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A Change in Seasons – Spring 2012

Over the past couple of months this blog has been primarily focused on two reoccurring themes: how we read the Bible and making sense of the miraculous. I didn’t plan it that way, per se, but it just kept coming up – and since I love those two topics, I went with it.

Now I want to change gears and do something a little more intentional. First, let me set it up.

There are several things happening in our culture that are coming together in an alarming way. The arenas of overlap include:

  • Science
  • Religion
  • Politics
  • Sexuality

The recent political backlash against women’s health, insurance coverage, and reproductive rights is fueled by a religious backlash. This is why it is no coincidence that controversy has flared up in politics around Rush Limbaugh and Rick Santorum – and in religion with Marc Driscoll and John Piper.  Both sets of controversy are coming from the same place … they just play out in different arenas.

This past week I read two news stories that illustrate the same:

Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK) argued that his belief that global warming is a hoax is biblically inspired. You can read the article here.

Well actually the Genesis 8:22 that I use in there is that “as long as the earth remains there will be springtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night.” My point is, God’s still up there. The arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what He is doing in the climate is to me outrageous. – Sen. James Inhofe

The second story had to do with a school assembly in Iowa that turned ugly. It was supposed to be an anti-bullying presentation by a rock band that became anti-gay and anti-abortion.  You can read the story here.

I saw the headline and thought to myself “I will guarantee you that the band was ‘christian’.”  Turns out I was right!  But let me ask you: how did I know?   Because in the current arena there are 2 telltale signs:

  1. Christians have become 2 issue voters. Those two issues are homosexuality and abortion. Over the last 30 years of the Religious Right the American Church has been reduced to a caricature.
  2. The only way that a group who was brought in to talk about anti-bullying would end up ranting against gays and abortion was if they believed that they were working for a BIGGER truth and could therefor dishonor the initial intent of their invitation. What other group  would take the anti-bully opportunity and change direction like that?

We are in an election year so this in only going to get more pronounced.

There are two other factors in my change of season
As you may know, I consider myself a Contextual Theologian (vs. philosophical, systematic, historical, etc). Well, the reality that has been dawning on me is that our context is one dominated by capitalism, global consumerism, post-Cold War imperialism and technology. If I ignore those realities as a theologian then I am doing a dis-service to the Church and to my generation.

It is irresponsible to do theology in the 21st century and not address economics, consumerism (our true global religion), politics, and ecology. 

For this project I have chosen a conversation partner. I work best in dialogue and Chris Hedges is someone I find myself wrestling with throughout the day. The book that I will initially interact with is the national bestseller  “The Death of the Liberal Class” because it covers so many topics that I would love address.

My question will be simply this: IF Chris Hedges is right about the world – how then should we do theology?

I hope that you will join me on this journey and jump into the conversation! I am neither Conservative or Liberal and have been deeply impacted by the book by Deborah Tannen “The Argument Culture: stopping America’s war of words” so I hope that you will feel safe to comment on what will be put forward even though the subject matter can be volatile.

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a 3rd way to read the Bible?

In an ongoing search for a hermeneutical practice that is both healthy and accountable (meaning lifegiving without being merely devotional and scholarly without being dry) I have written quite a bit about the journey. I had a multi-part post a while back  Part 1    Part 3 as well Moving Mountains &  Signs that make you Wonder 

This is last week’s addition (posted at HBC) and it was so well received (by some) that I wanted to A) post it here to continue that conversation and B) will be working on another series for late March.  This clearly is something that matters to people.

I love reading the Bible. I grew up reading it, I am passionate about studying it, and delight to preach from it whenever I get the chance.
I also recognize that it is getting harder to do in our contemporary context. I am a loud critic of simple dualism (constantly contending with my Evangelical associates)  – but even I must concede when there are two main schools of thought that have set themselves up in opposition to each other.  I buck the ‘spectrum’ thinking like Liberal v. Conservative (as if those were the only two options) in almost every circumstance. However, when it comes to reading the Bible, it is tough to avoid the set of major trenches that have been dug on either side of this narrow road.
The first group reads the Bible in what is called a ‘straight forward’ way and while they spend a lot of time with the text, there is little acknowledgement of what is going on behind the text. This group reads the Bible primarily devotionally, preaches exegetically and views it as not just instructive but binding for all times and places.
In my interactions with this group, there is little awareness of hermeneutics (in may cases they may have never heard the word before) and even less willingness to engage in scholarship that does anything behind the text.
The second group engages in Historical-Critical methods. They are willing to look at things like redaction (later editing). They don’t harmonize the Gospels into one Gospel. They are willing to acknowledge that Matthew and Luke’s conception, birth and subsequent details do not line up. They understand that while the story of Daniel happens in the 5th century BC – it was not written in the 5th century BC. They joke about Moses writing the 1st five books of Bible (how did he write about his own death?).
 Lately I have been engaging books like :

