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H is for Hermeneutics

You may know that I hail from an evangelical-charismatic background.  What you may not know is that I am continually challenged in conversations about the need to interpret our experiences and texts.H-Hermeneutics

We don’t just have experiences – like we don’t just read (and believe) the Bible – we interpret. We do it as second nature because to be human – and thus social – is to be thoroughly saturated in language and symbols. We speak, and indeed think, in language. It permeates every thing we do and are. It is part of what being human means.

Our pocket dictionary defines hermeneutics as:

Hermeneutics: The discipline that studies the principles and theories of how texts ought to be interpreted, particularly sacred texts such as the Scriptures. Hermeneutics also concerns itself with understanding the unique roles and relationships between the author, the text and the original or subsequent readers.

Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Kindle Locations 638-640). Kindle Edition.
Hermeneutics is a massive and complex field. Since this an ABC’s series, there are two things that you need to know :

  1. The word has been in use since the 17th century even though the idea is an ancient one that can be traced all the way back to the Greek philosophers.
  2. Everything changed in past 90 years. With the publication of Heidegger’s Being and Time in 1927, philosophy (and then subsequently the human sciences) took a hermeneutical turn.

One of Heidegger’s most famous students was Hans-Georg Gadamer. His 1975 book about the world of interpretation called Truth and Method expanded what is called the hermeneutical circle.
The five elements are characterized as:

  • pre-understanding
  • the experience of being brought up short
  • dialogical interplay
  • fusion of horizons
  • application.

I could not possibly do this topic justice in a single blog post – If you want more info there are links at the bottom of the page. ?

I just wanted to share an example of how the hermeneutical circle is employed in my field of Practical Theology. I tend toward utilizing the work of Paul Ricoeur and his ‘second naivety’ myself, but the example I want share is from Richard Osmer who utilizes Gadamer as his framework.

These elements allow Osmer to transition into analyzing the role of the congregational leader along these lines.

  1. He first examines the idea of guiding the congregation as a community of interpretation.
  2. Secondly, he addresses the need to guide interpretation evoked by the experience of being brought up short.
  3. Lastly, guiding the dialogue between theology and other fields of knowledge. Leadership of this kind is defined as “the exercise of influence.”

This influence engages in different forms of communication and is a collaborative effort. These three elements factor in significantly for the spirituality required to carry out the leadership that Osmer envisions.

  • The Descriptive–Empirical Task is called Priestley Listening and finds great importance in the power of presence.

The author illustrates the spirituality of presence by addressing several levels of what is called attending which is then integrated into concepts introduced earlier such as the congregation as a community of interpretation.

  • The second task is the Interpretive Task called Sagely Wisdom.

The interpretive task draws off of thoughtfulness, theory, and wise judgment. Osmer appeals to Israel’s wisdom tradition and to Jesus being the hidden wisdom of God revealed.

  • The third task is the Normative Task, which is called Prophetic Discernment.

The author utilizes a familiar pattern in this chapter similar to the previous two. Weaving together narrative, theory, and scriptural illustration.

  • The final task is the Pragmatic Task, classified as Servant Leadership.

Osmer identifies the three forms of leadership as task competence, transactional leadership, and transforming leadership.
The motif of “deep change” is introduced through the writing of Robert Quinn and is woven together with Old Testament imagery in order to illustrate the type of leadership that is required in this task. Quinn’s Four-stage model of organizational change (called the transformational cycle) involves: Initiation, Uncertainty, Transformation, and Routinization.

You will find that in almost all hermeneutical addresses, there is a common two common themes:

  1. They form a cycle, a circle or a spiral – signifying an ongoing (continual) process.
  2. The second stage or step is one of negativity, negation or something negative (like Uncertainty). This is important because it is only after was pass through the unknowing that we come to see-know-engage-understand-assimilate-fuse in a new way.

In conclusion:
We all interpret. We think, experience and speak through this lens.
The past century has seen a hermeneutical turn in almost every area related to human behavior, belief and social understanding.

