrongdoing but also (b) help both victim and offender face some of the complicating issues of their relationship or their past or what have you.

Jesus' instruction seems built for way more than just the drag-an-offender-into-admitting-his-guilt scenario. It seems built to handle a dynamic of both truth-seeking and reconciliation-seeking!

In fact, Jesus goes so far beyond either strict legalism or banal tolerance that, properly applied, these verses alone should make the Christian church stick out in our Western society like a sore (but uniquely healing) thumb.

But am I just twisting Jesus' words for a more nuanced piece of sociological psycho-babble? Am I usurping a black and white Jesus for a church community of my own design? What if that's not what He meant? And who am I to disagree with Calvin's interpretation? Let's deal with them one at at time, starting with Calvin:

(1) Elsewhere in Calvin's comments on this passage he is clear that this refusal of "intercourse" with pagans or tax collectors does not mean either the extreme of "hatred" or the more passive-aggressive "avoidance". This is not about shunning or resentment. Calvin is not asking Christians (who in some cases will have been deeply offended by the wrongdoer) to cease and desist from amicable conversation, public association, friendship or even debate with those in question. His concern really does seem to be for the integrity of the church's communion.

Now, notice that I said the integrity of its communion, not of its moral appearances. The offender is not shuffled quietly aside in Jesus' church, but is embraced in a confrontation that aims at stronger union. The goal is to abide properly with God's calls on human life, and to do so as a community. This does mean confronting particular sins. Those that want a shallow tolerance will have to look elsewhere (and will have no problems finding it). This is about moral integrity. But the road to moral integrity is communal integrity.

So if a communion can't speak truth in love to one another in the common goal of discerning the way of Christ then they might as well admit they are no longer in a Christian communion. It is one thing to have wronged somebody. It is another thing for the ministry of reconciliation and the community itself to be refused. At this point (and not before) the church is no longer the church! The one who refuses the church in this way should not be considered a part of it. The presence of sin does not compromise the church, but the absence of togetherness on the road to reconciliation does. Resisting this makes one a non-participant.

Now, it would be easy, I'm sure, to fill our heads with examples where it has not been the offender but the leadership of the church that has failed in this regard. No doubt that adds a complexity to the scenarios which Jesus' teaching addresses. But Jesus' teaching does still address them, I believe.

(2) So now we come back to the question of what we think Jesus was recommending as far as "treatment of pagans and tax collectors" goes. And here, even though I've given Calvin a pretty sympathetic reading, I wonder why on earth Calvin would insist on interpreting that expression in light of typical 1st century Jewish thinking rather than Jesus' own prevalent displays about how to treat pagans and tax collectors?

After all, what book are we reading this story from? The gospel according to Matthew! Matthew was a tax collector befriended and called forth by Jesus - much to the disgust of the religious teachers of his day (Matt. 9 & 11). Matthew's is the gospel in which we see Jesus tell Peter not to revolt or resist but to pay his tax even though he does not live merely as a citizen of an earthly empire (Matt 17 & 22). Matthew's is the gospel in which Jesus says to love one's enemies and turn the other cheek (Matt 5). Matthew's is the gospel in which Jesus tells the story of the workers in the vineyard - and clinches it as follows:

"What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, 'Son, go and work today in the vineyard.'
'I will not,' he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.
Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, 'I will, sir,' but he did not go. 'Which of the two did what his father wanted?'
'The first,' they answered.
Jesus said to them, 'I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.'
(Matt. 21: 28-31)

I think we need to hear what Calvin has to say about who we take as allies (i.e., intercourse with). This seems a proper interpretation of the passage's ramifications. But I think when it comes to how we treat the church's refusers, we have to be extra careful not to get this wrong.

Jesus did not pretend that the pagans and tax collectors were yet in full fellowship with him, but he did treat them as friends.

I mean, just look at the parable which follows the passage we started with in Matthew 18: The parable of the unmerciful servant. It ends with the king imprisoning the servant whom he had previously forgiven because the servant refused to forgive others! Jesus' conclusion was this:

This is how my [not our] heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart.