  • How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now by James L. Kugel
  • To Each Its Own Meaning, Revised and Expanded: An Introduction to Biblical Criticisms and Their Application by Stephen R. Haynes
  • Whose Bible Is It? A History of the Scriptures Through the Ages by Jaroslav Pelikan
  • She Who Is: The Mystery of God in Feminist Theological Discourse by Elizabeth A. Johnson
  • Sexism and God Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology by Rosemary Radford Ruether

Over the last 4 years, it has become painfully clear to me that we have a problem when it comes to reading the Bible. Simply stated, those who spend the most time with the Bible know less about it but make greater claims for it than those who do more scholarship on it but may have little faith in it.
I was listening to a seminar on the Historical-Jesus and talking to several friends of mine who do Historical-Criticism, here are 3 sentences that no evangelical I know even have ears to hear:

  1. Paul didn’t even write that letter
  2. Jesus probably didn’t say that sentence
  3. The Bible is wrong about this

I get in trouble for saying much much milder things about the literary device of the virgin birth, the prophetic concern of Revelation which is limited to the first 2 centuries CE, and  Jesus being ironic about ‘bringing a sword’. Can you imagine what would happen if I thought that Paul didn’t write the letters that are attributed to him, that Jesus did not utter the red-letter words we have recorded in the gospels or that the Bible was wrong about something?  I can’t.
So how does a moderate engage Biblical scholarship without stumbling over Historical-Critical pitfalls and Historical Jesus land-mines?  The thing that I hear over and over is

“Just stick with N.T. Wright. He has navigated the gulf for you”

Now, I love N.T. Wright as much as the next emergent evangelical (especially his Everybody series) … but I am as unwilling, on one hand, to forego the best and most comprehensive stuff (like Dom Crossan’s work on Empire) as I am, on the other hand, to subscribe to the inane prerequisites of the Jesus Seminar.

What I would really like to see is a move within the emerging generation that is tenacious about engaging contemporary scholarship while fully embracing the kind of devotional passion that the innerant camp demonstrates  – all the while avoiding the fearful and intimidating chokehold that camp utilizes to squelch innovation & thought.
I want the next generation to both find life and direction in the scriptures and also to not have to read the tough parts with their fingers crossed behind their back.
a hopeful moderate – Rev. Bo C. Sanders

For those who do not want to scour the comments to find the links to other resources:
Daniel Kirk’s book  “Jesus have I loved but Paul?”
Ben Witherington’s  book list 

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Loving Jesus – While Hating Religion

originally posted at HBC

Jeff Bethke has created quite a stir with his YouTube video that begins “Jesus came to abolish religion.”  Many video responses have followed (including a Muslim response) and  some bloggers have meticulously  attacked the logic behind his poem point-by-point.  Two  weeks ago  he was in Time magazine.

This whole controversy gets to me at two deep levels:

  •  I used to say those things. Just 4 short years ago I was an evangelical church-planter who regularly contrasted Jesus’ message to ‘religion’.

 

  •  I am shocked at how dismissive so many  folks are being to Bethke’s poem (especially educated and/or mainline).

I have heard many people just brush aside his use of ‘religion’ as ignorant, immature, stupid, uneducated, silly, shallow, un-historic, and false. The thing that I want to yell is

“YOU FOOLS – like it or not, that is how people use the word religion in our culture.”

If you asked A) people under 40 and B) evangelicals to define religion you would get a picture that is almost identical to Bethke’s .

I now hang out with mainline folks and people who read books on theology. They are  quick to say

  • that shows a poor understanding of religion
  • that is a silly/stupid/shallow definition of religion
  • that shows little historical perspective on the role that religion has played

Like it or not – this is the definition that many young people are using for religion. When they say (increasingly) that they are spiritual-but-not-religious , this is what they mean: empty ritual, mindless repitition, and meaningless ceremony.

I am pursuing a PhD in the field of Practical Theology for the very reason that I want to engage how people live out their faith – practice it – in particular communities. The two things that I am willing to concede up front are that

  • Many North American Christians and most Evangelicals utilize simple dualism (Physical v. Spiritual, Natural v. Supernatural, Temporal v. Eternal, Secular v. Sacred, Old v. New Testament, Law v. Grace). This is how they think.
  • Religion is conceptualized as the man-made structures that attempt to facilitate, replicate, and falsely imitate the real thing that God does/wants-to-do in the world.