For Further Reading:

A nice article on Heidegger and Gadamer

A massive and heady article on Hermeneutics from the Stanford Dictionary

A quick article on Paul Ricoeur and the Second Naïveté

2

G is for Genre or Billy Graham got one thing wrong

Genre is by far the most important thing about the Bible that many Bible believing people don’t know. Empire is a close second but nothing matters more than genre when it comes to reading the Bible.

Genre: A term that refers to different types or varieties of literature or media. In the interpretation of texts, particularly the Bible, most exegetes agree that identifying the genre of the text to be interpreted is crucial and that the text must be understood in light of the common conventions that typified that genre at the time of its writing. Thus, poetry is not to be interpreted in the same manner as historical narrative, nor is prophecy properly read in the same manner as an epistle (letter).

Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Kindle Locations 593-595). Kindle Edition.

Simply stated, one must read a poem differently than history, prophecy differently than a gospel, an epistle differently than apocalyptic literature.

When people say “the Bible says …” it is a bit of a misnomer. The Bible is not one book per se but a collection of books. These 66 books were written at different times over several centuries by dozens of different men and women.G-Genre

This is why one can not say “The Bible says X” with any accuracy.

It would be better to say “In Romans Paul says” or, better yet, “The epistle the Romans says”.

Saying “the Bible says” is like saying “the Kindle says”.

If you said “according to the Kindle”, one would ask ‘in which book?’ and ‘who was the author?’

We need to do the same with the Bible.

This is where Billy Graham comes in. I was recently re-acquainted with the 1998 TED Talk delivered by the legendary evangelical preacher Billy Graham. You can hear the highlights here on the TED Radio Hour.

If you listen to those highlights, I expect 5 things will stick out to you.
1) The humble and sincere spirit of a man who impacted the world.
2) The quote about Thomas Edison.
3) The allusion to Pascal.
4) The ‘Liar, Lord, or Lunatic’ option

Now it is important to stop here are make a confession. Growing up Evangelical, I idolizing Billy Graham and was trained as an apologist in the Billy Graham School of Evangelism. I can not tell you how many times I quoted those same three lines (Franklin, Pascal, and Lewis).

I thank God for this man and have only one lingering concern:

5) The story about believing that the Bible was ‘God’s word’ because ‘God was a gentleman and does not lie’. That is an interesting cultural snapshot.

BUT what it leads to is viewing the Bible as a single-entity and being comfortable say “the Bible says …” as if the Bible did not have competing and contentious voices within its collection!

  • Many people love listening to Billy Graham.
  • Many of those same people love reading the Bible.
  • Many of those same people have never heard of J.E.D.P.

Which is the most basic entry-level of Biblical Scholarship that I know.

All of this is to say that ‘Genre’ is an important element of any Biblical examination and is essential to any discussion regarding faith and religion in the 21st Century.

I know that Billy Graham played a monumental role the American political and religious landscape in the second half of the 20th Century.
The phase “the Bible says”, however, is not one that we can carry into the 21st Century.

The books of the Bible need to be read according to the genre that they were written in.
That is how we hear the truth that is in them – and Christians, beyond anything else, should be lovers of  the truth.

_______________

You can read the rest of the series here:
A is for Atonement

B is for Baptism 

C is for Christology 

ABC Podcast (TNT)

D is for Deconstruction 

E is for Empire 

F is for Fideism 

5

F is for Fideism or Why What We Believe Really Matters

Fideism is one of the most alluring, and thus, potentially dangerous developments on the theological landscape in our lifetime.

Fideism: The view that matters of religious and theological truth must be accepted by faith apart from the exercise of reason. In its extreme, fideism suggests that the use of reason is misleading. Less extreme fideists suggest that reason is not so much misleading as it is simply unable to lead to truths about the nature of God and *salvation.

Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Kindle Locations 552-554). Kindle Edition.