I don't take this to mean that we can copy the Father in binding people up and tossing them away. We can't judge like that. (And when churches do make decisions about their integrity as a community they are not passing judgment but trying to call it as they see it when all roads have been explored and there can be only one route forward). I take it from here and other passages (Matt 6, John 20, Eph 4, Rom 7) that God is judge and we are showers of mercy.

Thus I am not sure how far we need to be concerned with Calvin "that our forbearance and meekness ... may not become the subject of ridicule" (p. 366). In asmuch as Calvin meant that the church should not allow itself to be a laughing-stock of waffling disregard for integrity or ethical discernment, I'm with him. But I do think that in Christ we should probably expect to be the subjects of ridicule. We should expect that vindication comes in the judgment of God and not in our own efforts to exact revenge or restitution or self-righteousness.

It is one thing to suggest that the church does not take refusers of Christian community as allies, but another thing altogether to suggest that one treats such refusers any other way than lovingly and mercifully - just as in Christ God has done so with us. There is no in/out here. It is all in. Let the refusers refuse. Ours is a posture of embrace.

Of course, what one does when it is one's particular local church which is refusing the ministry of reconciliation is a whole other story. But in that case one is better off confronting that church with their own gospels in hand than retreating to the safe confines of a meaninglessly tolerant society and firing potshots at the Church from a supposed place of moral superiority. That would be the way Pharisees treated pagans and tax collectors, not Jesus. And today I think there are as many Pharisees outside the church as in it.

We could all stand to hear Jesus' rallying cry to the communal ramifications of the gospel that saves. In the sculpture seen here we have three figures, and I imagine we all fancy ourselves the one hurt and kneeling and balk at the idea of being either of the other two. We are pretty happy to talk about the parable of the lost sheep (which precedes the passage I've focussed on here) and thinking of ourselves as the one sought out and brought into the fold, but how often we retreat into an individualistic concept of salvation when Matthew seemed to want to turn our attention to the new reality that this creates: The life to be lived by the 99+1.

This is what it looks like

2011-02-05T08:40:00.009Z

A friend recently passed on to me this excerpt from N.T. Wright's The Challenge of Jesus, which began as a series of talks in 1999 that were then compiled into the book. It is excellent. Those of us wondering where to look for the visible church should probably consider this before looking in all the wrong places:

But if we are to be kingdom-announcers, modeling the new way of being human, we are also to be cross bearers. This is a strange and dark theme which is also our birthright as followers of Jesus. Shaping our world is never, for a Christian, a matter of going out arrogantly thinking we can just get on with the job, can reorganize the world according to some model that we have in mind. It is a matter of sharing and bearing the pain and puzzlement of the world, so that the crucified love of God in Christ may be brought to bear healingly upon the world at exactly that point. Because Jesus bore the cross uniquely for us, we do not have to purchase forgiveness again; it's been done. But because, as he himself said, following him involves taking up the cross, we should expect, as the New Testament tells us repeatedly, that to build on his foundation will be to find the cross etched into the pattern of our life and work over and over again.

We would rather this were not so, and we twist and turn to avoid it. We find ourselves in Gethsemane, saying, 'Lord, can this really be the way? If I have been obedient so far, why is all this happening to me? Surely you don't want me to be feeling like this?' Sometimes, indeed, the answer may be, 'No'. It is possible that we have indeed taken a wrong road, and must now turn and go by a different way. But often the answer is simply that we must stay in Gethsemane. The way of Christian witness is neither the way of quietist withdrawal, nor the way of Herodian compromise, nor the way of angry militant zeal. It is the way of being in Christ, in the Spirit, at the place where the world is in pain, so that the healing love of God may be brought to bear at that point (my emphasis).