It is popular to say in these circles “Religion is man’s attempt to connect with God. Jesus is God’s attempt to connect with man.” *

I know that there are many good attempts to connect with religious tradition. I have heard many addresses regarding the root of the word religion and how the ‘lig’ is the same as ligament or ‘binding’ and how it is an attempt to bind us together – not to have us bound up in rules!
My question is this: Are you willing to engage this dualistic and uniformed populist definition of religion that is in place OR would your rather hold to your enlightened and informed historical perspective and allow a conversation to happen without you because you are above it? **

I know that it can be frustrating to circle back and entertain naive perspectives. But if the alternative is to let the conversation happen without a historically informed perspective, then I think we have no choice but to concede the initial conditions of the dialogue in an attempt to express an informed/educated alternative.

*   there are alternatives like “Religion is our attempt to connect with God, Christianity is God’s connecting with us.”
**  I have intentionally provided two alternatives to honor the dualistic nature of this mentality.

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What is Theology?

Originally posted this at Homebrewed Christianity

I got a call the other day from a college student who asked me “how would you define theology?”
I said that it can be thought of as 4 things:

  • God Talk: the most basic thing it to look at the etymology (theo- logy).
  • Faith Seeking Understanding: Anselm’s famous dictum is still many’s favorite.
  • Unquestionable Answers:  in contrast with Philosophy’s unanswerable questions. I got this funny line from one of the best little books I have ever read – John Caputo’s Philosophy and Theology
  • 2nd order activity carried out by disciples within hermeneutical communities. The primary activity is the faith lived out in particular locations and within cultural contexts – theology is the secondary discipline reflecting upon the primary expression.

Now within theology it is important to acknowledge that there are distinct schools of Systematic, Historical, Philosophical and Biblical – these are recognized as the “Big 4” – and there is also my discipline of Practical Theology.

I am big fan of Grenz and Olson’s book Who Needs Theology? and the way that they conceptualize it.

I feel good about my 4 fold answer, I think it covers the basics and provides a framework to enter into the conversation.

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Evangelical Orthodoxy? no such thing

Roger Olson posted an excellent article by Mike Clawson (hubby of Julie Clawson) on his blog last week. It was about the fundamentalist roots of evangelicalism and their contemporary implications. In the comments (and Roger always has tons of comments) Olson reminded everyone of an article he wrote 12 years ago for Christianity Today.  I subscribed to CT back then and remembered the article.  I went back and found it but what I did not remember was just how contentious things were.
In the article Olson is trying to fight off criticisms from the ultra-reformed, or rabid-Calvinist wing of the Evangelical camp. Folks like MacArthur, Piper, Driscoll, and Mohler – besides being continuously contentious – are always throwing around words like heresy and orthodoxy at folks like Olson, Rob Bell, and Brian McLaren (all former pod guests on HBC).
Here is the thing: there is no Evangelical Orthodoxy

I love reading books like Revisioning Evangelical Theology by Stanley Grenz, Discovering an Evangelical Heritage by Donald Dayton, History of Evangelical Theology by Roger Olson.  I was part of the the Lussane gathering of young leaders in Malaysia. I was very vocal last summer that Evangelical is not only a political term but has deep theological implications and is inherently and historically theological (I used Bebbington’s 4 indicators) .
 But there are two things I think need to be clear:
I got a book called the Evangelical Catechism. It is a compilation of consensus beliefs from 200 leaders, pastors, and thinkers that were surveyed. I like the book – but that is not the same as a catechism! We have no Pope, no ability to call a council, no catechism … so we need to knock it off with the “Orthodox” insistence and throwing around the word  “heresy”. LOOK: there actually is an ‘Orthodox’ church and they think that  the likes of Driscoll, MacArthur, and Piper (as well as the rest of us) has lost their way!  *
1) There is no evangelical catechism and there is no evangelical orthodoxy!  I proposed earlier this week that a dynamic conversation is the best we can hope for (I am partial to the Wesleyan quadrilateral). Can we have consensus? Ok. Can we have conversation? Absolutely. Is there a governing body to enforce your brand of ‘orthodoxy’? NO – so knock it off. Get some new words in your vocab. Think of some other ways to say what you want to say and stop pretending like you believe only what the early church believed. It fantasy at best and delusion at worst.