Fideism has been around for a long time but it has taken on a new tenacity recently.F-Fideism

The 19th Century was a tough one for ‘reasoned faith’. Those bastions that survived into the 20th Century were not left unaltered. In fact, since WWII the effect of those descended from who Paul Ricoeur dubbed ‘The Master of Suspicion’ – Freud, Nietzsche, Marx … and some add Darwin – has grown and intensified.*

Part of ‘reasoned faith’ is that it had to adjust and modify. It had to account for new data (scientific and sociological) and, more importantly, it had to stop playing by its own rules.

The rules of engagement changed. Faith no longer got a free pass. The ‘church’ was no longer running the uni-versity. Fields like science had grown up since the Copernican revolution was no longer afraid of the church and began to act like the were running the show now.

Modern christianity had to choose whether to

  • Flee
  • Fight
  • or Adjust-Adapt-Evolve

I have written about this as modern christianity’s temptations.

A subtle form of this impulse toward fideism is simply to speak of ‘Non-Overlapping Magisterium”. Science and reason take care of their areas and faith takes care of its area.

Those who take this impulse further retreat into what Wittgenstein would call ‘private language games’. They take on a formal defense of the given-ness of faith say that faith doesn’t have to be reasonable. Those two things are just speaking different languages and that science of reason doesn’t even have the ability to understand what faith is doing. That is why neither can even provide a critique let alone a correction. Religion is thus except from an investigation-integration from outside.

I would argue that what we believe in private has massive implication for how we participate in the public arena.

We can see this battle line in the recent Hobby Lobby decision from the Supreme Court.

Let me give an example from history – courtesy of another ‘F’ word in our pocket dictionary: filioque. A Latin term literally meaning “and the Son,”

The addition of this phrase by the Western (Latin) branch of the church in the in the 6th to the 4th Century creeds – without the permission of the Eastern churches – would eventually lead to the schism of the two groups in the 11th Century.
This schism is notable enough but 500 years later, in what would become colonial missions by western europeans, the issue had real consequences. As both Catholic and Protestant missionaries sailed around the world to convert native populations, the filioque clause would answer a significant question.
Could the Spirit of God be at work ahead of the missionaries arrival? The answer was a resounding ‘no’. The Spirit proceeded not just from the Father (and thus potentially outside of the work of the Son) but ‘from the Son also’. It was believed then that the work of the Spirit followed (proceeded not preceded) the proclamation of the Christian gospel.

There were minority schools (some Jesuits) who disagreed – but they were subsequently reprimanded.

Some may hear about the filioque clause and think “how would we even know who proceeded when? And how exactly are three people ‘one God’ anyway? This is all just speculation and minutia – like angels dancing on the head of the needle!”

Speculation it might be. But both in history and in our present societal unrest what folks believe in private really does impact how that participate in public.

This is why we have to care about fideism. I understand the desire to preserve the past and stake out ones territory for the given-ness of the tradition. It is a way of protecting what is deeply valued and – let’s be honest – in grave danger.

Those who are attracted to fideism look at the evolution of their religion and the disappearance of treasured practices and think “I don’t even recognize this contemporary mutation as the same thing that we inherited from those who came before!”

… and that might be true. But , as I am arguing in the series, we live in a world come of age and The Faith both needs to and is bound to change.
* another way of saying this is to list the fields of psychology, philosophy, sociology, and science.

3

D is for Deconstruction

Deconstruction is love. If it were not love then one would employ destruction.D-Deconstruction

If the way things are is good enough, one would take up preservation.

Deconstruction is not destruction – but to those into preservation it often feels like it.

Think of de-construction as a controlled burn (purifying fire) that clears out the old brush and undergrowth to make space for new growth.

Deconstruction is loving something enough to pull it apart and see what might be salvaged – or freed – from the suffocating stagnation bound-up-ness.
When topic or institution has become assumed or presumed, it is in need of this kind of love.

Like a plant that has been in a pot too long – or has gotten to big for the container – the roots can actually begin to grow back on themselves. This is a condition known as pot bound (or root bound) and loving that plant means to pull it out of the pot and to pull (or even cut) at the roots in order to separate and loosen them.