This perspective is deeply rooted in New Testament theology, not least in Romans 8. There, Paul speaks of the whole creation groaning together in travail. Where should the Church be at such a time? Sitting smugly on the sidelines, knowing it's got the answers? No, says Paul: we ourselves groan too, because we too long for renewal, for final liberation. And where is God in all this? Sitting up in heaven wishing we could get our act together? No, says Paul (8.26-7): God is groaning too, present within the Church at the place where the world is in pain. God the Spirit groans within us, calling in prayer to God the Father. The Christian vocation is to be in prayer, in the Spirit, at the place where the world is in pain; and as we embrace that vocation we discover it to be the way of following Christ, shaped according to his messianic vocation to the cross, with arms outstretched, holding on simultaneously to the pain of the world and to the love of God.

Paul, we should note carefully, is quite clear about one thing: as we embrace this vocation, the prayer is likely to be inarticulate. It doesn't have to be a thought-out analysis of the problem and the solution. It is likely to be simply a groan, a groan in which the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the crucified and risen Christ, groans within us, so that the achievement of the cross might be implemented afresh at that place of pain, so that the music of the cross might be softly sung at that place of pain, so that the foundation of the cross might support a new home at that place of exile.

So if you work in government, or foreign policy, or finance, or economics, or business, you will be aware right now that the world is in pain and fear. What's happening in south-east Asia? What should we be doing in the Balkans? Is the world's financial system going to break down altogether? Are we heading for another major recession? And what can we do about the problem of major international debt? As I have argued elsewhere, I believe we are called to support the Jubilee project, which seeks to write off the huge unpayable debts of the world's poorest countries. That, I believe, would be the single best way of celebrating the Millennium, and if you haven't caught up with the Jubilee movement I urge you to do so. But this project can never be a way of Christians imposing a solution on the world from a great height. It will be a matter of Christians who are involved with finance and economics, with banking and business, with foreign policy and government, wrestling with the issues, often in a Gethsemane-like anguish in which the pain of the world and the healing love of God are brought together in inarticulate prayer.

How much easier metaphorically to escape to Qumran and say you're just a private Christian not wanting to get involved with international finance; or to compromise with the present system and hope things will work out somehow; or to embrace a shrill and shallow agenda which hasn't taken seriously the depth of the problem. Some readers of this book will be called to live in that Gethsemane, so that the healing love of God may reshape our world at a crucial and critical time.

Or maybe you're a student in a faculty, or a sub-discipline, which right now is facing a major split, which causes people to stop speaking to each other and to refuse to transfer each other's candidates to PhD status, or to fail them when they submit their dissertations. I have known economics faculties, and history faculties, and others too, where half the professors are Marxists and half aren't, or where half are committed postmodernists and half aren't. Where should the Christian be in such a case? You may well believe that the gospel commits you to one side in the debate, though these things are rarely that easy. But my suggestion is that you see it as a call to be in prayer where your discipline is in pain.

Read the scriptures on your knees with your discipline and its problems on your heart. Come to the Eucharist and see in the breaking of the bread the broken body of Christ given for the healing of the world. Learn new ways of praying with and from the pain, the brokenness, of that crucial part of the world where God has placed you. And out of that prayer discover the ways of being peacemakers, of taking the risk of hearing both sides, of running the risk of being shot at from both sides. Are you or are you not a follower of the crucified Messiah? And of course this applies in many other areas as well, in families and marriages, in public policy and private dilemmas.

N.T. Wright, The Challenge of Jesus, 145-148.

At the critical prodding of one of my friends, I want to be clear that I don't think the references to "inarticulate groaning" and prayer here mean that Christianity will utlimately always be formless and void, internalized and cloistered in reformations that never strike out at revolution. I actually think the opposite (and I think NT Wright is alluding to it as well in closing) - that this groaning and prayer, when lifted to God and joined with attentiveness of heart, mind and strength, result in God's commands and articulations coming back on times and places and pointing for particular action and specific involvement in the affairs of interpersonal relationship, community, and world.