2) You can’t kick me out of the family. We all have siblings that think we are off and even wrong. Some brothers don’t talk to each other for years … but they are still family. That is not what determines if you are a part of a family! It is not how it works. So snuggle up sister! We are in this together, like it or not, we have the same parent, we were birthed through the same water, and we have the same blood. We don’t have to agree on everything – but stop trying to kick me out of the ‘fam’ bro! We are in this for eternity.
Now I know someone will come along and say “I told you its a meaningless term” … but I want to say

Hey Mr.  – if you don’t want to be evangelical that is fine. But some of us call this family and it means a lot to us. If you are done with the term, fine. But to us it has deep meaning we still use it as a family name. If you don’t count yourself as a member anymore – that is your call. But stop telling us who are inside the conversation that Evangelical doesn’t mean anything. It does to us.

We may not have a catechism or an actual orthodoxy, but that doesn’t mean we aren’t a  living branch on the family tree.

This was originally posted at Homebrewed Christianity as “There is no Evangelical Orthodoxy”

I also shared some thoughts about Christian unity and conformity on a TNT episode.

* I appreciate the real Orthodox and have learned much from them.

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Self inflicted injuries hurt twice as much

The other day I did something stupid. I don’t want to talk about – its embarrassing. I was late to work because I had to lay on the couch for an hour with cold rag on my eye and I had to walk around the rest of the day with a visible mark.

As a pastor I get to talk to a lot of people who suffer under shame. Guilt is one thing – it reminds us of what we have done. Shame is a different animal – it goes after who we are.

As I went through my day I had two things going on. One was the pain from the injury. The other was from the embarrassment. There are times when you want a little sympathy and you hope that someone asked you about your injury. A self-inflicted wound is not one of those times.
I walked around hoping that no one would ask what happened. I sat in office and felt vulnerable like a sitting duck.

In sermons I often say


Guilt is feeling bad about what you did.
Shame is feeling bad about who your are.

Pastorally I have great concern for those who walk around everyday under the burden of guilt and shame. This little incident was a chance to come face to face with my ego and my image in a small way. Ever since then I have thinking about and reading up on pastoral counseling for those who are walking wounded.

I can’t help but but wonder if self-inflicted wounds don’t hurt twice as much. First at the place of pain and second at the outward embarrassment. It makes sense why it then become difficult to fulfill the encouragement of scripture to “bear one another’s burdens” (Galatians 6:2) when we don’t want to show the wound or tell the story behind it.

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Evangelical 2.0: The Deception of Driscoll’s Acts 29 Network

There are at least two significant distinctions between Emergent and Acts 29 – beside doctrinal issues.
The first is that Acts 29 (as I understand it) has a top-down orientation. That is fine for some circumstances, but it is not emergent. By definition, it is the opposite of emergent.

The second difference is that groups like Emergent Village are self-selecting membership. If someone says that they are a part of it … they get to be. Acts 29 is a denominational model. If you don’t meet their criteria, then you are out.
Thanks for the interesting read. I had thought about some of this stuff before but it was interesting to see your take on it.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

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You don’t seem judgmental … for a Pastor

Recently, I was guest preaching and I began by talking about how much I hate the question “what do you do?” I just don’t like telling people that I am a minister. The conversation always changes afterward and not in a good way!  Don’t get me wrong – I LOVE being a minister. It’s just that I enjoy a good conversation and this is a conversation killer.

Once I tell them they either:
A) don’t want to talk to me
B) hate religion and want to tell me why
C) love religion and want to tell me why

Either way, whatever we were talking about is gone.

Fast-forward to this week. I am at the bank and a new teller was being trained. He was taking a long time to do anything and so the women supervising him was small talking me. Then the three of us got in a really good conversation about different aspects of living in LA (none of us were native) and then the question comes.

They asked me what I did for a living. I said that I was a minister. They were both taken back. (it must be my age or face because I was wearing a long sleeve jacket ). Then he says:

Really? You don’t seem judgmental.

I’m not kidding. It was one of the oddest responses I have heard. Turns out he is from the Bible-belt and both his parents are of different nationalities and religions. His brother has become a fundamentalist Christian and thinks both mom and dad are going to hell. The supervisor is a 1st generation American and of another religion. Her son has become a charismatic and thinks that she is going to hell.

I showed them my tattoos and said “they both probably think that tattoos are wrong” and they both gasped and said “Oh yeah … they would not like that.”  From there the conversation took a wonderful turn.

It was the first time I have liked the reaction I got.

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Watch this space

I have picked a new layout in anticipation of some new posts here. I have been blogging over at Homebrewed Christianity with the headier-theological stuff and here I want to make it a little more casual.

I will be attempting something new this weekend – several people have asked me about the old podcast … and I may have some good news!

Tell me what you think of the new layout – and stay tuned for the experiment

I appreciate all the feedback and deep conversation about these deeply meaningful topics.

-Bo

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