Institutions can be their own worst enemy. Christian ones seem particularly prone to become pot bound. To love the church – or the christian tradition for that matter – requires some tough love. If you didn’t love you could just walk away. If it were ‘good enough’ you could settle in and settle down for the long haul.
Deconstruction is loving the tradition enough to pull at (or even prune it) in the hopes of life and health and new growth.

One of my favorite things to listen to is ‘Ideas’ by the Canadian Broadcasting (CBC). They have recently had a series on ‘After Atheism’ about new developments regarding belief in God.
The first episode was with Richard Kearney on ‘Anatheism: God after God’. The second episode was with Jack Caputo (his book on the subject is great). I would highly recommend giving them a listen.

What those two episodes have got me thinking about is the passion it takes to stick with it and the conviction is requires to believe there is something worth all the labor and care. I know lots of people who were raised with some kind of belief but have walked away. I also know lots of people who are fine with things the way they are who are happy to keep plugging away.
I find myself in neither of those camps. I love the church too much to walk away and way to much to leave it in the condition that it currently rests in.

Deconstruction isn’t for everyone. In fact, one of the most challenging aspects of it is simply trying to convince the preservationists that your intentions are good and that your not trying to kill the thing! To those who assume and presume that things should remain as they are, pulling and clearing feel or seem like destruction.

I have written before about The World Come of Age (Bonhoeffer) or what others call The World Transformed (Hunt) or what Kaufman calls The Nuclear Age. The simple fact is that the 20th Century – between technology and war – changed the world and radically altered what we call society. The reality of living in the 21st century are very different than they were in the 12th – let alone the 2nd.
The questions of the 21st century are not answered by repeating inherited answers or by parroting ancient thought.

Farming, hygiene, reading, telephones, banks, travel (airplanes) …. there are thousands of examples of how different our existence is from those in previous centuries. Even the way was imagine our self (identity) and community (belonging) has changed.

Deconstruction is loving the question enough to dare a different answer. Then turning around and examining the initial questions itself.
We live in world come of age – a nuclear age – that asks something different of us. Theology can not just continue to repeat the same old answers over and over – or louder and louder – and wonder why it isn’t satisfying the demands being put on it by those inside and outside the institution.

From the linguistic turn in philosophy to globalized markets, from Hiroshima to Auschwitz, from twitter to the pill …. we live in a different world than the ancients. Our religious beliefs deserve to be re-examined and longingly pulled at (or even cut at) in order to prune (or bleed) in the hopes of life and health.

Deconstruction is now a necessary part of theology.

Deconstruction. A term used primarily in *hermeneutics (the art and science of interpreting written texts or spoken language) to describe the process of analyzing a particular representation of reality so as to offer a critique of how a text “constructs” a picture of reality. Although deconstructionists are not always explicitly negative in practice, they often use deconstruction as a technique to discredit a text to which they are philosophically or ideologically opposed. Deconstruction, which is sometimes known as poststructuralism, arose out of, and in response to, a theory of literature called *structuralism, which sought to analyze the common structures that characterize various texts or literary works.

 Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Kindle Locations 361-364). Kindle Edition.

4

Podcast (ABC’s) and Video (Loft LA)

For those who are interested I have two pieces of media to share.A-Atonement

The first is a podcast with my friend Callid over at HomeBrewed Christianity on the A B C’s of Theology.

Elder of Graphical Sweetness Jesse Turri is providing icons for each letter!

 

 

The second is a video from Sunday at the Loft LA

Chicken of the Sea from Bo Sanders on Vimeo.

0

C is for Christology

Christology, like our previous topics of Atonement and Baptism, is one prone to both diversity and contention.

This is a significant distinction because it is nearly impossible to say anything about any aspect of christology without drawing the ire of some group, camp or school of thought.

Having said that, it is vital to state that Christology is of central importance to any christian expression or practice. Maybe that is why it is so potentially contentious.

 

Let me introduce the basics – then we will dig deeper.