The main point I think I'm on about in these last two posts, however, is that this particular manifestation of Christian action is less likely to be measurably successful on the terms of capitalism and consumerism. Church action is not answerable to the immediate realms of efficiency or visible growth, even if it does desire those things the same way it desires God's Kingdom come. Rather, there is a cruciformity to the ministry of reconciliation that finds conviction in the commands of God for our time and goes on with them come what may. We desire palpable communion, undoubtedly, but we are not looking at the stats every minute to see how well that communion seems to be either catching on or offending the masses (whatever our fancy happens to be).

A Revolution Not Likely To Be Televised

2011-02-03T17:10:00.006Z

We are in un dat ed with the notion that the church is on the verge of a huge and necessary paradigm shift. In the church we often get the impression that not only can we make this happen but that its results will be measurably manifested. Some insist that this will be marked by a stout return to "foundations" or "roots" which will noticeably offend the world. Others look for marks of growth that will be impressive and thus God-glorifying in that world. I don't know. I tend to think of ours as a paradigm-shift era as well, but I think this will be more like what Gil Scott-Heron was on about in this classic song than what the authors and preachers seem to be on about in their best-sellers and web-portals.

By that I don't mean to suggest that God is bound to work in a way that brings no numerical growth or widely-noticed success. However, I do tend to think that when the paradigm you are shifting from has based itself on those things then you might be wiser to look for the signs of revolution elsewhere. Perhaps the revolution is not in those things but in the real work of patient, plodding reformation and daily reconciliation that has been the heart of the church all along (and still is, visibly noticed or not, wherever the church is alive).

This is the daily revolution of Christianity as it is new every morning in the hearts and lives of Christians and the motions and actions of church-communities. It is not often sexy, and when it is sexy it is often exploited. But God keeps with us, doesn't he? And so, televised or not, we put our trust in him for the changes and reforms and mutual communion that he brings among those who - noticed or unnoticed - believe and seek the Father in Jesus' name and not their own.

(incidentally, Gil is probably best understood here as illustrating a truth, not taking sides in a race comparison)
(see here for some background to the culture references employed in the music video)

A Bright Eyes-View of Redemption

2011-02-02T21:44:00.006Z

The new Bright Eyes album, entitled "The People's Key" has come out and is streaming free for a while here on National Public Radio. After a few listens I have to say I do like it. It hasn't grabbed me quite like I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning but it is certainly an enjoyable album I may well purchase. There is a slightly annoying narration that plays at the beginning of the album, however. Sounds like some guy tripping a little bit and waxing poetic about the meaning of life and so on. Not all bad, but I hope a person who buys the album can skip it to get to song one because it could get real old real fast.

The narration pops up sporadically throughout the album, of course, complete with nearly nonsensical ramblings about "pomegranate" and "syllables" - but like my friend said it seems to show that Conor Oberst has an artistic philosophical proclamation of sorts that he wants to intertwine with his music. I do tend to like such a mixture, as long as it is done subtly and smartly, and in this case although it is a bit overt and a bit "out there" at points I do have to say that I enjoy the way it ends.

Best I can transcribe it, what follows is the final narration of the album. The man is coming to the climax of his monologue, but it is up to someone nearby to fill in the final word:

Well the transitic [?] is to love. You go back to love again. You understand when somebody has a problem with your trip, or whatever trip they're having a problem with, and you try to bring it together, you try not to cause division. You try to make it as a cosmos, it's a cosmos and yet it unfolds like a flower - it just keeps unfolding. Time keeps moving on - instead of someone saying 'no man, we're moving on, we're gonna become fascists [?], we're gonna do it this way' you say 'no we're moving on and I hope to see you again when everything's okay.'

And that's the human race. When there's total enlightenment, there will be peace, there will be bliss, there will be total enlightenment. So enlightenment is knowledge, as much knowledge as you can get, people, to seek and to understand, you know? And it's mankind, it's men, it's me and you, it's us that do it. But we have to call it to the light. We say 'you know, I'm not going to kick that guy's @$£, his opinion is different.' That's love, compassion, ar, what do you call it, that's...

"mercy" [says someone nearby]

"What's that?"

"mercy" [he whispers]

"Mercy."