Christology attempts to navigate two paths which end up overlapping in a dynamic place.Jesus icon

1) Jesus was a man. The way that we attempt to talk about his ‘divinity’ – or as I prefer – the way that he participated in the divine … is vital to any understanding of who and what Jesus (the man) was.
When we speak of ‘Christ’ we are speaking of the Logos or that aspect of Jesus which channeled, hosted, or was the Divine presence on Earth.

2) The two primary ways that thinkers approach this conundrum are classified as:

  • Christology from Below
  • Christology from Above

This is not to be confused with a ‘High Christology’ and a ‘Low Christology’.

‘From Below’ means that you begin with the baby in the manger and figure out in what way he embodied the divine presence of God. ‘From Above’ means that you begin in heaven with the pre-incarnate Christ and figure out how downsized/reduced/kenosis into the human form of a baby.

Technically you can start ‘from below’ and end up with a High Christology. It is just that there are a lot of steps one must undergo. That is for another time.

 

In this series I am using two resources. Here are the entries of each.

Christ, Christology. The Greek word translated in English as “Christ” is the equivalent of the Hebrew term Messiah and means “anointed one.” Although not intrinsic to its meaning, the NT use of the term Christ tends to point to the deity of Jesus. Christology is the theological study devoted to answering two main questions: Who is Jesus? (the question of his identity) and What is the nature and significance of what Jesus accomplished in the incarnation? (the question of his work).

Stanley J. Grenz;David Guretzki;Cherith Fee Nordling. Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Kindle Locations 240-242). Kindle Edition.

Christology:  The branch of theology that deals with Christ. Traditionally, it has been concerned with two central issues: the person of Christ-who he is-and his work-how he saves us. (For the latter, Sec *Atonement; also *Soteriology.)

From very early times, Christians have puzzled over how to understand and to express who this Jesus is who means so much for them. In the New Testament, he is called Son of Man, Messiah, Lord, Word of God, True Shepherd, Lamb of God, for example. It is also clear that our earliest records of Christian worship place Jesus at its center. Early in the second century, pagan writer Pliny attests to this, saying that Christians gathered “to sing hymns to Christ as to God.”

Soon, however, what takes place in worship must also be expressed in theology and doctrine, and thus the question arises, Who is this Jesus? Is he divine? Is he human?

Some of the earliest answers were considered too simplistic, and were rejected by the church at large as denying an important aspect of the full truth. Thus, at one end of the spectrum there were those who believed that Jesus was a purely celestial being, an alien messenger from above who was human only in appearance. This view was called *Docetism, after a Greek word meaning “to seem.” It was held by many *gnostics as well as others. We see echoes of its rejection in 1 John 4:2, where the test of orthodoxy is the affirmation that Jesus “has come in the flesh.” The opposite extreme, often called *Ebionism, held that Jesus was a pure man, born like all men, whose purity was such that God gave him a special standing or role. This too was rejected by the church at large. Thus, from an early date it was clear that Christians wished to affirm that Jesus was both divine and human, but little thought seems to have been given to how to understand and to express this.

Very soon, partly on the basis of the Gospel of John, it became customary to declare that Jesus is the “Word of God made flesh-and it also became customary to refer to the Word as the Son. While this was helpful, it still left open a number of questions, particularly the question of how the Word, or Son, may be said to be divine. In the second century, Justin Martyr declared that the Word was a “second god”-an infelicitous expression that was soon abandoned. It was in the fourth century that this issue came to a head in ‘Arianism, and the process of refuting it and clarifying how the Word or Son is God led to the development and clarification of the doctrine of the ‘Trinity. Thus, by the second half of the fourth century, the general consensus was that Jesus is divine because he is the divine and eternal Word or Son of God made flesh.

It now remained to clarify how one is to speak of the relationship between that divine Word and the humanity of Jesus. Granted that Jesus, being God’s Word or Son, is fully divine, is he also fully human? How is one to conceive of the relationship between the divinity and the humanity in Jesus? On this subject, there were two theological tendencies that clashed repeatedly. One, the *Alexandrine, emphasized the unity of the divine and the human to such a point that it might seem that the humanity was dissolved or engulfed in the divinity. If need be, the Alexandrines were willing to deny some aspect of the humanity of Christ in order to affirm the union of the divine and the human in him. This led to positions such as *Apollinarianism, which denied that Jesus had a rational human *soul, and which was rejected by the Council of Constantinople in 381.

The opposite theological school, the *Antiochene, was concerned over safeguarding the full humanity of Jesus, sometimes at the expense of its full union with the divine. This was the position of *Nestorius, who declared that in Jesus there are two natures and two persons, and that the union of the two is one of will rather than of nature or of person. His position was rejected by the Council of Ephesus in 431. As part of that rejection, his Alexandrine adversaries underlined the importance of the *conrmunicatio idioniatum-the transferral of predicates from the human to the divine-in the person of Jesus Christ, so that whatever is said about him as human may also be said about him as divine.

In 451 the Council of Chalcedon finally arrived at the formula that eventually became generally accepted by most Christians, that in Christ there are “two natures in one person.” While this did not solve the issue, it was simply stating that one must affirm Christ’s full divinity, his full humanity, and the full union of the two.

Although most Christians eventually accepted the formula of Chalcedon, some rejected it. Those who followed the extreme Antiochene position, commonly known as *”Nestorians,” took refuge in Persia, and to this day there is a small church that traces its origins to that schism. Others, who followed the extreme Alexandrine position, became known as *Monophysites-that is, holding to the doctrine of a single nature in Jesus. This is still the position of the Coptic Church, the Church of Ethiopia, the Syrian Jacobite Church, and others.

Although the Council of Chalcedon is generally said to mark the end of these debates, the truth is that the controversy lasted for centuries, and that its fires were fanned repeatedly as various theologians -and sometimes emperors seeking political aims-suggested solutions or compromises that were found wanting by the rest of the church. (See also *Monergism; *Monotheletism; *Hypostasis; *Hypostatic Union; *Enhypostatic Union; *Dyophysism; *Dyotheletism.)

The Protestant Reformers in general accepted the christological formula of Chalcedon and the decisions of the early councils on these matters, but were more concerned over the saving work of Jesus than over the question of how he can be both divine and human and still only one person. Among the major Reformers, Calvin tended to emphasize the distinction between the divine and the human in Jesus, much as the Antiochenes had done earlier. Luther inclined in the opposite direction, emphasizing the union of the divine and human-although he differed radically from the ancient Alexandrines in that he emphasized the reality of the humanity of Jesus, and insisted that we can see the divinity of Jesus only as it is revealed in his humanity, his weakness, and his sufferings.

In more recent times, many theologians have sought to leave these debates aside by concentrating on the work of Christ rather than on the metaphysical issues surrounding his person. (See *Atonement.)

Justo L. González. Essential Theological Terms (Kindle Locations 953-988). Kindle Edition.

 

I hope that you can see both the difference in the 2 resources that I am drawing from AND the complexity of the issue being addressed.

At some point we will have to address the evolution from Jesus’ Religion to a Religion about Jesus … but that is later in the series.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this topic. 

2

B is for Baptism

Baptism, like atonement yesterday, is one of those topics that is vitally important to the Christian tradition but which has developed and evolved over time to have a multiplicity of perspectives.Drop Falling into Water

Let’s talk about the second aspect first.

Sprinkling, pouring and immersing in water are the 3 main methods. There are churches that have fonts built in, others have a basin they pull out when needed. Some have baptismal tanks at the back of the platform. My favorite are the tanks built below the stage that can be uncovered when needed.
For groups that do no do baptisms during the worship service, some groups go to a member’s house and gather around the swimming pool. Other groups go to the nearest lake, river, or ocean.

Here are four aspects of baptism that intrigue me:

1- I grew up in a tradition that did ‘believer’s baptism’ and so we ‘dedicated’ infants to the Lord. I now work in a tradition that baptizes babies and then has confirmation for teens. I see the strength of both … and the weakness. I wish that we could combine these two and that churches who do A) immersion and B) believer’s baptism also had confirmation class in the build up. I’m sure somebody out there does this but I have not found them.

2 – My evangelical background doesn’t do ‘sacraments’ as much as ‘ordinances’. Baptism and communion we ordinances because Jesus A) did them and B) commanded them. I now work in a situation which is nearly ‘catholic’ by my evangelical sensibilities. It is not just sacramental but practically sacerdotal.*

What intrigues me is that for the nearly unanimous expression of baptism in the Eastern and Western, Catholic-Protestant-Orthodox, ancient and current churches … there is no unity or uniformity about how it should be practiced.

In fact, people have historically died over this. Christians have killed other types of christians over this issue! Even today, there are groups which will not recognize (or transfer) members of another group who practice baptism differently.

For something so central to the christian practice you would think there would be more continuity.

3 – Baptism is a great example of a major difference between Christianity and other religions like Islam. I find it really illustrative.

There is nothing geographic about the christian practice of baptism.

  • We don’t have to go to the Jordan River (like Jesus did)
  • We don’t even have to baptize in a river.
  • We don’t have to face East of Jerusalem when baptized.
  • We don’t have a specific time of year when we baptize.

I am fascinated with how little geography is involved in Christianity. I have written about it before. Sometimes people use the word ‘universal’ when they talk about some aspect of christianity. I shy away from that. Its not that it is universal so much as it is not earthly (or earthy).

This is something that concerns me very much.

4) The New Testament stories of baptism do not happen in a vacuum. Many people have no idea that part of the Temple worship of Jesus’ time involved frequent baptism – or ceremonial washing. There were actual permanent pools with two sets of steps – in and out – for purification.

This is so important to know and I am shocked at how many bible-believing people don’t know this biblical scholarship or background. John the Baptizer being A)outside of Jerusalem and B) in a river not a man-made pool is a massive critique and protest against the corrupt religious-political-finacial systems of the Temple religion.

What John and (later) Jesus’ followers were doing was not original to them nor was it the sentimental ceremony it is often portrayed as. What a fascinating way to begin a ministry. It is impacts the whole rest of the gospel … and most people I talk to read it without this context or knowledge.

I would love to hear your thoughts!

 

* whereas sacrament is concerned with elements (like bread or water) , sacerdotal is concerned with who have perform this sacred ceremonies. ‘Priests only’ is the elevation of certain commissioned individuals being the only ones allowed to. 

3

Atonement and Adiaphora

Today we begin a Summer Series on the A B C’s of Theology.

Atonement is one of those rare words that actually works in English: people often utilize the at-one-ment memory device.

At its most basic, atonement simply means the re-pair of something that was broken or separated. Specifically here, we are saying that something had come between humanity and God – this is usually called ‘sin’ ( or separation). ?Something was wrong. Whether you talk about humanity having lost its way, or being lost, falling into sin, or under a curse … atonement is that work of God in Christ that changed-fixed-repaired-healed-forgave the problem. Wooden Cross

This is where it gets more complicated. Neither the Bible nor the early churches’ creeds state or take a stance on an atonement theory. For as important a topic as atonement is, it is significant that no definitive stance is required.

The above situation has led to two historical developments:

1) Many varieties of atonement theories have emerged, and subsequently evolved, throughout church history.

The theories all use different word pictures. Depending on what you paint the problem as, the work of God in Christ will take on different metaphors. Some use a courtroom, some a battlefield, others a dungeon (prison) and still others an exemplar motif.

The earliest theories are labeled ‘Ransom Theories’. My favorite is the ‘Fish Hook’ where God lures Satan – who has captured humanity – by offering the human Jesus as ‘bait’. The devil takes the bait and Jesus is killed … but the devil is surprised that inside the ‘worm’ of Jesus’ humanity is the ‘hook’ of Christ’s divinity and the devil is caught! Easter morning is thus the undoing of both Satan and death itself.
This kind of motif can also be in C.S. Lewis’ the Lion, the Witch and Wardrobe.

Later generations (and European ones) did not like that God would have to ‘trick’ or bargain with the devil. This lead to a developing of some other theories that had been around. Christus Victor and Substitutionary theories are two examples that remain popular to this day.
Substitionary models are a particularly interesting example because in the second millennia of church history you can see a profound evolution of different models which line up (and are born out of) out of. You can watch the Feudal (honor) era change with the rise of legal, economic, and civil developments during the Enlightenment and Protestant Reformation.

The past century has seen the rise of two alternative (and very different) theories. One is called Moral Influence theory. Jesus models for us (exemplar) and life lived for others and to God. Moral Influence has the added attraction (to many) of not being so bloody. It is the favorite theory of many within the liberal or mainline branches of the church for this reason.

My favorite group of theories are the Anti-Violence branch. Jesus is killed unjustly and willingly submits to this fate in order to unmask the ‘powers the be’ and expose the fraudulent structures of sacrifice and scape-goating that both nations/empires and religions utilize in order to preserve their position of power. Recent books like ‘Saved from Sacrifice’ and ‘The NonViolent Atonement’ have helped make a new generation aware of alternatives to those that make God seem like a weakling or which paint God as a child-abusing monster with split-personality disorder.

2) Some groups have become so fond of one theory over another that they begin to say that theory is the the only adequate way to understand the work of Christ. Some ‘Reformed’ camps have done this with the Penal Substitutionary Atonement (PSA) theory. This has led to some evangelical camps claiming that PSA is THE gospel.

The above points are why we need to introduce another ‘A’ word: adiaphora.

Adiaphora is a very old concept (ancient Greeks) that came center stage during the Reformation. Initially it meant ‘non-essentials’ and refers to practices that are neither forbidden NOR commanded in Scripture. Now it more generally refers to topics that are not specified in scripture.

I would put ‘Atonement Theories’ in this category. Admitedly that is a difficult and odd thing to do! One would think that the Cross of Christ and the implications of Easter – which are so central to the Christian faith – would cause it to matter deeply what one believed about its structure and effectiveness.
Unfortunately, as much a folks are willing (and eager) to argue about different theories (I am one of them), neither the Bible nor Creeds specify a particular theory and with the historical evolution of so many elaborate options … it looks like this will continue to be a lively conversation for a long time to come.

Further Resources:
Changing Signs of Truth by Crystal Downing ($10 on Kindle)
The Jesus Driven Life by Michael Hardin ($9 on Kindle)
A Better Atonement (e-book) by Tony Jones ($3 on Kindle)

You can also listen to my interview with Michael Hardin from this past Easter.

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The A B C’s of Theology: a new series

Family needs and school matters forced me to take a break from blogging for the past several months. I have missed the conversations. My Summer language intensive is almost done and I will be returning to the blog this Friday.

I am also aware that we have picked up a lot of new readers this year and thought it would be good to wade back in via some introductory material. It will be a nice way to orient folks to our unique flavor of christian theology.complexity

Starting this Friday (with A is for Atonement), Callid and I am going to work our way through the alphabet – highlighting each day a different topic and why it matters. I will be asking (as I am prone to do) ask if it might look different in the 21st century.

I will post at both HBC and then here.

We will start with ‘Atonement’ on Friday and I am leaning toward ‘Baptism’ on Saturday. I am going to utilize two resources:

 

What topics would you like to see covered? I am open to suggestions.

 

After we go through the alphabet, I am going to circle around and covers theologians/authors who’s work is important to know about.
I will pair 2 each day:

– Grace Ji-Sun Kim and Catherine Keller for K,  – you can hear the Homebrewed podcast with Kim [here] and with Keller [here]

– James Cone and John Cobb for C, etc.

 

This should be a fun Summer Series to get new people involved and oriented to what we do around here!

Let me know what topic you want addressed for this first A-Z. 

 

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